On September 17, President Obama will have to decide whether to accept the U.S. International Trade Commission's recommendation to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese tires. Here are the findings of the USITC. And here is their final determination:
On the basis of information developed in the subject investigation, the United States International Trade Commission (Commission) determines, pursuant to section 421(b)(1) of the Trade Act of 1974,1 that certain passenger vehicle and light truck tires from the People’s Republic of China are being imported into the United States in such increased quantities or under such conditions as to cause or threaten to cause market disruption to the domestic producers of like or directly competitive products.
Our national goals, in the medium term, must be to near fully employ those 30 million currently unemployed American workers, and in the process to more than double the number of Americans working in manufacturing, which is the least amount needed to get our economy back on track sustainably.
It's all about jobs -- whatever it takes!
I will reprint their main policy recommendations, all topics we've covered here.
Fund a 10-year (not the current two-year) program of significant public investment to upgrade and rebuild our nation's infrastructure, which will provide the much-needed foundation for higher-value added production and advanced business services.
Ralph Gomory explains comparative advantage once again and also calls cash on the latest nonsense in trade policy suggestions from the Financial Times claiming Japan should abandon manufacturing and is the cause of Japan's financial malaise.
Ignored in all these discussions is the obvious fact that when you don't make for yourself the things you need, you will have to trade for them. If you have to import cars and all sorts of manufactured goods, you will be importing on a large scale; to trade for them you will need to create additional goods or services that you can export on an equally large scale.
Shocks of all shocks, the USTR is filing a complaint, along with the EU, against China for trying to hang onto the raw materials which make steel in order to boost their own production.
We are going to the WTO today to enforce our rights, so we can provide American manufacturers with a fair competitive environment and put more American workers back on the job," Ambassador Kirk said. "China is a leading global producer and exporter of the raw materials in question, and access to these materials is critical for U.S. industrial manufacturers. The United States is very concerned that China appears to be restricting the exports of these materials for the benefit of their domestic industries, despite strong WTO rules designed to discipline export restraints.
Remember all of that rhetoric on the campaign trail about outsourcing and trade agreements?
Guess what the Obama administration is doing? Fast Tracking Trade with the most common landing place for your job, India.
The United States has announced a new programme to fast-track high-technology trade with India from which General Electric's India division will be the first Indian company to benefit.
"This is an important step in enabling a more rapid and efficient flow of sensitive technology between India and the United States," US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke announced at the US-India Business Council's 34th Anniversary "Synergies Summit" Wednesday.
"This is an important step in enabling a more rapid and efficient flow of sensitive technology between India and the United States," Locke said.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released the April 2009 Foreign Trade statistics. Here is the BEA Foreign Trade Press Release and the full report.
The Nation's international deficit in goods and services increased to $29.2 billion in April from $28.5 billion (revised) in March, as exports decreased more than imports.
Our trade problem can be summarized in one word: China. Imbalanced trade with China is responsible for over half (57%) of the overall U.S. trade deficit in April.
The Washington Post is covering the VAT or value added tax and suggesting the concept is gaining support in Congress. Unfortunately WaPo characterizes this tax completely incorrectly as a national sales tax. It's not frankly, it is a legal method by which to address the trade deficit.
Fortunately Trade Reform has a better understanding of what a VAT really is:
Fair Trade Democrats are piping up (hat tip Sirota) about the Obama administration pushing yet another labor arbitrage, badly written NAFTA style bad trade agreement:
an increasingly agitated faction of Democrats is warning party leaders of ugly economic and political consequences if they try to move the Panama agreement.
Not only will it hurt the economy, critics say, but action on a Bush-negotiated trade deal endangers freshman Democrats in 2010 since many ran on a trade reform agenda. In addition, critics say, it doesn’t bode well for Obama to anger a bloc of Democrats early on when he needs their support for his ambitious domestic agenda.
China’s exports fell for a fifth month in March....
Overseas sales declined 17.1 percent to $90.29 billion from a year earlier, the customs bureau said on its Web site. Imports dropped 25.1 percent, leaving a trade surplus of $18.56 billion.
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The export decline was less than February’s record 25.7 percent drop.
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