Posted on 01/29/2017 10:23:14 PM PST by Dundee
One of US President Donald Trump’s top trade advisers has raised speculation the US will attempt to negotiate a new free trade deal with Australia.
Peter Navarro, director of Mr Trump’s White House Trade Council, named Australia and New Zealand as two nations the Trump administration will seek bilateral deals with.
Australia already has a free trade agreement with the US, signed in 2004, but Mr Trump has repeatedly said he will look at every trade deal the US has signed and renegotiate them if he can get a better deal for American workers.
Professor Navarro, in an interview with FOX News in the US on Sunday, slammed Trump administration critics who argue the decision to pull America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and eight other nations will empower US trade rival China.
“They’d be right if we weren’t going to go right to Japan and Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Thailand and negotiate bilateral deals,” Professor Navarro told FOX News...
“The Australia-US free trade agreement works very much in the US favour in the sense that there is a significant trade surplus,” [Australian Foreign Minister] Ms Bishop told reporters.
“We have a trade deficit with the US and there certainly has been no indication at all that the administration is looking to renegotiate the US-Australia free trade agreement.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
Potentially that could be a win-win.
Trump is focusing on individual deals with individual nations.
I think that is much healthier than what has been taking place.
These multi-nation fiascos are a real quagmire.
2004? That thing should have been renegotiated a long time ago.
We have trade with Australia?
Seeing as how both countries have similar standards of living and wages and food quality, it seems like a TRUE “free trade” deal should be very brief.
Unfortunately, it seems like Australia has a VAT/GST that is added to American imports and a VAT/GST credit that is issued to Australian exports to America. Is that true ?
A system like that would make Aussie goods cheaper in America than they are at home and American goods more expensive in OZ than they are in America. VATs make a mockery of “low tariffs” and “free trade” agreements.
What agricultural products are you referring to ? Lamb and certain fish ? What else ? What sort of barrier to US markets exist ?
“We have a trade deficit with the US and there certainly has been no indication at all that the administration is looking to renegotiate the US-Australia free trade agreement.”...
Another headline in the Australian, not matched by the content of the article.
Aussie wine fruit vegies and minerals*** in addition to the lamb. Kangaroo meat is tasty too. IP wise they have some great TV shows. Many would do very well here. They are highly culturally compatible with us. They even have hillbilly culture which they call Bogans.
(And their women are a wild bunch... send some over)
*** Including very very important stuff for electronics, easy to get to and only China produces those right now.
I forgot about the wine which might very well compete with American wines; kangaroo meat is obviously not produced in America so I can’t see trade barriers being likely; and “minerals” are not “agricultural” products, but rare earth metals and opals are an example of Aussie mineral exports. I don’t know that any of these need trade restrictions. A US/OZ FTA should be a very short document.
I agree with you about Aussie women ! There should be an unlimited immigration allowed for them, though I don’t know how interested in coming to America they are.
For every 2 Behars or Whoopis I would settle for one Sheila. It is negotiable. That is my starting offer. (I would go a LOT higher)
I believe the current exchange rate is 1 Sheila = 10 American Liberals. You wouldn’t want to insult them by low-balling them with your first offer.
(You must not negotiate much....) offer one: 2 to 1 offer 2: 10 to 1 offer 3: 100 to 1 and you get to sell them back to us as Kangaroo meat pet food.
LOL.
I can see it in my minds eye... My wife says can you take out the cat litter full of Behar and put fresh litter in the box.
Hopefully the price of lamb will drop.
Eat Skippy?! =8-0
(Okay, I just dated myself.. )
Looks to me like it revolves around wool. We allow wool and wool cloth in, but fabricated wool products like a shirt have heavy tariffs attached.
If you want a new wool shirt, you will have to pay big bucks. You can find heavy cotton shirts that are lined and insulated and very cheap because they are made in asia
This issue goes back many years as I recall because I grew up in the wool capital of the US(SW TEX) and we had many wool warehouses there.
Reminds me of the "Heritage Top 20" ( which would make a great fund of funds for investing IMHO, not investment advice, but let that go ).
http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
He is creating Bi-Lateral agreements w/ those top 20 ( maybe the free-ist in the top 60 ) that are functional and by our definitions free.
Was about to make similar comment - instead of attacking it with cookie-cutter solutions, where our cookies get as much say as the least of the participants, he does the footwork to custom tailor the deals in a way that doesn't leave us with the dirty end of the stick.
“We have trade with Australia?”
Where do you think we import the kangaroo pockets in hoodie sweatshirts from??
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