That might even cut the toxic levels of pollution they create in the process.
Posted on 03/02/2018 9:02:11 AM PST by Mariner
BEIJING (AP) — China had no immediate reaction Friday to U.S. President Donald Trump's vow to impose high tariffs on steel and aluminum, which he followed up by insisting that trade wars "are good, and easy to win."
Chinese leaders have threatened in the past to retaliate if Trump raises trade barriers, but now need to weigh whether to back up those threats with action and risk jeopardizing U.S. market access for smartphones and other exports that matter more to their economy than metals.
"China will definitely respond. It doesn't want to be seen as weak. But it will be relatively restrained," said economist Louis Kuijs of Oxford Economics. "They don't want to be seen as a party that is wrecking the international trading system."
Global stock markets fell sharply Friday over worries of a possible trade war following Trump's announcement that he will levy tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
Early Friday, Trump thumbed his nose at the concerns over rising trade tensions and higher prices for U.S. consumers, tweeting that "trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymore-we win big. It's easy!"
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
China ships $500 billion worth of goods to the US every year and runs a $375 billion surplus.
It would be suicide for them to engage in a trade war with the US. Certain economic death.
The numbers are similar with the EU.
The ONLY winner in a trade war would be the US. And the Free Traitors don't want that known .
China realizes that we buy a crapload more of their stuff then they buy of ours. Im guessing Ag exports and cars are about all they buy from us.
This is the thing. Contrary to popular (or at least, CNN) belief, Trump is NOT stupid. Negotiation is about knowing where your strengths and weaknesses are and knowing as much as you can about the same regarding your negotiation opponent. He seems to get it a lot better than most of our elected federal officials, which I think are actually a bunch of not-very-smart people that make good front men for string pullers.
Biden is a textbook case. His exposing his utter lack of knwoledge of the political history of the US was a huge red flag for me. You gotta wonder about all of them - even the ones you like.
Trump’s never been a politician. We’re also enjoying the same good fortune with our governor of KY. A businessman really shaking things up, but he’s a lot more verbally eloquent than Trump.
Trump could crash China’s economy if he imposed a ban on container shipping from China. Of course this would also crash the fortunes of all those American companies who have outsourced everything from clothing to appliances to electronics to auto parts. America would take a big hit but would survive a trade war. The Chinese would have to start a war as a diversion to avoid food riots.
“America would take a big hit but would survive a trade war.”
Capital inflows to the US would break records. The world’s money would flood into the US.
All those new plants, roads, power lines, energy distribution etc.
Actually the steel tariffs hit Canada, they have a trivial impact on Chinese steel.
Fact - We produce 10% more steel today than 30 years ago.
They could, oh... I dunno... stop TAXING OUR goods
(Which is the reason Trump is taxing theirs)
Let the tit for tat begin!
China exports far more than it imports. China does have rare earth minerals, but so do we, only we are refusing to mine them because they are toxic (or so I understand). CNN is going on about how badly we screwed up in 1930 by enacting tariffs, but in 1930 and the period leading up, we had a large trade surplus, unlike today.
UK and EU leaders, not so much.
“Fact - We produce 10% more steel today than 30 years ago.”
Yet it’s still about 1/2 what we use.
Steel was the fist industry to be outsourced. It was the purchase of Japanese and German steel that formed the basis of recovery for those two countries after WWII.
Steel was at the vanguard of the gutting of America. It’s been going on for at least 60 years.
http://pratt.duke.edu/about/news/appalachian-coal-ash-richest-rare-earth-elements
The fact this stuff is in ponds makes it pump-able even if there is no liquid. Those concentrations are as high, actually astronomically higher than the stuff that gets processed in China. We are better at industrial processes than they are. This is clean. We are actually reducing pollution.
Think fracking rare earth from coal plant waste that has no mining cost where that waste is pollution. It is a no brainer.
Cut off all imports from China if any retaliations happen.
That might even cut the toxic levels of pollution they create in the process.
Better to learn about our weak points now... US Companies need to bring back a portion of their manufacturing under any circumstances.
