'Trade wars are good, and easy to win,' Trump tweets

[robkelk]

No, really.

I suppose if he can't have a shooting war, he must think that this is the next best thing - and never mind how many American jobs will be lost because of it.

[hazard]

Eh, trade tarriffs are a good thing under very specific circumstances. Most of which boil down to being a more limited trade sanction that doesn't cut you off completely, or a way to protect an industry you want to keep active internally. They just come with consequences, and the lower economic efficiency you have to deal with (and thus makes a product more expensive per unit) is just one of them.

This isn't one of those times it's a good idea. Like many of Donald Trump's decisions it instead appears to be directly counter to the US's own interests, not least of which because the major trade partners selling the US steel and aluminium are the US's own allies.

[robkelk]

Such as Canada, yes.

(Fun fact: Despite the fact that Canada sells more steel to the USA than any other nation on Earth, the USA has a trade surplus with Canada in the steel industry.)

[hazard]

Oh, wow.

As if that won't go badly wrong; Canada would be much better served by simply accepting the tariff and imposing their own, and sourcing whatever steels they can't source from the USA from somewhere else. The USA's trade surplus will drop considerably as a result I figure.

Then again, this might well be just according to the Russian plan. Not directly, but this is just another hit to the USA's standing and influence.

[Matrix Dragon]

Yeah, our government's currently going 'oh for fucks sake, we had a deal last year where you promised not to pull this shit!' and trying to stop this from happening. No one's expecting much, Trump and co have a record of screwing over their allies, after all.

As for him saying Trade Wars being easy to win, well of course he thinks that. He's had a long career of making money out of doing stupid shit, then leaving others to deal with the consequences of his fuckwittery.

[DHBirr]

It seems the Dear Leader Comrade Donald Jong Trump has bravely vowed to strike back at any country whose leaders have outright objected to his trade war.  This definitely targets Germany and Canada, and leaves out China, which was much more restrained in its response to his BS.

The country that escaped Trump’s tweeting ire was China, the very nation the president has wanted to hit hardest and the one that is largely responsible for flooding global markets with cheap steel. In return, China, which provides just 2 percent of U.S. steel imports, has been the most muted among leading trading partners in its response to Trump’s tariff threats, calling them misguided but not threatening a response.
...
Still, the tariffs on steel and aluminum Trump unveiled last week are not crafted in a way that would target China, which last year sold $375 billion more goods and services in the United States than what it had ordered, according to the Commerce Department.

People who know something about finance and economics other than how to go bankrupt repeatedly are not happy.

N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard economics professor who was chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers [said] “I don’t know any respected economist, conservative or liberal, who thinks this is the right approach to promoting prosperity.”

But, of course, Harvard professors are all leftist liberal academic elites, so who in Trumpland cares what they think....

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God made me an agnostic — who are you to question His wisdom?

[robkelk]

Analysis/Opinion: First casualty of Trump's trade war is his country's reputation

Don Pittis is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's business unit's senior producer, and was the principal business reporter for Radio Television Hong Kong before the handover to China. He has decades of experience covering international trade.

I'm inclined to trust what he has to say.

What you might call trade sabre-rattling is not uncommon as countries threatened with tariffs draw up lists of the imports they will tax in response.

Europe has already included Kentucky bourbon, Levi's jeans and Harley Davidson motorcycles — goods they expect will have a concentrated impact on jobs in areas that vote Republican.

"The Trump trade team continues to focus on the trade balance, but that focus is misplaced," economist Christine McDaniel of George Mason University's Mercatus Center said in an email.

She says the trade deficit is often larger when the economy is growing, and that in the past, trade surpluses have not correlated with job creation. She also points out the U.S. economy has created tens of millions of jobs since NAFTA came into force.

The head of the United Steelworkers, Leo Gerard, who happens to be Canadian, reminded Trump that Canadian aluminum is a strategic good for U.S. military procurement.

"The president, I don't think, was made aware of that," Gerard told CBC.

It used to be that the U.S. set a standard.

[Inquisitive Raven]

Analysis/Opinion: First casualty of Trump's trade war is his country's reputation

Don Pittis is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's business unit's senior producer, and was the principal business reporter for Radio Television Hong Kong before the handover to China. He has decades of experience covering international trade.

I'm inclined to trust what he has to say.

I'm inclined to disagree, but that's because Trump's already torpedoed the country's reputation, and that's assuming Trump getting elected in the first place wasn't enough to do it.

[robkelk]

Prime Minister to tour Canadian steel and aluminum mills

No prizes for figuring out why such a busy man needs to do this right now.

[robkelk]

CBC Analysis/Opinion: Trade disruption would likely spell the end of North American jobs surge

Don Pitts, again.

Canada and the U.S. both export and import about the same amount of steel. Suddenly with a 25 per cent tariff, importers could be forced to try to ship goods east and west across the country instead of north and south across the border. The inefficiencies would be absurd.

