Free Republic

A man-bites-dog story of momentous implications is unfolding in Washington: The US multinational establishment, having successfully championed free-trade orthodoxy for decades, may now be flirting with protectionist heresy--a stiff tariff against China to stanch America's hemorrhaging trade deficits. Fred Bergsten, the multinationals' leading economic authority, warns that the United States is in "big trouble," taking on foreign debt beyond anything any industrial nation has experienced and comparable to Mexico and Thailand just before they crashed in the 1990s. Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics, is lobbying elite circles to demand decisive action by the Bush Administration--an "import surcharge"...

An opposition party that is helping to keep Canada's minority Liberal government in power angrily accused Prime Minister Paul Martin on Tuesday of planning to push an agenda of closer integration with the United States. Martin is due to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) and Mexican President Vincente Fox in Texas on Wednesday for talks that will include discussions on how to improve the North American Free Trade Agreement. Canadian officials say they want to eliminate "nuisance tariffs" among the three partners and harmonize some continental business regulations. But the idea of any deeper...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union (news - web sites) resolved an internal wrangle on Friday over whether to assert now that sanctions on U.S. goods could be automatically reimposed in 2006 if the WTO backs its complaint about residual export tax breaks. AFP Slideshow: World Trade Organization Diplomats said trade representatives from the bloc's 25 nations agreed to put in place a legal provision for further punitive tariffs next year. However -- in what diplomats described as a compromise -- the member states also committed themselves to hold political consultations before imposing any new sanctions. Their agreement cleared the...

TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry. While millions of Europeans are sending aid to Thailand to help its recovery, trade authorities in Brussels are demanding that Thai Airlines, its national carrier, pays £1.3 billion to buy its double-decker aircraft. The demand will come as a deep embarrassment to Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner, whose officials started the negotiation before the disaster struck Thailand - killing tens of thousands of people and damaging its economy. While aid workers from...

MAIDEN, N.C. - Steve Dobbins in the past four years has closed 10 plants, laid off 1,400 workers and refocused his textile company on products that won't go toe-to-toe with competition from lower-cost factories in China, India and a handful of other nations. But he's still not certain that Carolina Mills, a company that today employs 1,200 in a 30-mile radius around this small North Carolina town, will survive a massive change in the clothing and textile markets slated for Jan. 1. "We're busting our cans trying to find ways [to compete]. We don't know whether or not we will...

Seafood importers are proposing to pay up to $100 million US to struggling southern U.S. shrimpers if they drop their drive to get tariffs slapped on imports of farmed shrimp from six Asian and South American countries. Thirty-one of the biggest shrimp importers recently circulated a proposal to consider levying a fee of a few cents on each pound of imports and distributing the money to shrimpers. "We propose to join in open dialogue with 'like minded' representatives of the domestic harvesting industry to explore methods and structures for helping domestic harvesters," the proposal said. "There remains both a need...

GENEVA: Chile yesterday became the eighth trading power to win World Trade Organisation approval to impose multi-million-dollar sanctions on US imports if Washington fails to repeal an anti-dumping law. In addition, a deadline of December 27 loomed for the United States to fix the legislation before Australia, Indonesia and Thailand have the possibility to ask for similar powers from the WTO's disputes settlement body (DSB). Seven other trading powers, including the European Union, had received the final WTO green light last month after the US Congress did not repeal the so-called Byrd amendment before an initial deadline of December 27,...

Volkswagen plans to build a car assembly plant in Russia's Moscow Region in 2006 at the latest, ITAR-TASS reported Friday, citing unspecified reports in the German media. Volkswagen is expected to officially announce its plans for the plant on December 20, the media reports said. Earlier this year, Volkswagen was reported to be considering the construction of a truck assembly plant in the Leningrad Region, as well as of unspecified production facilities in the Moscow Region.

MOSCOW, December 16 (RIA Novosti) - Two Japanese automotive companies, Honda Motor and Fuji Heavy Industries (which produces Subaru cars), are considering opening assembly plants in Russia, Finansovye Izvestia learned from a Russian deputy who had visited Japan with a delegation under a program on support for the automotive industry. The Japanese companies have already officially informed the Russian authorities about their intentions, he said. The deputy said a high-ranking official in the Russian Embassy in Japan had told him about the companies' investment plans. The latter's representatives had earlier asked the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association to provide them with...

NEW YORK - Whether it is the U.S., France or Japan, when a domestic industry runs into problems, the government is asked to help. Farmers want protection against imports, and subsidies for exports. American farmers hire lobbyists; French farmers burn tires. But they both get their protection. It is a different case for the U.S. auto industry. The domestic manufacturers face two formidable challenges: competition from foreign companies and "legacy costs," meaning the costs of health care and pensions. But the government hasn't been much help. Through October of this year, imports--cars and light trucks made outside of the U.S.,...

