When will Americans start to wake up and realize what is happening? At the end of last week, President Trump announced that the U.S. would be imposing a 10 percent tariff on 300 billion dollars worth of Chinese imports, and that marked a dramatic escalation in our trade war with China. This move by Trump came as a total shock to Chinese officials, and global financial markets were thrown into a state of turmoil. Since that announcement, we have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, because we knew that the Chinese would retaliate. But honestly, very few of the experts expected something like this. On Monday, China announced that it is going to completely stop buying U.S. agricultural products…
This is essentially a trade war equivalent of a nuclear bomb.
If the Chinese would have slapped U.S. agricultural products with tariffs, that would have been a proportional response. But to quit buying them entirely is an unprecedented escalation in a trade war that is really starting to spiral out of control.
And it is also clearly a political attack on President Trump. The Chinese know that Trump is highly popular in rural areas, and this ban on U.S. agricultural products is going to severely hurt farmers in rural areas all across the United States.
Read the entire article
BATR 2020 Election News
Showing posts with label Trade and Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trade and Business. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 06, 2019
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Friday, May 10, 2019
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Monday, December 03, 2018
The Amazon Deal Shows Why We Must End Corporate Welfare
Amazon’s second headquarters has created a lot of hope and speculation since it was announced. Cities put together bids listing the benefits their areas could provide, including large tax breaks. One bid reportedly offered $7 billion in total benefits. The winners, Crystal City, Virginia, and Queens, New York, offered nearly a combined $2 billion in public funds ($2.4 billion when accounting for the late Nashville addition). This has generated a fair amount of public backlash.
Yet, as Veronique de Rugby explained, these dollars weren’t necessarily the deciding factor— local workforces, infrastructure, and access to other companies all played a more important role. Indeed, not only are other factors more important, but these costs—the subsidies and tax breaks meant to entice—do not benefit these cities in the long run. The influx of new jobs from Amazon is about what is expected without their contribution. These are areas already blessed with economic growth; jobs are created, and local economies flourish regardless of these special economic favors.
Sadly, Amazon is but one example of local governments bestowing special favor on the few at the expense of those less able to petition for tax dollars. At times, popular support rallies behind these bad deals because they appear beneficial on the surface. And since the costs are diffused and the benefits concentrated, political opposition is more difficult to rally. Some even believe they will reel in the benefits of property values or a growing economy.
Read the entire article
Yet, as Veronique de Rugby explained, these dollars weren’t necessarily the deciding factor— local workforces, infrastructure, and access to other companies all played a more important role. Indeed, not only are other factors more important, but these costs—the subsidies and tax breaks meant to entice—do not benefit these cities in the long run. The influx of new jobs from Amazon is about what is expected without their contribution. These are areas already blessed with economic growth; jobs are created, and local economies flourish regardless of these special economic favors.
Sadly, Amazon is but one example of local governments bestowing special favor on the few at the expense of those less able to petition for tax dollars. At times, popular support rallies behind these bad deals because they appear beneficial on the surface. And since the costs are diffused and the benefits concentrated, political opposition is more difficult to rally. Some even believe they will reel in the benefits of property values or a growing economy.
Read the entire article
Friday, November 30, 2018
Monday, June 11, 2018
Trump Continues to Defend American Workers: Blasts Canada, Justin Trudeau, EU and Germany for Unfair Trade Policies with US
President Trump upset the Group of Seven meeting in Canada by first agreeing to a group statement on trade only to withdraw from it while complaining that he had been blindsided by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s comments after he departed early for Singapore.
On Sunday night President Trump continued to take swipes at the globalists.
President Trump: Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal. According to a Canada release, they make almost 100 Billion Dollars in Trade with U.S. (guess they were bragging and got caught!). Minimum is 17B. Tax Dairy from us at 270%. Then Justin acts hurt when called out! Why should I, as President of the United States, allow countries to continue to make Massive Trade Surpluses, as they have for decades, while our Farmers, Workers & Taxpayers have such a big and unfair price to pay? Not fair to the PEOPLE of America! $800 Billion Trade Deficit… And add to that the fact that the U.S. pays close to the entire cost of NATO-protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on Trade (they pay only a fraction of the cost-and laugh!). The European Union had a $151 Billion Surplus-should pay much more for Military!… Germany pays 1% (slowly) of GDP towards NATO, while we pay 4% of a MUCH larger GDP. Does anybody believe that makes sense? We protect Europe (which is good) at great financial loss, and then get unfairly clobbered on Trade. Change is coming!
