Showing posts with label Trade War. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Did Huawei violate Iran sanctions? No, it shows deeper US-China battle for global influence as power coming from high-tech sector

https://youtu.be/3z58zHmz-6k

https://youtu.be/17KDxqffVFI

Professor Dr. Wang
Former Executive of Halliburton

DID HUAWEI VIOLATE IRAN SANCTIONS?

No, they didn’t.

CFO Meng was arrested supposedly for “violating Iran sanction”. This has to be the most grotesque distortion of justice since the US was the country who unilaterally pulled out IN VIOLATION of an agreement they had signed with multiple nations earlier !!! In other words, the guy who broke a solemn promise made, violated the agreement, then made sanction an American domestic law is now force feeding this law arbitrarily on the rest of the world by arresting someone who refuses to violate the agreement ! Is this making any sense to anybody?

Huawei created a subsidiary to do business with Iran, and the CFO is being charged with lying about the relationship between Huawei and the subsidiary.

This seems totally ridiculous to me since when I worked at Halliburton, we did EXACTLY the same thing ! Not only was our CEO never arrested, he was invited to join the government & became Vice President Dick Cheney !!!!!!!

The moral of this story is for normal businesses to be extremely vigilant & recognise the true faces of America & Saudi! One tosses you in jail for breaking twisted laws they make up as they go along & the other goes after you with a bone saw. Both are gangsters, far worse than the Mafia, because the Mafia at least have the decency to commit crimes secretively, while the thugs in American & Saudi governments commit their crimes blatantly in the open, with complete disregard to the laws & sovereignty of another country, bullying their way through, trying to justify their actions by smearing the victims... then run publicity campaigns to sway public opinions while accusing others of crimes against human rights.. ??!!

I am sure there are nice people in USA & in Saudi & i don’t want to generalise, but i have seen time & again in the States that if ever their oversized egos feel threatened, they can turn into totally evil, nefarious subhumans capable of the most despicable deeds.

The arrest of Meng is a case in point.

I went to the States starry eyed with high hopes & expectations, ready to learn a democratic system far superior than ours. Well, after my Ph.D and a few working years, I stand corrected.

Life in the States has taught me to be proud of my people and my country. Grass is definitely NOT greener on the other side. America is very strong in “hypes”, they talk big but deliver little. China does the opposite. American government spends on military, lives in “now”, supports the rich, & works for re-election. The Chinese government spends on infrastructure, works for the people, eradicated poverty & follows 5-30 year plans. These are facts, not propaganda, not campaign promises.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be home again. Not only is the food much better, more importantly, I can finally stop worrying myself sick... about my elderly mom getting mucked, my attractive wife getting raped...my children getting bullied, drugged or shot in schools...Having to live in constant fear everyday is the ultimate violation of my human rights.

Gosh, it’s good to be back in civilisation.

Dr. Wang Wins Halliburton

Huawei clash shows deeper US-China battle for global influence as power coming from high-tech sector

Bail hearings proceeded this week after Meng Wanzhou(pic), the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co, was arrested in Canada on Dec 1 because of alleged violations of US sanctions against Iran. The case threatens to derail a trade truce struck the same day between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

HONG KONG: The Trump administration has insisted the arrest of a top Huawei executive has nothing to do with trade talks. In Beijing, it’s just the latest US move to contain China’s rise as a global power.

Bail hearings proceeded this week after Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co, was arrested in Canada on Dec 1 because of alleged violations of US sanctions against Iran. The case threatens to derail a trade truce struck the same day between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

Even if the two leaders manage to strike a broader deal, the arrest shows that the US-China conflict goes far beyond trade. The world’s biggest economies are now engaged in a battle for global influence that will ultimately determine whether the US remains the globe’s predominant superpower, or China rises as a viable counterweight.

“The sentiment in Washington now is not just a Trumpian mercantilism – the desire to bring back factory jobs to Wisconsin or wherever,” said Nick Bisley, a professor of international relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne who has written books on great-power politics. “It is a desire to significantly cut ties with China because of that larger perception it presents a strategic risk.”

A bipartisan consensus has emerged in Washington that China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation hollowed out US manufacturing and allowed it to grow rich. That increased economic power is now at a point where it risks eroding key American military advantages around the globe.

China insists it plays by the rules, and doesn’t challenge US dominance. Even so, three areas in particular worry American strategic planners: Technology, the dollar and the ability to project military power overseas.

A year ago, the White House identified China’s growing technological prowess as a threat to US economic and military might. American companies have long argued that China forces them to transfer intellectual property and sometimes steals trade secrets – all of which Beijing denies.

In justifying tariffs, Trump’s team has cited Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” strategy to become a global leader in state-of-the-art technologies from aerospace to robotics. So far, China has resisted those demands, arguing that doing so would crush its economic potential.

Huawei in particular epitomises the threat. Earlier this year, Trump blocked Broadcom Inc’s US$117bil hostile takeover bid for Qualcomm Inc over concerns that Huawei would end up dominating the market for computer chips and wireless technologies.

The fear is that wireless carriers may be forced to turn to Huawei or other Chinese companies for 5G technology, potentially giving Beijing access to critical communications. Those concerns have prompted the US to ban Huawei’s products for government procurement, and Australia, Japan and New Zealand have reportedly followed.

China has fought back, with foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang saying this week that Huawei didn’t “force any enterprise to install forced backdoors.”