"Are you a good American? Are you moved by the distress of your fellow-ciitzens - twelve million of them unemployed - by the collapse of industry, the decline of trade, the spread of destitution, the halt of progress in your country?" If your answer is affirmative, then your duty is clear: "Americans must buy American goods to the exclusion of any other goods, of any other products, of any other services." Prosperity can only be restored by applying "our purchasing power to the resuscitation of the American market." Led by the chain of newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst and...

GENEVA (AP) -- The World Trade Organization on Friday approved sanctions on a wide range of American exports intended to punish the United States for failing to repeal what it considers protectionist legislation. The Bush administration indicated it would live with the new duties. "It's been approved," said Amina C. Mohamed, Kenyan ambassador to the WTO and chairwoman of the organization's dispute settlement body. The European Union and other plaintiffs sought formal WTO authorization to retaliate by imposing new duties against various U.S. products. Among the potential targets are cod, textiles, glassware, mobile homes and apples. The WTO dispute settlement...

TOKYO, October 15 (Itar-Tass) - The administration of Japan's Toyota car-maker has received more than 20 proposals regarding a possible location of a car assembly line which is expected to be built in Russia in the near future, St.Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko said in an interview with Itar-Tass. Matviyenko, in the course of her visit to Tokyo, met with leaders of many large Japanese companies, including Toyota officials. Toyota apparently made a corporate decision to build an assembly line in Russia, she said. The governor said the rivalry between Russian regions to host the assembly line was a normal thing....

SPRINGFIELD -- When the Meijer store in Rolling Meadows offered deeply discounted DVD players for its May grand opening, shoppers flooded the store and the $19 machines were gone within minutes. If Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Alan Keyes had his way, those DVD players likely would be more expensive. Bargain basement players usually come from China or other countries with cheap -- and from the U.S. viewpoint, questionable -- labor standards. Keyes supports taxing imports from such countries in an effort to put American workers and products on a more equal footing. "Our trade policies need to exact fairness for...

CLEVELAND - President Bush (news - web sites) is getting support from unlikely people in battleground states: some steelworkers who are grateful for temporary tariffs that helped the struggling steel industry begin rebounding. While experts say steel unions as a whole will support Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites), some pockets of workers liked how Bush handled the tariffs — a key campaign issue in such states as Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The 201 tariffs were imposed in March 2002 to shield struggling U.S. steel producers from foreign competition. The tariffs were supposed to be in place for...

I had an interesting experience earlier this month. I wrote an article for the New York Times on Bill Clinton's economic record. I concluded that, looking only at this aspect of his presidency, he wasn't so bad. In many respects, he was better than George W. Bush has been. Reading this, a number of commentators mistakenly thought I now think Mr. Clinton was a good president. This is a misreading of the point I was trying to make. I simply recited the facts. The budget went from deficit to surplus on Mr. Clinton's watch, and lower spending played a key...

Welcomed news from the U.S. Commerce Department Tuesday. For those who may have missed it, the Bush administration announced proposed tariffs on shrimp imports from China and Vietnam. This comes after finding that companies were dumping shrimp into the United States at artificially low prices. While we are usually cautious to call for such trade actions, Tuesday’s announcement by the Commerce Department is actually long overdue. Free trade is a good thing, when all sides play fair. Chinese and Vietnamese companies are not doing that. That is why we think the actions of the Bush administration, albeit we are sure...

YAROSLAVL - Four major automobile manufacturers from Germany and Japan are planning to start investing in Russia during the next two years, Russian Economy Minister German Gref told journalists yesterday. According to the minister, he has had several meetings with the management of four automobile concerns over the past 6 months. Two of these companies will start making investments this year, Gref specified. Speaking about import taxes on used foreign cars the minister said that the government was not going to raise them. In this case Russian car producers "increase prices for their cars not the quality of their automobiles."...

Kerry's message to Nevadans — essentially, "I feel your hypothetical pain" — testifies to his readiness to do whatever it takes to win. As does his vow last week that, if elected, he would renegotiate the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). He would try to force signatory nations (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and, soon, the Dominican Republic) to adopt labor and environmental standards more pleasing to him... Time was, Kerry was a free trader. Now he favors "fair trade," as defined by his labor allies. But he still is a critic of what he and likeminded...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration on Friday proposed new tariffs on imports of Chinese-made furniture, saying companies have been dumping millions of dollars of the wooden bedroom furniture into the United States at artificially low prices. The proposed tariffs ranged from 5 percent to 198 percent on such wood items as beds, dressers, armoires and desks, the International Trade Commission said.