Trump Taking aim at free trade

Failing Cheeto-Faced Ferret-Wearing Shit Gibbon's pugilistic campaign style led the then-candidate to take aim at a slew of targets in the run up to the 2016 election. Over the past week, it appears that Trump is finally as president setting his sights on one of his favorite punching bags: free trade.
Trump's predisposition toward protectionist trade policies — higher taxes on imports, increased domestic manufacturing, fewer multinational trade agreements — reared its head over the past week. His administration announced its first planned tariffs and hinted at plans for more. And Trump put the world's elite on notice during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"We cannot have free and open trade if some countries exploit the system at the expense of others," Trump said. "We support free trade, but it needs to be fair and it needs to be reciprocal. Because, in the end, unfair trade undermines us all."

Experts say the president and his administration seemed to push the further toward a protectionist stance — and could set the country on a path to a trade war.

Trump's obsession with trade deficits and tariffs is nothing new. In a 1990 interview with Playboy, the then-real estate mogul said his first act as president would be slapping a tariff on foreign cars.

"I’d throw a tax on every Mercedes-Benz rolling into this country and on all Japanese products, and we’d have wonderful allies again," Trump said.

Almost three decades later, the opening salvo in his trade fight as president came Monday, when the administration announced it would impose tariffs on imported solar cells and panels, and washing machines. Those followed small targets aimed at lumber, milk, and other goods in 2017.

The move seemed to indicate that Trump's campaign rhetoric may not have been all posturing. With a number of trade-related deadlines fast approaching, Trump may finally lean into a protectionist trade policy.

"While it may come as a surprise to some, we have been warning that the US administration, feeling emboldened by the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, would likely take on a more protectionist approach in 2018," Gregory Daco, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday.

The Trump administration will soon have to decide on possible tariffs on steel and aluminum products coming into the US. That decision has far broader implications for US manufacturing, said Michael Zezas, a public policy analyst at Morgan Stanley.

"We are watching carefully a few things that are important to determining whether this is just a temporary trade dispute or a broader protectionist push," Zezas told Business Insider. "International reaction that escalates matters and/or the US following through on other upcoming tariff opportunities in steel, aluminum, or intellectual property could all be factors that drive investor concern that this is more than a small scale change in trade policy."

eddie wrote:Your last sentence makes a lot of sense and is something I’ve said for years.

Maddog wrote:
It was dumb when Obama did and it's still dumb when Trump does it.  That's the thing about economics. It doesn't care who's doing it.  That makes economics much different than the typical poster on here.  

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Maddog wrote:
It was dumb when Obama did and it's still dumb when Trump does it.  That's the thing about economics. It doesn't care who's doing it.  That makes economics much different than the typical poster on here.  

The initial discussions over the TPP started with George Dubbya, with American "big business" writing the original proposals...  The origins  there, in turn go back to the North American Free Trade deals(US/Canada/Mexico..), where their foundations go back to the earlier George Bush and Bill Clinton admin's...

The "dumb" part of the proposed TPP deal was in allowing big multinationals to call the tunes --  Trump likes to portray that it was China, Japan, Canada and Oz who was providing the "bad deals" for American farmers, small and 'medium-sized' businesses and workers..

When the simple fact remains that it was the big American corporations prepared to screw everyone else over  --  America's own SMEs*, workers, local communities.

One of my chief disappointments with the Obama years was that failed to kick those US corporations' proposals, and lobbyists off the negotiating table..

Instead of simply dropping out of the deal, Team Trump should have got rid of the big businee lobbyists/negotiators --  and replaced them with representatives for the farmers groups, trade unions, and the small/local government sectors (i.e. community representations..).

Yet more proof of how little Trump understands about international trade and 'macro-economics'...

*  N.B.  'SMEs'  ==   Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

veya_victaous wrote:
the Irony is the TPP is actually a lot better now that the USA is out, since it was the one pushing all the worst elements around 'corporate rights' on everyone else.