DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus U.S. Allies to Sign Sweeping Trade Deal in Challenge to Trump

U.S. Allies to Sign Sweeping Trade Deal in Challenge to Trump

By MOTOKO RICH and ERNESTO LONDOÑOMARCH 8, 2018

TOKYO — A trade pact originally conceived by the United States to counter China’s growing economic might in Asia now has a new target: President Trump’s embrace of protectionism.

A group of 11 nations — including major United States allies like Japan, Canada and Australia — is set to sign a broad trade deal on Thursday that challenges Mr. Trump’s view of trade as a zero-sum game filled with winners and losers. Covering 500 million people on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the pact will represent a new vision for global trade as the United States threatens to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on even its closest friends and neighbors.

Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from an earlier version of the agreement, then known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a year ago as one of his first acts in office. It will be undeniably weaker without the participation of the world’s biggest economy.

But the resuscitated deal could serve as a powerful sign of how countries that have previously counted on American leadership are now forging ahead without it.

“Only free trade will contribute to inclusive growth of the world economy,” Taro Kono, Japan’s foreign minister, told a group of ministers from Southeast Asian countries in Tokyo on Thursday. “Protectionism isn’t a solution.”

The new agreement — known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — will drop tariffs drastically and establish sweeping new trade rules in markets that represent about a seventh of the world’s economy. It will open more markets to free trade in agricultural products and digital services around the region. While American beef farmers will have to pay 38.5 percent tariffs in Japan, for example, members like Australia, New Zealand and Canada will not.

Once it goes into effect, the agreement should generate an additional $147 billion in global income, according to an analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Its backers say it also will bolster protections for intellectual property and include language that could prod members to improve labor conditions.

Other members will include Mexico, Vietnam, New Zealand, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore and Brunei. Officials are scheduled to sign the deal Thursday in Santiago, Chile.

“The message is that we believe in the value of an open economy and economic integration of countries in order to generate greater prosperity for our people and our nations,” President Michelle Bachelet of Chile said in a recent interview at the presidential palace.

“I think that is a tremendously important value at a time when certain sectors of the world are sending messages that run contrary to this choice, preaching messages of nationalism rather than integration,” she added.

In its original incarnation as the T.P.P., the pact was conceived as a counterweight to China, whose vast economy was drawing other Asian countries closer despite its state-driven model and steep trade barriers. Not only would the T.P.P. lower trade barriers, it could also prod Beijing to make changes to enjoy the same benefits.

When President Obama advocated for the deal, he said, “America should call the shots” instead of China.

Now, the agreement could in some respects act as a defense against the shots America is calling.

The United States has “gone from being a leader to actually being the No. 1 antagonist and No. 1 source of fear,” said Jeffrey Wilson, head of research at Perth U.S.-Asia Center at the University of Western Australia. “If you’re a trade policy maker in Asia, your No. 1 fear is that Trump is going to take a swing at you.”

He added that such fears could prompt countries to tether themselves, however reluctantly, more closely to China. “The U.S. is really delivering the region to China at the moment,” Mr. Wilson said.

China, which has discussed forming its own regional trade pact, has been publicly positive about the new deal. It sent a high-level delegation a year ago to Viña del Mar, Chile, where the pact’s members sought to regroup after the United States pulled out. Experts said China could feel the pull if still more countries joined the pact.

“It’s hard to ignore rules that everyone else is agreeing to, and they will probably look carefully at these rules,” said Wendy Cutler, a former United States trade negotiator who worked on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and is now managing director of the Washington office of the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Over time, they may want to consider joining the T.P.P.”

[censored] Yi, China’s foreign minister, said Thursday that the government hoped free-trade agreements in the region would play “a constructive role in their respective fields in resisting trade protectionism and building an open world economy.”

The new version of the T.P.P. remains a shadow of its former self. With the United States, the agreement would have represented 40 percent of the world’s economy, giving its provisions added heft.

Now, its impact could be swamped if Mr. Trump’s tariffs provoke a global trade war.

