Trump edges closer to China tariffs; EU, S Korea exempted but not Japan

And for everyone of those 1,300 products he'll add a tariff on... he's probably got 1,300 U.S. companies lined up to donate towards his re-election in 2020. I also wonder if he has added tariffs on Ivanka's clothing line or the many items he buys for his hotels and golf courses which are imported from China.

Any bets that Trump's goods made in China will be exempted-Ivanka's as well.

Put a con man in office whose only familiarity with the laws of finance is derived from his experience with his many bankruptcies and this is what you get.

If you want someone to ruin the economy a Republican is who you need. Reagan, Dubya, and now this cretin have all put our economy at risk.

Japan, however, was not on the list of exemptions Lighthizer unveiled during a Senate hearing.

Shinzo Abe's "diplomacy" clearly hasn't achieved a whole lot then, has it.

"I fight hard," Dowd said in an interview at the time.

Trump's highest paid mercenaries are sounding like Monte Python’s Black Knight. Waiting for ’tis but a scratch’, ‘had worse’, before the final cry of ‘I’ll bite your legs off’.

And on that theme I soon expect to hear even more of them screaming ‘Run away’!

I wonder how China will respond. They could screw the American economy if they wanted. They also own so much American debt - will they stop lending money to America, or call in their debts?

This could mess with the world economy really.

China has been keen to portray itself as a defender of globalization

yep we live in bizarro world

None shall pass... I have no quarrel with you.

I wonder what the impact on Japan will be. Talk about exempting all your friends except one.

China: $60 billion is nothing compared to the interest you're going to have to pay for the portion of the $1.3 trillion budget we loaned you.

Also China: Let's make it a total of 1, 301 products with the addition of any of the Trump clothing line.

USA: Time to end the tariffs.

USA: Time to end the tariffs.

Unfortunately a trade war is unlikely to end that easily.

Japan, however, was not on the list of exemptions 

What happened to "Japan-America best friends" ?

Japan, however, was not on the list of exemptions 

What happened to "Japan-America best friends" ?

what happened to everything else abe promised?

trump singled Japan out early on. he doesn't like japan

Gee I'm 'shocked.'

With 'friends' like these, Japan doesn't need enemies.

Trump is implementing what he promised in his campaign for president.

There will be many loopholes prepared.

@Aly Rustom

what happened to everything else abe promised?

But "Japan-America best friends" was from Pikotaro.

And Trump loves Pikotaro !

I think the reason Japan is in not being exempted is partly because of the US auto industry being shut out with the exception of Jeep, which I see everywhere and a tiny Ford model you never see in the US. I also see Escalades, but I wonder if they are imported by 3rd parties. I don't recall ever seeing a car ad from any US car makers on Japanese TV. Might start by ramping up interest in US cars. I doubt most Japanese people know what other cars the US makes besides the odd muscle car or low rider Cadillac running around these tiny streets. Buick seems to be making a come back, but it is a loss on the masses here. I rattled off the names of some US car brands to my older generation students and they shook their heads and had no idea what I was talking about. Not sure Tariffs alone will help. Marketing 101.

USA has been making trade blackmail requests tied with the tariffs, so this will link up with whatever trade issues USA has with Japan. USA cars in Japan never made sense with their size versus more realistic European models, so I don't see how they think anyone will buy something that physically can't fit. All the marketing in the world can't change the narrower streets and lots

Well this is it. $60 bill in tariffs on Chinese imports, that’s staggering.

There is no question about Chinese retaliation now and it will likely be brutal. This will most definitely not end well for anyone and I can see quick escalation

Total insanity.

Bintaro! Brother!

But "Japan-America best friends" was from Pikotaro.

maybe Pikotaro should become the next PM..hey better than another Nippon Kaigi LDP loser..

And Trump loves Pikotaro !

because he can keep up with his intellect.

What great “trump buddy” leader we have. Not only a crook but totally useless at his job.

Alls fair in business and war. Guess Japan didn’t make a strong enough case for exemption. Some faceless suit is now gunna say something like it’s very ‘regrettable’, and do little else. Welcome to Trumps world of deals.

Will it be higher prices at Walmart that finally crack the support in Trump's base?

These types of actions require deft skill and negotiation. Global trade is deep in the economic fabric of the world. 10.7 million US jobs are supported by exports. While we may feel it's unfair to have a product labeled "Made in China", other countries can have the same sentiment with the "Made in the USA" label.

