Begun, the trade wars have.

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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby Cobra-D » Sat Jun 02, 2018 9:25 pm

Okay so a few months ago trump was talking about putting tarriffs on steel coming from other countries but decided to exempt most countries including our allie which thank god, imagine trying to pick a fight with our allies, man that would be stupid. Oh btw he decided to go ahead and pick a fight with our allies. We will be putting steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU, Canada and Mehico. Onvioisly those other countries weren’t super happy about this with EU having list of products from America to target and Canada taking stroking back with their own tariffs, which according to the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, is the strongest trade action it’s taken in the post-war era . Mexico are also considering their owe list of things to hit with tariffs including things like cheese, fruits and lamps.

Now a lot of leaders have commented on this but my favorite so far has come from Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau who said:

we have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the U.S. administration.

Aw he knows our government so well.
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby blehblah » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:32 pm

Reportedly, Trump and Trudeau had a somewhat testy phone call a short while back. Trudeau wasn't buying the national security angle.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/u ... th-canada/

In a telephone call on May 25, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked U.S. President Donald Trump how he could possibly consider Canada a threat to America’s national security – the ostensible reason for looming tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.

“Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?” Mr. Trump replied, in reference to the capture of Washington during the War of 1812.


While that's often been a British and Canadian punchline, apparently Trump didn't appear to be joking.

The reference itself is not entirely historically accurate. While the war was largely fought over control of Canada, which was then a British colony, the August, 1814, attack on Washington itself was carried out by British regulars and marines rather than colonial militia. The raid, made in revenge for the American burning of York – present-day Toronto – the previous year, saw the British briefly capture and set fire to the U.S. capital.


The keen observer of history will also recognize that Canada was formed in 1867. I guess we are to be held responsible for the actions of our proto-Canadian great-great-great grandfathers. I can understand why Trump would be personally concerned, since his grandfather emigrated from Germany in 1885, and surely felt the sting of the military glory lost a mere seventy-ish years before.

Wikipedia wrote:In 1885 Friedrick Trump emigrated from Kallstadt to the United States at age 16. As he did not yet serve the mandatory military duty of two years in the Kingdom of Bavaria, this emigration was illegal.


Yes, the vicarious sting of military glory lost is strong with the Trumps.

On the trade side (and this overlaps with the NAFTA thread), Trump is now musing about bilateral talks with Canada. Apparently, Trump is pissed because Canada didn't support the US against Mexico.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/u ... th-canada/

At least part of Mr. Trump’s ire toward Canada appears to come from dashed expectations, observers said. For more than a year, Mr. Trudeau publicly avoided any public criticism of the President, making his tough tariff response a surprise.

“Trump thought Canada was going to be the easiest country to play, and he’s disappointed that didn’t happen,” said Dunniella Kaufman, a Canadian trade lawyer based in Washington.

Sources with knowledge of the Trump administration’s thinking say the President’s annoyance with Ottawa has actually been building for nearly a year: When the Trump administration started NAFTA renegotiations last summer, it expected Canada to gang up on Mexico and help force it to give up auto jobs that had been lured south. When Canada instead formed a common front with Mexico against Mr. Trump’s protectionist demands, the United States was upset, the sources said.


Yup - the damned pesky Canadians, shockingly to Trump, didn't look at their position in these three-way talks and decide, "Hey, let's start by fucking-over the weakest guy in cahoots with the biggest guy, because the guy who is ten times bigger than me will totally be nice to me after, especially with such a reasonable and loyal, not to mention stable genius, in-charge, because that guy totally doesn't have a zero-sum outlook on life, the universe, and everything, so he'll be super-duper happy to help us #MCGA... which kinda sounds like a Scottish crow... but whatever, eh!"

It's not entirely clear if Trump is legally able to rip-up NAFTA. It's also not clear that bilateral talks would produce any clear advantage for the US. One would think it would simplify things, but given the level of integration between the three countries, it would be difficult to tease the threads of one set of talks out of the mix with the other set of talks. Finally, if the same 5-year sunset clause and American content in automobiles are put on the table - sticking points in the NAFTA talks - I don't see how bilateral talks would advance any more than NAFTA negotiations.

