Posted on 07/25/2018 1:47:27 AM PDT by ARGLOCKGUY
It is tariff day in Washington.
President Trump will meet with European officials to talk trade tariffs.
The meeting is with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Trump proposed in a tweet, that both sides drop all tariffs, barriers and subsidies.
Trump, although doubts the Europeans will go for the idea.
The tweet said: "That would finally be called Free Market and Fair Trade! Hope they do it, we are ready - but they won't!"
Good move Trump.
I (doubt) Europe will go for it, but it would be remarkable if they did.
Not impossible.
European business lives in fear of this.
For 70 years there has been a direct transfer of wealth from the American middle class to European elites. It’s time for this to end.
We need to be on good terms with Europe but there can be no constructive relationship between 2 parties when the terms are completely unfair to one of them. Fair trade and America First from now on!
Also, don’t skip over this gem from the article:
“The European Union’s budget commissioner suggested the bloc would be ready to discuss mutual tariff cuts with the United States across a range of products, provided Washington lifts recent punitive tariffs first.”
These pinky waggers crack me up. Hit them with 25% on all motor vehicles coming into the US then schedule another round of talks for September.
Go and look at the EU-Japan deal made last week. With the exception of car tariffs....the EU cut just about every single tariff out. Trump should demand the same deal, and include car tariffs disappear.
” Trump should demand the same deal, and include car tariffs disappear.”
Europe has a value added tax. That hugely increases the price of every item. The US does not have a value added tax, so its products are comparatively cheap. This means, over time, that European producers will go out of the business and the tax revenues will go down. These taxes fund all that wonderful socialism. As Margarette Thatcher said, “Socialism works fine until you run out of other people’s money.” Realistically, Europe can’t agree because that agreement fundamentally changes their entire economic system. I suspect that the Japanese system is similar enough to Europe in cost structure that the differences are smaller.
“Barriers” can be tricky in that they can simply be local populations expressing their sovereignty by outlawing, for example, the sale of genetically modified foods.
The method that is rigged up is the VAT (really just a plain 19-percent sales tax), and a 10-percent import charge....so in effect, it’s 29-percent total.
But the US cars for the most part....have the issue of gas mileage, so it’s a very limited group which buyers with deep pockets...can find interest. A good example is the Jeep brand, and more recently...Mustangs starting to appear on the German market.
When the game is wrapped up...I expect the 10-percent import fee on US cars to disappear, but it won’t really change much of anything on sales and numbers.
Aided and abetted, hell, DRIVEN, by an American Corporate class profiting along to the demise of the Middle Class so the CEO's could have five vacation homes instead of just two.
“When the game is wrapped up...I expect the 10-percent import fee on US cars to disappear, but it won’t really change much of anything on sales and numbers.”
How would the tariff removal affect items like wines, cereals, cement, steel, electronics?
Of course it's our fault for letting the problem happen to begin with.When the first tariff from the first country appeared and we didn't respond either by creating a similar tariff or to stop dealing with whomever started the first tariff we were to blame.
It's like Trump said last week.When countries started putting tariffs on our goods they found there was no one to talk to in the US. No one had the guts to take on the subject. Either that or they were told not to which is more likely.
So its working. We just don’t hear about it,figures.Never second guess Trump should always be our watchword.
Some of these will see zero gain, even if all tariffs are removed.
An example...most Germans will drink German, Italian or French wine, period. In recent years...some South African wine has started to sell well. US wine? No. It’s sold but I will vouch that 90-percent of German wine consumers won’t drink US wine.
On electronics....what exactly is left of an electronics nature...made in the US? I can’t think of a single TV made in the US.
I can see Boeing selling some planes. I can see some US ship construction (although it’s a declining trend).
US fruit and vegetables? Why? Europe produces just about everything it needs. The global market makes up the rest. I bought grapes back in March which were picked in India, and in April bought grapes from Peru.
On steel, unless the EU makes up some funny rule....the cheap steel will still continue to come in from China.
In some ways, I think Trump is making the EU jump through the hoops because they really do need the access to the US markets. He’s making them admit that in public. They will argue otherwise, but as the economics spiral starts to take place by the end of the year, and a decline is noted in Germany....they will have to come and play by Trump’s game.
Good idea. Could it happen? Doubtful.
Trump proposed in a tweet, that both sides drop all tariffs, barriers and subsidies. Trump, although doubts the Europeans will go for the idea. The tweet said: "That would finally be called Free Market and Fair Trade! Hope they do it, we are ready - but they won't!"
Thanks ARGLOCKGUY.
Here’s an interesting chart I found. I suspect that Trump is trying to adjust the imbalance. Notice that there has been a significant trade imbalance for a long, long time. There must be some underlying causes that aren’t obvious from our viewpoint.
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0003.html
Incidentally, there are significant taste differences between American products and European products. On the whole, I think most American food is tasteless. Take cheese. If I wore a blindfold I couldn’t tell you the difference between several different variety’s of American made cheese. But, European cheese tastes much better and they are different flavors. When I got my MBA I discovered why. There are laws that American made cheese must comply with. It’s all pasteurized and heated and can’t have too many or too large a whole in it. The documents go on and on. By the time you have complied with all that, the product looks great but tastes terrible. It’s like Florida tomatoes. They were created by the Department of Agriculture and only those can be grown and shipped. They look great, ship wonderfully, and taste bland. (They actually outlawed a tomato called “The Ugly Tomato.” It had several bulges, shipped well, but wasn’t round. It tasted wonderful and only a few farms were growing them. They stormed the market. Next thing you know, they were gone. Outlawed. There was a new “product beauty rule” that specifically outlawed the major features of the new tomato.)
How much of US manufacturing was lopped off due to huge uneven tariffs?
I really don't know but it seems that the more we subsidized other nations, the more "service-oriented" we became instead of having an actual physical/tangible basis for a lot of businesses.
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