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Is it possible that Donald Trump is winning on trade? Last week, Trump apparently delivered two underappreciated victories as a result of his threat of stiff tariffs and renegotiated trade deals. First, Seoul has agreed to reduce long-standing non-tariff trade barriers that have reduced American exports to Korea. Though the details are still sketchy, the Koreans have agreed to buy more Ford and General Motors Co. cars and trucks and other U.S.-made products. This can only be good news for American workers. The Koreans have also agreed to increase reimbursement rates to American drug and vaccine producers. Even The...

US policy towards China has been misdirected for decades and policymakers are now recalibrating ties, Senator Elizabeth Warren told reporters during a visit to Beijing amid heightened trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. The Massachusetts Democrat and Trump foe, who has been touted as a potential 2020 presidential candidate despite rejecting such speculation, has said US trade policy needs a rethink and that she is not afraid of tariffs. Misdirected policy After years of mistakenly assuming economic engagement would lead to a more open China, the US government was waking up to Chinese demands for US companies to...

Beijing is still talking about a trade war with the U.S., warning that President Donald Trump’s proposed trade penalties could lead to conflict. "We hope the United States can rein in its horse before the edge of the cliff, or else we will fight to the end," Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said Thursday, reiterating a point recently made by the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. (please see the full article, at the link)

Beijing: China on Monday imposed new tariffs on 128 US imports worth $3 billion, including fruits and pork, in retaliation to US duties on steel and aluminium, fuelling fears of a trade war. Beijing's move, which the Xinhua news agency said was decided by the custom tariffs commission of the State Council, follows weeks of heated rhetoric and threats between the world's two biggest economies. (please see full article at the link)

The Chinese government plans to immediately impose tariffs on 128 U.S. products, including pork and certain fruits, a direct response to President Trump’s recent moves to pursue numerous trade restrictions against Beijing. If U.S. goods become more expensive in China, Chinese buyers could opt to purchase products from Europe, South America or elsewhere, though White House officials have routinely discounted the likelihood of this. Beijing’s move could force Trump to decide whether to follow through on expansive trade restrictions he had hoped would crack down on China even if Beijing is now threatening to harm U.S. companies that rely on...

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has agreed to further open its auto market to the United States as the two countries prepare to amend their 6-year-old trade agreement following complaints by President Donald Trump. ...It marks the first successful renegotiation of a trade deal for the Trump administration — which used the threat of 25 percent steel tariffs at the bargaining table — and comes as the allies sought to resolve disputes before planned meetings with Kim Jong Un.

Last week, China threatened a massive trade war after Donald Trump imposed $50 billion in tariffs on their exports. This week, Beijing’s top economic official has begun to do his best Monty Hall impersonation, according to the Wall Street Journal. After a notably mild first response, China has quietly begun to offer better access to its markets to the US: China and the U.S. have quietly started negotiating to improve U.S. access to Chinese markets, after a week filled with harsh words from both sides over Washington’s threat to use tariffs to address trade imbalances, people with knowledge of the...

President Donald Trump on Thursday authorized the modification of tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum for six countries and the European Union. […] “The tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the following countries are suspended until May 1, 2018, pending discussions of satisfactory long-term alternative means to address the threatened impairment to U.S. national security: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the member countries of the European Union, and South Korea,” the White House announced. Trump will decide by May 1 whether to continue to exempt those countries from tariffs. …

Global stocks rebounded Monday, pulling European markets higher and lifting U.S. equity futures into the green, following news that White House trade officials agreed to exempt South Korea from steel tariffs and were ready to open dialogue with China in an effort to avert a global trade war that has threatened economic growth and hammered financial markets around the world.

Washington D.C. [USA], Mar 24 (ANI): The United States on Friday officially filed a trade complaint at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China over its alleged discriminatory technology licensing practices. (please see full article at link)

Tracking the economic value of IP theft is difficult, but a few recent estimates should give us pause. According to estimates from William Evanina, the director of the Counterintelligence and Security Center during the Obama Administration, cyber-espionage alone cost the U.S. economy $400 billion in 2015. This estimate was extrapolated from reports from 140 American companies with interests in China. As costly as this is, the real concern is the origin of said cyber-threats. Evanina claims that China’s government itself was behind 90 percent of all cyberattacks—not rogue companies or basement-dwelling lone-wolf hackers. This is troubling: at best we should...