Read the entire article
On Sunday night President Trump continued to take swipes at the globalists.
President Trump: Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal. According to a Canada release, they make almost 100 Billion Dollars in Trade with U.S. (guess they were bragging and got caught!). Minimum is 17B. Tax Dairy from us at 270%. Then Justin acts hurt when called out! Why should I, as President of the United States, allow countries to continue to make Massive Trade Surpluses, as they have for decades, while our Farmers, Workers & Taxpayers have such a big and unfair price to pay? Not fair to the PEOPLE of America! $800 Billion Trade Deficit… And add to that the fact that the U.S. pays close to the entire cost of NATO-protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on Trade (they pay only a fraction of the cost-and laugh!). The European Union had a $151 Billion Surplus-should pay much more for Military!… Germany pays 1% (slowly) of GDP towards NATO, while we pay 4% of a MUCH larger GDP. Does anybody believe that makes sense? We protect Europe (which is good) at great financial loss, and then get unfairly clobbered on Trade. Change is coming!
Read the entire article
Tuesday, March 06, 2018
Friday, January 27, 2017
Friday, September 30, 2016
Trump Right on Trade Predators
Is America still a serious nation?
Consider. While U.S. elites were denouncing Donald Trump as unfit to serve for having compared Miss Universe 1996 to “Miss Piggy” of “The Muppets,” the World Trade Organization was validating the principal plank of his platform.
America’s allies are cheating and robbing her blind on trade.
According to the WTO, Britain, France, Spain, Germany and the EU pumped $22 billion in illegal subsidies into Airbus to swindle Boeing out of the sale of 375 commercial jets.
Subsidies to the A320 caused lost sales of 271 Boeing 737s, writes journalist Alan Boyle. Subsidies for planes in the twin-aisle market cost the sale of 50 Boeing 767s, 777s and 787s. And subsidies to the A380 cost Boeing the sale of 54 747s.These represent crippling losses for Boeing, a crown jewel of U.S. manufacturing and a critical component of our national defense.
Earlier, writes Boyle, the WTO ruled that, “without the subsidies, Airbus would not have existed … and there would be no Airbus aircraft on the market.”
In “The Great Betrayal” in 1998, I noted that in its first 25 years the socialist cartel called Airbus Industrie “sold 770 planes to 102 airlines but did not make a penny of profit.”
Read the entire article
Consider. While U.S. elites were denouncing Donald Trump as unfit to serve for having compared Miss Universe 1996 to “Miss Piggy” of “The Muppets,” the World Trade Organization was validating the principal plank of his platform.
America’s allies are cheating and robbing her blind on trade.
According to the WTO, Britain, France, Spain, Germany and the EU pumped $22 billion in illegal subsidies into Airbus to swindle Boeing out of the sale of 375 commercial jets.
Subsidies to the A320 caused lost sales of 271 Boeing 737s, writes journalist Alan Boyle. Subsidies for planes in the twin-aisle market cost the sale of 50 Boeing 767s, 777s and 787s. And subsidies to the A380 cost Boeing the sale of 54 747s.These represent crippling losses for Boeing, a crown jewel of U.S. manufacturing and a critical component of our national defense.
Earlier, writes Boyle, the WTO ruled that, “without the subsidies, Airbus would not have existed … and there would be no Airbus aircraft on the market.”
In “The Great Betrayal” in 1998, I noted that in its first 25 years the socialist cartel called Airbus Industrie “sold 770 planes to 102 airlines but did not make a penny of profit.”
Read the entire article
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Monday, May 09, 2016
Obama: TTIP Necessary To Protect Megabanks From Prosecution
On May 7th, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or German Economic News, headlined, “USA planen mit TTIP Frontal-Angriff auf Gerichte in Europa” or “U.S. Plans Frontal Attack on Europe’s Courts via TTIP,” and reported that, “America’s urgency to sign TTIP with Europe has solid reason: Megabanks must protect themselves from claims by European investors who allege that they were cheated during the debt crisis. … The U.S. Ambassador to Italy has now let the cat out of the bag on this — probably unintentionally.”
