Tag: Trump trade war

Trump administration to propose “temporary relief” to farmers

The following article by Jonathan Swan and Alayna Treene was posted on the Axios website July 24, 2018:

Farmer John Duffy loads soybeans from his grain bin onto a truck in Illinois. Credit: Scott Olson, Getty Images

The Trump administration will propose a “temporary relief” plan this afternoon to farmers who have been hit hard by retaliatory tariffs, a source with direct knowledge told Axios.

Why it matters: This an idea that conservatives will hate. The proposal — put forth by the Department of Agriculture, not the White House — is the very opposite of free market economics. Earlier this year, Axios reported that Trump floated a similar idea of creating subsidy payments for farmers, but it was shot down by Republican lawmakers.

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Trump is creating his own economic reality

The following article by Tory Mewyer was posted on the Washington Post website July 23, 2018:

Credit: Carolyn Kaster AP/em>

President Trump is operating in an economic reality of his own creation that has left him both increasingly emboldened and isolated as he escalates trade hostilities over the objections of key aides and allies. 

The outlook threatens to plunge an otherwise expanding economy further into a fight that is already rattling supply chains around the globe, spooking investors, delaying investment plans and prompting layoffs. And the president is set to take things from bad to worse this week.

With his threat of new tariffs on auto imports looming, Trump will huddle Wednesday in Washington with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in what Europeans are calling a last-minute bid to ramp down transatlantic tensions. Yet Trump has all but shattered hope for a breakthrough, last week accusing the European Union of currency manipulation and lashing out after they announced a $5 billion antitrust fine on Google, tweeting, “They truly have taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!”

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Foreigners Boycott Trump’s America

The following article by Froma Harrop was posted on the Creators.com website July 19, 2018:

Credit: WMTV

Are President Trump’s threats and insults against our allies just an obnoxious negotiating tactic? It hardly matters, because they haven’t worked. And it’s worse than not working. Trump has turned “made in America” into consumer poison around the globe.

Trump is not content to wage a simple war on trade, itself an economically ignorant endeavor. He feels compelled to also dump invective on the foreigners who buy our goods and services. Whether to entertain his base or to serve the interests of Vladimir Putin, the result is long-lasting damage to our producers. No discernable American interest hides in this rubble.

China is playing it cool so far, but it can also play it hot. When South Korea last year deployed a missile shield — seen as a hostile move in China — a Chinese celebrity told her 2.7 million followers on social media to boycott Korean products. In a mere month, the Korean carmaker Hyundai saw its market share in China fall by nearly half.

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Trump official dismisses US farmers facing huge losses from trade war

The following article by Eric Boehlert was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 19, 2018:

‘It’s a little bit like weight loss,’ a Trump official said of the huge hits coming to U.S. farmers.

Credit: Oliver Doullery, Pool, Getty Images

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue belittled American farmers on Wednesday.

“It’s a little bit like weight loss,” Perdue said of the tariffs that are damaging the bottom line for lots of red state, U.S. farmers. “It’s going to be good to get there but it is a little painful in the meantime.”

Perdue referred to Trump’s reckless tariffs as “trade disruptions we’re experiencing,” as if they weren’t specifically manufactured and imposed by the Trump administration. His remarks echoed Trump’s dismissive rhetoric about how trade wars are “easy to win.”

View the complete article here.

Trump faces growing storm on car import tariffs at Commerce hearing

The following article by Andrew Mayeda and Ryan Beene was posted on the Los Angeles Times website July 19, 2018:

SUVs from Range Rover, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are lined up at the port of Bremerhaven in northern Germany. President Trump is threatening a 20% tariff on cars imported from Europe. Credit: EPA, Shutterstock

The procession of industry groups and foreign governments lining up to oppose President Trump’s car tariffs is starting to look like a rush-hour traffic jam.

“The importation of motor-vehicle parts is not a risk to our national security,” Ann Wilson, senior vice president of government affairs of the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Assn., told a public hearing Thursday on the auto industry. “However, the imposition of tariffs is a risk to our economic security that jeopardizes supplier jobs and investments in the United States.”

The Commerce Department is holding the hearing as it probes whether imports of passenger vehicles imperil U.S. national security. The administration has received extremely limited support for the idea that foreign cars undermine America’s ability to defend itself.

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How Trump’s tariffs on Mexico are taking jobs from U.S. workers

The following article by Erica Werner and Kevin Sieff was posted on the Washington Post website July 18, 2018:

Jessica Lopez packages wire coil nails at the Mid Continent Nail Corp. in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Credit: Brad Vest, The Washington Post

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — When a Mexican company bought Mid Continent Nail Corp. in 2012, workers at the factory here feared it was the beginning of the end. Their jobs, they suspected, would be given to lower-paid workers in Mexico, more casualties of the hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing driven in part by an embrace of global trade.