“The competition is really focused in the areas where future strategic and economic dominance come from,” said Michael Shoebridge, director of the defense and strategy programme at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“The Huawei arrest is right in the middle of this because both America and China see their future global power as coming from the high-tech sector.”

The dominance of the dollar has allowed the US to effectively control the world’s financial system, underpinning its superpower status. Yet Trump’s increased use of sanctions to assert its foreign-policy goals has prompted a wide range of nations – from China to Russia to the European Union – to look for an alternative.

The Trump administration added nearly 1,000 entities and individuals to its sanctions list in its first year, almost 30% more than the Obama administration’s last year in office, according to law firm Gibson Dunn. The complete list now runs to more than 1,200 pages.

Sanctions are a key tool for the US to subdue potential adversaries like North Korea, but they also can affect friends and allies. The EU, which objected to reimposing sanctions on Iran, this month unveiled plans to mitigate the so-called “exorbitant privilege” of the dollar.

During a visit to China last month, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the two nations were looking at ways to boost the use of their currencies through allowing the use of China’s UnionPay credit card in Russia and Russia’s Mir card in China. “No one currency should dominate the market,” he said.

“We are potentially at the beginning of a systemic shift that may take some time to play out,” said Gregory Chin, associate professor at York University in Toronto, and a political economy specialist. “The political will is building and coalescing.” — Bloomberg

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Huawei CFO arrest violates human rights as US takes aim at Huawei, the real trade war with China

In custody: A profile of Meng is displayed on a computer at a Huawei store in Beijing. The Chinese government, speaking through its emb.

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Monday, October 1, 2018

Trump's tariffs won't restore U.S. jobs

The sewing lines at Bernhard Furniture Company which where skilled craft jobs are growing without the help of tariffs, and company officials

https://youtu.be/OCk4VkAKKFc

Trump's tariffs won't restore U.S. furniture jobs : https://www.reuters.tv/v/PvWi/2018/09/27/trump-s-tariffs-won-t-restore-u-s-furniture-jobs

In a town where a 30-feet tall chair is the chief landmark, and which is synonymous with a U.S. furniture industry decimated over the years by imports from China, many greet the possibility of tariffs on Chinese goods with a shrug.

No wonder. Of three once bustling Thomasville furniture plants in the city limits, one is being demolished and cleared for parkland, another may become the site of a new police station, and a third is being converted into apartments.

President Donald Trump is threatening to levy tariffs of up to 25 percent on $500 billion of goods imported from China each year, including roughly $20 billion of furniture, as a way to bring back hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs lost to China and other low-cost competitors.

Yet, the transformation of U.S. industries since China’s emergence as the world’s low-cost producer almost two decades ago means many no longer directly compete with Chinese imports, so tariffs may not translate so easily into more U.S. jobs.

At family-owned Bernhardt Furniture in Lenoir, some 90 miles west of Thomasville, executives say it would take about $30 million in capital investment - some 10 percent of annual sales - to resurrect standard wood furniture lines now mainly made in countries like China and Vietnam.

That is too much to commit based on a policy that a future administration could reverse.

"The theory is you turn (imports) off, the jobs come back. That's not really true... The buildings don't exist. The people don't exist. The machinery does not exist," to make the sorts of furniture that now gets imported, said Alex Bernhardt Jr., chief executive and the company founder's great grandson.

What the company needs now, executives say, is the open markets and steady economy that have allowed it to grow its workforce from below 800 at the end of the 2007-2009 recession to almost 1,500 today - partly on the basis of exports to China.

DIFFERENT COMPANY

That growth has been largely driven by demand for more customized, higher end furniture. In expanding, the 129-year-old company has been hiring not only factory workers, but also designers, marketing experts and other professionals.

In all, it is a different firm from what it was three decades ago when it first began dividing product lines between the United States and Asia.

Economists say the same is true across much of U.S. manufacturing. To invest and hire more workers, executives would need certainty, for example, that consumers would prefer U.S.-made products at a potentially higher price. They would need confidence that tariffs would last beyond the Trump administration and that production could not be shifted to other more cost-competitive countries.

Even then, there may be little incentive to go back to old product lines for industries that have changed dramatically because of globalization.

Across the Rust Belt and the former factory towns of the south, the transformation is apparent. In Buffalo, an old steel mill is now a solar panel factory, and a retail goods manufacturer now houses an office and restaurant park. Near Dayton, Ohio, a shuttered GM plant has reopened as a Chinese-owned auto glass company. Abandoned factories throughout North Carolina have landed on the Environmental Protection Agency's list of "brownfield" sites that need cleanup.

Some companies are considering moving production from China as a result of the tariffs, but the jobs are unlikely to head home.

Illinois-based CCTY Bearing, for example, said it planned to move U.S.-bound production from Zhenjiang, China, to a new plant near Mumbai in India to keep labor costs down.

JLab Audio's China-made Bluetooth products are not being taxed yet, but its chief executive Win Cramer had been scouting for suppliers in Vietnam and Mexico.

"I would love to build products onshore, but consumers have proven time and time again that "Made in America" isn't as valuable a statement as it once was," Cramer said. "They make decisions based on the cost."

The price of, say, its Bluetooth earbud would jump from $20 to as much as $50 if it was made in the United States, Cramer said, far more than what tariffs would add to the cost of imports.

To be sure, early reactions suggest that foreign companies that make U.S.-bound goods in China may move some of that production to the United States. Still, countries such as Vietnam may ultimately benefit the most from Trump's tariffs.

