- Joined
- Dec 13, 2015
- Messages
- 9,594
- Reaction score
- 2,072
- Location
- France
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Centrist
I certainly do consider an Import Certificate policy as an all terms, (i.e. immediate through extremely long terms) remedy for a nation’s chronic trade deficits.
The nation's trade deficits are primarily due to two factors:
*The China Price (for which the US can do absolutely nothing if the American consumer wants to buy their products of often questionable quality but always lower price than the American equivalent), and
*The fact that internal pricing structures do not allow the US to compete in global-markets where other low-cost countries have entered.
The phenomenon is perfectly natural, and Import Certificates where never intended to correct for global market imbalance in general by all and sundry, but only specifically as regards one nation in a particular difficulty in one particular sector of goods production).
It was certainly never intended for universal usage by the US to correct its problems of Trade Deficits, which occur naturally due to the comparatively higher wage-structure of American industry vis-a-vis the World.
And the reason Import Certificates have been not used massively as a Corrective Tool by the US is that, to do so, Uncle Sam would be facing a challenge according to GATT-rules by the WTO. Of course, the US could always leave the WTO, which would then become one helluva serious problem for Global Trade, which certainly does not need any such contention at the moment ...
In fact, this bee in your bonnet derives from a article by Buffet that appeared in 2003 in Fortune Magazine (see here). It was wrong then, it is wrong now.
The US must simply play by the rules, now as back in 2003 ...