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April 25: Mexico and the US have fought for years over tuna. The US
insists that any Mexican tuna sold in the US must be "dolphin safe," meaning
dolphins weren't killed by tuna fisherman, which was once common. Mexico says
its fisherman play by the rules. The US government disagrees.
On
Tuesday, the World Trade Organization ruled in Mexico's favor, allowing it to
impose trade sanctions worth $163 million a year against the US. The WTO says
that's how much money Mexico has lost from the US unfairly penalizing Mexican
tuna.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/25/news/economy/mexico-us-wto-tuna/index.html
April 29: Trump delivered a rousing address to a crowd of supporters in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania instead of attending the White House Correspondents'
Association dinner in Washington. The nearly-hour long speech began with attacks
on the press and covered his tax plan, jobs, the yet-to-be-built wall, trade and
other topics Trump had touted throughout his 2016 campaign.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/29/politics/gergen-trump-speech-cnntv/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlist
May 20: Despite the president's frequent
criticism of international trade deals, the survey found large and bipartisan
support for using trade as a tool of American diplomacy. Nearly eight-out-of-10
Democrats and Republicans agreed with that policy. Support was only slightly
lower among self-described independents.
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/20/528802896/npr-ipsos-poll-americans-arent-so-hot-on-america-first
July 26:
Trump Announces New Jobs At Company Notorious For Not Following Through
Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn said in the past it would build a plant in
the U.S. It didn’t.
Foxconn, best known for making the Apple iPhone,
has made similar announcements before in the U.S. In 2013, company said it would
spend $30 million to build a plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Then-Gov. Tom
Corbett (R) personally helped craft the deal
and hailed the plan in a statement, saying “Pennsylvania is once again leading
the way through integrating technology into manufacturing.”
July 27:
Trump’s Foxconn Wisconsin jobs deal
doesn’t hold up under scrutiny ...
3,000 jobs for $3 billion ...
Wisconsin lost 3,776 manufacturing jobs in 2016. Getting back 3,000, if that
pans out, seems paltry.
The job pledge dropped from 50,000 when Trump first alluded to it, to 30,000 in
early press releases, down to 13,000 in an early announcement on July 26, to
3,000 later in that day.
February 7:Trump's obsession with the U.S.'s
trade deficit is about to get worse ... Despite Trump’s tough talk to correct
this make-believe problem, it’s now 12% wider than in President Obama’s final
year in office
Most economists say the gap between imports and exports doesn’t
matter much. Trade flows are determined mostly by demand and transportation
links. The United States runs deficits because it buys a lot and saves little,
and because globalization has reduced the cost of getting goods and services to
the world’s most voracious consumers.
February 19:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is mulling changes to how it
calculates U.S. trade deficits in a way that would likely help bolster political
arguments to renegotiate key trade deals, the Wall Street Journal reported on
Sunday, citing people involved in the discussions.
The main idea being discussed is whether to exclude “re-exports” from the
calculation of U.S. exports, sources told the newspaper. Re-exports refer to
goods that are imported into the United States, then transferred to another
country.
... By using a metric that widens the trade deficit, it could give him [Trump]
political leverage to make sweeping changes ...
If the government adopted the new method, the deficit with Mexico [for example]
would be nearly twice as high.
... career government employees at the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office
objected to a request to prepare data using the new methodology.
Although they complied with the request, the newspaper reported, the staffers
explained why they disagreed with the approach.
In a statement to the newspaper, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s
deputy chief of staff, Payne Griffin, said officials there are not close to a
decision yet on whether to adopt a new approach.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-trade-idUSKBN15Y0V1
March 2: Trump was angry and ‘unglued’ when he
started a trade war, officials say
Trump's policy maneuver, which may ultimately harm U.S. companies and American
consumers, was announced without any internal review by government lawyers or
his own staff, according to a review of an internal White House document.
March 5: China's global trade plan is piling
huge debt on smaller nations ... Big loans from China can come with big
headaches.
A
new report says China's massive plan to pump hundreds of billions of dollars
into ports, rail lines and other projects across Asia, Europe and Africa could
pile debt problems onto smaller countries.
