Free Republic

Despite indications that much of President Obama’s agenda is meeting intra-party skepticism all over Capitol Hill, there is one policy nexus where congressional leaders are still doggedly determined to move the country left: energy and the environment. Speaker Pelosi will reportedly allow a vote on the controversial Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” legislation at the end of this week. And it gets even better. Not content to tempt political fate by imposing huge carbon taxes on the American middle class, Democrats have added a provision which imposes stiff tariffs on our trading partners if they don’t adopt aggressive carbon restrictions of their own....

Team Obama floats a carbon tariff. One of President Obama's applause lines is that his climate tax policies will create new green jobs "that can't be outsourced." But if that's true, why is his main energy adviser floating a new carbon tariff on imports? Welcome to the coming cap and trade war. AP Energy Secretary Steven Chu made the protectionist point during an underreported House hearing this month, when he said tariffs and other trade barriers could be used as a "weapon" to force countries like China and India into cutting their own CO2 emissions. "If other countries don't impose...

Talk about shades of Smoot-Hawley, the 1930 tariff act that was designed to protect American jobs but, not too surprisingly, crippled industries relying on international trade when other nations retaliated. Production kept on plunging and unemployment kept on rising, extending the Depression. In today's extremely global economy, we shudder to think how much worse the consequences today might be. The Mexican trade war may just be getting revved up, thanks to the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress ending a Bush administration pilot program that allowed a limit of 97 Mexican long-haul truck drivers into the United States (whereas, under...

Protectionism is always bad policy. But protectionism during an economic downturn, after taxes have already risen, and in addition to a massive $2 trillion tax on energy consumption is, well, not good.Yet that is exactly what Energy Secretary David Chu seems to be edging towards.In response to the notion that American companies will move overseas when CO2 is capped, Secretary Chu suggested that the U.S. simply levy a carbon tariff on imports.This is why Secretaries of Energy should stick with energy and not economic policy. This is why free-markets work and command and control economies do not.At any rate, the...

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Mexico on Monday said it would place tariffs on nearly 90 US products after Washington canceled a program that allowed some trucks from Mexico to operate in the United States. There is to be an "increase in customs duty on almost 90 industrial and agricultural products," Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said in a statement. Ruiz said the increase would represent some 2.4 billion dollars, but did not name the products. . . . . . The move drew a sharp rebuke from US Senator John McCain, who said he regretted Mexico's decision and also lashed...

By the choices we make we define ourselves. We reveal our biases and beliefs. And so, too, do our institutions. In writing the $789 billion stimulus bill, Congress revealed that, for all its "Buy American" blather, it does not truly put America first. It does not believe that 10 million jobless Americans, in the country their fathers built, should receive any preference in hiring 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens who broke into this country and owe her no loyalty, allegiance or love. Is this a slur on the patriotism of some of our congressmen? You betcha. What other...

Imagine that you and I are in a rowboat. I commit the stupid act of shooting a hole in my end of the boat. Would it be intelligent for you to respond by shooting a hole in your end of the boat? [snip to fit the excerpt rule; read the full article. NVA] Both of these scenarios are applicable to the Bush administration's 30 percent steel tariffs imposed last year. Those tariffs caused the domestic price for some steel products, such as hot-rolled steel, to rise by as much as 40 percent. The clear beneficiaries of the Bush steel tariffs...

"Compare and contrast, what international trade mistakes made by Presidents Herbert Hoover and Barack Obama helped lead the US into great depressions?" If President Obama is not careful that may very well be a question on future Social Studies Tests. Back in 1930 The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was signed into law. It raised US tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels. The Smoot-Hawley Act almost completly halted U.S.-European trade the start of the Great Depression. Although the tariff act was passed after the stock-market crash of 1929, historians consider the political rhetoric leading up to the passing of...

The butter mountains and milk lakes that made Brussels a byword for waste and inefficiency are to make a return in response to plummeting world dairy prices. EU officials are to buy up and store 30,000 tonnes of butter and 109,000 tonnes of skimmed milk powder in the next few months as part of a series of moves agreed yesterday to use the EU budget to prop up European farmers. The U-turn, after several years of liberalising free trade policies, was criticised by producers around the world as a step back into the protectionism that led to the Great Depression...

