PrairiePundit

 Hot Air: Report: Nike, Coke, Other Companies Lobbying Against Bill That Would Ban Goods Made With Slave Labor Of Uighurs In Xinjiang It is something the Chicoms try to hide and the companies are unable to verify the sources of labor for things in their supply chain.  What they could do is withdraw production until China allows a proper audit of the source of the material used, but the companies seem unwilling to take such a step. 

Washington Examiner: Washington officials hope to tie London into a trade deal that would make it harder for China to extend its influence as the United Kingdom and the United States begin talks on Tuesday. Boris Johnson’s government has made no secret of its desire for rapid trade deals as the U.K. finds a new place in the world after leaving the European Union. And as tensions rise with China and with months of economic gloom ahead, officials in Washington see an opportunity to score a win over Beijing’s expansionism. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office says it wants to be able under the deal to act if the U.K. strikes free trade deals with “non-market countries,” restricting London’s ability to negotiate with Beijing. A former administration official familiar with current thinking said the coronavirus crisis made it more important than ever to secure trade deals and build a united front against China. “It’s clear that China is more determined than ever to move Europe ...

Express: EU panic: German companies ‘poised to relocate to UK’ after Brexit on ONE condition EU chiefs could be issued a huge blow if a US-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is secured - as German businesses might find relocating en masse to post-Brexit Britain incredibly profitable, former Ukip MP Douglas Carswell told Express.co.uk. This could be a good deal for the US and the UK and those companies who choose to relocate to the UK.  The EU would be under more pressure to drop its protectionist policies.

Washington Times: President Trump struck a trade deal Wednesday with the European Union, reaping significant concessions as top E.U. officials moved to avoid an escalating tariff war with the U.S. The agreement seeks to eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers and subsidies, which was the deal pushed by Mr. Trump. “This was a very big day for free and fair trade,” Mr. Trump said in announcing the deal in the Rose Garden with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker by his side. Mr. Trump called the deal a “new phase” in U.S.-E.U. relations. The deal also included the E.U. importing more U.S. soybeans, lowering industrial tariffs and working on an agreement to import more liquified natural gas (LNG) from America. “I had the intention to make a deal today and we made a deal today,” said Mr. Juncker. The two leaders faced off over escalating dispute over tariffs and trade barriers that block U.S. goods. The big dispute is over cars, with Mr. Trump threatening massive t...

Washington Post: Trump feels personally betrayed by Harley’s decision to avoid tariffs President Trump’s aggrieved tweets about Harley-Davidson’s plan to move some production offshore showed how he is grappling with the effect of policies he expected to produce a more favorable outcome, trade experts said. The whole purpose of Trump's tariffs is to force other countries to reduce their's in return for him dropping US tariffs.   Harley Davidson's move undercut his leverage.  The end goal of Trump's policies is true free trade on a level playing field.

NY Times: U.S. and China Expand Trade War as Beijing Matches Trump’s Tariffs The tariffs on China by the Trump administration shift what has primarily been a war of words between Washington and Beijing into a full-blown trade war. Because the US buys significantly more from China than China buys from the US, it has more to lose in a trade war with the US.  Trump's goals are also more realistic.  He is looking to break down barriers to trade and reduce tariffs on US businesses.  While the media tends to focus on the tariffs Trump is imposing, the end goal is to eliminate tariffs on both sides and have genuine free trade to should benefit both countries.

Handelsblatt: US President Donald Trump may actually have a point when it comes to unfair taxes on US goods coming into Europe. That is the finding of a new study by a leading German think tank. Where they differ is how to deal with it: The group urges new talks to lower tariffs across the board, instead of engaging in a tit-for-tat escalation in new taxes. “The EU is by no means the paradise for free traders that it likes to think,” said Gabriel Felbermayr, director of the ifo Center for International Economics, a division of the Munich-based ifo Institute. The European Union actually comes off as the bigger offender when compared to the US, he added. The unweighted average EU customs duty is 5.2 percent, versus the US rate of 3.5 percent, according to ifo’s database. So when Mr. Trump complains of “massive tariffs” he is not that far off the mark in several cases. And he does complain. “If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US compani...