Japanese construction and mining equipment maker Komatsu Ltd < 6301.T > has said it has already shifted some of its production of parts for U.S.-built excavators from China. Part of that production moved to the United States, but some also went to Mexico and Japan.

In South Korea, LG Electronics <066570 .ks=""> and its rival Samsung Electronics <005930 .ks=""> are considering moving parts of U.S.-bound refrigerator and air conditioner production to Mexico, Vietnam or back home, but not to the United States, according to company sources and local media.

STEADY RECOVERY

The responses to Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum show how such steps create both winners and losers.

Producers such as U.S. Steel and Century Aluminum have said they will add at least several hundred jobs as a result of the higher prices they can charge.

Mid-Continental Nail, however, laid off 130 workers because of those higher steel prices, and furniture parts maker Leggett & Platt has warned that rising metal prices would prompt it to shift production abroad.

So far, Washington has imposed duties on $250 billion of Chinese imports and Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on all Chinese goods.

Many economists project new tariffs would on balance either slow down hiring or cause job losses in a manufacturing sector where employment has grown by 10 percent over the past eight years without special protection.

(Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2Q1AFUW)

The furniture industry, among the hardest hit by Chinese imports, has added 43,000 jobs since its employment hit a low of 350,000 in 2011, helped by the recovering housing market and strong consumer demand.

Industry officials say skilled upholsterers and other workers are hard to find, echoing the Federal Reserve's concern about the impact of worker shortages on the U.S. economy.

In Thomasville, few expect that tariffs will bring furniture manufacturing back to its heyday, nor does the community need it, says city manager Kelly Craver, whose parents worked in the furniture and textile industries.

Since the recession, Thomasville has become a residential hub for growing nearby cities such as Greensboro and Charlotte. It also has its own mix of manufacturing and white collar jobs.

Mohawk Industries recently expanded its Thomasville laminate flooring facility while the Old Dominion Freight Line transportation firm and the fast-growing Cook Out burger chain have corporate headquarters there.

"We, for the very first time in this city's existence, are going to have a diversified economy," Craver said.

By Howard Schneider, Reuters

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Tariff war threatens world trading system

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Monday, September 24, 2018

Tariff war threatens world trading system

https://youtu.be/BCu1Mt9GWT8 https://youtu.be/BheswegaOKk

TODAY marks another milestone in the escalating global trade war that threatens to shake the foundations of the world trading system and cause economic uncertainty at a time of financial fragility. It’s an altogether bad development that adds more gloom to global economic prospects.

Last week, the United States announced it would slap an additional 10% tariff on US$200bil worth of imports from China. Hours later, China said it would put 5% to 10% extra tariffs on US$60bil of imports from the US.

Both sets of tariff increases come into effect today. But that’s not all.

The US also said it would raise the extra tariffs on the US$200bil of imports from 10% now to 25% at the end of the year. And if China retaliates (which it now has), the US might slap higher tariffs on yet another US$267bil of Chinese imports.

This comes on top of tariffs on an initial US$50bil worth of imports that the US had placed on Chinese imports a few months ago, and equivalent tariffs on US$50bil on US imports that China imposed as retaliation.

And even before that, the US had put extra tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from all countries, except a few that were exempted for the time being.

The US is also threatening to put tariffs on imported auto vehicles and parts, including those from Europe. That is on hold because of a bilateral deal reached, but could be re-ignited if President Donald Trump is not satisfied with European behaviour.

The US itself is experiencing negative effects of this trade war. The prices of the initial US$50bil of imported Chinese products have started to go up in the US, raising costs for both consumers and producers.

The Chinese are similarly affected. Exports of both countries are also bound to decline, and this will eventually affect their overall economic growth.

There will be collateral effects on other countries. In Asia, those that are integrated in the global supply chain will find less demand for their exports of components to China. The effect on Malaysia is projected by analysts to be around 0.4 to 0.7 percentage point of GNP in 2019.

This could be offset by positive effects. Some companies producing in China are considering relocating to other countries, including Malaysia, to escape the US’ punitive tariffs. And some Malaysian products may become cheaper than Chinese products, which will now attract extra duties.

But it is likely that the bad effects will outweigh any such good effects, at least in the short run.

It is clear that the US is to blame for the trade war. Its unilateral actions are against the spirit and rules of the trading system, and have in fact undermined its legitimacy and viability.

The steel and aluminium tariffs were imposed under the US security clause of its domestic trade law, while the other tariff increases are under Section 301 of the trade law. The US actions are against various World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Challenges to the US unilateral measures have been taken by China and other countries at the WTO. If the US is found in violation, which is quite likely, it has to stop its actions or face retaliation: the countries that win the cases heard by the WTO panels of experts are allowed to impose equivalent tariffs on US products.

However, the US has engineered a crisis in the WTO’s dispute settlement system so that soon the outcome of successful cases against it cannot be implemented.

This is because the US is now paralysing the WTO’s Appellate Body by refusing to allow new members of the body to be appointed to replace those retiring. Soon there will be only three members left, out of a full body of seven. Two more will be retiring in January 2019. A minimum of three members is needed to sit on a case.

Thus, if a lower-level panel rules against the US’ unilateral actions, and the US lodges an appeal that cannot be heard because there are not enough appellate body members, the panel decision cannot be enforced.