Trudeau could have played a different card. "Look, Donald, remember The Alamo? Totally all on Mexico, man. Really, them paying for the wall makes sense, you beautiful, sexy, genius. We just can't publicly support you on this, but know that between total bros, every Canadian remembers The Alamo, because we're all white right by you, right?"

Lastly, here is a WaPo editorial musing that Congress should take trade back from POTUS. Good luck with that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 8d8e9fb23a
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby Absentia » Thu Jun 07, 2018 2:55 pm

Have we sunken so low that people think Congress is going to do a better job with something?

I mean, yes, I guess we have. That's a chilling thought, right there.
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby blehblah » Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:01 pm

Trump gets off to a good start at the G7 summit with some serious math chops.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/201 ... group.html

Donald Trump arrived for the G7 summit Friday and called for Russia to be re-admitted into the group of global leaders after it was booted for annexing Crimea three years ago.

[...]

“It used to be the G8, because Russia was in it, and now Russia’s not in it,” said Trump, speaking to White House reporters before leaving Washington. Invoking his former rival Hillary Clinton, Trump touted how tough he is on Putin: “I have been Russia’s worst nightmare.”

“With that being said, Russia should be in this meeting. Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting? I would recommend, and it’s up to them, but Russia should be in the meeting. It should be a part of it.

“It may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run. And, in the G7, which used to be the G8, they threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in, because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”


And Chyna, let's go with Chyna. They know how to deal.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... t-customer

A $2.6 billion price tag to buy your way out of compliance with U.S. law sounds like a lot of money.

When you’re backed by the government of the world’s second-largest economy, that’s a bargain.

The cost to China of having ZTE Corp. locked out of the U.S. technology supply chain can’t be counted in dollars, cents or yuan, which is why Beijing will be more than happy with the mulligan the telecom-equipment maker was given.


Trump isn't attending the G7 because he likes to travel. He's there to set fire to it.
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby blehblah » Sun Jun 10, 2018 10:16 pm

Trump did an excellent job of being Trump at the G7.

He showed-up late to a meeting about empowering women.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trump-s ... -1.3966640

A tardy Donald Trump created a distraction Saturday when he showed up late for a G7 meeting on women's empowerment.

[...]

His arrival was impossible to miss as security personnel had to open a path for Trump through a mob of journalists, many of whom were holding large cameras.

Trump stopped at the edge of the room and flashed a big smile in Trudeau's direction before continuing to his seat.

The rapid-fire clicks of cameras intensified as Trump made his way into the room -- to the point that the noise of all the cameras almost drowned out Hudon's remarks.

Fellow G7 leaders stared at Trump as he slowly made his way to his seat, which was across the table from Trudeau and next to International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde.


Trump decided to leave early to head to Singapore for his meeting with Kim Jong-Un. He ended-up arriving thirty-six hours early. It's fine, though - he only missed some climate change stuff.

On his way out, he shat upon Canada, for... reasons.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-s ... SKCN1J50H3

“PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!” the U.S. president tweeted.


In the same rant-by-tweet, he pulled-out of a communique which the G7 leaders had tried to pull together (and which was agreed upon).

What seemed to get Trump so excited was a Trudeau press conference.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/10/politics ... index.html

President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of undermining the US and its allies with comments he made at the G7 summit.

"It was a betrayal," Kudlow said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Kudlow was speaking following the G7 summit in Canada on Saturday. As Trump flew from the summit with US allies to a planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, he lashed out at Trudeau for what he said were his "false statements" at a news conference and said the US would not endorse the G7 communique, a negotiated statement on shared priorities among the group.


And http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/white-h ... -1.4700061

"There's a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door," trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News.

He blasted Trudeau for having positive conversations with the president during the G7 meetings, then changing his tune in a "stunt press conference."