In many instances, China has not been a good partner in terms of fair trade. While we certain want a level playing field, HOW we get there is more important than the focused result. The Chinese hold a lot of our debt, we will issue more debt with coming deficits, and will need to re-issue older debt. The rest of the world is watching too. If we are acting fairly, other nations will understand, if we're not, they will question their own agreements with us.

The process will be critical in this feud. Poor planning or execution or failure to anticipate reactions could lead to disaster, on both sides.

You might not like what he's doing, but Trump is shaking up the trade world and destabilizing monopolies and cartels.

Whether you think he's doing it for personal gain or not, one thing is sure, companies are going to have to change and consumers in the US are probably going to benefit from it.

I'm not a big fan of Trump but I do think his economic ideas are interesting. We'll see if he achieves what he's aiming to with all this tariff talk.

Abe must be frothing at the mouth, but like a dog that's been hurt by his master and can't understand why, still wagging its tail when master comes in the room. Must be even more infuriating to the pup that South Korea gets exempted but Japan does not. The entitlement crowd must be screaming!

@Aly Rustom

We're making fun, but looking at old articles, it may actually be pretty accurate :

http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-pol-essential-washington-updates-trump-and-abe-bond-in-tokyo-over-golf-1509889051-htmlstory.html

At least we know how "friendship" works with Trump !

I wonder how China will respond. They could screw the American economy if they wanted. one of the first retaliatory tariffs China is expected to impose is on US Soy beans. US exports about $40billion alone to China. guess which states and supporters are going to be impacted directly by Chinas retaliatory tariffs and who Trump will have to answer too when the shite hits the fans. See China is far from stupid and has many weapons in it arsenal when dealing with Trumps trade war.

Japanese companies and by extension, the govt are excellent negotiators.

When I think of unfair trade with the USA, China is by far the worst offender. They've screwed over many companies from around the world.

Japan is known as tough negotiators and protectionist trade agreements with the USA. Japan is #4 in the USA trade deficit table (China, EU, Germany, then Japan). I don't remember hearing about Germany leaving lettuce to wilt at the docks, waiting inspection.

He said, 'No, no, we habu no toradu mondai with you, we have none. Donald, purease,'" Trump was quoted as saying, imitating Abe.

Yeah right, like Abe could even speak English.

Japan is a little US minion and still gets no exemption.

Mean and while Abe busies himself coaching Sagawa how to testify in the elementary school scandal while other countries discuss trade tariffs and denuclearization.

Trump is upset becauseAsian cutries do. Not import made in USA Cars. He tried. Japanese automakers in USA to export to Japan and Asia. But unsuccessful. He thinks Toyota is an American case maker. People who use limo doooooesn'tttt know which side cars have handle.

Although I despise Trump, he is correct that China has been stealing technology from other countries. I'm not sure that a trade war is the best way to deal with that issue, but it's an issue that should be dealt with.

Japan dooo not need exemptioonn. Japanese companies I USA make profits for USA.

Yeah right, like Abe could even speak English.

but but didn't you know?? They're such good friends..

shame about that little steel trade thingie though..

@Davers That is just Trump speaking. Total Trump.

I could be wrong but doesn’t the US still owe China a considerable amount of money that was the result of a deal brokered by the governments in an effort to increase exports?

Trumps is reality actor

Nothing will change

He says like that to please his supporters who voted for him

except he kill us economy too

If you want someone to ruin the economy a Republican is who you need. Reagan, Dubya, and now this cretin have all put our economy at risk.

I am against these tariffs, but this is rather partisan and unfair.

The US economy did well in 2017, in anticipation of the tax reform package and a degree of regulatory rollbacks. The stock market set a series of record highs, contrary to now infamous predictions made before and on election night that the stock market / economy would crash, and "never" recover, upon Trump's election.

Certainly the tariff talk is not helping now, but all told, the stock market is still miles up from where it was on election night, and US employment continues to increase.

My personal suspicion is that Trump will walk the trade wars back long before the November elections, but in the short term he probably wants to make a point of this so that he can say to his base that he kept his promise to get tough with China.

Trump is uninformed. His only source of information is the TV. Therefore he makes stupefying decisions.

Great moves by a great president.

Well, he needs money to build the trumpland great-wall and he needs the tariffs for that.

