Posted on 07/27/2018 5:53:27 AM PDT by Pinkbell
As trade tensions escalate between Washington and Beijing, the U.S. Senate quietly passed legislation on Thursday that would lower trade barriers on hundreds of items made in China.
With no debate, Senate unanimously passed a bill that would cut or eliminate tariffs on toasters, chemicals and roughly 1,660 other items made outside United States.
Nearly half of those items are produced in China, according to a Reuters analysis of government records.
The United States and China, the world's two largest economies, are increasingly at loggerheads over trade.
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a series of punitive tariffs on Chinese imports in a bid to halt a Chinese surge in high-technology industries that threatens to displace U.S. dominance. China has retaliated with its own duties on imports from the United States.
The White House has not publicly taken a position on the so-called miscellaneous tariff bill, which has now passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives unanimously. The two chambers need to resolve minor differences before they can send the legislation to Trump to sign into law.
Supporters of the bill have said it would boost the economy by getting rid of tariffs set up to protect industries that no longer exist in the United States. The National Association of Manufacturers has said U.S. businesses pay $1 million a day on such import duties.
"It makes no sense because it is a direct and punishing tax on making things in America and for creating jobs in America," the trade group's president, Jay Timmons, said in a prepared statement celebrating the bill's passage.
Among the beneficiaries are companies that have moved production offshore. Hamilton Beach Brands Holding Co, for example, would pay reduced tariffs on Chinese-made toaster ovens, steam irons and other household appliances it used to make domestically.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
The version of the bill that passed the House in January included 145 items that are made domestically, according to a Reuters analysis.
Quietly. There is a reason they did it quietly. Don't let them hide it. If you disagree with this bill, feel free to contact your representative so they can ignore you.
So it sounds like companies like Hamilton Beach can ship manufacturing overseas. Eventually, certain products won't be made domestically anymore. Then, because the product isn't made in the U.S., they can request lower tariffs. What a win. This encourages industries to ship jobs overseas.
Also, there are 145 companies on this list (one specific example is given further in the article) where the products are still made here.
Plus, they are doing this when Trump is trying to be tough and negotiate with China. They are undercutting his negotiations in my opinion because why else do it now? China must be laughing. They wouldn't do anything to benefit the U.S. during negotiations.
Maybe I'm wrong and Trump will support this, but if it was so popular, I think Trump would be touting it and the universal support it got. It's not. If he doesn't support it, it's either he signs it like he did with the Russian sanctions to avoid the veto override or he lets them override his veto. If he's opposed, I hope he just lets them override. He won't look weak. He'll look strong for opposition.
Wouldn’t the house also need to pass it?
Already passed the House.
Interesting that President Trump hasn’t tweeted about this.
This is a DIRECT challenge to the President’s authority. No surprise that most Republicans went along with choosing China over America. Traitors, all.
Stupid.
“No surprise that most Republicans went along with choosing China over America.”
Not most Republican senators, but all Republican Senators voted to reduce taxes.
The Republican Party just does not get it.
It never will.
In all my 67 years, I have never seen a party join the opposition party as one to go against the interests of the United States.
Trump now has Europe discussing zero teriffs, but evidently these braintrusts don’t want to see that with China.
It boggles the mind to watch McConnell and Ryan damage this nation the way they are.
They undermined him on Russia too by essentially pushing a Russia sanctions bill through with sanctions on other countries like Iran. He had to sign it or they’d say he was colluding.
Another Wall Street sponsored and written bill.
President Trump should veto it and make the lowlife politicians own their china first policy. China is feeling the sting from president Trump’s trade policy so they call on their paid stooges to undermine him. Will the scumbags in DC ever work for the American people who elect them?
Imagine how Trump would be if he actually had strong leaders helping him from both parties. Instead, he has Ryan and McConnell. Now the left whines all the time that the GOP won’t “Doooo something!” However, all they do is the minimal. They aren’t out there openly trashing him, but they aren’t helping him with his agenda, aren’t defending him, and are doing shady crap like this.
I wonder if the reason that these industries no longer exist in the United States is because the Chinese put them out of business with slave labor and tariffs of their own. Inquiring minds want to know.
If this becomes law, it will guarantee more US factories and jobs moving to China. The same lunacy practiced by our government for several decades.
Bingo.
You betcha!
And Trump should not “quietly” veto the bill.
The globalist GOP still does not get it.
Trump should call them out on it.
“unanimously passed”
This sounds like one of those maneuvers where they use some tricky procedure to avoid accountability for their actions.
Notice that it says these products aren't made here any longer because the companies moved their production overseas...to China and other cheap labor havens.
This is the epitome of cowardice and lack of vision by our senate and house.
Why did they move production overseas? Because those companies had huge tariffs on us and we had tiny tariffs or no tariffs on them. It made the company money to produce in China and get charged ZERO tariff and pay a small tariff to get their product back in the US.
We shouldn't be eliminating those tariffs. We should be reversing the process. Place a huge tariff on the product to force those manufacturers to return back home and give jobs here and not over there.
We are funding the Chinese military, Chinese nukes, Chinese missiles, N. Korean and Iranian nukes and missiles. These legislators are cowardly flimflam artists and shouldn't be in leadership positions.
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