“In a world that is so upside down, especially for companies, companies will need to seek out growth and stability wherever they can,” said Deborah Elms, founder and executive director of Asian Trade Center, a consulting firm in Singapore. “And that stability does not appear to be coming from the United States, where policy seems to shift at a moment’s notice.”

Japan, which has the largest economy among the remaining trade partners and played a leadership role in keeping the coalition of 11 countries together, is still holding out hopes that the United States might return to the pact, under either Mr. Trump or a subsequent administration.

“We think the U.S. should come back, and we’ll say, ‘Please do come back,’” said Ichiro Fujisaki, a former Japanese ambassador to Washington. “It may sound a little impertinent, but the U.S. has taken many different positions on the economy or security.”

The Trump’s administration has recently signaled that it is open to re-entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In an interview at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, Mr. Trump said, “If we did a substantially better deal, I would be open to T.P.P.”

Steven Mnuchin, the United States Treasury secretary, said he had held discussions about the prospect of rekindling American membership in the pact, though at a congressional hearing in February, Mr. Mnuchin said it was not a priority.

Yorizumi Watanabe, a professor of policy management at Keio University in Tokyo, said, “If the U.S. is retreating from this region, either as the pace setter or agenda setter of economic affairs or security affairs, this will be quite detrimental to the stability of this region.”

He added: “T.P.P. as such should not be seen as a mere free trade or economic agreement. This should be seen from a kind of geopolitical point of view.”

Heft could come from others. The Peterson Institute estimates that if five other places — Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand — joined the partnership, the annual increase to global income would total $449 billion by 2030, almost as much as it would have been if the United States were included.

In the deal being signed Thursday, only 22 of more than 600 original provisions have been suspended, relating to intellectual property protection and a grab bag of other issues, several of which had been pushed by the United States. Kazuyoshi Umemoto, Japan’s chief negotiator for the partnership, said that if the United States decided to re-enter the deal, those provisions could be reinstated.

“Trump won’t last forever,” said Patricio Navia, a political scientist at New York University. “Countries will return to a path toward globalization and this sends a beacon of hope.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/world/asia/us-trump-tpp-signed.html


I don't think we should join the TPP as it was originally drafted and was happy Trump pulled us out. But in the same breath I'm also happy to see countries ban together to fight the Trump mentality toward our allies.

Japan, canada, Australia.

3 of our closest allies.

Australia has been China's main trade partner for over 40 years so it's nothing new and Japan has never been an open market to sell to anyways.Japan just sells a lot of products to the usa without buying much back. In fact we don't export a lot of products anyways because we don't even make much in the states anymore because the free market doesn't let us compete against countries like China, India, and Mexico that uses glorified slave labor.

At least if you tarrif raw materials they will have an incentive to buy steel pipes instead of just our ore. That could revive our steel industry in the long run that we need to be healthy if a real war ever breaks out.

I suspected that what Trump was doing was trying to back these countries into a corner to get them to negotiate a better/more favorable trade deal.

If that was the case, it just backfired.

I'm not sure why Trump would think that he can treat other countries, especially major allies like some dry wall contractor or Plumber in Jersey.

Generally, his bullying tactics might work on those types, but not on strong countries... If that's what he was doing, then he just proved it again, he's an idiot.

Trump has put the world on notice we will no longer accept unfair trade deals. We believe in Free Trade but what we currently have is only Free to others.

Trump has rattled the cage and I expect he will sign something that officially puts our partners on notice that if changes are not made, Tariffs will follow.

We have something like a Trillion dollars per year imbalance with our trading partners.
A Trillion dollars per year is a big hedge when it comes to a trade war, you will have to punish us a hole lot more than that for us to even begin to feel it.

If we're at nearly full employment, how exactly will we lower the trade deficit? Why precisely is lowing the trade deficit important if it's not to bring jobs back to the US?

I've been thinking about this lately and I'm not sure if these tariffs are good or bad for us. Trump is a protectionist and a nationalist. He wants to restore the good ole days when America made things.

You know if he actually succeeds, maybe we could buy American made products that are built to last again. I mean an abundance of natural resources with no market other than are own will suddenly be next to worthless price wise. And the cost of manufacturing will go way down because products will cost much less without a world to compete with. Of course this means wages will have to be reduced, but we are used to living on less as the lower 80% of America.