NY Times: Europe Is Annoyed, Not Grateful, After Trump Delays Tariffs European officials expressed disappointment that an exemption to steel and aluminum tariffs was not permanent, leaving the global economy in limbo. Why should Europe be allowed to create a competitive advantage for its industry over the US?  If they believe in free trade they should be willing to trade with the US on a level playing field.  That is the goal of the proposed tariffs by the Trump administration.

NY Times: On Trade, a Feisty Trump Risks Economic Damage The president’s threat to pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement would hurt the very workers he says he aims to help. I think Trump's pitch about NAFTA was mainly addressed to winning blue-collar votes in blue states like the Rust Belt.  In Texas, NAFTA actually created jobs.  It is estimated that exports are responsible for about a million jobs in Texas. From the Rio Grade Valley where produce processors and transportation companies bring in food products to keep fresh fruits and vegetables in the grocery stories when they would be out of season for domestic farmers, to oil and gas shipments to Mexico, there are just a lot of jobs tied to this trade and I am glad to see Trump backed off the border adjustment tax idea. That said, I do not think his attacks on NAFTA will hurt his rust belt supporters because their problems are with Democrat controlled states which n...

Wall Street Journal: When Rick Chevalier wants to ship raw materials from Mexico to his company’s coffee plant in Canada, all it takes is a quick email. As U.S. distribution manager for Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee, Mr. Chevalier arranges a single trucking or train company to whisk the materials, used for coffee-machine capsules, from the Mexican state of Querétaro up through the U.S. and into Ontario in Canada. Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, what was once a seven-day trip might now take only five and saves his company money, he said. “It’s free trade that simplifies it,” said Mr. Chevalier, who works from Fort Worth, where Mother Parkers has a roasting plant with 300 employees. Far from abandoned mills and factories of the industrial Midwest, where simmering anger over trade deals and jobs shipped overseas helped catapult Donald Trump to victory, Texas’ export economy is powered by Nafta. As a candidate, the president-elect blasted the 22-year-old agr...

Sunday Telegraph: Donald Trump ally backs free trade deal with Britain to show America's 'solidarity with our indispensable ally' Ryan would like to see a deal that would be effective as soon as Britain exits the EU.  Obama had said that Britain would have to go to the back of the line for a trade agreement, but the Republicans disagree.

Independent: Inside the West Virginia steel town destroyed by Nafta – where 94% of jobs have gone and Trump is king Scenes from the 1978 movie ‘The Deer Hunter’ were shot against the industrial backdrop There was a time, not so long ago, when this city on the Ohio River employed up to 15,000 people in the steel mills whose rusting warehouses still line the streets. Now the figure is closer to 800. First, it was costs associated with the repeated regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Then, after 1994 and the passing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) it was cheaper competition from places such as Mexico. In the end, there was no way Weirton could compete, and an industry that has fed and clothed the city for generations essentially died. ... I suspect the EPA rulings may have as much to do with the move as the NAFTA  agreement.  Without the EPA requirements, there would not have been as much incentive to move.  The artic...

CNN: Tim Kaine struggled to explain a position Hillary Clinton apparently took in a 2013 paid speech to a Brazilian bank that was uncovered in a new WikiLeaks hack over the weekend . Clinton's comments -- she apparently told an audience that her "dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders" -- are at odds with statements she has made on the campaign trail in which she has called for more restrictive trade policies in order to protect American workers. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that aired Sunday on "State of the Union," Tapper asked Kaine if his running mate really desires "a hemispheric common market with open borders sometime in the future," as was written in a transcript of a 2013 closed-door speech she apparently gave to Brazilian bankers that was included in one of the hacked emails. ... But when Tapper pressed Kaine on whether it was accurate that Clinton truly wishes for "open borders and ...