Texas manufacturers who produce steel oil and gas pipelines and drill pipe are expected to see a relatively modest impact from China's announcement it was slapping a 15 percent tariff on steel pipe from the United States. Last year the United States exported 832,000 metric tons of steel pipe, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration. More than 80 percent of that pipe went to Canada and Mexico, with China coming in a distant third. "Bottom line, if the retaliation is on pipelines, Houston will not see much impact. However, if the trade war escalates to broader energy related machinery...

U.S. agriculture is bracing itself potentially costly tit-for-tat trade retaliation between the Washington and Beijing that could hit everything from American pork to wine. "The producers of the commodities that are being targeted will probably feel the effects of it," said Larry Karp, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Berkeley. "And there's no reason to think that the Chinese will stop at this." On Friday, China's Ministry of Commerce said $3 billion in U.S. goods could face new tariffs following the Trump administration's imposition of duties on imported steel and aluminum. Among the goods listed for retaliatory...

Trump's global trade war with China is one that aims to achieve something no other president has attempted: the protection of American technology against pirating by China The world’s second-largest economy has responded to President Donald Trump’s controversial trade tariffs, according to this morning’s blaring news headlines. “China’s commerce ministry proposed a list of 128 U.S. products as potential retaliation targets, according to a statement on its website posted Friday morning.” (CNBC, March 22, 2018) Notice the words used to describe China: “The world’s second-largest economy”.

Shares of banks and technology firms dragged markets sharply lower Friday, punctuating the worst week for major U.S. stock indexes in more than two years. Friday’s selling highlighted investors’ increasing anxiety over a range of concerns, including the White House’s increasingly protectionist trade agenda, rising interest rates and collapsing bets on technology giants that had powered much of the stock market’s rally until recently. The Dow industrials lost more than 1,100 points in the week’s final two sessions. Financial stocks in the S&P 500 dropped 3% Friday, with Bank of America and Morgan Stanley falling nearly 5% apiece. Tech stocks...

We’re Off To A Good Start In The “Trade War” Yesterday, the Trump administration slapped $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports. The tariffs are intended to protect American innovation and competitiveness in the global market. In response, China put retaliatory tariffs to the tune of $3 billion on US imports early Friday morning. Trump also indicated that this will be the first of many economic actions the White House will take to combat China’s unfair trading practices. Watch below: As this editorial has argued since it’s inception, tariffs are a good thing and are in fact necessary to bring...

Why did China and other countries act contrary to the theory of Friedman? Because Friedman's arguments, unfortunately, are correct only when all other variables in economic equations remain unchanged. Trump had changed the overall conditions of the economic game. On the one hand, Trump raises taxes for companies outside America (tariffs), and on the other hand, he reduces domestic taxes for companies in America. Let me remind you that thanks to Trump, now corporate income tax in America has been reduced from 35% to 21%. Also, the lion's share of bureaucratic barriers to business development, set by Obama, are canceled...

The new tariffs announced by President Donald Trump have generated intense controversy. With the debate ongoing, it might be useful to examine how other countries have dealt with similar policy debates in the past. New Zealand now ranks third in The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom and is one of the champions of economic freedom around the world. But it wasn’t always so. In the mid-1980s, New Zealand was facing an economic crisis, with its domestic market and international trade both heavily regulated. Unemployment had reached 11 percent, and inflation was a sky-high 15 percent. In response, the government...

MINAS TIRITH, GONDOR—Kicking off a major trade war between the two kingdoms, the Middle-Earth Trade Federation has announced heavy tariffs on the import of Narnian steel, sending the stock market into a freefall Thursday.Any steel imported from Narnia to Gondor, Rohan, Erebor, or Mirkwood will be subject to a 30% tax. The move is expected to raise the end consumer price of various imported goods significantly, according to expert economists working at Rivendell.“Trade wars are great, and they’re really easy to win,” the king of Gondor said in a dispatch via carrier pigeon. “If we keep allowing cheap Narnian steel...

Trade war fears that have roiled the markets for two weeks intensified Thursday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling more than 700 points and adding to concerns that stocks could be headed for a larger reckoning. Thursday’s selling, which sent shares of manufacturers, aluminum producers and steelmakers sharply lower, marked the culmination of months of growing investor anxiety over the course of U.S. trade policy. It came at a time when many say the market was already under pressure, gripped by fears over rising interest rates and sliding technology shares. Trade tensions ratcheted higher, as the Trump administration said...