Posted on 09/14/2009 11:50:31 AM PDT by jazusamo
BRUSSELS -- This weekend's U.S.-China trade skirmish is just the tip of a coming protectionist iceberg, according to a report released Monday by Global Trade Alert, a team of trade analysts backed by independent think tanks, the World Bank and the U.K. government.
A report by the World Trade Organization, backed by its 153 members and also released Monday, found "slippage" in promises to abstain from protectionism, but drew less dramatic conclusions. (Read the report.)
Governments have planned 130 protectionist measures that have yet to be implemented, according to the GTA's research. These include state aid funds, higher tariffs, immigration restrictions and export subsidies.
For example, Russia has planned across-the-board tariff increases, South Africa is changing government purchasing rules to favor domestic firms owned by nonwhites, and Japan is rewriting sanitation policies in a way that will restrict food imports.
The variety of today's protectionism demarcates it from the famed tariff-based economic warfare of the 1930s. Economists say the bottom line isn't as dire as then, but that creeping protectionism presents a firm obstacle to economic recovery. Global trade is expected to shrink 10% in 2009.
That is why economists and politicians are paying close attention to trade terms as the world's richest nations prepare to meet at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh Sept. 24-25.
This weekend, they received a reminder of what a trade war could look like. On Friday, the Obama administration announced that, starting Sept. 26, it would impose duties of between 25% and 35% on imports of tires from China for the next three years. It would essentially price out of the market 17% of all tires sold in the U.S., and force up the market price for consumers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Obama is all set to make EXACTLY the same mistakes that turned the 1929 recession into the Great Depression.
You beat me to it.
Protecting the unions is Job One for Obama. He gave them Chrysler and General Motors and now he is going to fight the Chinese to protect union jobs. The rest of us can go right straight to you-know-where as far as Obama is concerned. This will not end well for Obama, the unions or any of us.
Agree completely and like IP says, the unions are at the root of it. The unions and Zer0 deserve each other but our country deserve neither.
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