NY Times: Free Trade Has Hurt Some Workers. Now, They’re Lashing Out. Trade is under attack around the world, because economists failed to anticipate the resulting joblessness, and governments failed to help. Texas became a trade juggernaut  under the policies of Gov. Rick Perry.  It is the leading export state in the nation including tech exports.  NAFTA has become a net positive in Texas, creating thousands of jobs.  Its policies of low taxes and low regulation made it more competitive and its right to work laws made it an attractive place for domestic and foreign companies to expand and create jobs. The free trade loser states tend to be blue states with noncompetitive forced unions and a high tax high regulation economy such as Illinois and New York.  Those states have been losing jobs inside the US for decades because of these policies as manufacturing expansion took place in right to work states. The forced union model has done the opposite of w...

NY Times: Who Hates Free Trade Treaties? Surprisingly, Not Voters Support for trade agreements in general, and the pending Pacific pact in particular, stands in notable contrast to the toxicity of trade this election season. Texas has around a million jobs tied to trade.  It is the leading export state in the union and that includes high tech.  Thousands of those jobs were created as a result of NAFTA which has been a net plus for the state.  Trump's appeal seems more targeted to the failed blue states who are stuck with their forced union laws which make them less competitive. BTW, Texas is also home to Toyota's corporate headquarters in the US as well as its truck manufacturing facilities. Trump is wrong on the trade issue, but his target audience appears to be disaffected, Democrats.  His criticism of Ford for moving some manufacturing to Mexico appears to be based on misinformation.  His stated policy of imposing tariffs on goods manufactu...

Breitbart: Meet the ‘Trumpocrats’: Lifelong Democrats Breaking with Party Over Hillary Clinton to Support Donald Trump for President Perhaps there is an active #NeverHillary movement out there , but it is mainly a single issue group who do not understand the benefits of trade and its jobs creation potential.

John Cornyn: Free trade has taken a lot of hits this campaign season. Candidates from both parties have argued that this core tenet of capitalism should be completely rewritten, if not entirely erased. The reasoning goes something like this: If we open up our economy and cut trade deals with other countries, we run the risk of sending American jobs overseas. That may sound convincing, but those claims are often exaggerated and ignore the tremendous benefits trade provides folks here at home. And it flies in the face of what we've experienced here in Texas and across the United States. With about 95 percent of the world's consumers outside of our country, in today's globalized world, staying competitive means looking beyond our borders. As the country's No. 1 exporter, our state's producers do that remarkably well. More than 40,000 companies in Texas sell their goods and services abroad. And of those, more than 90 percent are small and medium-sized businesses. In...

Daniel Griswald: With all the challenges confronting the United States, the two major presidential candidates have committed themselves to picking a needless trade fight with the two biggest customers for U.S. exports: Canada and Mexico. Hillary Clinton recently joined Donald Trump in threatening to reopen and potentially scuttle the 22-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. But tearing up NAFTA would be an economic and foreign-policy blunder of historic proportions. NAFTA was a bipartisan achievement, approved by Congress with strong Republican support and signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993. Once fully implemented, the agreement eliminated virtually all trade barriers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. By every reasonable measure, NAFTA has been a success. The trade agreement delivered its core promise of deeper North American economic integration. Since its passage, our two-way trade with Canada and Mexico has more than tripled, with trilateral trade flo...

NY Times: Both Parties Used to Back Free Trade. Now They Bash It. Democrats and Republicans agreed on almost nothing at their conventions this month, except that trade agreements, notably the Trans-Pacific Partnership, are now politically perilous. They are appealing to the failed economies of the blue states who lost their competitive edge.  They are playing to the union bosses who have ruined US competitiveness. As I have noted before, NAFTA has been a net positive for the State of Texas and has had a hand in created around a million jobs.   Texas did it by being proactive and seeking business with Mexico and Canada.  It did it by keeping taxes low and regulation reasonable. What Trump and Clinton are doing is they are trying to bail out the mismanaged states run by Democrats.  In the process, they are not going to create much in the way of new manufacturing jobs and they are going to drive up the cost of living for everyone.  This will fall ha...

streiff: BREAKING. Hillary Clinton Steals Donald Trump’s Economic Policy The unions don't like so now she doesn't either.  As I have noted before NAFTA  was a net plus for Texas.  It has actually led to the creation of around a million jobs in Texas.  It has probably had more of a negative effect on blue state economies particularly if they do not have right to work laws.