This would make the WTO quite a toothless organisation. There would be no legal remedy to enforce penalties for breaking the WTO laws. Countries that impose unilateral tariff increases can get away with it. In turn, other countries would also do the same.

The rules-based trade system is already starting to break down. We are now seeing blatant protectionism by the US and retaliation by affected countries. Within months, the trade war could spread, with the law of the jungle becoming more prominent.

Tears will not be shed in the developing countries if some rules cannot be upheld anymore, such as the WTO’s TRIPS agreement on intellectual property. The free trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati has said the TRIPS treaty does not belong in the WTO.

But what all members like about the WTO is its role in ensuring the predictability that their exports can sell in the markets of its members, with tariffs at rates agreed to at the WTO.

If that predictability is lost, then there can be a lot of uncertainty, as one country after another can unilaterally impose extra tariffs on other countries, which may then trigger retaliation.

This breakdown of the trading system may be the more serious effect of what started as a US-initiated trade war.

Trump may not care what happens to the system, as he has said many times that the WTO is a terrible organisation that the US should leave. And his recent actions, in fact, seem calculated to undermine, if not destroy it.

It is a new world we are looking at, in a scenario that would not have appeared possible a year or even months ago.

Policy makers, companies, analysts and the public should ponder about this, even as they follow the details of the tit-for-tat trade war that the US is waging against China and other countries.

Martin Khor is adviser of the Third World Network. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

Credit: Global Trend by Martin Khor

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We also hope that the Chinese public gets to know the causes and effects of the event and the steadiness of the Chinese government's policies. No matter how long China-US trade conflicts last, China is doing what it should. China is honest and principled and a major trade power with intensive strengths. No one can take us down.

US hysterical in blocking sci-tech exchanges

The US is anxious about its temporary gains and losses. One minute it wants Sino-US exchanges, but the next it worries China is taking advantage. Its relevant policies are bound to change all the time. Its latest decision is like the trade war. Washington's purpose is to drag Beijing down, but it will mostly hurt itself.

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Monday, September 10, 2018

Be ready – financial crisis is near

Prepare Now for the Next Financial Crisis

THE financial crisis affecting developing countries arrived in full-scale fashion in our region last week when the Indonesian economy experienced shocks reminiscent of the Asian crisis 20 years ago.

With the crisis coming so close to home, it is time to contemplate what may unfold in the near future and list measures to respond to each scenario, so that we are not taken by surprise.

The agreement reached with Singapore to postpone construction of the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) project until end-May 2020 (with Malaysia paying S$15mil [RM45.1mil] in cost) was an achievement. It allows us a gap of two years before having to meet the mega project’s large expenses.

The next couple of years will be crucial, as the country will be in the midst of managing the “perfect storm” of servicing the trillion-ringgit government debt and preventing the government deficit from ballooning, while facing the challenges of the emerging global financial crisis.

In this tight situation, every billion ringgit counts; indeed every single ringgit counts.

As more discoveries are made of missing money, whether due to the 1MDB scandal or unpaid tax refunds, there is increasing pressure to save money and cut costs to avoid wider deficits.

So the HSR’s two-year deferment helps a lot. It may be like kicking the can down the street, but hopefully, the situation will improve by the end of the two years to allow the can to be picked up, especially if during the period, ways are found to cut the overall cost of the project.

Other projects too have to be scrutinised. Besides the East Coast Rail Link and Trans Sabah gas pipeline projects, there are many other projects whose costs have to be examined, and whose implementation can be postponed or cancelled.

Besides the scourge of overpricing and kickbacks, there is the over-riding concern that a financial crisis has to be averted.

Indonesia’s Energy Minister last week announced that energy projects worth US$25bil (RM103.64bil) and representing half of President Joko Widodo’s grand electricity programme, would be postponed or restructured. This is to save US$8bil (RM33.1bil) to US$10bil (rm41.45bil) on imports for the projects.

Indonesia is also raising tariffs to 10% on over 1,000 goods in a move to reduce the import bill.

These are some measures the country is forced to take as its economy enters full crisis mode. It could even face a meltdown of the 1998-99 scale. The rupiah fell to almost 15,000 per US dollar, the lowest point since the 1998 crisis.

Indonesia is vulnerable to a financial crisis due to its dual deficits (in the current account and government budget), large external debt and high foreign ownership of equity and government bonds.

Indonesia is caught in a vicious cycle, which is typical when financially liberalised countries follow orthodox fire-fighting policies. When the markets perceive that the external reserves could be insufficient to pay for imports, service debts and absorb potential capital outflows, the currency depreciates.

The perception sparks a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fall in currency makes it more difficult for the government and companies to service foreign loans, and also prompts investors to pull out their money.

In such a situation, the government raises the interest rate to incentivise investors to retain their money in the country. Indonesian interest rates have risen by 1.25 percentage points since May.

However, the side effect is that homebuyers and companies find it more difficult to service their mortgage and business loans. Credit slows down, and so does the economy. This in turn causes the currency to drop further, prompting more rounds of interest rate increases, which lead to loan defaults and bankruptcies.

The economy goes into recession, leading to more capital outflows, including by local people. The currency drops again, recession deepens, and the cycle continues.

Indonesia is still at the start of this cycle. Hopefully it will find the policy tools, including unorthodox ones that work, to avoid a long stay in the spiral. But Indonesia is by no means alone. Argentina and Turkey are deep in their crises, and more and more countries are suffering the contagion effect, including South Africa, India, Iran and the Philippines.