Instead, Mid Continent’s factory has doubled in size since Deacero’s purchase. The company, facing fewer restrictions on steel exports after the North American Free Trade Agreement, shipped steel into Missouri, willing to pay skilled workers more to take advantage of cheaper energy costs in the United States and a location that allowed swift delivery to U.S. customers.

But President Trump has put 25 percent tariffs on steel imports, bumping production costs and prompting Deacero to reconsider this arrangement. With Mid Continent charging more for nails, orders are down 70 percent from this time a year ago despite a booming construction industry. Company officials say that without relief, the Missouri plant could be out of business by Labor Day — or that remaining production could move to Mexico or another country.

View the complete post on the Washington Post website here.

In a possible rebuke to Trump, Japan and the EU sign a landmark trade deal

The following article by Rebekah Entralgo was posted on the ThinkProgress website July 17, 2018:

“America First” policies leave the U.S. alone on the international stage.

European Council President Donald Tusk during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing, China. Credit: Ng Han Guan,Pool, Getty Images

The rest of the world is moving on without the United States.

The European Union and Japan signed a benchmark trade deal Tuesday that effectively eliminates nearly all tariffs on the products they trade. European Council President Donald Tusk described the deal as the “largest bilateral trade deal ever.”

“The EU and Japan showed an undeterred determination to lead the world as flag-bearers for free trade,” Japanese Prime Ministor Shinzo Abe said at a joint news conference with European dignitaries.

View the complete article on the ThinkProgress website here.

President Trump makes good on his threat to target an additional $200 billion in Chinese imports with tariffs, ramping up the trade war

The following article by David J. Lynch and Danielle Paquette was posted on the Washington Post website July 10, 2018:

President Trump escalated his trade war with China on June 18, and threatened to put in place tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. (Reuters)

President Trump escalated his trade war with China Tuesday, identifying an added $200 billion in Chinese products that he intends to hit with import tariffs.

The move makes good on the president’s threat to respond to China’s retaliation for the initial U.S. tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods, which went into effect on Friday, and would eventually place nearly half of all Chinese imports under tariffs.

Administration officials said the tariff fight is aimed at forcing China to stop stealing American intellectual property and to abandon policies that effectively force U.S. companies to surrender their trade secrets in return for access to the Chinese market.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

As tariffs near, Trump’s business empire retains ties to China

The following article by Jonathan O’Connell and David A. Fahrenthold was posted on the Washington Post website July 5, 2018:

On July 6, United States tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports took effect, firing the first shots in a trade war between the world’s biggest economies. (Reuters)

As the Trump administration initiates a possible trade war with China, the president’s businesses continue to benefit from partnerships involving the Chinese government, via state-backed companies and investors.

Chinese government-backed firms are slated to work on parts of two large developments — in Dubai and Indonesia — that will include Trump-branded properties.

The Trumps are the landlord to one of China’s top state-owned banks, which has occupied the 20th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan since 2008. The bank’s lease is worth close to $2 million annually, according to industry estimates and a bank filing.

View the full article on the Washington Post website here.

Minnesota’s soybean sales could take big hit if China tariffs proceed

The following article by Jim Spencer was posted on the Star Tribune website June 22, 2018:

Bob Worth loaded soybean seeds into his planter on the family farm on May 17 in Lake Benton. In the past when trade wars have been waged too often agricultural businesses have suffered, he said. Credit: David Joles, Star Tribune

President Donald Trump touts his trade policy as long-overdue action to help America’s workers and industries, but some economists warn that tariffs he has placed or is threatening to place on China and Chinese retaliation to them could actually bolster other countries at the expense of the U.S.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the case of Minnesota’s vital agricultural staple, soybeans. The state ranks fourth in the country in all agricultural exports. Soybeans, as Worthington, Minn., farmer and American Soybean Association director Bill Gordon puts it, are the “golden egg,” accounting for 30 percent of the total. Minnesota’s farmers exported $2.1 billion worth of soybeans in 2016, according to government statistics. Most of them went to China.

If the Chinese proceed with a threatened 25 percent import tariff on U.S. soybeans in retaliation for 25 percent protective tariffs Trump placed on a variety of nonagricultural Chinese products, Minnesota soybean growers and others across the country face a loss of 69 percent of Chinese sales, said Purdue University agricultural economist Wallace Tyner, who analyzed data for the U.S. Soybean Export Council. Continue reading “Minnesota’s soybean sales could take big hit if China tariffs proceed”