A Storm of Reaction to Trump’s Tariffs
Michelle Bachelet, the president of Chile: “We believe in the value of an open economy and economic integration of countries in order to generate greater prosperity for our people and our nations.”CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times
President Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum have elicited strong reactions from leaders in government, business and other organizations around the world. Most of them oppose the tariffs, with many leaders saying they fear that the tariffs could escalate a trade war. Below are several notable reactions.
“If you put tariffs against your allies, one wonders who the enemies are.”
Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank
“Choosing a trade war is a mistaken prescription. The outcome will only be harmful. China would have to make a justified and necessary response.”
Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister
“The message is that we believe in the value of an open economy and economic integration of countries in order to generate greater prosperity for our people and our nations. I think that is a tremendously important value at a time when certain sectors of the world are sending messages that run contrary to this choice, preaching messages of nationalism rather than integration.”
Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile
“There are unquestionably bad trade practices by nations like China, but the better approach is targeted enforcement of those bad practices. Our economy and our national security are strengthened by fostering free trade with our allies.”
Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin
“A generalized tariff that would actually harm allies, harm American consumers, by the way, harm American workers that use steel in production, hurting their competitive nature in global markets as well, I’m opposed to that.”
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin
“The idea that you can undermine core ally relationships, which have been the most enduring source of mutual defense, in the name of a national defense decision? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Jack Lew, Former Treasury secretary
“I am against import duties in general, but the current rules make things very difficult. It’s like competing in an Olympic race wearing lead shoes.”
Elon Musk, Chief executive of Tesla Motors
“The E.U. is a close ally of the U.S. and we continue to be of the view that the E.U. should be excluded from these measures.”
Cecilia Malmstrom, European Union trade commissioner
“The U.S. measures hit us where it hurts most. … If we do not act immediately, Europe is at risk to lose a strategic industry.”
Gerd Götz, Director General of European Aluminum
“We look forward to educating the Trump administration on the vital role the Japanese steel industry plays in the American marketplace. The Japanese industry is not part of the import problem but a solution.”
Tadaaki Yamaguchi, Chairman of the Japan Steel Information Center
“Trump’s actions are a challenge to the global steel sector and must be met with even broader opposition.”
China Iron and Steel Association
“This is a very important matter for Australia. It’s also a very important matter of principle. So we’re making contacts at every level throughout the administration, including business representatives, to make our case.”
Julie Bishop, Australia’s foreign minister
“If the worst case scenario happens, we are read to take the U.S. to the WTO court, and we are discussing with other allies, other partners, to do it together.”
Jyrki Katainen, European Union vice president for jobs and competitiveness
Fonte: NYT, em 9 de Março de 2018
Ver também:
Trump conditionne les droits de douane sur l'acier à un accord "juste" sur l'Aléna
(…) Donald Trump serait-il déjà prêt à faire marche arrière sur son projet d'imposer des droits de douane de 25% sur les importations d'acier et de 10% sur celles d'aluminium aux États-Unis ? Si le président américain estime qu'il "ne lâchera rien", il a en tout cas laissé entendre lundi, sur Twitter, qu'il pourrait assouplir sa position s'il obtenait un accord "juste" sur l'Accord de libre-échange nord-américain (…)
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Le cabinet du chef du gouvernement canadien indique que Justin Trudeau a appelé Donald Trump pour lui dire que des droits de douane seraient un obstacle aux discussions en cours pour réviser l'Aléna. Au téléphone, le Premier ministre canadien "a défendu bec et ongles" les entreprises canadiennes et leurs salariés, indique ce même cabinet. La conversation a été constructive, ajoute-il aussi. (…)
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Le Canada et le Mexique exemptés comme en 2002 ?
Le week-end dernier, le ministre du Commerce Wilbur Ross et le conseiller du président pour le Commerce Peter Navarro ont pourtant déclaré qu'ils ne s'attendaient pas à ce que des pays soient exemptés de ces taxes, comme cela avait été le cas en 2002 pour le Canada et le Mexique, lorsque George W. Bush avait également décidé de taxes sur l'acier (jusqu'à 30% !) pour sauver la sidérurgie américaine. L'Allemagne, l'Australie, le Brésil, la Chine, la Corée du Sud, la France, le Japon, les Pays-Bas ou encore la Russie étaient alors particulièrement visés. (…)
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Entré en vigueur en 1994, l'Accord de libre-échange nord-américain (Aléna) avait justement pour but d'éliminer la plupart des droits de douane entre les États-Unis, le Mexique et le Canada, afin de stimuler les échanges entre eux. Donald Trump, qui a imposé la renégociation de l'Aléna deux jours seulement après son investiture, a maintes fois menacé de se retirer purement et simplement de cet accord, qu'il juge responsable de pertes d'emplois aux États-Unis et de délocalisations de nombreuses entreprises américaines au Mexique, en particulier du secteur automobile. (…)
Fonte: La Tribune, em 6 de Março de 2018
Tariffs Are the Wrong Way to Fight Unfair Trade Practices
(…) While he took a hardline protectionist stance during the presidential campaign and for much of his first year in office, he and several of officials of his administration have signaled in recent months that they were rethinking their hostility toward multilateral approaches to trade problems. But Trump’s recent declaration that he plans to impose steep tariffs on the imports of steel and aluminum, coupled with this week’s announcement by Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser and a free trader, that he’s quitting, suggest that Trump’s protectionist side is dominating once again. (…)
Given that only 2% of U.S. steel imports come from China and U.S. aluminum imports account for only 1.4% of China’s aluminum production, the tariffs will neither reduce China’s global exports of these metals nor constrain its SOEs. The object of the next likely round of U.S. retaliation against China — for its theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfers, frequently by SOEs - underscores the need to restrict those enterprises.
