President Donald Trump said American consumers aren't paying more as a result of his tariffs. He said the Chinese don't have enough ammunition to retaliate at the same scale that the U.S. has in what he called a trade skirmish, not a trade war. Trump, who was speaking in a wide-ranging interview on CBS's 60 Minutes Oct. 14, said, "I called it a battle. But, actually, I'm gonna lower that. I consider it a skirmish. And we're gonna win." He said the Chinese want to negotiate, and he might levy more tariffs.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Dennis Shea, the U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization, says that China's interventions in its economy make it incompatible with the rule-based international trading system, and that more countries need to speak out about it. The U.S., the European Union and Japan are working on a common view of what the problems are with China, and what might be done to encourage changes. After that agreement is reached, they will be looking for more allies. Shea warned during a presentation Oct. 12 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that "friends of the system," as about 40 countries are known in Geneva, "want to be middle-of-the-roaders when they really need to pick a lane."
The International Trade Commission is seeking testimony and submissions for its analysis of how the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will affect industry, consumers and the economy as a whole. The ITC is charged with producing such a report for Congress to use as it decides whether to ratify any new trade agreement. It must do so within 105 days of the president entering into the agreement.
The changes to Mexican labor law that would end captive unions are definitely going to happen before the Jan. 1 deadline described in an annex to the labor chapter of the new NAFTA agreement, according to Jesus Seade, who served as chief negotiator for the incoming Mexican president. "That chapter, more than any, was extensively discussed with the legislature," he said. "Mexico has what we call 'cowboy trade unions,' which are basically bogus trade unions, corrupt, in cahoots with the local authorities. Now all of that is going out the window."
Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who represents a state with steel mills and many steel-consuming factories, said he's meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Oct. 10 to ask him what his plan is to lift the steel and aluminum tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada. Portman, who is a former USTR himself, said in an Oct. 10 interview before the meeting that "it seems to me that'd be something important to resolve."
America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (S. 3021), which would provide funding for navigation and dredging improvements at ports around the country, passed the Senate 99-1 Oct. 10 and goes to the president's desk for signing. The bill, which also would begin feasibility studies for dozens of flood control and dredging projects, provides funding to improve navigation in southeast Arkansas; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and in Seattle's Harbor, as well as to extend the Galveston, Texas, harbor channel. Across all those projects, the cost would be nearly $300 million.
When the head of the Canada Institute asked Canadian negotiators in the NAFTA talks what they were most proud of, they said modernization at the border. "The customs facilitation, the regulatory [change] makes a big difference," said Laura Dawson, director of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute. "Origin certificates used to have to be faxed to the border. The fact that they're going to use iPads is a huge win."
Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull offered a full-throated defense of free trade in a speech to a Washington think tank. "There is no question that free trade and open markets means more jobs," Turnbull said Oct. 4 at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He said his consistent rejection of protectionism seemed out of step with the global trend after the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. But he spoke with pride of how Australia, New Zealand and Japan led the charge to save the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the U.S. withdrawal. Even without the U.S., the remaining 11 countries account for 15 percent of global trade volumes, he said.
Vice President Mike Pence said American voters will not be swayed by Chinese propaganda and tariffs aimed at rural Republican constituencies, and that the administration will keep escalating tariffs on China until abuses end. "Our message to China's rulers is this president will not back down," Pence said Oct. 4 at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. "We'll continue to take action against Beijing until the theft of American intellectual property ends once and for all. And we will continue to stand strong until Beijing stops the predatory practice of forced technology transfer."
Previous presidents gave lip service to curbing China's unfair trade practices, but never followed through, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said during a Q&A at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C. "And President Trump is following through. Don't blame Trump, blame the system he inherited." Kudlow, who called Trump a disrupter, acknowledged that he is "more of a doctrinaire free trader" than his boss. But, he said, the China problem can't be left alone. "China has played fast and loose with the rules," Kudlow said Oct. 4. "The World Trade Organization needs reforms to enforce those rules. China is not a developing country anymore."