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There is NO SUCH THING A FREE TRADE.
Trade agreement treaties signed, sealed and delivered by the World Trade Organization specify trade tariffs. To change them unilaterally, the US would be in infraction of those agreements. Of course, Donald Dork could not care less.
From the Economist here: The threat to world trade. The rules-based system is in grave danger
Donald Dork is up to his "antics" once again. Here's a PotUS who LOST THE POPULAR-VOTE behaving like a sick kid who "owns the sandbox".
Will this nonsense ever end? Yeah, when American voters find once again their sanity and vote him out of office in the PotUS elections of November, 2019.
Let this sad episode in American history be a lesson to all when selecting future heads of government ...
Trade agreement treaties signed, sealed and delivered by the World Trade Organization specify trade tariffs. To change them unilaterally, the US would be in infraction of those agreements. Of course, Donald Dork could not care less.
From the Economist here: The threat to world trade. The rules-based system is in grave danger
Every inhabitant of the Oval Office since Jimmy Carter has imposed some kind of protectionist curbs on trade, often on steel. Nor will Mr Trump’s vow to put 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminium by themselves wreck the economy: they account for 2% of last year’s $2.4trn of goods imports, or 0.2% of GDP. If this were the extent of Mr Trump’s protectionism, it would simply be an act of senseless self-harm. In fact, it is a potential disaster—both for America and for the world economy.
Rough trade
This danger has several dimensions. One is the risk of tit-for-tat escalation. After the EU said it would retaliate with sanctions on American goods, including bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorbikes, Mr Trump threatened exports of European cars.
The second danger springs from Mr Trump’s rationale. The tariffs are based on a little-used law that lets a president protect industry on grounds of national security. That excuse is self-evidently spurious. Most of America’s imports of steel come from Canada, the European Union, Mexico and South Korea, America’s allies. Canada and Mexico look set to be temporarily excluded—but only because Mr Trump wants leverage in his renegotiation of the North American Free-Trade Agreement, which has nothing to do with national security. Mr Trump is setting a precedent that other countries are sure to exploit to protect their own producers, just as spuriously.
It is not clear whether other countries can respond legally when national security is invoked in this way. This puts the World Trade Organisation (WTO) into a rat trap. Either Mr Trump will provoke a free-for-all of recrimination and retaliation that the WTO’s courts cannot adjudicate, or the courts will second-guess America’s national-security needs, in which case Mr Trump may storm out of the organisation altogether.
Donald Dork is up to his "antics" once again. Here's a PotUS who LOST THE POPULAR-VOTE behaving like a sick kid who "owns the sandbox".
Will this nonsense ever end? Yeah, when American voters find once again their sanity and vote him out of office in the PotUS elections of November, 2019.
Let this sad episode in American history be a lesson to all when selecting future heads of government ...