In this particular case, the megabank that’s being sued isn’t American but German, Deutsche Bank, which the U.S. Ambassador to Italy has cited as his example to defend, perhaps so as to appeal to Germans to protect their megabanks against lawsuits from foreign investors (such as Italians) who complain. In that case it was investors in the Italian city of Trani, population 53,000. The smallness of the city was an issue the Ambassador raised against the suit’s having been brought there.
Reuters headlined on May 6th, “Italian prosecutor investigates Deutsche Bank over 2011 bond sale”, and reported that, “An Italian prosecutor is investigating Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) over its sale of 7 billion euros ($8 billion) of Italian government bonds five years ago, an investigative source told Reuters. A prosecutor in Trani, a town in southern Italy, is investigating because Deutsche Bank allegedly told clients in a research note in early 2011 that Italy’s public debt was no cause for concern, and then sold almost 90 percent of its own holding of the country’s bonds.” The U.S. bond-rating agencies are also subjects in this suit, because Trani had relied upon their ratings of those bonds.
The Obama Administration (through its Italian Ambassador) seems thus to be saying, in effect, that unless TTIP is passed into law, Europe’s megabanks (and the U.S. bond-rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch) will be able successfully to be sued by cheated investors, just as has been happening with such American banks as JPMorgan/Chase and Goldman Sachs in the United States, which — since TTIP hasn’t yet been in force anywhere, including in the U.S. — were forced to pay billions to cheated investors. Apparently, Obama would be happier if those suits had been impossible in the U.S. The argument here, though only implicitly, seems to be that TTIP is the way to protect megabanks and the bond-rating firms. It concerns specifically the selling of sophisticated derivative investments.
Read the entire article
In this particular case, the megabank that’s being sued isn’t American but German, Deutsche Bank, which the U.S. Ambassador to Italy has cited as his example to defend, perhaps so as to appeal to Germans to protect their megabanks against lawsuits from foreign investors (such as Italians) who complain. In that case it was investors in the Italian city of Trani, population 53,000. The smallness of the city was an issue the Ambassador raised against the suit’s having been brought there.
Reuters headlined on May 6th, “Italian prosecutor investigates Deutsche Bank over 2011 bond sale”, and reported that, “An Italian prosecutor is investigating Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) over its sale of 7 billion euros ($8 billion) of Italian government bonds five years ago, an investigative source told Reuters. A prosecutor in Trani, a town in southern Italy, is investigating because Deutsche Bank allegedly told clients in a research note in early 2011 that Italy’s public debt was no cause for concern, and then sold almost 90 percent of its own holding of the country’s bonds.” The U.S. bond-rating agencies are also subjects in this suit, because Trani had relied upon their ratings of those bonds.
The Obama Administration (through its Italian Ambassador) seems thus to be saying, in effect, that unless TTIP is passed into law, Europe’s megabanks (and the U.S. bond-rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch) will be able successfully to be sued by cheated investors, just as has been happening with such American banks as JPMorgan/Chase and Goldman Sachs in the United States, which — since TTIP hasn’t yet been in force anywhere, including in the U.S. — were forced to pay billions to cheated investors. Apparently, Obama would be happier if those suits had been impossible in the U.S. The argument here, though only implicitly, seems to be that TTIP is the way to protect megabanks and the bond-rating firms. It concerns specifically the selling of sophisticated derivative investments.
Read the entire article
Friday, April 01, 2016
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
Monday, March 31, 2014
The US-EU Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA). Devastating Social and Environmental Consequences
The Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) between the US and EU aims to ‘protect’ investment and remove ‘unnecessary regulatory barriers’. Corporate interests are driving the agenda, the public have been sidelined and unaccountable, pro-free-trade bureaucrats are facilitating the strategy.
There is growing concern that the negotiations could result in the opening of the floodgates for GMOs and shale gas (fracking) in Europe, the threatening of digital and labour rights and the empowering of corporations to legally challenge a wide range of regulations which they dislike.