Loans from China's Belt and Road Initiative "will significantly add to the risk
of debt distress" for eight countries, including Pakistan, Montenegro and
Djibouti, according to a report published Sunday by the Center for Global
Development, a US-based nonprofit think tank.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/05/news/economy/china-belt-road-debt-pakistan-laos/index.html
March 5: How Trump's tariffs could hand
trade leadership to China ... "If the U.S. abdicates as champion of the international trading system, China may be
the only country that can take the reins. The question is, what would that mean
for the current system of open and free markets?"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-trump-ceding-global-trade-leadership-to-china/
March 8:
President Donald Trump's demand that new tariffs be slapped on steel and
aluminum imports has spooked markets, prompted his chief economist's
resignation, rattled major US allies and widened a rift with establishment
Republicans.
None of that stopped Trump from moving forward with his plan Thursday to erect
25% and 10% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports respectively, as he signed two
tariff proclamations at the White House on Thursday, surrounded by steel and
aluminum workers.
[Note that Trump making exemptions coupled with allowances might possibly be his
way of keeping his campaign promises while not seriously making the very changes
he promised. Keep watching]
April 6: The Dow closed down 572 points, a
drop of 2.3%, after President Trump threatened to escalate a confrontation with
China over trade. It fell as much as 767 points earlier in the day. The S&P 500
and the Nasdaq each declined more than 2%.
April 21: GOP faces rural rebellion over
Trump trade agenda ... President Donald Trump's trade policies are confounding
Republicans as rural voters — his strongest supporters — stand to get the short
end of the stick just months away from the midterms.
May 24: Trump on collision course with
Congress on ZTE, the Chinese telecommunications giant sanctioned for doing
business with Iran and North Korea.
Trump has publicly signaled his desire to ease the restrictions on ZTE as he
seeks China's cooperation on North Korea talks and hammering out a trade deal.
If the U.S. insists on unilateral measures, China will respond accordingly,
foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing on
Wednesday. The White House said in a statement on Tuesday that a final list of
imported goods to be targeted will be released by June 15, and levies imposed
“shortly thereafter.”
http://fortune.com/2018/05/30/china-donald-trump-flip-flop-tariffs-trade-war/
May 31: The Trump administration is imposing
tariffs on steel
and aluminum
imports from Europe, Canada and Mexico after a month-long exemption expires at
midnight. Steel imports will be taxed at 25 percent and aluminum at 10 percent
under proclamations Mr. Trump
signed in March and
reconfirmed Thursday.
May 31: Trade war? What you need to know
about US steel tariffs
The world is currently closer to a full-scale trade war than at any time since
the 1930s, when the American Smoot-Hawley tariff prompted a domino effect among
other industrialised nations. Many protectionist measures have been introduced
since the global financial crisis of a decade ago but, for the most part, they
have been small scale. The current tension is far more serious ...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/31/trade-war-what-you-need-to-know-about-us-steel-tariffs
June 20: Chinese investment in the United
States has plummeted 92% this year
The dramatic decline comes as the fight between Washington and Beijing over
trade escalates, and US regulators increase their scrutiny of Chinese
acquisitions.
July 25: President Trump and European
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday that they have agreed to
work toward removing all trade barriers between the two sides.
In a Rose Garden announcement, Trump said the EU had also agreed to buy U.S.
soybeans, a day after he announced a $12 billion bailout package for farmers hit
by retaliatory tariffs. Trump said the EU will also become a "massive buyer" of
U.S. liquefied natural gas.
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/25/632448563/trump-and-eu-agree-to-work-toward-zero-tariffs
July 25: Trump's $12B aid package may help
farmers, but what about the other victims of his trade war?
Redressing the impact of tariffs on the economy will require more than just
paying off farmers directly.
Farm tariffs alone have the potential to hurt companies in a range of industries
from agricultural equipment makers to transport to energy, financial,
healthcare, mid-size cars and plastics, due to their reliance on imported metals
and electronics or are tied directly or indirectly to access to export markets.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/trump-s-12b-aid-package-may-help-farmers-what-about-n894511
July 25: American farmers already receive
billions of dollars in federal aid every year to protect them when prices fall
due to weather or market fluctuations.
The Trump administration juiced this long-standing safety net by pledging an
additional $12 billion in aid Tuesday -- but this time, it's to compensate
some farmers and ranchers from the fallout of President Donald Trump's widening
trade feuds. The nation's agriculture sector has seen prices drop and supplies
pile up as other countries impose tariffs to counter Trump's actions.
