Free Republic

President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imported washing machines has had an odd effect: It raised prices on washing machines, as expected, but also drove up the cost of clothes dryers, which rose by $92 last year. What appears to have happened, according to new research from economists at the University of Chicago and the Federal Reserve, is a case study in how a measure meant to help domestic factory workers can rebound on American consumers, creating unexpected costs and leaving shoppers with a sky-high bill for every factory job created. Research to be released on Monday by the...

REAL PROPERTY PROTECTION AMENDMENT Governmental financial impositions of any year with respect to any residential property without water frontage shall not exceed 1/40,000 the average annual federal civilian salary as of the end of the penultimate calendar year times the sum of their square footage of finished living space and linear footage of public road frontage. EMPLOYMENT/INCOME PROTECTION AMENDMENT Federal/state employer/income taxation may be levied at no more than 24/20ths of the rates of January 1, 2019 on any person/entity having an annual income of less than the average annual federal civilian salary as of the end of the penultimate...

The U.S. trade deficit fell for the second straight month in February, and the politically sensitive deficit in the trade of goods with China narrowed. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the gap between the goods and services that the United States sells and what it buys from the rest of the world dropped 3.4% to $49.4 billion in February, the lowest since June. The deficit had slid 14.6% in January. Exports climbed 1.1% to $209.7 billion on a surge in shipments of civilian aircraft, passenger cars and medicine. Imports rose 0.2% to $259.1 billion. The goods deficit with China...

The European Union has drawn up a list of $20 billion worth of U.S. products it could tax in an escalating feud over plane industry subsidies, the EU’s executive commission said Wednesday. The commission said the EU could tax the products, which range from aircraft parts to frozen fish, from early next year in retaliation for U.S. financial support to Boeing that it says hurt Europe’s Airbus. The extent of the EU punitive duties will depend on a ruling by the World Trade Organization. Earlier in this dispute, the EU sought permission to target $12 billion worth of U.S. products....

For American families, Tax Day is more than just a paperwork nightmare, it’s also a day when they look back to consider how their budget has been stretched by taxes and to consider where all that money has gone. This year, there is an insidious tax that many Americans have no idea they’ve been paying. That’s mostly because instead of being referred to as a tax, it’s been cloaked in the jargon of international trade. This tax is a tariff, and over the last 10 months Americans have been paying tariffs in record numbers as a part of a multi-front trade...

Amid an ongoing tariff conflict with China and a retaliatory tariff dispute with Mexico and Canada on wide-ranging issues between plumbing to steel tariffs, US President Donald Trump had set off another set of rivalry and a new front of his trade war against European Union by imposing a tit-for-tat tariffs worth of $11 billion of EU products, raising tensions over a long-running transatlantic aircraft battle. (please see link for full story) Please note I am not familiar with this source. They seem professional, but the site says .org, rather than .com, and the author apparently does not use their...

Trade agreements have been greatly successful at lowering trade barriers around the world. But they're not without their flaws. Each agreement, in practice, tends to retain some counterproductive protectionist policies and may even export some bad policies. The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), or "new NAFTA," is no different. As soon as President Donald Trump got into office, he threatened to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. He imposed metal tariffs on steel and aluminum for the stated purpose of forcing Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the 25-year-old trade agreement. The result was the USMCA. Assessing the impact of...

U.S. producer prices increased by the most in five months in March, but underlying wholesale inflation was tame. The Labor Department said on Thursday its producer price index for final demand rose 0.6 percent last month, lifted by a surge in the cost of gasoline. That was the largest increase since last October and followed a 0.1 percent gain in February. In the 12 months through March, the PPI rose 2.2 percent after advancing 1.9 percent in February. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI would climb 0.3 percent in March and increase 1.9 percent on a year-on-year basis....

The head of the European Central Bank warned that global friction over trade — such as U.S. threats to impose more tariffs — is holding back the economy as he underlined the bank’s readiness to deploy more stimulus if needed. Mario Draghi said Wednesday that an improving jobs market and rising wages were helping the economy in the 19 countries that use the euro but uncertainties like trade disputes and Brexit are hurting it. “Global headwinds continue to weigh on euro area growth,” he told a news conference after the central bank kept its key interest rates and policy promises...