Mercantilism [emphasis added]: An economic doctrine that flourished in Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Mercantilists held that a nation's wealth consisted primarily in the amount of gold and silver in its treasury. Accordingly, mercantilist governments imposed extensive restrictions on their economies to ensure a surplus of exports over imports. In the eighteenth century, mercantilism was challenged by the doctrine of laissez-faire. When Barack Obama talks—and talks—about the future, does he really mean "back to the future"? You have to wonder after reading the column by one of his economic advisors in today's LA Times. In Renewing America's...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vowed to aid small farmers by targeting agricultural tariffs and subsidies doled out to agribusiness. "If I am elected president, I will seek an end to all agricultural tariffs, and to all farm subsidies that are not based on clear need. I will veto any bill containing special-interest favors and corporate welfare in any form," McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery to the National Restaurant Association in Chicago. McCain, an Arizona senator, said one of the biggest obstacles to opening up foreign markets to American farmers is found in...

Last year, a German tourist traveling through China spotted a set of nested salt and pepper shakers: The slender cylinder of pepper rested perfectly in the center of the doughnut-shaped salt holder. It was a sleek design. It was also, he recognized, an almost exact copy of the successful Two-in-One salt-and-pepper set made by Geislingen (Germany)-based WMF, and he sent it to the company. As a result, the maker of the imitation—Shantou Lian Plastic Products of Guangdong, China—is one of 13 winners of the Plagiarius Award, a dubious honor bestowed on makers and distributors of the "best" (which is to...

The die is now cast. As the euro brushes $1.50 against the dollar, it is already too late to stop the eurozone hurtling into a full-fledged economic and political crisis. We now have to start asking whether the EU itself will survive in its current form. It takes eighteen months or so for the full effects of currency changes to feed through, so the damage will snowball late next year and beyond into 2009. Although "damage" is a relative term. As Airbus chief Thomas Enders warned in a speech to the Hamburg workers last night, Europe's champion plane-maker - the...

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 significantly raised import restrictions, reduced trade and prosperity, provoked protectionist retaliation by foreign governments, and damaged the spirit of peace, cooperation, and goodwill.

BILOXI, Mississippi (Reuters) - Officials from the Federal Reserve on Saturday warned of dangers from a rising tide of trade disputes and the harmful impact on what one otherwise termed a "resilient" United States economy. Three regional Fed presidents steered clear of current economic or monetary policy topics at a panel discussion on the southern U.S. economy at the Southern Governors' Association conference. The presidents of the St. Louis, Dallas and Atlanta Feds, respectively, mostly focused on the dangers of protectionism and the need for an educated and flexible work force to cope with rising foreign competition. The governors convened...

Some good may yet come from the successful putsch by the staff of the World Bank against Paul Wolfowitz. A great deal of good, in fact. Not that we should cheer the ability of an overpaid staff, besotted with anti-war fervour, to zap its president, first by urging him to resolve personally the conflict created by his girlfriend’s employment at the bank, and then by attacking him for doing just that. But this cloud has more than one silver lining. The first is that it finally made President Bush realise that he has been too attentive to those who advise...

BEIJING (AP) -- China reported a sharp monthly drop in its ballooning trade surplus Tuesday and angrily rejected two U.S. complaints filed with the WTO over product piracy and market access for American movies, music and books.

LUKE, Md. — For years the residents of this economically distressed hollow in the Appalachians have watched textile mills, glass factories and tire makers close down one after the other. Now its lone remaining big factory — “the last man standing,” as the production manager at the paper mill here put it — is threatened by imports of cheaper paper made in China. We’re still the economic engine for this whole area,” said Scott Graham, the production manager, referring to the river valley and forested hills surrounding the mill. “But our operations cannot compete with these below-cost imports.” It is...

President Bush last week called on the nation to invest in new technology to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The president set specific targets for the U.S., calling for a 20% reduction in gasoline use over the next 10 years. He said that a boost in the use of alternative fuels such as ethanol would account for most of that reduction, cutting gasoline use by 15%. Stricter gas-mileage standards for vehicles, he said, should lead to the other 5% reduction. The president also proposed doubling the nation's strategic-petroleum reserves to hedge against oil-supply interruptions. Increased calls for energy independence come...

U.S. trade panel ends steel tariff Carmakers say move will cut costs By James P. Miller Tribune staff reporter Published December 15, 2006 In a move that cheered automakers but angered domestic steel producers, the U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday eliminated most of its controversial tariffs on carbon-steel imports. The ITC's ruling brings an end to what has been an unusual, high-profile feud between two American smokestack industries battered and dramatically altered by global competition: Big Steel and its crucial customer, the auto industry. The commission's action will lower the price auto companies pay for steel, and bring a...