Site Search:
 
Speak Korean Now!
Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!
Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Tariff Escalations: China

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum
View previous topic :: View next topic  

Are the Tariff Escalations good policy?
Overall, yes
33%
 33%  [ 1 ]
It may be a close call, and depend on the manner/execution
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Overall, no
66%
 66%  [ 2 ]
Total Votes : 3

Author Message
Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2018 9:55 pm    Post subject: Tariff Escalations: China Reply with quote

This thread particularly concerns the tariff escalations the United States Executive Office has impressed against the People's Republic of China. There is a poll.

Francesco Sisci sets forth the big picture: http://www.settimananews.it/politica/war-or-peace-around-china/

Francesco Sisci wrote:
In the late 1970s, China was granted very low import tariffs for its exports to America, and the United States encouraged exports of technology to China. The combination of these two elements created the conditions for Chinese development in the following decades.

As the price for this, China was supposed to become an ally of America in Asia. Actually, because of these conditions, which were more favorable than for any other country in Asia, China was singled out to be America’s best friend in the region.

These special conditions were further improved in the late 1990s, some 20 years later, when China was accepted into the World Trade Organization (WTO). China’s entry into the WTO further expanded China’s access to the global markets and the absorption of foreign technology to improve Chinese industry. An unspoken condition of this entry was that China had to become democratic.

Furthermore, in the first years of renewed China-US relations, China was useful to America against the USSR. Since the early 1990s, China was also helpful to America for the expansion of its new economic and trade vision, called globalization.

However, 40 years after the beginning of the Chinese reforms, and almost 50 years after Nixon’s trip to China, the conditions are all very different ...


James Fallows makes the case against the tariff escalations: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/us-china-trade-war/557573/

James Fallows wrote:
What the U.S. is doing now won’t work.

A rhetorically escalating threat-and-counter-threat between the U.S. and China may be emotionally satisfying to those who believe, as Trump has said constantly over the decades, that China is “cheating” and “robbing” the United States.

But if the goal is to get the Chinese government to change its behavior, there is very little reason to think that public threats, lectures, and showdowns will do the trick.

You could go through lots of game-theory reasoning to get to this point—for instance, that while the Chinese economy is in principle more exposed to the pain of a trade war than the U.S. is (because China is poorer, and more dependent on exports), in reality its government faces no mid-term elections, or presidential re-election runs, or public elections at all. Also, it can more easily offset an economic downtown in the short run just by ramping up the infrastructure machine— building another new high-speed rail line someplace in China, building ports and railways through the rest of the world via its “One Belt One Road” program, or in other ways turning on the job spigot for long enough to last out a trade showdown.

And, as Paul Krugman has spelled out in The New York Times, even though manufacturers would adjust in the long run to a shift in international prices (from tariffs and other factors), right at the moment, factories to produce much of what’s made in China don’t exist in the United States. Companies could decide to build them—but that’s a matter of years of planning and construction, and billions of dollars, reliant on the idea that Trump-era tariffs would last.


Seeking Alpha provides an argument in favor:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4186858-america-can-will-win-trade-war

Seeking Alpha wrote:
[Trump] is not expecting companies to abandon the Chinese market, or not manufacture some of their goods in China. There are two ways to lower the trade imbalance between China and the United States, either America buys less from China, or China buys more from the United States. President Trump wants China to start buying a lot more products made in America. And when this Trade War ends that is exactly what China will wind up doing.

...

There are winners and losers in the U.S. caused by the current trade imbalance with China. And the Europeans and Chinese believe that by targeting retaliatory tariffs designed to hurt Trump Voters the most that they can politically outlast President Trump and break his support. This is highly unlikely to occur.

According to the Gallup Organization, President Trump is more popular with the voters of his own party than any President has been since Gallup began polling weekly for Presidential Job Approval ratings (outside of short-term bumps by Acts of War such as the attack on September 11, 2001).

...

The point is President Trump has succeeded in convincing Republicans, and some Independents and Democrats, that these trade deficits are unfair to America and things need to change. There is no going back to the good old days for China and other countries when American leadership looked the other way and gave lip-service to the massive trade imbalances. In time, China and other countries will come to realize this.


Here is a trade comparison from 2017's data: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-all-the-stuff-the-us-imports-from-china-thats-causing-a-huge-trade-deficit-2018-03-23

Feel free to post your own, or others's pros or cons regarding the trade escalations.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
tophatcat



Joined: 09 Aug 2006
Location: under the hat

PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tariffs on China are a positive thing.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/24/trump-trade-aid-for-farmers-737108

Quote:
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Tuesday unveiled a three-part, $12 billion plan to ease the sting of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. farmers through a mix of payments, purchases and trade promotion efforts.

The plan seeks to ensure that U.S. farmers and ranchers — a key constituency for President Donald Trump and Republicans — don’t bear the brunt of an escalating trade fight as the administration pursues an aggressive course to rebalance America's trade relationships.

...

In the first part of the aid plan, the government will provide direct payments to growers and producers of soybeans, sorghum, corn, wheat, cotton, pork and dairy. The second part, a “food purchase and distribution program,” would use authority under USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service to purchase fruit, nuts, rice, beef, pork and dairy products from U.S. producers for redistribution to federal nutrition assistance programs.

[List of Federal Nutrition Assistance Programs, including SNAP, NSLP, WIC, and others]

The plan's third element would put resources toward finding new markets for U.S. farmers to sell their products abroad.

Perdue said all of the programs are authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, a Depression-era funding program that doesn’t require approval from Congress.


Neo-liberalism is dead. Long live the revival of the New Deal!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
Non



Joined: 22 May 2013

PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 9:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

tophatcat wrote:
Tariffs on China are a positive thing.


Explain? He's put farmers on welfare (called subsidies) because they can't sell their crops anymore. This is a positive thing how?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 10:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/399661-farm-bureau-farms-will-be-lost-if-trump-doesnt-change-course-on-trade

Quote:
The Farm Bureau’s public policy leader Dale Moore on Tuesday said some farms may be lost in the U.S. trade war, but Trump's policies “may be better for some farmers in the long-term.”

Moore said that farmers appreciate the $12 billion in emergency aid the administration is planning to provide to help agriculture farmers hit hard by retaliatory tariffs, but it might not be enough for some farms in the short term.

...

“It’s one thing when you’ve got a little bit of trade that puts a little gravy on things, but when you’ve got commodities that 20 percent, 40 percent, 60 percent of what we produce in this country gets exported ... you take that away it doesn’t take very long for the bankers to shut you down,” Moore said.


The Federal government needs to provide subsidized access to emergency financing to these farmers. Immediately.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message AIM Address
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group

TEFL International Supports Dave's ESL Cafe
TEFL Courses, TESOL Course, English Teaching Jobs - TEFL International