Posted on 02/27/2017 11:36:43 PM PST by nickcarraway
The United States' new hostility to free trade deals under President Donald Trump is benefiting the European Union, the bloc's top trade official said Tuesday.
After Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in late January, "many countries are now turning to us, because they believe protectionism is not the right answer," Swedish European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström told German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
"We are already negotiating with almost all of them, or preparing conversations" with the countries around the Pacific Rim that had signed up to the US-led treaty, she went on.
Since Trump's election, the Commission has sped up talks with Mexico, South American trade bloc Mercosur, and Japan, is preparing possible talks with Australia and New Zealand, and has a completed deal with Vietnam on the table, Malmström noted.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.se ...
fine. just wait till they get a load of the EU’s requirements for a “free trade” agreement.
Win-Win
So far Trump has shown no hostility to free trade deals. He has shown hostility to the various mercantilist managed trade agreements that are given the brand Free Trade which relates no more to the content of the deals than the brand name on a bar of Dove soap relates to the chemical makeup of the soap.
“EU is Profiting from Trump”
Not in actual money of course, but in their minds, in terms of their view of moral superiority and other abstractions.
Trump has finally corrected his position and language to FAIR trade. Nothing is free. Fair trade connotes a win-win position for both parties.
Since Trump’s election, the Commission has sped up talks with Mexico, South American trade bloc Mercosur, and Japan, is preparing possible talks with Australia and New Zealand, and has a completed deal with Vietnam on the table, Malmström noted.
In other words no actual new signed deals.
Fair trade is managed trade and fairness is decided by some commission or office. It is hampered trade and excludes would be traders and adds costs. Any controls on trade, while innocuous at first or appearing to be clean and smooth MUST become clogged up as bureaucrats tinker with this and that to make it all “fairer” for this party or that. Free trade may be an impossible goal but the closest that it can be approximated is the best for all concerned outside of the oligarchs and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. Wherever there are people with an input to trade who have no immediate stake in the system, there is bribery and extortion. The more an actor has to get signed off by a third party the more that third party can demand around the corner. Resources are diverted to paying off the officials and NGOs and that raises costs of doing business and restricts entry to the market which raises the price of output.
If you believe that, they also think their immigration policy is working flawlessly!
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