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BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday issued a $50 billion list of U.S. goods including soybeans and small aircraft for possible tariff hikes in an escalating technology dispute with Washington that companies worry could set back the global economic recovery. The country’s tax agency gave no date for the 25 percent increase to take effect and said that will depend on what President Donald Trump does about U.S. plans to raise duties on a similar amount of Chinese goods. Beijing’s list of 106 products included the biggest U.S. exports to China, reflecting its intense sensitivity to the dispute over American...

Richard Epstein contrasts two recent actions by the Trump Administration — the imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum, and the blocking of a foreign company’s attempts to take over an American tech firm — to demonstrate when national security concerns justify restrictions on trade ... and when they don’t.

MSNBC host Ali Velshi patronized a steel worker on his show Friday by making the assumption that he wouldn't want his son to become a steel worker. Scott Sauritch, the president of United Steelworkers Union Local 2227, appeared on the show to discuss his support for President Donald Trump's newly announced tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports. "So let me ask you this, Scott. You saw this trend in the 80s. You saw the imported steel was hurting the industry. I guess my question is for steel workers around America as I discussed with...

Congress is preparing assail China for protectionist policies, like a 105.4% tariff on US poultry. But anyone who thinks America is a perfect practitioner of free trade needs to wake up. The International Trade Commission lists over 12,000 specific tariffs on imports to America. Hundreds of agricultural, textile, and manufacturing items are highly protected. So are obscure items like live foxes. -Non-specific dairy products -- 20% tariff on imports -Most vegetables -- 20% tariff -Asparagus and sweet corn -- 21.3% tariff -Synthetic outerwear -- 28.2% tariff

Business leaders from nearly every American industry are furious with President Trump right now. They’ve been pressuring his administration to back off from its plan to add steep tariffs on importedsteel and aluminum, which are used to make everything from cars to boats and even soup cans. But the president has waved off their concerns. On Thursday afternoon, Trump is expected to sign an order directing the Commerce Department to add the 25 percent levy on steel and the 10 percent levy on aluminum. He did say, however, that his administration will exempt Canada and Mexico from the tariffs for...

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said on Thursday that he will introduce legislation to nix President Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum imports just minutes after they were announced. "I will immediately draft and introduce legislation to nullify these tariffs, and I urge my colleagues to pass it before this exercise in protectionism inflicts any more damage on the economy," Flake said in a statement. Trump announced that he would levy the penalties — a 25 percent tariff for steel and 10 percent on aluminum — during a White House event. Canada and Mexico are exempted amid larger trade negotiations, Trump...

March 8 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Thursday, joined by steel and aluminum workers at the White House, imposed his promised industrial tariffs -- 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on foreign-made aluminum. Trump signed the tariff proclamations Thursday afternoon in a meeting with industry workers and officials -- ushering in fiscal penalties that have drawn ire from world leaders and sparked fears of a possible trade war. "A nation that does not protect property at home cannot protect its property abroad," Trump said. The White House said Canada and Mexico will initially be excluded from the...

In a surprising turn of events, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken to social media to make a case for President Trumps recently proposed tariffs. President Trump published a tweet yesterday stating that China was asked to develop a yearly plan for the One Billion Dollar reduction in their trade deficit with the United States. President Trump was well received during his visit to China earlier this year and notes this by saying that U.S. relations with China are very good and that he looked forward to seeing what ideas they came up with. But, President Trump urged that the...

President Trump warned on Saturday that he would apply higher taxes on imported European cars if the European Union carried through on its threat to retaliate against his proposed stiff new tariffs on steel and aluminum. “If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S.,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter from Florida, where he was spending part of the weekend. “They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!”...

President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports have many economists and lawmakers worried about a coming trade war. But workers and others in this community, where steel has been made for well over a century, see a chance for more jobs and bigger paychecks. ... He said workers have had a wage freeze since 2014, and added, “Hopefully better wages and benefits come from this.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican President Donald Trump’s market-jolting promise to slap heavy U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports has earned him praise from an unusual quarter - Democratic lawmakers. Some Democrats, mainly from Rust Belt states, but from other areas too, hailed the president’s plan for tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

Tariffs are a wonderful idea, aren’t they? A tariff – technically, a tax on an imported good, usually as a percentage of the good's value – sounds almost too good to be true. A tariff raises money on imports, but encourages Americans to stop importing, and to buy local goods instead of foreign; it serves a foreign policy purpose by punishing our enemies, and it helps pay for seaports and border protection. Quite a multifaceted, targeted tool. It’s like one of those magical diet pills that helps you get thinner in the waist, broader in the shoulders and chest, make...