Following the 2008-09 global financial crisis that especially hit the United States and Europe, many hundreds of billions of dollars rushed to emerging markets, including Malaysia, in search of higher yields. The liquidity was created by quantitative easing (government pumping money into the banking system) and low interest rates in the US and Europe.

Now the funds are leaving the emerging economies and returning to the US. This is due to the US policy reversing to quantitative tightening, the rise in its interest rates, and fears of an emerging market crisis and a worsening trade war.

Developing countries vulnerable to currency decline, a pull-out of funds and a crisis are those with significant current account deficits, government budget deficits and debts; low foreign reserves; large external debt; and high foreign ownership of local bonds and equities.

Malaysia is so far safe but it is wise not to be complacent. It is not easy to escape contagion once it spreads.

A few warning signs have appeared, such as a narrowing of the current account surplus and significant portfolio investment outflows (both in the second quarter), and a weakening of the ringgit, besides the larger than previously reported government debt and the need to prevent the budget deficit from increasing.

The old Scout motto, “Be Prepared”, comes in handy at times like this. It is good to prepare now for any eventuality, so as to avoid being caught by surprise.

Credit: Martin Khor Global Trends The Staronline

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Saturday, August 25, 2018

New round of China US tariffs & The Art of War on current events

https://youtu.be/h8GYW_QZPIsp

Wisdom of Sun Tzu's The Art of War on current events

https://youtu.be/AnubcUrCLKc

China's military wisdom: Sun Tzu's The Art of War

https://youtu.be/XbgZVOzaPvA
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Friday, August 17, 2018

Governance woes behind US trade war

Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

For now, there is still no end in sight to the brewing trade war between the world's two economic heavy hitters. Ignoring voices of objection at home, the Donald Trump administration announced that the second tranche of tariffs on $16 billion in Chinese goods will take effect later this month. Though Trump has yet to fulfill his campaign promise to levy a 45-percent tax on Chinese goods, his logic on trade policy refuses to change.

The reason why the US has provoked and intensified the trade war lies in the incapacity of the global system. Specifically, division of labor in the globalized era has led to the exodus of the US manufacturing industry out of the country. Meanwhile, the US claims that China's "predatory" economy has developed itself into the biggest beneficiary in the system.

That's why the Trump administration insists on attacking China's "stealing" practice in the name of "safeguarding US national interests," regardless of the cost of torpedoing the existing international order.

The robust stock market and economic growth of the US as well as the decline in unemployment have further boosted Trump's confidence in escalating the trade war. His trade policy has gained more acceptance among Americans. However, the logic behind his trade war can hardly hold water.

The era of globalization has been an inevitable development of human society. As people in the global village are more interconnected, trans-regional flow of finance, technology, information, service and talent has re-optimized global production resources, inspiring the development of countries and regions.

The unprecedented development of productivity and international division of labor has prompted developed countries which boast capital and technology advantages to transfer their low-end industries to other countries where labor and land costs are relatively low. Then a great many multinationals have mushroomed, which has objectively precipitated the growth of developing countries.

Economic liberalism has become a paragon of democracy with which developed nations dwell upon with relish. It's also an important pillar for the postwar international order. When developed countries sat on the top of the industrial chain to reap benefits, they never complained about the unfairness of the system but instead became its most powerful defender.

Ironically, the US - the founder of the global system - has now become its most proactive opponent. The Trump administration attacks the "unfair" global system and views China as being complicit in bringing about the fall of the US manufacturing industry and loss of jobs. Such rhetoric has led people to believe that the stature of the US has fallen to a third world country's.

Globalization is not without problem. Apple is a paradigm of a globalized industrial chain, but it's not a nice story. Developing countries at the low end of the industrial chain can only get disproportionally meager profits while lucrative gains flow to developed nations. In this way, the US deficit is far less than the book figures.

More severely, low-end manufacturing has worsened the environment, putting the health of the public in jeopardy. But the US-led developed world just passed the buck.

Emerging economies like China are resigned to be just a factory of developed countries, so they work hard to develop hi-tech and produce high-value-added products to create a level-playing field with developed countries. This is the law of market economy, which, however, has become a threat to its national security and an enemy of its economy in the view of the US.

The strange logic can hardly justify itself.

Denying others a share of the spoils is not the essence of the era of globalization. If developed countries think there's something wrong with the global system, they can appeal to international organizations to carry out reform, instead of resorting to short-sighted practices like threatening with tariffs.

Trump's trade war actually stems from domestic conundrums notably industrial hollowing-out and loss of everyday jobs. The problems are not a result of globalization but of domestic mismanagement. It seems that forcing jobs back home will create jobs, but it can't last long because it will fail to stimulate the fundamental driving force of industrial development. If Trump can make more efforts at boosting the real economy instead of waging a trade war, he may get closer to "Make America Great Again."

Credit: By Zhang Tengjun Source:Global Times Published: 2018/8/15 The author is an assistant research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

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Trade war's twrist: US and EU gang up deal against developing countrries?

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Monday, July 30, 2018

Trade war's twrist: US and EU gang up deal against developing countrries?

IN the past few days, there has been a new twist to the global trade war. The United States, which had threatened to impose a 25% additional tariff on European cars, made a deal with the European Union.

US President Donald Trump suspended the automobile tariff plan and may exempt the EU from the earlier US tariffs on aluminium and steel.

In exchange, the EU countries will buy more soybean and energy products from the US, and the two giants will work to eliminate tariffs and subsidies in all industrial products traded between them.

