SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
President Trump has signed a presidential memorandum directing the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to draw up a list of Chinese products on which tariffs could be imposed. The list will be made public in 15 days, and tariffs will take effect after a 60-day comment period:
The US plans to impose tariffs on up to $60bn (£42.5bn) in Chinese goods and limit the country's investment in the US in retaliation for years of alleged intellectual property theft.
The White House said the actions were necessary to counter unfair competition from China's state-led economy. It said years of talks had failed to produce change. China said it was ready to retaliate with "necessary measures". Beijing also said it would "fight to the end" in any trade war with the US.
US stock markets closed lower on Thursday, as investors responded to the announcement. [...] The White House said it has a list of more than 1,000 products that could be targeted by tariffs of 25%. Businesses will have the opportunity to comment before the final list goes into effect.
Reuters portrays the action as "far removed from threats that could have ignited a global trade war". Bloomberg notes that many industry trade groups and companies are opposing the tariffs.
Related: US Government Puts Tariffs on Imported Solar Cells, Solar Modules, and Washing Machines
Major US Solar Company Blames Job Cuts On Trump's Solar Import Tariff
U.S. Steel and Aluminum Imports to Face New Tariffs
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @02:23PM
Apparently comrade, you were absent when they discussed the concept of economic dumping at the University of Moscow. No worries, I will enlighten you.
The Yuan has been kept trading at an artificially low exchange rate for decades. The Chinese government also subsidizes shipping for finished goods to the U.S. This has resulted in a slow bleeding to death of U.S. manufacturing, and a dramatic growth in Chinese manufacturing.
The problem with this, is that having a functional domestic manufacturing base is actually important for a lot of reasons that are not emediately apparent to those whose realities are defined by what they watch of TV.
Yes, prices are going to rise for consumer goods. But they are really just catching up to an existing disproportionaitely high inflation rate for durable goods and materials. We are going to suffer for a few years. The state will probably report 9% inflation, but we will probably see something closer to 13%. Note that this is just public debt being paid off by inflating it out of existence. This inflation has already happened, it just hasn't been booked yet. This correction has to happen, and sooner is better than later.
The great American pimping experiment is over. Hustlers and drama queens (the banking at media sectors) are going start seeing less money, and people who actually do things are going to start seeing more money. But over the next few years, we are all going to take it in the ass. Or more to the point, we already have, we are just going to realize it.
If the Chinese were smart, they would negotiate. And what you would see it as a result is either the Yuan float, or the exchange rate change in our favor slightly. But really, I think the trade war is the way to go. We need market stability for our manufacturing base, and that is never going to happen as long as the Yuan is state managed. Even if they changed the exchange rate, they would just change it back in 6 years, when some new enron or AIG style banking scam is operating under the colors of the executive branch. (both parties can be relied on to support whatever scam that happens to be)
China is to manufacturing, what OPEC is to alternative fuels.
Of course we could talk about more important things, like the latest whitehouse beavergate.