Free Republic

Furniture retailers strike back against tariff supporters HIGH POINT -- The gloves are coming off in the furniture industry's internal battle over cheap Chinese products and the preservation of American manufacturing jobs. In the past week, two retail chains stopped buying goods from American furniture makers who are supporting a so-called "anti-dumping petition" that could impose steep tariffs on Chinese products, thus dramatically raising import costs. "This is just the opening volley," said Jerry Epperson, a furniture industry analyst and director of the Mann Armistead & Epperson Ltd. investment banking firm in Richmond, Va. "It's getting nasty." American Furniture Warehouse...

Rational Trade Vs. Free-Trade Extremism Part I: Security By Robert Locke FrontPageMagazine.com | October 23, 2002 Most economically literate people realize that there is a problem when it comes to trade policy. The current Clinton-established trade regime, despite the Bush administration’s clumsy but real concessions to reality, is a kind of free-trade extremism. The alternative commonly considered, however, is a Buchananite protectionism that simply does not make economic sense. Retaliatory tariffs against nations that impose them on us should be a given, but this is not enough. There is a middle position, a moderate position on trade, that I would...

EU clears sanctions over US tax breaks 08 December 2003 The European Union gave the green light Monday to multi-million-dollar trade sanctions against the United States unless illegal tax breaks for US exporters are repealed. Fresh from declaring peace on one front of a transatlantic trade war over US steel tariffs, the EU pledged to press ahead with retaliation unless Congress repeals the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) law. Tariffs starting from 200 million dollars (164 million euros) will be imposed on March 1 until the FSC tax breaks are scrapped, after EU foreign ministers nodded through the duties recommended by...

Brussels set for clash with US on tax breaks Only days after Brussels and Washington narrowly averted a costly transatlantic trade war, European Union foreign ministers are on Monday set to agree a law that will threaten the US with sanctions in another long-running dispute. Brussels will give the US Congress until March next year to repeal special tax breaks for US exporters - or face punitive tariffs worth hundreds of millions of dollars on US goods shipped to Europe. The tax breaks, enshrined in the so-called Foreign Sales Corporations (FSC) provision, benefit large US exporters such as Microsoft, Boeing...

<p>EU Governments Give Go-Ahead to U.S. Tax-Break Retaliation Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- European Union governments approved a list of American imports to be hit with extra customs duties unless U.S. lawmakers repeal legislation that hands companies such as Boeing Co. tax breaks worth $5 billion a year.</p>

<p>In 1992, Edward Yourdon wrote "The Decline and Fall of The American Programmer," describing the inevitability that software programming jobs would begin heading overseas, following heavy manufacturing.</p> <p>I began thinking about this while trying to chase down a tip I'd received that Dell Computer had actually brought back most of its tier-one tech support—the guys that pick up the phone if you see smoke rising from your Dimension – inside its headquarters in Round Rock, Texas. Previously, the firm outsourced most tech support calls to a firm in India.</p>

Demand for 'Kyoto tax' on the US Scientists say the climate is warming Countries refusing to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases should face trade sanctions, according to a British independent think-tank. The United States has not signed the Kyoto agreement on climate change and Russia has indicated it may follow. The New Economics Foundation wants the EU to tax imports from these countries because they enjoy a competitive disadvantage as energy costs increase. Signed-up countries are currently meeting in Italy to discuss the treaty. New Economics Foundation spokesman Andrew Simms told BBC Radio 4's Today programme EU countries would...

Myths of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff The Fifth Chapter of How Americans Can Buy American - 2nd Editionby Roger Simmermaker To be able to accurately explain the affects of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, it is necessary first to rid ourselves of popular myths so that we can start with a clean slate and derive conclusions from fact rather than fantasy. I will list some common myths here, and then disprove them using facts according to history. The myths that prevail, even today, some 72 years after the tariff bill was signed by President Herbert Hoover, are as follows: 1. The...

<p>PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Calvin Croftcheck was faxing handwritten messages addressed to President Bush from union workers, their families and retirees when a worker at the U.S. Steel-owned Clairton Coke Works delivered the bad news: tariffs on foreign steel were being lifted.</p>

Do Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, on the one hand, speak with Commerce chief Don Evans and President Bush's political guru, Karl Rove, on the other? If so, they should have lunch. Rumsfeld and Powell ought to explain to Evans and Rove how Bush's reelection-driven trade policies too often jeopardize U.S. national security. To satisfy parochial domestic interests, Bush's neo-protectionism creates headaches for American soldiers and diplomats abroad. This counterproductive shortsightedness cannot stop soon enough. Consider America's ongoing efforts to pacify North Korea. China, an at least nominally Communist country contiguous with Pyongyang, surely is...