Trump and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker also agreed to work to reform the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and to tackle China’s market abuse, according to a Reuters report.

“If it holds, the US-EU pact could allow both to focus on China, whose economic rise threatens both,” added the report.

Trump’s economic advisor Larry Kudlow said that, “US and EU will be allied in the fight against China, which has broken the world trading system, in effect”.

Thus, the US-EU deal appears to be both good and bad news. Good because there is a cooling off on one front of the global trade war. Bad because the traditional Western allies may gang up to attack not only China but also the rest of the developing countries.

The US and EU may now jointly pressurise China on various issues. A bigger aim is to hinder China from its Made in China 2025 plan to upgrade its domestic industry in 10 high-tech areas including robotics, autonomous and electric cars, artificial intelligence, biotech and aviation. They do not want Chinese firms to emerge as world-class champions that rival American and European companies.

The US, EU and Japan last December signed an understanding to jointly act against China on trade issues, including steel overcapacity, technology transfer, and the role of subsidies, state financing and state-owned enterprises.

Over the years, the EU has turned to some developing countries as potential allies when it has a conflict with the US but eventually it strikes a deal with the US and then the two Western powers unite and take aim at the developing countries.

This famously happened in the early 2001-2003, when the EU fought the US in the WTO over agriculture subsidies. Then they reached an understanding to protect their own subsidies while pressurising developing countries to open up their agricultural markets.

Today, developed countries continue to spend many hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, as well as maintain high tariffs, to keep their farms in business.

The US and EU also flood the world market with their artificially cheapened farm goods, while insisting that developing and poor countries open their markets through lower tariffs for both agricultural and industrial products. This hypocritical practice is at the heart of the imbalances and inequities of the world trading system.

Now, as part of their deal, the US and EU seem to want to continue maintaining double standards. They agreed to cut industrial tariffs and subsidies to zero, but to leave alone their agriculture tariffs and subsidies.

Moreover, they agreed to work on reforming the WTO, without spelling out what this means. At the WTO, the US and EU have recently moved to change the way the system has differentiated between developed and developing countries.

Recognising the weaknesses of developing countries, the WTO long ago adopted the principle of special and differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries.

Under this principle, in talks to cut tariffs, developed countries have to cut by a higher percentage than developing countries, and the least developed countries (LDCs) need not reduce tariffs at all. In various rules, developing countries and especially LDCs are mandated to take on less obligations.

However, the developed countries are now challenging the SDT principle.

“Developing and least-developed countries are facing the worst crisis yet at the WTO due to the sustained assault by the US along with the EU and Japan,” according Ravi Kanth in the Geneva-based South-North Development Monitor (SUNS) on July 4.

“Using Trump’s aggressive trade demands as a pretext, some major developed countries such as the EU and Japan have been attempting to deny the SDT flexibilities to developing countries,” SUNS added, quoting a trade envoy from a major developing country.

“The entire system of the WTO is under threat following the Trump administration’s trade initiatives based on reciprocal market access as well as the attempt to foist plurilateral outcomes without multilateral consensus, and intensified moves to undermine the SDT flexibilities by industrialised countries, particularly the EU.”

Meanwhile, the US actions of unilaterally raising tariffs on aluminium and steel, and on US$250bil (RM1 trillion) of Chinese products, violate the WTO’s main principles, threatening the creditability and viability of the organisation itself.

But Trump is not worried or sorry at all. At the beginning of July, he said: “The WTO has treated the United States very badly and I hope they change their ways. They have been treating us very badly for many years, many years and that’s why we were at a big disadvantage with the WTO.”

Said the SUNS article, “In short, the developing and least-developed countries face the prospect of their hard won SDT flexibilities being taken away once and for all to ensure the US stayed at the WTO.”

When the US and EU were locked in a big conflict over auto tariffs, the main enemy of the EU, China and other countries would have been the US.

Now the EU and US have agreed to “reform the WTO” as part of their bilateral deal. It is likely that such an initiative would attempt to reduce the rights of the developing countries, and even to entirely remove the principle of special treatment or even the status of “developing countries” in the WTO.

The trade war could thus have huge collateral damage. All the more reason for the developing countries’ political leaders to pay close attention to what is happening in the trade negotiating and policy-making arena.

Global Trend by Martin Khor

Martin Khor is advisor of the Third World Network. The views expressed here are entirely his own.

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China sends Donald Trump a message about free trade and the WTO

Sunday, July 8, 2018

China hits back after US imposes tariffs worth $34bn

https://youtu.be/5p5sA5i6XYs

US tariffs on $34bn (£25.7bn) of Chinese goods have come into effect, signalling the start of a trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The 25% levy came into effect at midnight Washington time.

China has retaliated by imposing a similar 25% tariff on 545 US products, also worth a total of $34bn.

Beijing accused the US of starting the "largest trade war in economic history".

"After the US activated its tariff measures against China, China's measures against the US took effect immediately," said Lu Kang, a foreign ministry spokesman.

Two companies in Shanghai told the BBC that customs authorities were delaying clearance processes for US imports on Friday.

The American tariffs are the result of President Donald Trump's bid to protect US jobs and stop "unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China".

The White House said it would consult on tariffs on another $16bn of products, which Mr Trump has suggested could come into effect later this month.

