Our
current “free trade” agreements have given the US its $700+ billion annual
trade deficit. Trump’s team will
renegotiate our trade deals as “bi-lateral trade agreements” with each
individual country. The US will negotiate to reduce imports from countries who
have “trade barriers” to US imports.
China,
Germany, Japan and Mexico will be asked to increase imports from the US, open
their markets and lower their tariffs (if they are higher).
If these
countries have no demand for US manufactured goods, they may prefer to make the
US their oil and natural gas supplier to make our deficit smaller.
Some
foreign countries have higher tariffs than the US for automobiles; Germany’s
import tax on the Cadillac is 10% and the US tariff on foreign cars is 2.9%. We
would like Germany to lower its tariff.
These
negotiations can include multiple adjustments and putting a manufacturing plant
in the US for cars sold in the US would help these foreign companies dodge any
tariffs.
Europe has
a national sales tax on imports called a Value Added Tax (VAT). Trump doesn’t
like the VAT tax and won’t allow this being imposed in the US. It enriches the
government but penalizes the citizen-consumer.
Trump will
want China to stop its currency manipulation and intellectual property theft. We
may see some agreements to settle these issues.
Europe has
required US companies to put their manufacturing plants in their countries to
make products to be sold to their citizens.
This has gone on for decades. Now
the US will impose similar requirements.
US
companies have complained about “free trade” for some time and they actually
coined the term “fair trade”.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment