Posted on 01/18/2017 5:00:11 PM PST by Mariner
President-elect Donald Trump could soon face resistance within his own party over his tariff threats.
A staffer for Republican Senator Mike Lee told trade experts at a lunch in Washington this week that he is looking into ways to curtail the president's wide-ranging powers to impose tariffs, according to one of Lee's aides.
The aide said a bill could be introduced as early as next week, and it may require Trump to go through Congress to use tariffs.
Lee, who represents Utah, declined to comment for this story. Trump's spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
The aide emphasized that the bill is not just a push against Trump on trade, but part of a broader effort to transfer more legislative power to Congress from the executive branch.
Trade experts who attended the lunch said no major specifics were discussed. Even if it is not passed, this effort to reel in Trump's trade powers could change the optimistic narrative on tariffs that Trump has cast.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Trump is not totally wrong on trade. On a few things maybe but he is more correct than wrong.
Then there is always the VETO looming. Let them dare.................
How about if government spending and borrowing (from those trading unfairly!) were offset by tariff?
You would not have to offset with tax reduction.
Restoration of the national treasury should be the priority after reclaiming the national capital stock.
He’s a total fraud. He came across as Mr. conservative, but Trump exposed him.
Wonder why they didn’t try to pass any legislation on Obama, for all his overreach. ( Oh, I know, he would have just vetoed it, but they had a responsibility to fight him on every piece of overreach he committed. Instead, they just lay down and let him walk all over them AND us. Terrible leadership, and NOW, the republican congress has decided to flex their muscles. In WWII, they were called collaborators.
I have read the ‘The Wealth of Nations’ and it says nothing to address mercantilism, currency manipulations and product dumping. The book is a fine book for the topics it deals with but most of the arguments in it are based on the premise of “fair trade” due to competitive of geographic advantage. I understand why it was written this way because involving the additional factors of government market manipulation and mercantilism would muddy the picture of why trade is necessary and advantageous.
Please try to give me a cogent argument as to why the American govenment should keep doing what it has been doing regarding trade for the past 50 years while every other nation has been engaging in predatory trade practices.
Please don’t continue to just send me a link to a 300 page books that I have already read and that you assumed that I was too stupid to have already done so.
So, in order to return your condescending post in a similar fashion, I recommend that you stretch your limited perspective by reading ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies’ by Jared Diamond, 1997
:)
We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries. We believe in protection as a national policy, with due and equal regard to all sections and to all classes. It is only by adherence to such a policy that the well being of the consumers can be safeguarded that there can be assured to American agriculture, to American labor and to American manufacturers a return to perpetrate American standards of life. A protective tariff is designed to support the high American economic level of life for the average family and to prevent a lowering to the levels of economic life prevailing in other lands.
At the national level there are only few Republicans who are not sniveling douche wads. And one of the few good guys is going to be USAG.
“It is well past time to primary Senator Mike Lee.”
I guess at the end of the day he was no better than Bennett!
I believe Lee (and Cruz) have ridden that horse named Constitution hard, until its wet, but their loft on the Constitution and ethereal philosophies are diametrically opposed by their legislative proclivities and actions.
Both are Chamber of Commerce, North American “Community” enablers. For cash and power. Working Americans long out of jobs are just a casualty.
TRUMP, 20 January
There been whined about Trump talking about tariff ..yet these tariff power were vested in the President since the start of the country by the founding fathers...and now congress is going to try to usurp the power
So you have to decide what “Conservative” means
Republican party platform.
You win
Trump’s 35% tariff on imports would just barely fund the current level of defense spending even assuming, unrealisticlally, that the volume of imports is unaffected by the tariff. So, we would still have to find other sources of revenue (income or consumption taxes) to fund even an appropriately reduced federal government.
When factories and jobs were outsourced did the US consumer see significant price reductions for the items produced overseas? No, the companies increased their margins and used the higher profits for acquisitions which reduced competition or buying back stock which enriched Wall Street.
Applying a 30% tariff on the value of goods imported from China will not translate directly into a 30% increase in the price of the product. Assume a product sold by the importer for $10.00. The importer pays $5.00 for the product from the Chinese factory. A 30% tariff on 50 cents equals $1.50. The degree to which the $1.50 is passed along to the customer depends on a number of factors.
1) The availability of substitute products at lower prices from other resources. One such opportunity is to produce the product in the United States using robots and saving the shipping costs from overseas.
2) The ability of producers in China to lower costs or reduce margins to offset some or all of the tariff. It may be the Chinese factories will invest in automation, or redesign products for more efficient production, in order to absorb some or all of the tariff.
3) The willingness of the Chinese government to increase its export subsidies to factories in order to offset some or all of the tariff. China cannot afford to let millions of Chinese factory workers lose employment and will subsidize lower prices for exports in order to offset tariffs and protect market share. To the degree these export subsidies result in lower defense spending by China, the US benefits.
4) Using accounting and financial manipulation to offset the tariff. Agreements can be reached with suppliers to lower the cost of goods so the amount of the tariff is reduced. The supplier can be reimbursed for the lower transfer price through design fees, royalties, or payments made from offshore accounts.
Free traders talk as though economics is static. However truly free markets are dynamic. When costs go up, creative organizations figure out ways to offset the costs. In my business career I dealt with situations where energy prices doubled, raw material costs rose by 25-30% overnight, and annual health care cost increases of 10-15% had to be absorbed. Very little of these costs ultimately were passed to customers. We found ways to make the business more efficient.
The same corporations who benefited from offshoring will figure out how to offset tariffs without passing all of the cost to the consumer. If they don’t, their competition will.
In the 35 years from 1865 to 1900 the US experienced the fastest economic growth in its history. The nation transitioned from an economy destroyed by four years of civil war to the greatest industrial economy on the planet in less than four decades. During that time the US had the highest tariffs in its history and almost fully funded the government with the revenue from those tariffs. Tariffs funded the Spanish American War and the construction of one of the most powerful navies on the planet.
Note also that China has employed tariff and non-tariff barriers over the last 30 years to protect its economy while it transitioned into the second largest economy on the planet. History demonstrates high tariffs can be powerful tool to facilitate rapid domestic economic development.
At the risk of being attacked by 80% of people on this site, I’m going to say it: Mike Lee is NO RINO.
If Mike Lee isn’t a conservative, please name someone who is...
(or maybe we’re beyond “conservativism” and have moved on to a Roosevelt-esque “nationalism”.)
At any rate, Obamba is gone in two days!!
Where was Lee on this effort to “transfer power from the Executive to the Legislative” before Trump came along? Lee has turned out to be a Rubio-type disappointment.
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