Posted on 03/08/2018 12:05:01 PM PST by reaganaut1
SANTIAGO, Chile — A trade pact originally conceived by the United States to counter China’s growing economic might in Asia now has a new target: President Trump’s embrace of protectionism.
A group of 11 nations — including major United States allies like Japan, Canada and Australia — signed a broad trade deal on Thursday that challenges Mr. Trump’s view of trade as a zero-sum game filled with winners and losers.
Covering 500 million people on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the pact represents a new vision for global trade as the United States threatens to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on even its closest friends and neighbors.
Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from an earlier version of the agreement, then known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a year ago as one of his first acts in office. The resuscitated deal is undeniably weaker without the participation of the world’s biggest economy, but it serves as a powerful sign of how countries that have previously counted on American leadership are now forging ahead without it.
...
The new agreement — known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — drops tariffs drastically and establishes sweeping new trade rules in markets that represent about a seventh of the world’s economy. It opens more markets to free trade in agricultural products and digital services around the region. While American beef faces 38.5 percent tariffs in Japan, for example, beef from Australia, New Zealand and Canada will not.
Once it goes into effect, the agreement is expected to generate an additional $147 billion in global income, according to an analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Its backers say it also bolsters protections for intellectual property and includes language that could prod members to improve labor conditions.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Most of whom cannot afford a pot to piss in. Although I am surprised to see Japan in the mix. We start a tariff on car parts and they will sing a different tune. “
Perfectly well said! The Japanese “assemble” cars here, but their high-value parts ( i.e. engines, drive trains, steering and brake parts) are made in Japan and sent here to be married up to a bunch of relatively cheap sheet metal and upholstery.
American cars in Japan are a “novelty.” I was in Kyoto ( which has very narrow streets, and here came a new Chevy Crew Cab Dualie! The damned thing almost didn’t fit.
” It opens more markets to free trade in agricultural products and digital services around the region. While American beef faces 38.5 percent tariffs in Japan, for example, beef from Australia, New Zealand and Canada will not.”
Boy, Trump’s supporters will really be pissed if his policies wind up lowering the price of American steaks!/sarc
Maybe we should be manufacturing it all in the non-union south, so that our own market prices will go down, making our steel and aluminum more competitive with the world.
Forced unionism: sending the working poor to the dumpsters since the Great Depression.
Do you not understand why the U.S. is
both an importer and an exporter of crude oil?
Good for them. Losers lose. They can join whatever they want with their anemic economies.
It’s hardly a “challenge to Trump”. It’s the TPP. We don’t want to be a part of it so they continued on without us. What were they supposed to do? Say “since the U.S. isn’t a part then there’s no point in going on?”
Simple, they can purchase Canadian Crude @ $36.00 bbl US and export West Texas Crude for $55.00 bbl U.S. until such time as Venezuelan and Mexican crude stocks dry up, expected to happen sometime next year.
We do manufacture steel and aluminum. Tens of millions of tons each year.
It's an important export market for U.S. beef manufacturers. You're talking about less money for farmers. They voted for Trump, too.
How much do we use?
More than we manufacture. But you can say that about just about any import.
I think this is a national security decision disguised as a trade issue and the trade issue is useful for negotiating other trade deals.
Exactly. This is Trump using the Big Stick.
And don’t give me that jibber-jabber about Free Trade, there’s never been any such thing. If anything, the end result of this will be closer to “free trade” than what we have now.
Where is this a national security issue? For God's sake, we depend on China for all military systems dependent on rare earth elements for their manufacture. We are dependent on China for batteries, for computer chips, for Lord knows what else. That is a national security issue. Steel isn't. We manufacture more than enough for defense needs and our overseas suppliers are allies. Considering these tariffs a national security issue is nonsense.
“Don’t have a clue why we are selling oil overseas, should be $2.00 a gallon for gas here.”
Get rid of the tax on it and it is under $2.00 a gallon. Remove the state tax and in some places gas would come in under a buck fitty.
“Forced unionism: sending the working poor to the dumpsters since the Great Depression.”
Trump is banking on a SCOTUS decision that would effectively make every state a right to work state.
That one is still mourning the Cubanadian.
They are just like Hillary. Still blaming anyone else for their self righteous loserism.
Losers do not understand winning. They think that if a person wins, someone else must lose. That's not how Trump looks at it. He looks at how to create wealth where none was before. Everyone benefits. Yes, the people at the top benefit most, but he is of the school of thought that "a rising tide lifts all boats."
Let me throw out a dumb example of loser mentallity. I invited a person from church over to my house for the first time. As she came up the front walk, she noticed my begonia plants in full bloom. "Well, I have begonia plants, TOO!" she whined, out of the clear blue, as if I had bragged about my begonias (I hadn't; it wouldn't have occurred to me to do so) or as if I were growing them to spite her.
Losing is a loser state of mind. Trump has a winning state of mind: "I want to do well, and everyone on my team (in my community, my area of responsibility, etc) is going to do better because of it."
People who hate him feel like losers when he succeeds. It's as simple as that.
I know something about farming, living on one and all.
Could be plausible under the Contracts Clause or the 9th Amendment.
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