Posted on 07/04/2019 12:42:33 PM PDT by Kaslin
President Donald Trump likes to keep score. Well, here's a score for him: America, zero; while the rest of the world keeps tallying up free trade points. That's right; while American consumers have been waiting for well over a year to see some resolution to the various trade disputes started by Trump, other countries have agreed to lower their tariffs against each other and signed free trade agreements with one another. Meanwhile, American consumers and exporters are drowning in a sea of high tariffs.
Let's recap. For the last year and a half, the president has unilaterally imposed tariffs on, among other things, imports of steel, aluminum and hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese products. Many of these tariffs fall on intermediary goods that American and foreign companies use to produce things here in the United States. Despite being told by the administration that no one would dare retaliate against us, everyone has. Canada, Mexico, Japan, India, China and the European Union have all since then retaliated with their own duties against U.S. exports.
From manufacturers to farmers, the industries in the downstream of U.S. tariffs (and in the crosshairs of the foreign duties) have been hurting. They've been shouldering high production costs and less access to foreign markets, and U.S. manufacturing just fell to a 32-month low. While we were told that this pain was worth it because it would deliver magnificent trade deals, it hasn't. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or "new NAFTA," is far from becoming the law of the land, leaving companies in limbo. And we're still waiting for a comprehensive deal with China, as well as a reduction to zero of the subsidies and tariffs between the EU and the United States.
Rest assured, though, other countries have not let this crisis go to waste. Taking matters into their own hands, other governments have been actively signing free trade agreements with one another. Recently, the EU, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay announced a free trade deal that covers 780 million people. This is a big deal because the South American trade bloc had relatively high tariffs against the EU. The EU and Japan have also completed a free trade agreement.
EU members updated their trade deal with Mexico as well and just signed a trade agreement with Vietnam to eliminate 99% of the tariffs on goods and services between European and Vietnamese markets. Meanwhile, the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership nations, which includes Japan, have looked to finalize the deal with other potential partners after Trump rejected the deal on his first day in office.
Even protectionist China has been active. It has effectively been dropping its tariffs against U.S. competitors while it raised its duties against U.S. producers. Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics calculated that China's tariffs against the United States rose from 8% on January 1, 2018, to 20.7% on June 1, 2019. Tariffs against all other countries, however, went down from 8% to 6.7% during that same period. As Bown writes, "Now, there is a 14 percentage point difference between the average Chinese tariff U.S. exporters face versus all other exporters."
None of this is to say that China and other countries aren't hurting as a result of this trade war. A growing number of global firms are shifting production out of China in response to the U.S.-China trade war. The world's top bicycle maker, Giant Manufacturing Co., acknowledged this fact loud and clear by announcing that the era of "Made in China" was over.
Does this fact mean the Trump strategy is working? No. The Trump plan was that companies would leave China and move back to the United States. But that's not what's happening. Instead, they're moving production to other Asian countries, including Vietnam. That is probably why the president is suddenly threatening to impose hefty tariffs against Vietnam. If he does, the Europeans, with their new free trade relationship with Vietnam, will be the winners.
Some of Trump's supporters have argued that the president is actually a free trader who wants lower tariffs all around. Well, if that's the case, he has succeeded in a way. Everyone is getting lower tariffs -- everyone except U.S. consumers, that is.
In March of 2018 11 countries, representing 500M consumers and 13% of world GDP, signed the CPTPP which immediately lowered tariffs and will lead to tariff-free trade among the signatories.
The US bailed from the predecessor agreement, TPP, which resulted in a huge win for China.
This is where I disagree. One sided tariffs imposed on the USA is better than tariffs on both.
I don’t have a problem with politely disagreeing with you on this.
Hope you had a good Fourth of July.
Your information is accurate, but I suspect it only applies to a very small portion of total China-USA trade. Very few manufactured products are shipped through standard mail like that — mainly because air cargo rates are very high. This type of international shipping tends to be feasible only for high-value, low-weight products like medical devices and specialized electronic components, or for extremely time-sensitive shipments.