We’ve seen this movie played out before.
Is it going to be the same ending? I think so.
On March 5, 2002 President George W. Bush imposed tariffs as high as 30% on global steel imports ( Hmmm... just so happens the percentage is the same ).
They were imposed to give U.S. steel makers protection from what a U.S. probe determined was a detrimental surge in steel imports, as more than 30 steel makers had recently declared bankruptcy. Canada and Mexico were exempt from the tariffs because of penalties the United States would face under NAFTA. Additionally, some developing countries such as Argentina, Thailand, and Turkey were also exempt.
The response was immediate.
Domestically, some of the president’s political opponents, such as Democratic House Representative Dick Gephardt, criticized the plan for not going far enough. For some of the president’s conservative allies, imposing the tariff was a step away from Bush’s commitment to free trade. Critics also contended that the tariffs would harm consumers and U.S. businesses that relied on steel imports, and would cut more jobs than it would save in the steel industry.
The international response - like now - was more vocal.
Immediately after the announcement, the European Union announced that it would impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States, risking the start of a major trade war. To decide whether or not the steel tariffs were fair, a case was filed at the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Switzerland, Brazil and others joined with similar cases.
In a decisive decision, on November 11, 2003, the WTO came out against the steel tariffs, saying that they had not been imposed during a period of import surge—steel imports had actually dropped a bit during 2001 and 2002—and that the tariffs therefore were a violation of America’s WTO tariff-rate commitments. The ruling authorized more than $2 billion in sanctions, the largest penalty ever imposed by the WTO against a member state, if the United States did not quickly remove the tariffs.
In retaliation, the European Union threatened to counter with tariffs of its own on products ranging from Florida oranges to cars produced in Michigan, with each tariff calculated to likewise hurt the President in a key marginal state.
But it was the market’s response that broke the camel’s back: what followed immediately after the tariffs were announced was a 30% plunge in the S&P 500, a slump in the dollar and a rally in bonds that slashed 10Y yields in half.
we are already seeing the plunge in the S&P 500 even as I write this AS SOON AS THE TARIFFS WERE ANNOUNCED.
BTW, for those who don’t remember, here’s what happened then -— After receiving the verdict, both from the market and the WTO, the United States backed down and withdrew the tariffs on December 4, 2003.
I believe we will see a similar scenario played out. It remains to be seen what our country will do this time.
Yes yes yes
I shocked someone the other day who complained about the solar panel tariffs and I explained that 1 they cheat. 2 the bankrupted Suntech their big player out of the blue in 2013 after pushing them for years
All those folks lost their 25 year warranty
Then they immediately started pushing Yingli. The fancy girls showing at the trade shows
They are lying communist sacks of shit who oppress their own people
They will steal cheat lie to your face whatever it takes
They’re ruthless
Too many sell out pussies here in the us just liked the money
Didn’t care as we lost jobs and manufacturing
Trump is right and screw all the republicrats and Levin who try to bring up the 1930s and smoot hawley
That’s beyond stupid and shows who their puppet masters are at the chamber of commerce
Politics makes strange bedfellows but the common theme here with Trump is AMERICA AMERICA AMERICA
I know of one Chinese panel manufacturer that is now moving all operations here
MUCH safer place to do business
we have laws. Courts. Real protections
I love how Trump is finally taking them on. It’s about time
The chinese can hurt us more with an embargo than we can hurt them in any way.
People do not realize just how much of everything we purchase and consume in the US is directly and indirectly sourced from china.
We no longer have the infrastructure, knowledge base, or capital available to replace what has been lost to the communist chinese.
Free traitors are laughing all the way to their golden retirements in places outside of the wreckage of the US that they plundered with the help of their US politicians and Beijing masters.
But HEY! The DJIC is at an all time high!
BULLSHIT! Stock prices are so high because the US dollar is becoming worthless. Companies are NOT doing better. It takes more increasingly worthless dollars to buy their stocks.
Inflation is rampant. A dollar doesn’t buy squat. Even all of that cheap crap out of china is becoming more expensive.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.