The imposition of the tariffs had little impact on Asian stock markets. The Shanghai Composite closed 0.5% higher, but ended the week 3.5% lower - its seventh consecutive week of losses.

Tokyo closed 1.1% higher, but Hong Kong fell 0.5% in late trading.

Hikaru Sato at Daiwa Securities said markets had already factored in the impact of the first round of tariffs.

list of products

Mr Trump has already imposed tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, and started charging levies on the imports of steel and aluminium from the European Union, Mexico and Canada.

He has also threatened a 10% levy on an additional $200bn of Chinese goods if Beijng "refuses to change its practices".

The president upped the stakes on Thursday, saying the amount of goods subject to tariffs could rise to more than $500bn.

"You have another 16 [billion dollars] in two weeks, and then, as you know, we have $200bn in abeyance and then after the $200bn, we have $300bn in abeyance. OK? So we have 50 plus 200 plus almost 300," he said.

The US tariffs imposed so far would affect the equivalent of 0.6% of global trade and account for 0.1% of global GDP, according to Morgan Stanley in a research note issued before Mr Trump's comments on Thursday.

Analysts are also concerned about the impact on others in the supply chain and about an escalation of tensions between the US and China in general.

Timeline

US-China trade war

16 February, 2018

US Commerce Department recommends a 24% tariff on all steel imports and 7.7% on aluminium. It's seen as a policy directed at China, which is the world's largest maker of steel.

22 March, 2018

China says it will impose tariffs on US goods worth $3bn.

22 March, 2018

President Trump announces a plan to impose further tariffs on Chinese imports worth $60bn but grants temporary exemptions from aluminium and steel tariffs to the EU, South Korea and other countries.

2 April, 2018

China imposes 25% tariffs on 128 US products including wine and pork.

3 April, 2018

The US Government proposes new additional tariffs on Chinese imports worth $50bn. These include: televisions, medical equipment, aircraft parts and batteries.

4 April, 2018

China proposes tariffs on US goods worth $50bn.

5 April, 2018

President Trump announces he's considering additional tariffs on Chinese products worth $100bn.

15 June, 2018

President Donald Trump announces new tariffs on goods worth $34bn will come into force on 6 July 2018. He also proposes a new list of tariffs for imported goods worth $16bn.

15 June, 2018

China says it will respond to these new US impositions with it's own new tariffs on agricultural products and manufactured goods.

6 July, 2018

New tariffs announced by both countries in June come into effect.

Source: bbc.com/news

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Monday, July 2, 2018

China staunch defender of free trade under WTO, meet the 'selfish giant' of global trade

Photo taken on April 12, 2018 shows the World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. [Photo/Xinhua]

China staunch defender of free trade under WTO

There can be no order without rules. And trade is no exception to this. The World Trade Organization regulates the trade between nations to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible.

China has spared no efforts in honoring the promises it made to join the WTO, and the country has not only abided by the WTO rules over the past 17 years. It has contributed a great deal to the development of the world economy and is a staunch defender of the WTO trade system.

In contrast, the Donald Trump administration's unilateralism and trade protectionism pose an ever greater threat to free trade. Under the unjustifiable pretext of national security, it has violated the United States' WTO obligations by imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and discriminating among its WTO trade partners.

There is no denying that China has benefited a lot as a member of the WTO, which has facilitated its opening-up and reform. Without integrating its economy with that of the world, it would have been impossible for the country to maintain its double-digit economic growth for more than a decade.

Yet the other side of the coin is that as a rule-abiding member of the WTO, China has also contributed to the world economy. Had it not been for China's help and support, it would not have been possible for the US and other major Western countries to have emerged from the devastating effects of the 2008 financial crisis so quickly.

And without China's opening-up, it would not have been possible for so many transnational corporations to benefit from their business in China. And of course, those businesses have provided jobs for China and enabled the country to earn more from international trade.

Free trade is undoubtedly reciprocal. China is a beneficiary of free trade within the framework of the WTO, but it also benefits others. It is a contributor to the development of the world economy and defender of the current world economic order.

Because they fail to appreciate this, some Western countries regard China as simply a free rider on globalization and refuse to recognize China's status as a market economy as they should.

That the US refuses to settle its trade dispute with China within the framework of the WTO only points to its own lack of respect for the WTO trade rules.

China will continue to abide by WTO rules and firmly defend the current world economic order, as it believes that rules-based multilateralism is essential for the healthy development of the world economy.

By China Daily editorial

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The Trump administration should find a balance between its new strategy, which can be partly reasonable, within the existing highly interconnected world. The US should understand that emerging countries cannot be treated like in the past.

Meet the 'selfish giant' of global trade

Donald Trump has opened a Pandora's box which, if not shut soon, will cause mayhem in global trade and seriously undermine the multilateral trading system

At a time when globalization needs to be safeguarded and promoted, some countries are doing exactly the opposite by violating even the normative axioms of international relations. In particular, the Donald Trump administration seems hellbent on instigating a trade war with major economies by using anti-globalization and protectionist measures, which are disrupting the international trade order.

Claiming to resolve domestic structural problems and meet global challenges with a combative approach, US President Donald Trump has become the most powerful force behind the wave of trade protectionism. The trade disputes he has stirred up pose a big challenge to globalization, which is based on the division of labor in the global value chain. Trump's protectionist moves would disrupt the global production network, leading to a contraction, if not dismantling, of the global value chain. In fact, he has put the global free trade system and international trade order at great risk of being destroyed.

