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The US tariff for animal products is 2.2, the EU 20.4
The US tariff for cereal grains is 3.1, the EU 17.1
The US tariff for beverages and tobacco is 14.0, the EU 19.9
The US tariff for fruits and vegetables is 4.7, the EU 10.7
So, which political state is engaging in a trade war?
Which political state is engaging in protectionism?
Clearly not the US, since EU tariffs are much higher than US tariffs.
Increasing US tariffs to a point that is still less than EU tariffs is not a trade war.
Cherry picking, eh? There are many other products where the US charges much higher tariffs than the EU (pick up trucks for example). Tariffs are very complex and were balanced between countries/entitites. It is beyond ridiculous to assume that other much smaller economies "bullied" the poor US to accept "unfair" tariffs.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Protectionism can make a lot of sense in certain situations, but I’m curious about what is a reasonable desired outcome for engaging in a trade war with virtually every major trading partner of the US in a short amount of time. There’s certainly a trade deficit, but that’s the value of imports versus exports and there is a very substantial amount of value in our exports even if it is at a net deficit.
Meanwhile, there is relatively little in exports that we create that do not have alternative sources and our trading partners are not putting anywhere near the amount of new tariffs upon each other. I’m just curious to see if there are any studies that have outlined what the benefits are to engaging in this on not just a few partners, but with a multitude of them simultaneously.
I expect that certain measures will have a positive effect on some goods produced domestically in terms of driving down their price in the domestic market, but it seems likely that would be as a detriment to the producers themselves. Are these benefits predicted to outweigh the negatives?
China is seeking an Anti-US Trade Alliance with Europe.
Whilst Trump is trying to go down an isolationist path that in the end will just diminish the power of the US on the world stage, at a time when China and others are wanting to project more power.
NAFTA, NATO, UN, WTO, G7 are all international bodies which Trump is highly critical of and has made noises about leaving.
As for Tariffs it's the average US Consumer and US Workers who will pay the price, along with those in other countries, whilst a major dip in world trade could lead to a massive global recession.
Protectionism can make a lot of sense in certain situations, but I’m curious about what is a reasonable desired outcome for engaging in a trade war with virtually every major trading partner of the US in a short amount of time. There’s certainly a trade deficit, but that’s the value of imports versus exports and there is a very substantial amount of value in our exports even if it is at a net deficit.
Meanwhile, there is relatively little in exports that we create that do not have alternative sources and our trading partners are not putting anywhere near the amount of new tariffs upon each other. I’m just curious to see if there are any studies that have outlined what the benefits are to engaging in this on not just a few partners, but with a multitude of them simultaneously.
I expect that certain measures will have a positive effect on some goods produced domestically in terms of driving down their price in the domestic market, but it seems likely that would be as a detriment to the producers themselves. Are these benefits predicted to outweigh the negatives?
We have over a BILLION dollar trade IMBALANCE. 'nuff said!
"The United States has the world's largest trade deficit. It's been that way since 1975. The deficit in goods and services was $566 billion in 2017. Imports were $2.895 trillion and exports were only $2.329 trillion."
We've been in a trade war for decades, and VOLUNTARILY LOSING. It's time we fought back, with the outcome being more fair practices with our allies, and trading PARTNERS. Partners treat each other properly, not take advantage of them for the last sixty plus years. Go Trump!
We have over a BILLION dollar trade IMBALANCE. 'nuff said!
"The United States has the world's largest trade deficit. It's been that way since 1975. The deficit in goods and services was $566 billion in 2017. Imports were $2.895 trillion and exports were only $2.329 trillion."
I understand the common overarching rationale for why we started a trade war, but thanks for adding these details regardless. The question was what were the reasonable outcomes and what the strategy was for engaging in a trade war with all of our major partners simultaneously. It's more like the "how" and "what" nuts and bolts of the overall strategy we're planning to address this imbalance.
Your links are interesting though. Since we're a developed country that's moved a large portion of our employment into the tertiary sector which can yield fairly high margins, why do we not account for these in our balance of trade? If we're going for what's essentially a mercantilist outlook, then what is the rationale for leaving that out since that tertiary sector work does generate money and actually can be used to purchase physical goods from other countries' primary and secondary sectors?
Also, would the largest categories of automobiles and petroleum possibly point to a large infrastructural misconfiguration within the United States with its large degree of suburbanization and automobile dependency (and therefore petroleum dependency) compared to most other countries and the inefficiencies that come from it? Certainly it's not responsible for the deficit as a whole, but it seems to be a chunk of it.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-08-2018 at 08:38 AM..
Geez, 60s. Turn off the caps lock and loosen up the pu$&y hat. Most of us don’t mind bending over backwards to help the less fortunate, but we’re a tired of bending over forward, which is what we did for 8 years prior to President Trump.
If you want to make an omelette you gotta break a few eggs.
Well you gotta give 60s credit--its the first post he didn't call Trump a "russian installed puppet".
Levying tariffs does not constitute a "trade war."