Trudeau's comments only included statements he's previously made, the Prime Minister's Office pointed out in a statement, adding that Trudeau had made those remarks privately to Trump as well.


Uhm... okay. These people look like adults, and their birth certificates probably indicate they are, by now, adults, yet this is how some of the highest-level representatives of the mightiest nation on the planet behave? I'd like to see those birth certificates, because something is amiss.

Trump also doesn't like Canada's dairy system.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-t ... -1.4699550

U.S. President Donald Trump says Canada will have to dismantle its supply-managed dairy system or else Americans will dramatically curtail its trading relationship — a shot across the bow at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has vocally defended the country's existing agricultural policies in the face of U.S. opposition.

"No tariffs, no barriers, that's the way it should be and no subsidies. In other words, let's say Canada, where we have tremendous tariffs. The U.S. pays tremendous tariffs on dairy, as an example, 270 per cent ... we don't want to pay anything, why should we pay anything?" Trump said, referencing the Canadian tariff imposed on U.S. and foreign milk imports.


This article explains what that's all about: https://www.theguardian.com/world/comme ... -trade-war

Basically, Canada has a supply management system. Only so much dairy is produced, which keeps prices at a profitable level. The US subsidizes dairy, and has a significant over-supply problem which keeps prices below profitability. While that might otherwise favour exports, the entire world has a dairy overproduction problem. Despite having banned Bovine Growth Hormone long ago, which the US has not, Canada imports about five times more dairy products than it exports to the US.

If Canada dropped all dairy tariffs, we'd obviously have to dismantle our supply system and start subsidizing farmers. One might recognize that as a great way to put a lot of farmers out of business, cost consumers money one way or the other, all while not solving anything.

Trump's threats about imposing tariffs on auto imports doesn't really add-up, either.

https://www.ft.com/content/50e7bada-6a4 ... 230fa67aec

Trump's world view seems to be roughly captured in a press conference he gave at the G7.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -be-robbed

In a bravado performance, he also described Russia’s annexation of Crimea as “something that happened a while ago”, warned in the bluntest of terms against economic retaliation for the US’s introduction of tariffs, and described the way the EU treated the US as brutal.

Referring to his longstanding complaint about trade and his decision to impose unilateral tariff barriers on metals, he denied the move was contentious, but admitted that he had used strong language to emphasise that the current position could not continue.

“It’s not a question of ‘I hope it will change’”, he said. “It’s going to change, 100%. Tariffs are going to come way down because people cannot continue to do that. We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing. And that ends.

“If they retaliate, they’re making a mistake because you see we have a tremendous trade imbalance ... There’s very bad spirit when we have a big trade imbalance and they keep raising it so we never catch up. That’s not a good thing to do. And we have very, very strong measures that take care of that ... the numbers are so astronomically against them ... we win that war a thousand times out of a thousand.”


Right - to sum-up, Trump started the G7 by complaining that Russia should be included, because, you know, invading a European country is sure to be a forgivable offence to European partners. He then bumbled around, wobbled into a meeting late, gave a presser where he threatened, erm, the world, and then left early after agreeing to a communique. Because Trudeau said things he has said before, and privately told Trump he would say on more than one occasion, Trump reneged on the communique and shat all over the whole thing, and thereby everyone involved, from the comfort of Air Force One, via Twitter.

Okay. Well. At least next week in Singapore, the kind of war Trump might bumble his way into won't be about trade. Silver lining, all!
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby blehblah » Sun Jul 01, 2018 4:55 pm

Happy Canada Day!

To celebrate, Canada is letting the world know that we are serious about this trade war thing, especially when it comes to ketchup.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/heinz- ... -1.4728691

Faced with a 10 per cent tariff on its ketchup and other goods, American food company, Kraft Heinz is opening a new front in Canada's ketchup wars.