<p>The Bush administration has decided to repeal its 20-month-old tariffs on imported steel to head off a trade war that would have included foreign retaliation against products from politically crucial states, administration and industry sources said yesterday.</p> <p>The officials would not say when President Bush will announce the decision but said it is likely to be this week. The officials said they had to allow for the possibility that he would make some change in the plan, but a source close to the White House said it was "all but set in stone."</p>

<p>U.S. Wins Steel Case Leeway, Sets Stage to End Duties (Update1) Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. has gotten the approval of trade partners including the European Union and Japan to postpone a ruling that exposes $2.3 billion of American exports to extra customs duties, signaling the U.S. may end illegal steel tariffs, the EU and Swiss officials said.</p>

China hits U.S. tariffs on TVs New duties called breach of WTO principles; Discrimination also claimed; Trade dispute could mar premier's visit with Bush SHANGHAI, China - China angrily rejected U.S. anti-dumping measures on Chinese television imports, as an increasingly rancorous trade dispute threatened yesterday to mar a visit to Washington next month by China's premier. The U.S. measures announced Monday come amid clashes over textiles, steel and soybeans. Many in China believe that furniture may be the next export drawn into the dispute. With Premier Wen Jiabao due in Washington in less than two weeks to meet with President...

<p>Two days after the Bush administration imposed quotas on Chinese-made bras, dressing gowns and knitted fabrics last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned of "emerging protectionism" in America. An election year is coming up and the Bushies have shown themselves capable of playing politics with trade, most notably with the steel tariffs that the World Trade Organization declared illegal this month.</p>

US Takes Aim at Chinese TVs in Trade Row Tue Nov 25, 1:48 AM ET Add Business - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Doug Palmer and Tony Munroe WASHINGTON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - The United States accused Chinese companies of dumping televisions on the U.S. market and slapped stiff duties on the products, in the latest flare-up in trade tension between the two economic giants. Reuters Photo Related Quotes DJIA NASDAQ ^SPC 9729.20 1944.79 1049.76 -18.59 -2.35 -2.32 delayed 20 mins - disclaimer Quote Data provided by Reuters High-tech Holiday Gifts Best buys for your gadget lover, plus great gifts under...

Fed up with protectionism Nov 21st 2003 From The Economist Global Agenda The current-account deficit is benign, says Alan Greenspan, but protectionism is dangerous. America’s garment makers do not agree. Its European creditors may be having second thoughts too THE United States spends over $500 billion more each year than it produces. It gets away with this vast current-account deficit by selling American IOUs to foreigners. Many, including the International Monetary Fund, wonder how long this arrangement can continue and fear what will happen when it stops. But Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, America's central bank, thinks the...

Whenever I venture from my "assigned" space of economics and investing, and roam into the realm of politics, I am sure to offend more than a few readers. But today, I see the world of economics and politics meshing, as the threat of an international trade war is becoming more and more real. From Senators proposing insane 30% tariffs on the Chinese, (our new whipping boy, probably to the relief of Japan) to boneheaded steel tariffs, we put the economy of the world at risk. And the reasons are more political than economic, so I weigh in. I am sure...

So let's see -- it's already propelled the Canadian dollar and virtually every other western currency to highs against the U.S. dollar, it may also be the straw that breaks the back of the U.S. equity markets, and it carries the seeds for deeper worldwide economic woes.Not bad for a little measure that protects a few thousand jobs in the textile industry in some southern states. I'm referring to the Bush administration's imposition of trade quotas on Chinese textile imports announced Tuesday. This comes on the heels of a WTO ruling on illegal American steel tariffs that will most certainly...

Tokyo to impose tariffs on U.S. iron and steel Bloomberg News Friday, November 21, 2003 TOKYO Japan will impose tariffs of about 30 percent on U.S. iron and steel products as early as this year in retaliation for U.S. duties on Japanese steel, Trade Ministry officials said on Friday. Japan will also raise tariffs on clothing, leather and household goods by about 5 percent, said two officials from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The proposed tariffs will be submitted to the World Trade Organization after they are approved by a customs committee in the Ministry of Finance Wednesday,...

In a move that embattled domestic manufacturers greeted with glee and gloomy retailers had predicted for weeks, the Bush administration announced Wednesday new quotas on textile and apparel imports from China. Specifically, the move will impose federal limits on the number of Chinese-made bras, dressing gowns, and knit fabrics that Americans can purchase over the coming year. The nature of the announcement revealed that the overriding motivation here was electoral politics. Unfortunately, President Bush's new boudoir tax will, in the long run, wreak both political and economic destruction. Basically, the president — and more likely his political director, Karl Rove...