White House opens new fronts in trade war, targeting Brazil, Argentina and France
Trump has accused the three countries of economic actions that he says disadvantage U.S. companies.
By David J. Lynch, Rachel Siegel and Terrence McCoy
Dec. 3, 2019 at 3:35 a.m. EST
President Trump revved up his global trade war on two fronts Monday, announcing tariffs on industrial metals from Brazil and Argentina while threatening even harsher penalties on dozens of popular French products.
The administration said the moves were necessary because U.S. trading partners were acting unfairly to disadvantage both the country’s traditional economic pillars as well as its best hopes for future prosperity.
In a predawn tweet, Trump said he was ordering new tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina to counter what he called a “massive devaluation of their currencies” at the expense of American farmers. The unexpected announcement upends the Latin American countries’ 2018 agreement with Trump to accept quotas on their shipments to the United States instead of the import taxes.
Hours later, Robert E. Lighthizer, the president’s chief trade negotiator, released the results of a five-month investigation that concluded a French digital services tax discriminated against American Internet companies and should be met with tariffs of up to 100 percent on $2.4 billion in products such as cheese, yogurt, sparkling wine and makeup. The proposal, which awaits a presidential decision, threatens to intensify simmering transatlantic trade friction, coming with Trump already accusing European carmakers of enjoying government protection from American competition.
The French tax “discriminates against U.S. companies, is inconsistent with prevailing principles of international tax policy, and is unusually burdensome for affected U.S. companies,” Lighthizer said in a statement.
Speaking early Tuesday, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called the proposed tariffs “unacceptable.”
“This is not the behavior we expect from the United States vis-a-vis one of its principal allies, France, and, in a general manner, Europe,” he said on Radio Classique.
Monday’s protectionist flurry came as the president’s “America First” trade policy remains bogged down at the negotiating table and on Capitol Hill less than a year before the 2020 presidential election.
Even as the president flew to London for a NATO summit, all the essentials of Trumpian policymaking — bold action, debatable economics and sparse details — were on display back in Washington.
Fallout from the president’s renewed embrace of tariffs could cloud prospects for future or ongoing talks with countries in Asia and Europe.
“It ought to make a whole lot of people nervous,” said William Reinsch of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It kind of makes people wonder what’s the point of negotiating if this is going to happen.”
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/12/02/trump-announces-tariffs-steel-aluminum-brazil-argentina/
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