BERLIN — The European Union will hit back at the heart of the United States, slapping tariffs on products like Harley-Davidsons, Kentucky bourbon and bluejeans, if President Trump goes ahead with a plan to place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the president of the bloc’s executive arm vowed on Friday. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, made the remarks to the German news media in reaction to the proposed tariffs. Mr. Junker said the plans to tax the American goods, produced in the home states of key Republic leaders, had not yet been finalized, but amounted to treating...

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) on Thursday blasted President Trump’s move to place new tariffs on foreign-made steel and aluminum as “terribly counterproductive” and warned of retaliation from trading partners. Roberts has pressed Trump and senior administration officials in recent months to be careful in renegotiating trade arrangements so as not to invite retaliatory tariffs against U.S. agricultural exports. “Every time you do this, you get a retaliation, and agriculture is the number one target. I think this is terribly counterproductive for the ag economy,” Roberts said. Asked why Trump hasn’t appeared to heed the concerns of GOP...

POTUS Trump speaks simple truths the Establishment Media chooses to ignore. These are truths that concern real jobs for real Americans that would help to lift up a struggling Middle Class. One of those truths is how China has economically raped the United States for decades costing millions of jobs, and likely trillions in economic growth. Mr. Trump is demanding this must end and he’s 100% correct as the following excerpt from The Weekly Standard makes abundantly clear: —————- China has announced that it will soon be marketing its cars in the United States. The People’s Republic is the largest...

Back in April, President Trump slapped tariffs of around 20 percent on the Canadian softwood lumber industry. At the time, I wrote that it would cause lumber prices to rise, citing estimates that prices could increase by around 6.4 percent. Well, it turns out I was wrong, and lumber prices have not risen by around 6 or 7 percent. Instead, they’ve risen by much more since the spring—as much as 25 percent. One contributing factor for this spike is not hard to see. Tariffs are taxes on the consumer, restricting the consumer’s options when purchasing a product. The levies make...

Despite having no authorization from Congress, the Bush administration has launched extensive working-group activity to implement a trilateral agreement with Mexico and Canada. The membership of the working groups has not been published, nor has their work product been disclosed, despite two years of massive effort within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The groups, working under the North American Free Trade Association office in the Department of Commerce, are to implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP, signed by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, on...

The Trump administration is taking retaliatory action against Canada over a trade dispute, moving to impose a 20% tariff on softwood lumber that is typically used to build single-family homes. In an interview Monday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the tariff will be applied retroactively and imposed on Canadian exports to the U.S. of about $5 billion a year. He said the dispute centers on Canadian provinces that have been allegedly allowing loggers to cut down trees at reduced rates and sell them at low prices. The determination that Canada improperly subsidizes its exports is preliminary, and the Commerce Department...

The 2016 election was a referendum on the imbalanced global trading system. It lost. President Donald Trump’s victory and Bernie Sanders’ insurgency both drew urgency and energy from the millions of livelihoods our trade deficits have cost. The vast U.S. trade deficit siphons away hundreds of billions of dollars each year, has cost the U.S. millions of well-paid manufacturing jobs, and has slowed U.S. economic growth to a crawl. President Trump won the election by promising to address the massive loss of American manufacturing jobs.   As Trump has rightly noted, the chronic U.S. trade deficits reflect, principally, a...

Anyone who believes Democrats own exclusive opposition to Donald Trump are completely ignoring the deliberate construct of the 2015/2016 republican primary. There are just as many -if not more- natural enemies within the Republican apparatus as there are within the Democrat group. “America-First” is antithetical to the UniParty.Again, prior to Donald Trump there was one party in Washington DC, “The UniParty”. President Donald Trump represented a second party, an independent approach toward legislative and economic priority. He was not a third choice, he was the second option.Within the ‘right-side’ of the UniParty you have Republicans. Within the republican party...