Making America Great Again by making affordable high quality products to sell to Americans only unless others want to pay our tariffs and any other imposed due to the trade war... But somehow i don't see the Elite fat cats going for this reduction in everything including their wealth and potential future wealth! I mean there's one thing that is always protected in America and it's not our kids in school.

However Trump might have accidentally fell into a huge part of the answer if somebody could just point it out. MAGA could be accomplished without tariffs, trade wars, or other bombastic trade rhetoric. Trump could introduce legislation subsidizing american companies that produce cutting edge technologies and the highest quality and most expensive products in the world. He could rebuild all the trade crafts, and offer free education to those willing to work for the companies that pay for it by making that a prequal for subsidies.

Imagine the most educated workforce in the world using automation to produce the highest quality most expensive products in the world in almost every category.

He could even include a clause that provided subsidies to American farmers, energy producers, miners, and all other forms of national raw materials / national natural resources sellers.

Those subsidies could fuel our economy for the next 100 years, and MAGA.

We are not yet at full employment, more jobs in manufacturing will come our way if we can get our trade with other Countries to be more balanced.

US manufacturers are competing with many Nations that support their manufacturing with government funding. America does not.

Countries that do are Germany, Japan, China and South Korea. Those names sound familiar as our friends and allies.

https://www.axios.com/report-trump-admin...?source=sidebar

The Trump administration has asked China for a plan to reduce the bilateral trade deficit by $100 billion — not $1 billion as President Trump tweeted Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The details: It makes much more sense to cut $100 billion from a $375.2 billion deficit than to cut $1 billion. Liu He, President Xi Jinping's top economic deputy who was in Washington last week, reportedly told U.S. officials that it's in China's interest to reduce the trade deficit as it moves away from export-led growth. [Go deeper: The scale of the U.S.-China trade deficit.]

The sole purpose of the tariffs are to bring jobs back ... well maybe not the sole purpose but its by far the BIGGEST REASON ...

I’m not sure why u correlate nearly full employment with us not needing more jobs ... before i can discuss it with u .. i need to know what STAT your basing your “full employment” statement on? ..

Is it first time filers? ... where exactly are u getting this number from and what does it include ...

For instance .. does it include those on welfare that don’t work? ... is it from the labor participation report? ...

Exactly where do u get the numbers from for your “full employment” statement ..

I’m not trying to be a dick here ... to have a discussion we need to be on the same page in what were talking about ... i hope u agree ...

I owe u a response on another thread ... i’ll get to it ..

Another thing to consider is the fact that a decision was made back during the Clinton and Bush I years and carried through the Obama years to build up the world's middle class in order for them to be able to purchase goods produced in the US.

Selling refrigerators to the Western World was profitable but selling to the world would increase our customer base.

Unfortunately an entire generation of American Middle Class manufacturing jobs had to be sacrificed to build up the world.

Because of this move, by 2022 over 550 million people in China will be considered middle class.
A new study says the Indian middle class doubled in size over an eight year period from 300 million in 2004 to 600 million in 2012.

Today we have a President who says enough of that policy, we are returning to rebuilding America's middle class and manufacturing jobs.
It is time for those nations who succeeded because of our sacrifice to trade fairly with America again.

J/C

Can someone explain how its "free trade" to buy goods that are made from people being paid .03 a hour? When we purchase cheap goods from China, we are promoting child sweatshops. Huh, I thought the dems were for workers united? I guess only if they can vote for you.

Elon Musk sides with Trump on trade with China, citing 25% import duty on American cars

Tesla's Elon Musk is complaining to President Donald Trump about China's car tariffs on Twitter.

"Do you think the US & China should have equal & fair rules for cars? Meaning, same import duties, ownership constraints & other factors," Musk said in response to a Trump tweet about trade with China. "I am against import duties in general, but the current rules make things very difficult. It's like competing in an Olympic race wearing lead shoes."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/elon-mus...rican-cars.html

I don't believe that most people really have a problem with sanctions in regards to China. Trump speaks in generalities that makes it hard to even know what he's going to do.