The US is in debt to China for trillions of dollars but hey what’s a couple of zeros right?

On the one hand it is true about China requiring anyone wanting to set up a major business in China having a local domestic "partner" and requiring a Technology transfer to that local "partner" in order to set up in China.

On the other hand there is nothing forcing companies to do any of that. They have the choice to simply avoid China and keep their Technology advantage in tact. If China wants to purchase those goods they would need to import them.

Greed for fast cheap profits has lured world companies to set up in China, to make China stronger and to hand over Technology to China, who do not then have to spend time and resources to research it for themselves.

So its all down to greed. The monster created from all this greed is waking up and spreading its influence all around the world. The world could have just said no. There is time for the World to still say no and cut it off from free Technology transfers. Dont keep feeding the monster.

Trump is playing with half a hand.

He doesn't control the actions of private U.S companies which makes it very difficult to coordinate a response to Chinese retaliation. Unless he wants to actually escalate this into a soft war like scenario and enact some sort of legislation to force U.S companies to toe a particular strategy. Very hard and destructive to U.S democracy and I would imagine impossible to get approval.

If he did have U.S companies on side he could achieve a lot more.

Obviously he needs to mitigate export losses as much as possible with more trade to other countries, but its hard to replace a market of China's size so easily. He also needs to coordinate some assistance to the farming sector which will be hit disproportionately and can least afford it.

He needs to do something about the measures China might take on U.S debt.

In all honesty, this has been brewing for a long time and I am not surprised it has happened, but if you are going to go the full monty, you need to be hyper organised. Trump ain't, Which makes me thinks he will fire off a few rounds in the hope of getting a positive response, or, he will just keep on firing and deal with the chips as they fall.

Interesting times. Time for Americans to help each other if they fall on hard times.

In terms of Japan. Well they also have a surplus with the U.S but obviously they should get far better treatment than China. I suspect that will be worked out.

It is disappointing to see that a close ally like Japan is not exempted from steel and aluminium tariffs by President Trump.

It is disappointing to see that a close ally like Japan is not exempted from steel and aluminium tariffs by President Trump.

He should be hitting up all allies to contribute a very modest amount of offsets, each, for America's loss in exports to China in exchange for exemptions. You hope that has played out behind the scenes but I just cant see Trump having the smarts.

I can see where DT is coming from especially with the imbalance of trade, but putting a 20% tariff on certain goods like steel, well is this not going to trigger inflation in the USA? already the stock markets have dropped, ( how this affects the exchange rate I don't know) but lets say a large catapiler excavator has now gone up in price by X amount, 1; because of the steel price and 2; the exchange rate has dropped, how can this be beneficial to the USA economy the goods are not as attractive to buy especially when similar item from Europe is much cheaper, what he has done has been to endanger american companies rather than bolstered them,

World leaders want to be seen as one who is "doing something." It isn't much different from the new manager that comes in and tries to shake things up.

In the 1990's Clinton sought to use China's access to 'Most Favored Nation' status in trade as a way of gaining specific progress on human rights issues. In 2000, Dubya, the Liberator of Baghdad, backed China's WTO entry and the US would gain the benefits of China's more open economy.

With Obama it was the car tire import. To save 1200 US jobs related to tire manufacturing, US consumers were estimated to have to pay about $1.1 billion more, each year. This comes down to about $900,000 for each job saved, each year.

https://piie.com/publications/policy-briefs/us-tire-tariffs-saving-few-jobs-high-cost

For the Orange one, trade deficit and help in containing Kim are the China issues of his term, but Trump is the uninformed antagonist. The meeting with Kim is called only because of his pissing match with Tillerson, who was against the summit until concrete steps were shown.

Just as Abe needs a distraction from Moritomo Gakuen, Trump has the ongoing Russian collaboration that is still being looked into. He's certainly not afraid to push China's buttons and enjoys the thrill of threatening war with Kim, but Orange is about to start something with Xi that could take us back to the shock of 2008.

Changes to any rules are always upsetting to those organizations who have learned to find loopholes to increase their profits. It makes the future just a little more unpredictable, which is bad for business.

Less trade with China would be a good thing for the USA. The imbalance is huge. The pay differences are huge. How many smartphones and cheap electronics from China do people in the US need?

Artificial pricing is bad for everyone. That applies to US pork, grains, and Chinese solar panels.