There’s a term called “zeroing” at the heart of this World Trade Organization decision that supports President Trump, Secretary Ross and USTR Lighthizer. When an industry product like Canadian softwood lumber is shipped into the U.S. for sale at a lower price than exists in Canada, the U.S. Commerce department calls that “dumping“. If the Canadian product is the same or higher in the U.S. as it is in Canada there is no dumping. No dumping is a “zero” or normal price differential; hence “zeroing”.

The World Trade Organization finds that the European Union subsidies to Airbus has adversely impacted the United States, which will now put Tariffs on $11 Billion of EU products! The EU has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 9, 2019 The United States is threatening to impose tariffs on European goods worth billions of dollars, intensifying a long-running dispute over aircraft subsidies. The United States Trade Representative proposed levies on hundreds of categories of exports on Tuesday in retaliation for the European Union allegedly providing subsidies...

The process – or non-process – of North Korean denuclearization and inter-Korean relations may well be decided on Thursday when two meetings take place: North Korea’s newly-inaugurated Supreme People’s Assembly meets and later that day, South Korean President Moon Jae-in meets US President Donald Trump in Washington. In the wake of February’s failed North Korea-US summit in Hanoi, which broke up without any agreement, experts will be watching the SPA meeting for clues toward future North Korean policy. But more mission-critical matters will be discussed in Washington. There, South Korea’s Moon faces the sternest task. In a bid to restart...

President Donald Trump on Tuesday acknowledged that closing the Southern border would negatively affect trade but said he is willing to do it anyway for security reasons. “Sure, it’s going to have a negative effect on the economy… but to me, trading is very important, the borders are very important, but security is what is most important,” he told reporters at the White House. “Let me just give you a little secret. Security is more important to me than trade. So we’re going to have a strong border or we’re going to have a closed border.” The president commented on...

In a quip destined to be one of the most memorable of Thursday night's vice presidential debate, Joe Biden jabbed Paul Ryan for seemingly comparing his political chops to those of the late President John F. Kennedy. Ryan was in the process of arguing that it's possible to cut tax rates while keeping in place tax preferences for middle class Americans and growing the economy — something he said has been done before — when Biden cut him off. "You can cut tax rates by 20% and still preserve these important preferences for middle class taxpayers," said Ryan, who was...

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said Monday that he's planning to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to expand the electric vehicle tax credit and link it to domestic manufacturing, calling the bill a way to help both the environment and the economy. "That's a pretty concrete application of how the Green New Deal can create jobs in the United States," Khanna, the first vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters. Under current law, people who purchase new electric vehicles can receive a tax credit of up to $7,500. The amount of the credit phases out after a manufacturer...

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is asking President Donald Trump to grant a presidential permit to extend the Alaska Railroad into Canada, supporting a Canadian company seeking to blaze a new path for Asian-bound products. Linking the Alaska and North American rail systems, an idea more than a century old, would cut at least two days travel time for Canadian and Lower 48 cargo headed to the Far East because of shorter sea routes, supporters say. “To me it was a no-brainer,” said Sean McCoshen, chief executive of Alberta to Alaska Railway Development Corp., speaking to the Senate Transportation Committee late...

How Are Those Steel Tariffs Working? Not so good. https://t.co/z5TwS7ZcyX— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) March 18, 2019

France is blocking the launch of trade talks with the US, exasperating its EU partners who fear a restart to a trade war with President Donald Trump, diplomats said on Friday. “The French are blocking, but they are isolated,” a European source told AFP after a Friday meeting of envoys from member states ended without an agreement. The envoys are struggling to decide a mandate to launch the transatlantic negotiations given the opposition of Paris that fears domestic blowback just months ahead of European elections, set for May 22 to 26. Berlin, however, strongly wants the deal in order to...

If the trade deal with China is not "great," the United States will not accept it, stated President Donald Trump on Friday. He stressed once again that the talks with Beijing are going "very well." (Please see link for full article)

What started as an American phenomenon is now being felt around the world as U.S. oil exports surge to levels unthinkable only a few years ago. The flow of crude will keep growing over the next few years with huge consequences for the oil industry, global politics and even whole economies. OPEC, for example, will face challenges keeping oil prices high, while Washington has a new, and potent, diplomatic weapon. American oil exports stepped up a gear last year, jumping more than 70 percent to just over 2 million barrels a day. Oil traders and shale executives believe U.S. crude...