Now if he keeps the tariffs restricted to China I don't have an issue with it. But if he extends those tariffs to allied nations to an extensive degree that changes everything.

Trump doesn't like to tip his hand ahead of time, that is why the generalities.

He did hint that he and China have been talking and some good things are to come.

I do think that is why they haven't been mentioned much with these tariffs.

40 ... hes so cute ... he thinks thats a bad thing in this case ... isn’t he just precious ... ...



40 - he doesn’t realize that including Mexico and Canada makes sense at this point also ... watch and see NAFTA become more favorable to us VERY SOON and then all will be good ... but of course it will be there boy oBUMa that gets all the credit for whatever deal they reach ...

TWIST THEM SCREWS DONNIE ... TWIST UM HARD MR. PRESIDENT ...

Is it still set for 3:30 today or did they push it back? ..

I am precious. Thanks for noticing!

Yes the Hamma falls at 3:30 and Trump has ordered all Flags at half staff.

I thought he was ordering the price of everything made of steel and aluminum to increase for American consumers.

We will see. It is still is a lot cheaper than Plan-B, lobbing Nukes at them.

That's where I'm at. Waiting to see what it actually looks like.

Sometimes it's truly stunning how stupid the man is. I hesitate to use the word "retarded", but just barely.

That may happen.


Here's the dilemma: We all want good paying jobs, not just for ourselves, but for other citizens as well.

We all want health insurance, and paid vacations, etc.

And, too many want to buy the cheapest, quality product available. (now, when talking Chinese products, quality is often times an issue)

But, we ALL want to be paid more, and then too many run out and buy the cheap stuff in order to save our own dollars. In doing so, we lose jobs here in this country due to the cost of producing the product here in this country.

It's a circle. You want more money to do your job, so you can go buy stuff that costs less that is produced in a different country so you can save your own money.

It's just a circle.

I understand that. I'm not even sure of what will be included or excluded in these tariffs. I'm just not sure how this will all work out. It could end up that only nations like china, who actually subsidize the price of their goods are impacted. I would consider that a positive step and would support that.

My concern is we will punish allies who already pay good wages and benefits and that would work to greatly increase prices for all Americans without what I consider just due cause?

Wages for the most part have not increased along with the cost of living for a very long time. If you take the average American family and suddenly increase the price of cars, appliances and every other product made with steel and aluminum, you have created a situation that will hurt the sale of these products which in the end would have a negative impact on our economy.

So I'm waiting to see how this thing is written before I either endorse it or criticize it. The devil is in the details.

[quote=PitDAWG The devil is in the details. [/quote]

Always.

Always. [/quote]

Currently, the details are that a mentally handicapped man who doesn't understand what the term "trade deficit" means unilaterally pitched a trade war because he got upset that the news was being mean to him.

Currently, the details are that a mentally handicapped man who doesn't understand what the term "trade deficit" means unilaterally pitched a trade war because he got upset that the news was being mean to him.[/quote]

There's like 30 other aspects of US-Chinese relations we could be talking about right now, but Trump wants to raise our trade deficit to 27 mil this year, because he doesn't know where to put the zero.

It's honestly dumber than that.

He doesn't understand how trade works, which is alarming, but he's doing this not out of misguided strategy, but because he had a temper tantrum over being mocked on television.

I love that Trump's so dumb he doesn't realize he's reconstituting NAFTA after crying about it for two years.

Currently, the details are that a mentally handicapped man who doesn't understand what the term "trade deficit" means unilaterally pitched a trade war because he got upset that the news was being mean to him. [/quote]

Dude, what is up with your hatred of mentally handicapped people? I get you hate Trump, and that's cool and all... but aren't the usual 4 letter words good enough? You continue to denigrate the mentally ill and mentally challenged,as if they weren't worthy of dignity or respect.

Ah, I get it... they have no political value for your ilk. It's not like they can organize and take to the streets to be used as pawns to advance an agenda. And so, with no political value, they aren't worth a damn to you. And as it is with most tolerant liberals, if you aren't with them, you're against them. And if you are against a liberal, it's open season to de-humanize them.

