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#freetrade

3 posts3 participants0 posts today
Public
Strypey

"Free Trade Agreement" is a euphemism for the people of a country having no control over which products are exported to their country. Products they collectively pay to deal with when they break or reach EoL. Products that put their country in "balance of payments" debt to the countries who claim ownership of the most exports.

Imagine businesses could deliver any product they like to your home, putting you in debt to the countries they come from. That's household-scale "free trade".

#FreeTrade
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Martijn 🇪🇺🇳🇱

Trump suggested that he'd only accept #tariff #negotiations with the EU if the EU commits to paying a large, #yearly sum of money.

We have a word for that: #tribute

#Trump expects / demands the #EU to pay tribute to the #US.

Just #fuckoff already!

I'm not one to agree with the #Chinese #government often, but they called it nicely: the US is a #bully.

@EUCommission if you guys #negotiate, you might as well start licking his boots and pay tribute.

#freetrade#trade
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Ken S

When ‘Australia’ was upset with the Japanese during League of Nations the then-PM ‘Billy’ Hughes made a purposeful effort to lobby US senators to get them onside despite the President’s position on the matter (‘Racial Equality’).

Meanwhile - fast forward to present day: Australia’s Leaders, Dutton and Albanese are content with just focusing on their election campaigns.
sbs.com.au/news/article/tariff
#AusPol #AusVotes2025 #TradeWar #AusBiz #FreeTrade #Tariffs #InternationalRelations

A Senate finance committee hearing in the US witnessed one of Donald Trump's trade chiefs come under fire over tariffs, with the representative admitting to "running up the score" on Australia.
SBS NewsTariffs on 'incredibly important' ally Australia branded 'insulting' in fiery US Senate hearingA Senate finance committee hearing in the US witnessed one of Donald Trump's trade chiefs come under fire over tariffs, with the representative admitting to "running up the score" on Australia.
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Miguel Afonso Caetano

"The big, long-term question: what does the global trading system look like? The thing to watch for is whether the kind of deals Vietnam and others are making with the US end up destroying the most-favoured-nation principle underlying the World Trade Organization by giving the US special treatment. I’m moderately optimistic on this one. Label these deals as preferential trade agreements (which is pretty dodgy under WTO rules, but there are plenty of weak PTAs about already), recognise that many won’t make much difference to US exports anyway and move on. It strikes me that, if anything, attachment to the multilateral system, particularly in open trading economies like the south-east Asian nations, has increased as a result of the US threatening it. If countries are looking for a framework of international trade law, the WTO provides it. Unfortunately, though, I don’t see much sign that India is going to stop playing its spoiler role and paralysing the negotiations part of the WTO (as the US tried with the dispute settlement system)."

ft.com/content/3a6c0561-0628-4

Financial Times · The dark days after the tariff apocalypseBy Alan Beattie
#USA#Trump#Tariffs
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Now at @aj@gts.sadauskas.id.au

Anyone else notice how quiet the neoliberals have been lately?

For decades, conservative fans of FA Hayek and Milton Friedman have told us that free trade and free markets are their core principles.

That we should let the invisible hand of the market decide.

That any government intervention, no matter how well intended, distorts the markets.

That government intervention in markets is socialism.

That governments shouldn't pick winners.

That taxes are bad.

That if there's a choice between government intervention to stop global warming from fossil fuel pollution or free trade, they'll gladly pick free trade.

Right back to Reagan and Thatcher, they swore these were their core principles.

So.

An American president intervening in markets by imposing arbitrary protectionist tariff taxes should have been a hard no.

A political candidate openly campaigning on doing this should have met stiff opposition from the invisible hand's true believers.

If a true believer in these neoliberal principles (as Rupert Murdoch has claimed to be) owned a news channel (such as Fox News), one would expect outrage at this blatant rejection of free markets and free trade.

So where are all the neoliberal think tanks? Economists? Politicians?

Why the silence?

#economics#FreeMarkets#FreeTrade
Public
Miguel Afonso Caetano

"Trump’s crusade to rebalance trade is occurring because the vicious cycle propping up the FIRE sector at the expense of the American people is breaking down. The rise of the multipolar world order disrupts the American oligarchy’s interests. The modernization and economic development of the rest of the world reduces the need for other countries to rely on American imperial hegemony. There are more trade opportunities than ever outside America. Other countries are less reliant on access to American markets, weakening the dollar’s status as reserve currency.

Any gains for the productive economy from Trump’s tariffs will likely be sabotaged by the FIRE sector’s malinvestment of capital and the foreign-policy establishment’s unwillingness to withdraw from the world. America can’t have its cake (of maintaining the dollar as the global reserve currency) and eat it too (bringing back manufacturing and resolving trade imbalances). The oligarchy cannot be expected to act in America’s best interests, because that is at the expense of its interests.

Ending the rule of the American oligarchy would require reductions of military spending, ending proxy conflicts, closing bases, and embracing diplomacy. For the FIRE sector, this would entail taxing financial transactions, using central bank window guidance, and establishing a national development bank to direct investment into productive sectors and not to asset price inflation. Tariff policy wouldn’t be used as a retaliatory action, but as a targeted and measured policy tool for incubating critical domestic industries."

compactmag.com/article/liberat

Compact · Liberating America Requires More Than TariffsToday, we arrive at President Donald Trump’s heralded “Liberation Day,” in which broad tariffs will be implemented in response to manufacturing and trade imbalances.
#USA#Trump#Tariffs
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Miguel Afonso Caetano

"Now, just because some tariffs are beneficial, it doesn't follow that all tariffs are beneficial. When the "Asian Tiger" countries were undergoing rapid industrialization and lifting billions of people out of poverty, they did so with tariffs – but also with extensive industrial policy and direct investment in critical state industries (Biden was the first president in generations to pursue industrial policy, albeit a modest and small one, which Trump nevertheless dismantled).

Trump is doing mirror-world tariffs: tariffs without industrial policy, tariffs without social safety nets, tariffs without retraining, tariffs without any strategic underpinning. These tariffs will crash the US economy and will create calamitous effects around the world:
(...)
But the fact that Trump's tariffs are terrible doesn't mean tariffs themselves are always and forever bad. Resist the schizmogenic urge to say, "Trump likes tariffs, so I hate them." Not all tariffs are created equal, and tariffs can be a useful tool that benefits working people.

And also: the fact that tariffs can be useful doesn't imply that only tariffs are useful. The digital age – in which US-based multinational firms rely on digital technology to loot the economies of America's trading partners – offers countries facing US tariffs a powerful retaliatory tactic that has never before been seen on this planet. America's (former) trading partners can retaliate against US tariffs by abolishing the legal measures they have instituted to protect the products of US companies from reverse-engineering and modification. Countries facing US tariffs can welcome US imports – of printers, Teslas, iPhones, games consoles, insulin pumps, ventilators and tractors – but then legalize jailbreaking these devices:"

pluralistic.net/2025/04/02/me-

pluralistic.netPluralistic: What’s wrong with tariffs (02 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
#USA#Trump#Tariffs
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