What is usually overlooked in these discussions is the single biggest flaw — from an American’s perspective — in these trade agreements like the ones you cited. As a matter of policy the U.S. should generally avoid these multi-lateral trade agreements because they seriously undermine the sovereignty of the U.S. government. American businesses engaged in trade under these agreements find themselves operating under the authority of trade commissions led mostly by foreign representatives. I don’t see how this is a good thing for anyone who calls himself a conservative.
I believe President Trump has stated this on several occasions, which explains why he has been working on bi-lateral trade deals with individual trading partners like South Korea, Vietnam, Great Britain, etc.
True.
However, like the waste in our government (a few million on the study of the spotted salamander, a few million there for midnight basketball, another million for PBS, etc) this is just one part of the inequality that is trade with China...even if a small part.
Other parts are the intellectual property theft, contractual constraints when having to try to do business in China and so on.
You are correct, it is a smaller part...I was using it to illustrate an example...one of many.
As I just said on another thread (and George Washington was said to have uttered) “Many Mickles make a Muckle” which means that many small things can add up to a big thing.
Voluntarily agreeing to a mechanism to resolve disputes between parties is an almost universal feature of contracts and is in no way surrendering sovereignty.
It also has nothing to do with bi- vs. multi-lateral. Both will have some dispute resolution mechanism and both will ultimately be subject to the parties’ willingness to comply with their commitments.
[If that were true, then it’d be just as cheap to ship in the other direction across the Pacific. But it is not.]
https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/11/news/china-scrap-ban-us-recycling/index.html
Articles from different sources but same author. No difference.
Just because it is FR policy doesn’t make it right.
BTW, are you Kaslin’s mother?
Now try shipping items of actual value to Chung-kuo.
We’ll see...
Agreed, it’s called fighting fire with fire.
No. I’m a long time FReeper who understandshow the forum works and doesn’t make a fool out of myself whining when others are doing yeoman’s work. Grow up ...
“No. I’m a long time FReeper who understandshow the forum works and doesn’t make a fool out of myself whining when others are doing yeoman’s work. Grow up ...”
Your opinion. But then we all know about opinions...right? They’re like assho*le, everybody has one. In your case likely more.
You’ve sucked up to Kaslin enough. Not sure what you’re after but I have an idea. I hope you succeed, I think you need it badly.
More vapors from the feint hearted. Grow up.
She’s doing her work for free, and your method of thanking her is pathetic.
“She’s doing her work for free, and your method of thanking her is pathetic.”
LOL, what’s pathetic is your seemingly star struck slobbering over her like a little puppy.
Well, at least I’m not wetting on her leg like you are.
As for star stuck, that pretty reveals your childish mentality.
You can’t deal with the truth, so you lash out.
I explained how things worked here, and you said you don’t care, it outa be...
Nah, things are just fine. You had your chance to whimper and whine...
Well I think we all see you are simply too thin skinned.
You shouldn’t take things so personal, especially when they don’t concern you.
Kaslin is an adult and surely can defend herself. That she didn’t do this says plenty.
You can stop with the Matt Dillon riding in to Dodge City to save Miss Kitty act.
Go take a cold shower and a nice nap. You’ll feel better.
Listen up.
People like Kaslin come here for free to post articles so that we can read and discuss them.
Without her and others like her, this forum would be dead in a day or two.
You’ve been here five or six year now, and you still don’t know how the forum works.
When confronted with how it works, you accuse others of wanting relations with the poster, and try to insult them into silence.
All you’re doing is revealing yourself to be an idiot.
The post had a different title and source than the other.
I’ve asked you to grow up, and you should give that serious consideration.
Geez, you again!
Leave it alone already. You lost. Someone like you ought to be used to it by now
Now be a good boy/girl and go play in traffic.
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