Worldwide automakers and suppliers call for more breaks in Trump tariff plan

A meeting in Brussels between Malmstrom and her USA counterpart Robert Lighthizer on Saturday ended without a breakthrough, as the European Union didn’t receive reassurances that it will be exempted from metal tariffs.

Administration authorities and others have stated the impact of greater steel and aluminum rates on the cost of a vehicle will be modest. But the history of trade protectionism is largely one of trade wars, retaliatory tariffs on USA exports and, eventually, lost jobs.

Claiming U.S. national security and our economy require protection of the American steel and aluminum manufacturing industries, President Donald Trump instituted a 25 percent tariff tax on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff tax on aluminum imports, with some exemptions for American allies.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland will be in Washington for three days this week – meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and key members of Congress.

Speaking to reporters in the Capitol, U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady stressed that Trump was serious about addressing the issue of intellectual property theft.

Donald Trump is president of the world’s most powerful nation, but he’s also a businessman.

China’s aluminum output is a fraction of steel’s size at about 36 million tons previous year.

In 2002, President George W. Bush imposed tariffs of up to 30 percent on most types of steel imports from Europe, Asia and South America, while giving exemptions to Mexico, Canada and developing nations.

After a huge construction boom at the start of the millennium boosted its steel industry, China’s recent economic downturn prompted it to export its overcapacity in steel at artificially low prices. What worries us is the ripple effect of the global trade row. The move will certainly come as a huge burden to Korean steelmakers.

We urge the administration to reconsider this action and continue investigating the impact of steel and aluminum tariffs on the USA economy and steel-consuming sectors downstream.

Asked to respond to Trump’s accusations that the EU is imposing barriers to USA automakers, Malmstrom said that “it’s hard to argue on Twitter over these issues, but the European Union is a very open market”.

“We expect the impact on USA growth and inflation to be fairly limited”, said Mikael Olai Milhoj, a senior analyst at Danske Bank in Copenhagen.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she’s counting on talks to resolve the trade dispute, but “can’t predict whether we will succeed or not succeed”. His tweet – “trade wars are good and easy to win” – reflects the mindset behind the misadventure.

Tariffs on tech exports could potentially hit the fastest growing segment of China’s industrial sector, an area that the country’s leaders have been keen to promote as they push for “higher quality” economic growth. To put that into perspective, that’s about $470 billion – roughly the size of Thailand’s output. It conditionally lifted an import ban on USA boneless beef and beef on the bone in June past year. Yet most trade spats end up without that kind of damage, and most in the survey were hopeful.

China tried to defuse threats of trade sanctions by agreeing at a meeting of the Group of 20 major economies in 2016 to form a global panel to discuss how to shrink the industry. On a more pessimistic note, the US has already been imposing anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Korean steel products, which will now be subject to an additional 25 percent tariff.

Trudeau’s view has prominent support: A poll of leading economists from the University of Chicago has found rare unanimity on the topic, with a newly released survey Monday showing that zero per cent of economists surveyed believe tariffs will help Americans.