Ironically, the resurgence of protectionism in the White House follows progress by a number of countries, including the United States, to agree to cooperate in curbing SOEs via multilateral actions. First, the tightest constraints on SOEs to date were included in the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the EU-Canada and EU-Japan free-trade agreements. Second, the European Union, Japan, and the United States announced their intent to coordinate actions to curb SOEs. Third, the Trump administration seemed to have done an about-face on its original opposition to the CPTPP and the possibility of working with like-minded coalitions at the World Trade Organization (WTO). (…)
EU and Japanese Overtures to the U.S.
For their part, the EU and Japan have made it clear that they would like to team up with the United States in combating SOEs.
On January 25, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Cecilia Malmstrom, the EU’s commissioner of trade, told reporters that although she was worried about the Trump administration’s threats to wage a trade war with China, Europe had its own issues with China and would welcome a chance to coordinate its response with the United States. “There are some grave concerns on China, who are massively subsidizing state-owned companies,’ she said. ‘And there, yes, we could work with the U.S.” (…)
Por: Sherman Katz
Fonte_HarvardBusinessReview, em 8 de Março de 2018
La guerre commerciale se précise
L’Union européenne et la Chine mettent en garde les Etats-Unis contre les conséquences néfastes de leur projet de surtaxer l’acier et l’aluminium à l’importation. La surenchère verbale s’intensifie (…)
(…) Wilbur Ross, le secrétaire d’Etat au Commerce, a précisé samedi que les mesures de sauvegarde frapperont indistinctement tous les pays, y compris les pays «amis» dont le Canada et l’Union européenne (UE). La Chine a fait savoir qu’elle ne resterait pas les bras croisés. Pour sa part, l’Union européenne (UE) a rétorqué qu’elle avait déjà préparé sa liste de produits américains, allant du whisky bourbon aux jeans, en passant par les motos Harley-Davidson et le jus d’orange californien, qui seraient à leur tour frappés d’une surtaxe. (…)
Surenchère de Trump
Dent pour dent, le président américain a fait de la surenchère et menacé cette fois de taxer également les voitures européennes entrant aux Etats-Unis. Si Washington mettait ses menaces à exécution, le coup serait particulièrement dur pour les constructeurs allemands. VW, Daimler et BWW ont exporté près de 500 000 voitures l’an dernier aux Etats-Unis, alors que leur production sur place s’élève à près de 800 000 unités. (…)
Les marchés sont aussi dans l’expectative. Au lendemain de l’annonce du président Trump, toutes les places financières mondiales cédaient entre 1 et 2,5%. Lundi, les cours faisant du surplace même si, dans le détail, de nombreuses entreprises américaines comme Boeing et Caterpillar, ou encore les multinationales des métaux Glencore (Suisse) ou Vale (Brésil) ont subi des pertes. Aux Etats-Unis, le Dow Jones Industrial Average a cédé près de 1000 points en deux jours. (…)
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Philippe Waechter, chef économiste chez Natixis Asset Management, espère qu’en fin de compte Donald Trump fera machine arrière. «Le risque est que des pays affectés mettent en place des mesures de représaille, dit-il. Une guerre commerciale ne se gagne pas car elle est pénalisante pour tous.» Il rappelle que des surtaxes avaient été mises en place par la présidence Bush au début des années 2000. Et d’ajouter: «Cela avait permis de sauver 3500 emplois chez les producteurs d’acier, mais avait engendré entre 12 000 et 15 000 suppressions de postes dans les entreprises utilisatrices d’acier.» (…)
Por: Ram Etwareea
Fonte: Le Temps, em 5 de Março de 2018
Trump’s Latest Tariff Strategy: Less Trade War, and More Let’s Make a Deal
Exceptions for Canada and Mexico suggest that it’s a tactic to renegotiate Nafta.
When President Trump signed proclamations to place tariffs on imported steel and aluminum on Thursday, he portrayed it as an effort to throw around America’s economic weight in hope of reaching better deals from major international partners. (…)
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After announcing last week that the tariffs would apply to imports from all countries, the Trump administration said that they would not apply to Canada or Mexico, pending renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
These exceptions suggest the administration is looking to use the threat of steel and aluminum tariffs as a cudgel to get a better deal out of those two close allies — which are also major exporters of metals to the United States — in mostly unrelated negotiations to revamp the 25-year-old agreement.
“I have a feeling we’re going to make a deal on Nafta,” Mr. Trump said as he announced the tariffs. “If we do, there won’t be any tariffs on Canada and there won’t be any on Mexico.” (…)
Fonte: NYT, em 9 de Março de 2018