In his one and a half years in office, Trump has not only expedited investigations by the US International Trade Commission into anti-subsidy, anti-dumping allegations under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, but also used unconventional protectionist measures, such as Section 301 and 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, to order investigations against imports, including those from China, and the trade practices of other economies.

'Trump trap' versus 'Thucydides trap'

No wonder many overseas scholars are more worried about a "Trump trap" rather than the "Thucydides trap", because the former will harm not only China but also the rest of the world.

Essentially, the Trump administration's trade policies are not different in nature from those of the Barack Obama administration. But compared with Obama's trade policies, Trump's policies exhibit some new features.

First, for Trump, his "America First" policy is more important than international rules and the world trade order. Trump has been exhibiting a tendency to either take advantage of or discard the multilateral global trading system to fulfill US interests. The president's 2017 Trade Policy Agenda stresses that the efficiency of the open and multilateral trading system, built by the US itself, needs to be reassessed to realize and promote US national interests.

Apart from complaining about China's so-called restraints on foreign capital's access to some service industries, including telecommunications, banks and healthcare, the US Trade Representative has also accused China of forcing technology transfers despite China gradually opening up these industries in accordance with the General Agreement on Trade in Services of the World Trade Organization.

Second, the US administration has raised economic security to a new level, by incorporating economic and trade policies into national security, with Trump's first National Security Strategy emphasizing that economic security is national security. Declaring that the US would use all applicable tools to defend national security, Trump has said the US will adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward any move it considers unfair or harmful to the US economy.

Third, Trump is trying to weaken, even overthrow the multilateral trading system, a system based on rules that has played a central role in promoting cooperation and opening-up of trade and investment, apart from offering a stable and reliable system for WTO members to resolve trade disputes.

Evidently, the Trump administration is making all-out efforts to skirt and marginalize the WTO, most recently by saying appeals against WTO rulings should not take more than the mandated 90 days to deal with. What it has conveniently ignored, however, is that the delay is caused as the US, from time to time, has thwarted the Appellate Body from starting the procedure of selecting new judges, leading to a paralysis in the WTO's dispute-settlement mechanism.

Trump mantra: Trade good, imports bad

Fourth, Trump is trying to defend fair trade, ironically, through unilateral trade sanctions. The Trump administration has ordered an estimated 94 investigations into so-called unfair trade practices involving dozens of countries in just one and a half years, a year-on-year increase of 81 percent. In fact, the fair trade principle advocated by Trump stresses a kind of equality that promotes a unilateral (as opposed to multilateral) open market and regards trade beneficial but imports harmful.

Generally speaking, the fair trade Trump demands mainly constitutes of even tariffs and competition on an equal footing. Yet the disparity in tariff rates among WTO member states is largely attributable to multilateral trade negotiations. More important, uneven tariffs have enabled smaller economies at a primary stage of development to enter the global trading system.

Since different countries are at different development stages, and have different economic scales, production factors and political sensitivity toward trade liberalization and tariff policies, it is practically impossible to fix a unified tariff rate, which Trump effectively demands.

So, what is the truth behind the uneven Sino-US trade tariff rate? This can be better explained using hard data, instead of selectively ignoring unfavorable facts like the Trump administration has been doing. China's actual trade-weighted average tariff rate is 4.4 percent, which is almost the same as that of developed economies, including Australia that has a trade-weighted average import tariff rate of 4 percent and the European Union 3 percent.

Correspondingly, more than 3,335 of the US' most-favored nation tariff rates are higher than 5 percent and 1,120 above 10 percent.

Also, to prevent others from catching up, the US has invoked more than 125 Section 301 investigations since 1974, causing significant damage to other economies－the EU has faced 27 investigations, Japan 16, and Canada 14.

In January 2017, the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recommended in a report titled "Ensuring Long-Term US Leadership in Semiconductors" that the US restrain the development of China's technology industries because China's rise in the field of semiconductors posed a threat to the US.

China's high-tech sector a key target

Besides, the US is attempting to thwart the Made in China 2025 plan by launching more Section 301 investigations. And the 578 high-tech products on the US' sanctions list against Chinese imports, which account for 43.36 percent of the total number and 56.15 percent of the total amount of high-tech products, show the US is indeed trying to contain the development of China's high-tech industry.

Trump also is seeking to restrict Chinese investment in the US' high-tech sector, by extending the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US and accelerating the legislation procedure of the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act.

Do we need more evidence to prove the US is the most potent destructive force in the global market and technology competition?

Furthermore, Trump seems to be preparing to take new measures in the escalating Sino-US trade conflict to restrict Chinese enterprises from investing or acquiring US companies in strategic industries listed in the Made in China 2025 plan, by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

And as part of its new tax reform, the Trump administration plans to prevent US companies from transferring their operating activities, high-value patents, copyright and trademarks to low-tax countries. Particularly noteworthy is a provision in the Senate version of the tax reform plan, which says a tax of 13.1 percent would be levied on global intangible low-taxed income. The move is aimed at foiling the efforts of US companies such as Apple, Google and Qualcomm to transfer their technologies to or conduct innovative cooperation with companies in other countries.

Trump is trying to instigate a trade war without realizing, rather refusing to accept, that a trade war will hurt all and sundry, including the US. The challenge for and obligation of the rest of the world is to find a way, and find it fast, to safeguard the multilateral trading system and protect it from the assaults of Trump Inc.

By Zhang Monan China Daily. The author is a researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

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