The inevitable effect is that the price of U.S. steel and aluminum would rise. The price of products made with that steel and aluminum would also rise, making U.S. products less competitive at home and in foreign markets.

In the case of aluminum, the U.S. produces a fraction of its needs, meaning a trade war could leave it short of the metal for making all kinds of goods, including civilian and military aircraft.

And all that ignores the risk to U.S. exports if countries decide to retaliate. Forget Europe's threat to Kentucky corn whisky, if Mexico were to decide to stop buying actual U.S. corn and milk products, the effect on Midwest farmers would be devastating.

[hazard]

Where would Mexico source replacement corn and milk from though?

Well okay, milk products isn't that hard. Just buy European, we are drowning in milk products and offer some of the finest cheeses in the world. Corn would be harder, but can probably be sourced from Middle America for most cases and replaced with different cereals from elsewhere if it has to be.

Should that happen though... IIRC the Midwest is very Republican. It'll sting.

[robkelk]

Well, IIRC Mexico cannot embargo US (or Canadian) milk and corn as long as NAFTA is still in effect.

[hazard]

And yet the US is raising a tariff. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the companies start seeing protests of US policy by customers refusing to buy their products as long as there's US produce in them, or a refusal to buy US products in general, but hitting the trade with tariffs?

That'll hurt a lot more. People vote with their money, and quite frankly often keep buying the same stuff unless there's a clearly better deal to be had.

Of course, trade wars are bad for everyone. It's just that with Trump at the helm the US is losing more friends more rapidly than everyone else who benefited from good relations with the US.

[robkelk]

CBC News: Trump takes first shots in trade war with China, and stock market is taking friendly fire

Dow Jones is off by almost 500 points on the news that Trump wants a list of Chinese-made products on which to put tariffs.

[Bob Schroeck]

How long until Trump starts insisting the Dow and other indices are "fake news" because they don't show numbers favorable to him? <sigh>

[robkelk]

Here's a reminder that there's also trade in intangibles.

CBC Radio Opinion: One fan's plea to NAFTA negotiators: Throw Canada's touring bands a bone
by Prof. Stephen Hunt, University of British Columbia

Here's the meat of the article:

Right now, Canadian bar bands have to apply for a P2 visa in order to enter the States. That takes two things a lot of bar bands lack: planning and money.

One application for a band costs $460 U.S. And if you need it expedited, it'll cost you an extra $1,200, just to have them push your paperwork to the top of the pile.

American bands, on the other hand, can just show up at the border with a letter inviting them to perform and away they go, whether the muffler is still hanging onto the Econoline van or not.

Look, I know trade negotiators aren't in the business of ranking the intangibles of life. But wouldn't it be nice if we could consider the plight of our cultural ambassadors alongside our IT guys and hewers of softwood lumber?

Let's throw our bar bands a bone.

Chrystia Freeland, I'm talking to you.

One, take us back to that pre-1996 golden age when musicians could enter the U.S. with a simple J1 visa issued at the border.

Two, take a page from the French. Foreign musicians are allowed to play in France until their earnings reach a certain cap. So pick a dollar amount, Minister Freeland. Any number will do. Because whatever it is, you can bet most bar bands will earn less.

[Rajvik]

Hey Rob, when did that change and is it a US requirement or a Canadian one.

I ask because I believe in reciprocity both ways. If US bands don't have to jump through hoops then Canadian ones shouldn't have to either.

[robkelk]

Don't know when it changed, but the work visa requirement is a US thing. Only Canadian bands need to jump through those hoops.

[robkelk]

Bumping this because Canada's exemption to the steel and aluminum tariffs is due to expire tonight. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

[Labster]

Has Canada considered telling Trump that? It's entirely possible that the White House forgot there was a deadline coming up.

[robkelk]

Now why would we do a thing like that?

(Actually, we have been doing some last-minute negotiations.)

[Labster]

The scuttlebutt is that our America is going to delay sanctions tariffs against Canada and the EU once again.  Apparently they've decided that Congressional budget passing is working so well, they've decided to apply the same logic to executive action.

[Rajvik]

Probably more because negotiations are still ongoing the US can give a little carrot over NAFTA as opposed to swinging that particular stick

[robkelk]

And we get a 30-day extension.

Probably more because negotiations are still ongoing the US can give a little carrot over NAFTA as opposed to swinging that particular stick

The NAFTA talks would go a lot faster if the USA stopped bringing up things that have already been discussed and agreed upon.

EDIT: As for this being a "carrot", allow me to draw an analogy. Your next-door neighbour starts carrying a brick and waving it around when he takes his daily walk, but he promises not to throw the brick through your window ... today. How do you benefit, compared to before he started carrying the brick?

[hazard]

Looks to me like a standard 'give me just a bit more slack' tactic. It's one that's been used extensively by US legislators of the Republican persuasion when it comes to basically... any policy they ever needed the Democrats for.