If we adopt your illogical and purely emotional-based view, then only the total elimination of tariffs results in the absence of a "trade war."
The US tariff for animal products is 2.2, the EU 20.4
The US tariff for cereal grains is 3.1, the EU 17.1
The US tariff for beverages and tobacco is 14.0, the EU 19.9
The US tariff for fruits and vegetables is 4.7, the EU 10.7
Whilst Trump is trying to go down an isolationist path that in the end will just diminish the power of the US on the world stage, at a time when China and others are wanting to project more power.
NAFTA, NATO, UN, WTO, G7 are all international bodies which Trump is highly critical of and has made noises about leaving.
As for Tariffs it's the average US Consumer and US Workers who will pay the price, along with those in other countries, whilst a major dip in world trade could lead to a massive global recession.
There's no particular indication that the EU will bite on that though. It's true that Pete Navarro was incorrect in his prediction that no country was going to launch counter tariffs, but it seems doubtful he'd be wrong to that extent that our trading partners will actually formally agree to work in lockstep in retaliation. Unless I'm missing something significant here, it seems more likely that businesses and consumers in those countries will naturally filter towards products that have a price advantage that non-US imports or domestic production.
I guess I'm also curious as to whether or not this will extend to non-material goods, i.e. services.
Cherry picking, eh? There are many other products where the US charges much higher tariffs than the EU (pick up trucks for example).
From 2001 to 2016, total cereal production in the US was 443.5 Million metric tons.
It did not produce 443.5 Million pick-up trucks over the same period. It produced maybe 40 Million to 50 Million pick-up trucks.
An high tariff on an item rarely traded isn't really relevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer
You have to wonder why countries have tariffs or any kind of trade barriers at all.
Why can't all countries just get rid of all tariffs and trade barriers? What would happen if they did?
Some countries would be irreparably harmed.
50% of the people on Earth have never made or received a telephone call. Another 2.5 Billion don't even have electricity.
The conclusion you can draw from those facts is that not every country is at the same level of economic development.
Ndela in Sierra Leone earns the minimum wage of $0.28/hour and a lot of ignorant people think those are slave wages, but her country is at the same level of economic development that the US was between 1870 and 1890. And what were American wages? Americans earned $390 to $470 a year. She's actually earning about $580 a year. Chalk it up to Inflation.
Your average Romanian earns $320/month. Those aren't slave wages, either, because Romania's level of economic development is on a par with the US in 1948. Nearly all Eastern European countries are still in the 2nd Level of development, due to the negative effects of 50 years of communism. And what were Americans earning in 1948? About $3,000 to $4,000 a year.
Note that 98% of Romanians own their own home.
Would you rather earn $1.85/hour and own your own home, or earn $10.50/hour, have no chance of ever owning a home, and spending 50% of your income on rent?
There's a Texas-based company that manufactures rail-road cars in Arad, Romania, and I know two Americans who work there, and they're quite content with $2.70/hour, which is slightly more money than they would make in the US.
I'm guessing some people can't wrap their brains around that.
Steel mill-wrights in the US start at about $26.00/hour, which is about 4x what Romanian steel-workers make, and about 6x what Chinese steel-workers make, and 7x-8x more than what steel-workers in other countries earn.
If you eliminated trade barriers and tariffs, then US companies would be importing nothing but foreign steel, and US steel-workers would be out of a job and the steel plants shut down.
If there's a war, you'd be utterly hopelessly screwed, because it would take 1-2 years to refurbish the plants and bring them back up to 100% operating capacity. The longer the plants sit idle, the longer it takes to bring them back on-line, and should an entire generation pass, you'd be in an even worse position, because you'd have no one at any level of employee, supervision or management who had a clue about steel-mill operations.
For that reason, many countries protect their most critical industries, like agriculture and defense, and a percentage of steel-mill operations are a part of the defense sector.
As an individual, a company/business or a country, it's never good to be 100% dependent on others for anything, unless you have absolutely zero other options.
By the year 2150, all 195 countries should be somewhere in the 4th Level of economic development, and everyone's wages will be the same, whether you're in the US, Brasil, France, Poland, Iraq, Uganda, Tajikistan or Vietnam, so tariffs probably won't make a whole lot of sense at that time.
Of course, when those 2.5 Billion people finally do get electricity, they'll be consuming a helluva lot of resources, so while their Standard of Living and Life-Style increases, the 5 English-speaking countries and the 12 or so countries of Western Europe will decline, until you reach an equilibrium point, and then everyone will be miserably happy.
We have over a BILLION dollar trade IMBALANCE. 'nuff said!
"The United States has the world's largest trade deficit. It's been that way since 1975. The deficit in goods and services was $566 billion in 2017. Imports were $2.895 trillion and exports were only $2.329 trillion."
No, seriously, why leave out services if the trade value is in currency good for goods and services?
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There are many other products where the US charges much higher tariffs than the EU (pick up trucks for example). Tariffs are very complex and were balanced between countries/entitites. It is beyond ridiculous to assume that other much smaller economies "bullied" the poor US to accept "unfair" tariffs.