August 27: U.S. and Mexican negotiators
worked through the day Sunday to conclude their talks, which focus primarily on
autos that will be accepted without tariffs in the United States. The agreement
provides that 85 percent of the parts in the car must be made in North America
to be considered for tariff-free imports.
Trump had demanded a rewrite of NAFTA, claiming that Mexico was stealing jobs
and taking advantage of the previous NAFTA agreement, citing the fact that
Mexico enjoyed a $63.6 billion trade surplus with the United States in 2017.
Critics pointed out that much of that surplus came from cars that were assembled
from parts made in the U.S. and Canada, but the total car price was included in
the bilateral Mexican-U.S. trade figures.
There is no formal free trade deal between the US and Mexico, only an agreement
between the two countries on how to resolve key issues in their trade
relationship as part of the NAFTA talks. The US trade representative's office
officially described the agreement as "a preliminary agreement in principle ...
to update the 24-year-old NAFTA with modern provisions representing a 21st
century."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/27/politics/trump-nafta-deal/index.html
September 8: China’s Trade Surplus With U.S.
Hits New Record
November 5: Trump’s
“Incredible” Foxconn Deal Turns Out to Be a Another Massive Con Job
ast month, at a rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin,
Donald Trump introduced Governor Scott Walker to
the stage with a
boast regarding a dubious, shared accomplishment. “I got him set up with an
incredible company called Foxconn,” Trump told the crowd, referring to the
Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant that had agreed to build its first
U.S. plant in the Badger State. “[Foxconn] came to Wisconsin with the most
incredible plan . . . It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. We toured
it, and we had a ribbon-cutting a few months ago. And I handed it over to Scott
. . . there’s no plant like it anywhere in the United States. One of the most
incredible things I’ve ever seen. One of the most incredible things.”
December 6: Trade deficit hits 10-year high
as China shuns soybeans, Americans snap up imports
Trade deficit rises to $55.5 billion in October, which is highest since 2008 ...
amid a record shortfall with China, keeping the U.S. on pace to record the
largest annual gap in a decade.
Imports rose 0.2% to a record $266.5 billion in October. The U.S. imported more
autos, drugs and other consumer goods
Part of the recent surge in imports reflects American companies stocking up on
Chinese goods ahead of the holidays to get ahead of another increase in U.S.
tariffs that was supposed to kick in on Jan. 1. The U.S. tariff increase has
been temporarily been postponed until March.
January 2: Trump Trade 2019: Race To Resolve
China Trade War, Global Auto Tariffs, Nafta
President Donald Trump's ambitious effort to reroute global trade flows in an
America First direction is racing toward a conclusion. In the next couple of
months, Trump will escalate his China trade war or declare a truce. He'll decide
whether to unleash global auto tariffs, and he'll push Congress to accept his
deal to replace Nafta. How those Trump trade issues are resolved will have a
major impact on the global economy as well as the Dow Jones and broader stock
market.
https://www.investors.com/news/economy/trump-trade-2019-china-trade-war-global-auto-tariffs-nafta-dow-jones/
January 4: Where Donald Trump's Trade War Is
Headed in 2019
President Donald Trump ended last year with a trade cliffhanger, leaving nearly
all of his major disputes on the issue unresolved and everyone guessing about if
— and how — they will wrap up in 2019.
The stakes are high. Economic growth slowed in the third quarter and the stock
market experienced a sharp decline in the finals months of 2018, two metrics
that Trump has repeatedly bragged about during the first two years of his
presidency.
http://time.com/5487113/donald-trump-trade-war/
January
15: The Trump administration's protectionist trade
policies were supposed to reduce America's trade deficit with China—or, at
least, that's what President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed—but new data
shows that the gap between how much America imports from China and how much it
exports to China hit a new record high at the end of 2018.
China's trade surplus with the U.S. was $323 billion in 2018, according to
figures released this week by the Chinese government. That's a 17 percent
increase from 2017. China said that its exports to the U.S. grew by 11.3 percent
during 2018 (despite Trump's tariffs), while imports from the U.S. climbed by
only 0.7 percent last year.
https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/15/americas-trade-deficit-with-china-just-h
