Listen to my Alternative Visions radio show of friday, March 9, for my analysis of Trump’s Steel-Aluminum Tariff Announcement, how its real target is China (which imports less than 1% of US steel imports), how tariffs and the new, aggressive Trade policy is the logical consequence of Trump monetary (rate hikes) and fiscal (tax cuts, defense spending, deficits & debt) policies. Why Trump’s move is in a long tradition of US elites making trade partners pay, as in Reagan 1985, Nixon 1971, and before.
To Listen GO TO:
http://prn.fm/alternative-visions-trump-trade-war-brewing-03-09-18/
Or go to:
http://alternativevisions.podbean.com
SHOW ANNOUNCEMENT:
Dr. Rasmus takes up the key economic news of the past week that Trump is launching a trade war by raising tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Contrary to press and media, it’s not a general ‘trade war’ but another example of US capitalists—the national ‘America First’ wing allied with Trump in the current case—signaling they intend to renegotiate trade agreements with US trading partners. After announcing, Trump immediately exempted NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico, the US main steel importers. Trump further announced more exemptions coming for Europe and elsewhere. SO the main target is…China, even though China is responsible for less than 1% of steel imports to US. Rasmus explains how historically the US has always turned aggressive on trade when the global trade pie, or its share of it, was threatened: Reagan did it in 1985, Nixon in 1971, and Hoover in 1930. Further explained is how the Fed rate hike policy underway will raise the US dollar and make US exports less competitive, so the trade renegotiations are anticipating this by making US trade partners pay for the rate-dollar hikes coming. How US trade policy is a response to US monetary policy which, in turn, is a response to Trump tax cuts, defense spending, and $trillion annual deficits and $10 trillion US debt. It’s all US Capital on the offensive in a new Trump aggressive ‘Neoliberalism 2.0’ taking form.
Great post. Now I finally believe that I understand why Nixon repudiated Bretton Woods. But here is the larger question: is Jack Rasmus always right and everybody else always wrong? Obviously not. The problem with the Paul Krugman’s of the world is that they don’t discuss all of the significant issues. They don’t compare Trump’s claimed trade war with say Nixon’s repudiation of Bretton Woods; the Plaza Accords; the Louvre Accords; the horrendous deficits that Trump and others have run up; the double deficits of the trade deficit versus the fiscal deficit and on and on and on and on. So it’s not so much that Paul Krugman and his kind are wrong but their unconscious ideology does not allow them to discuss significant issues nor will it allow them to discuss the layers and layers of deceit underlying Trump’s claimed trade war.