Heinz took a public relations beating after moving its ketchup production to the U.S. in 2014, enabling Canadian-made French's ketchup to steal the spotlight. Now the company, which merged with Kraft in 2015, has begun its own PR campaign to highlight its Canadian connections, including the products it still makes in this country.

"We are a good corporate citizen, and truly part of the Canadian fabric," said Av Maharaj, vice president of corporate affairs for Kraft Heinz Canada, shortly before the tariffs took effect on July 1.

[...]

According to market research company, Euromonitor International, from 2016 to 2017, French's Canadian ketchup sales more than doubled to $11.1 million while Heinz's fell by five per cent to $126.4 million.

[...]

Last week at a Senate hearing, Republican Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, where Kraft Heinz is partly based, expressed concern over how the ketchup tariffs will hurt the company. He also offered a suggestion how it could fix its woes.

"The solution for them to be able to continue to sell their product in Canada would be to shut down their U.S. factory and move to Canada," he said.


French's is also American-owned, and Heinz still has plenty of production in Canada (technically, they lease-back the plant in Ontario which they sold, though they no longer produce ketchup there). If they are roughly the same price, I'll buy French's on principle, but they are both overly-sweet versions of what ketchup used to be. I would happily switch to another brand if it were actual ketchup, rather than the high-fructose corn starch with a splash of tomato paste crap which my kids adore (by design).

Make no mistake, though - Canadians take their ketchup, in all forms, very seriously.

Canada rolled-out more tariffs than the ketchup one:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44635490

Canada's countermeasures against the Trump administration's steel and aluminium levies have come into effect.

On Sunday, the day the country celebrates its national holiday, Canada imposed a 25% tariff on assorted US metals products.

Tariffs of 10% have also been imposed on over 250 other US goods like beer kegs, whiskey and orange juice.

Canada-US trade tensions are high amidst the metals levies and North American Free Trade Agreement talks.

The tit-for-tat duties are estimated to total C$16.6bn (£9.5bn), representing the 2017 value of Canadian metals exports affected by the US measures.

[...]

On Friday, Canada also announced it would make C$2bn available to defend the steel and aluminium industry, including funds to support affected businesses.

"Our approach is and will be this: we will not escalate and we will not back down," Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said while announcing the funds.

The EU and Mexico have already imposed their own counter-tariffs on American goods.

EU's duties on £2.4bn ($3.1bn) of products such as bourbon whiskey, motorcycles and orange juice took effect on 22 June.

Mexico put tariffs on $3bn worth of American products ranging from steel to blueberries and bourbon.

The tariffs, which provoked international outrage, have also triggered complaints against the US to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to North American Free Trade (Nafta) dispute panels.


But hey, we're still buds.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/201 ... v-gen.html

U.S. President Donald Trump is thanking Canada for its "partnership on the global stage" in a Canada Day message to Gov. Gen. Julie Payette.

In a written statement from the U.S. Embassy, Trump offers his "sincerest congratulations to all Canadians" as they celebrate the national July 1 holiday.

He says the U.S. and Canada "stand firmly together against threats to our shared democratic values and our freedoms and way of life."


Image
Pictured: mutual happy-pants.
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby cmsellers » Tue Jul 24, 2018 10:49 pm

So Trump is now going to spend twelve billion via three USDA programs to subsidize farmers harmed by "unwarranted trade retaliations" to Trump's perfectly reasonable tariffs. GOP officials are criticizing it, but so far do not look like they are making any efforts to end the laws which apparently allow Trump to do this. Because he is using the mechanisms which allow farm subsidies, and farm subsidies are something which will probably never, ever end due to the outsize influence states like Nebraska and North Dakota have on the Senate.
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby sunglasses » Wed Jul 25, 2018 1:53 pm

Remember: universal health care for your citizen? Ebil socialism
Bailing out (mostly large corporate farmers?): totally ok
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Re: Begun, the trade wars have.

Postby Absentia » Mon Aug 20, 2018 5:49 pm



John Oliver covered the trade war last night and did a pretty solid job of describing how catastrophically stupid Trump's policies are.
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