One of the key aspects of the negotiations is that both the EU and US should recognise their respective rules and regulations, which in practice could reduce regulation to the lowest common denominator. The official language talks of ‘mutual recognition’ of standards or so-called reduction of non-tariff barriers. For the EU, that could mean accepting US standards in many areas, including food and agriculture, which are lower than the EU’s.
Even the leaders of the US Senate Finance Committee, in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, made it clear that any agreement must reduce EU restrictions on genetically modified crops, chlorinated chickens and hormone-treated beef.
Food lobby group Food and Drink Europe, representing the largest food companies (Unilever, Kraft, Nestlé, etc.), has welcomed the negotiations, with one of their key demands being the facilitation of the low level presence of unapproved GM crops.
The TAFTA negotiations are shrouded in secrecy and are closed to proper public scrutiny. They amount to little more than grubby back room deals, while striving to give the appearance of somehow being democratic, and effectively constitute part of the ongoing corporate hijack of democracy and the further restructuring of economies in favour of elite interests.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Friday, January 03, 2014
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Secret TPP Negotiations Resume in Salt Lake City
The newest round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations begin today in Salt Lake City, Utah, where trade representatives will work towards finalizing the text of this sprawling secret agreement. Last week's publication of the controversial "Intellectual Property" chapter by Wikileaks confirmed our worst fears: the TPP carries draconian copyright enforcement provisions that threaten users' rights and could stifle innovation well into the 21st Century. Public opposition to the TPP continues to grow as a result of the leaked document; an opaque policymaking process that seems geared towards appeasing Big Content does not provide much in the way of legitimacy.
In the past week, 23 Republicans and 151 Democrats in the House of Representatives wrote letters to the Obama administration indicating their unwillingness to comply with the Executive's request for power to fast-track trade agreements through Congress. Fast-track authority, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, limits congressional approval over trade agreements to a yes or no, up or down vote. If a bill granting fast-track were to pass, hearings would become extremely limited, and lawmakers would have no ability to make amendments. It would give the Obama administration unchecked power to shape TPP and other agreements like the EU-U.S. trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP).
There are some Congress members who are actively pushing for fast-track and are vowing to introduce legislation to enact it by 2014. Thankfully, these letters from the House show the White House is going to have difficulty in finding support in Congress to pass such a bill. Still, the Obama administration is going to push hard for the passage of fast-track. The U.S. trade office is negotiating TPP as if it already has fast-track authority, by deciding for itself which countries to negotiate with and what issues are on the table.
Without fast-track, it's inconceivable that the TPP would survive congressional debate. And that's the point of all of this secrecy: the TPP's myriad harmful provisions for users wouldn't survive the sunlight of transparency, so it's being negotiated in the dark. And since negotiators only get to hear corporations' concerns while drafting these policies, it only makes sense that its agenda would exclude users' interests.
In the past week, 23 Republicans and 151 Democrats in the House of Representatives wrote letters to the Obama administration indicating their unwillingness to comply with the Executive's request for power to fast-track trade agreements through Congress. Fast-track authority, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, limits congressional approval over trade agreements to a yes or no, up or down vote. If a bill granting fast-track were to pass, hearings would become extremely limited, and lawmakers would have no ability to make amendments. It would give the Obama administration unchecked power to shape TPP and other agreements like the EU-U.S. trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP).
There are some Congress members who are actively pushing for fast-track and are vowing to introduce legislation to enact it by 2014. Thankfully, these letters from the House show the White House is going to have difficulty in finding support in Congress to pass such a bill. Still, the Obama administration is going to push hard for the passage of fast-track. The U.S. trade office is negotiating TPP as if it already has fast-track authority, by deciding for itself which countries to negotiate with and what issues are on the table.
Without fast-track, it's inconceivable that the TPP would survive congressional debate. And that's the point of all of this secrecy: the TPP's myriad harmful provisions for users wouldn't survive the sunlight of transparency, so it's being negotiated in the dark. And since negotiators only get to hear corporations' concerns while drafting these policies, it only makes sense that its agenda would exclude users' interests.
So we need to demand that our lawmakers oppose fast-track. Let's ask them to call for a hearing and exercise their authority to oversee the U.S. trade office’s secret copyright agenda.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)