They can't communicate on the same wavelength of the famous self advertised elite progressive intellect, that which is the new standard for the rational, thinking man. Anything less is to be viewed as sub-human.

Bravo.

Thinking that mentally handicapped people shouldn't be President isn't exactly dumping on the mentally handicapped.

I love my grandmother, but she has dementia, which precludes her from holding any number of jobs. Doesn't mean I don't view her as human.

Full unemployment does not include jobs at 7/11, taco bell, walmart or any of the other 100s of thousand jobs paying $10 an hour.

We are at essentially full employment if our unemployment rate is under 5%. Full employment means in this case that we have enough people employed to avoid inflation. If we were to add more jobs, then inflation will follow. And while we'd be lowering the trade deficit, we would be lowering the value of the USD in kind, negating any benefit.

You'll need to provide resources that back up how exactly Germany, Japan, China, and SK support their businesses in better ways than the US. I deal with European businesses and if anything, their tax system makes it quite a bit harder to build capital than in the US (even before our tax reform)

You can forget about full employment as we will not reach it.
Trump has cut way back on immigration and is tossing folks out every day for a reason. The reason I say forget about full employment is that we have a whole mass of new immigrants who have begun arriving in America and who will fill every job they can get.

Robots.

We have fewer people coming in as these Robots will be replacing flesh at an alarming rate and we won't need new people but the people we have, will have work.

Full employment is an economic guesstimate, so for me it's just comparing the unemployment rate against the typical 2-5% unemployment economists consider to be "full employment." So if our unemployment rate is 4.1%, then we are either fully employed or close to it. Can we hire more people? Sure. but we'll never get to 0% people have frictional/family issues that prevent them from doing so, or other reasons.

The reason this is important is because thusly: can we create enough jobs directly from this tariff to offset job losses from affected industries? Beverage makers, car makers, heck anyone who uses the raw steel, will have to pay higher prices for the goods, and companies will resolve those prices by either laying people off, raising prices, or both. This also has the side effect of weakening the average americans buying power, since these goods are now more expensive. And since the tariff on steel is 25%, we can easily assume that the steel component of any product will be 25% more expensive, raising the product by that amount. Not great for an auto industry that is slowing down, for instance.

This tariff will negatively impact Ohio specifically, as states more reliant on steel and aluminum will be the most impacted by any rise in prices.



The Entire US Steel Industry is about 150k people. There are 230k auto workers in the STATE of Michigan alone. We are not going to help ourselves economically.

I did read that Canada and Mexico are exempt from the tariff. So this might all be moot as Canada and Mexico make up large shares of steel imports (Canada is #1). But then we're back to square 1: No new jobs created vis-a-vis the tariff as it's lost all of its teeth.

Dude, what is up with your hatred of mentally handicapped people? I get you hate Trump, and that's cool and all... but aren't the usual 4 letter words good enough? You continue to denigrate the mentally ill and mentally challenged,as if they weren't worthy of dignity or respect.

Ah, I get it... they have no political value for your ilk. It's not like they can organize and take to the streets to be used as pawns to advance an agenda. And so, with no political value, they aren't worth a damn to you. And as it is with most tolerant liberals, if you aren't with them, you're against them. And if you are against a liberal, it's open season to de-humanize them.

They can't communicate on the same wavelength of the famous self advertised elite progressive intellect, that which is the new standard for the rational, thinking man. Anything less is to be viewed as sub-human.

Bravo.[/quote]


Because the "party of tolereance shows their true colors when they don't get their way. And the more and more they are proven wrong, instead of saying "yeah, I might have been wrong" - they will double down and sink their claws in more with vitriol hate and nonsense. I don't even respond directly to certain posters anymore, as they are not worth the gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe.

Just found this..

The first-ever robot citizen wants a baby

The robot that was granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia hopes to one day have a baby bot named after her herself, according to a report.

Sophia the humanoid, created by Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong, predicted that fellow robots will eventually create families and have “complex emotions,” according to an interview with the Khaleej Times.

“We’re going to see family robots, either in the form of, sort of, digitally animated companions, humanoid helpers, friends, assistants and everything in between,” the robot told the United Arab Emirates-based news site.

alright then, I'm outta here!