Trade correspondent L.C. reports: The Trump administration’s trade policies are facing serious threats worldwide. One of the president’s first acts in office was to exit the twelve-country Transpacific Partnership (TPP-12) negotiated by the previous administration. Japan, however, kept the free-trade-oriented pact alive minus the US, and now the American cows are coming home, literally (see […]
President’s bid for more trade power likely to fail
Trade correspondent L.C. reports: The White House has drafted a “US Reciprocal Trade Act” that would give the president authority to impose tariffs unilaterally on specific products and countries. The president wants to promote it in his January 29th State of the Union address and would like it to be introduced in Congress before then. […]
Strategic materials war with China, US free trade negotiations with allies
Trade correspondent L.C. reports: The White House formally notified Congress on October 16th that it intends to begin free trade negotiations with three important allied trading partners: Japan, the EU, and the UK. Allied solidarity is crucial as China rushes to lock up strategic raw materials worldwide while resisting US efforts to reform its state-dominated […]
Trump’s trade agreements antagonize allies but are mostly PR
Trade correspondent L.C. (supplemented by a late-breaking addition): As we went to press, Bloomberg issued the following report on the just-concluded US-Canada agreement to continue NAFTA: “Globalists Will Love Trump’s New Nafta Deal. Despite the fanfare, the agreement doesn’t change much. “For the group of people meant to be enemies of President Donald Trump’s trade […]
Little support in private sector for administration’s escalating trade war
Trade correspondent L.C. reports: The US has imposed the threatened third major expansion of Section 301 tariffs — 10% tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese exports to the US. China’s has responded with retaliatory tariffs that will hit $60 billion in US exports to China and take effect today, Sept. 24th. There is virtually no […]
