Everyone loses in this kind of situation IMO…at least everyone directly involved. Economies are too interwoven today to do this…its like shooting yourself in the foot (or the dick as the case may be). The US is way wrong to be catering to their steel industry…and the EU is wrong to try and punish them without trying whatever it takes to avoid such measure first. Mark my word, nothing good will come of this for anyone. (Sorry, I just always wanted to say “Mark my word”. :)).
-XT
Finally! After 50 years the first green shoots of a ethical US foreign policy.
Lets club together and send magiver to Iraq to preach the SDMB 'Non-Interference Doctrine’ to the ‘Provisional American Authority’ and then . . . how about a world tour to all those old friends of the CIA in Central America, Asia, Africa, South America. It’s all a little ex post facto but I’m sure the folks would welcome him with open arms!
It’s good to see our European brethren joining forces to help defeat Bush. If only they’d done it 4 years earlier…
Excuse my ignorance if I’m completely off, but I’d read that the whole reason behind the tarriffs was because the EU was using subsidies and market saturation to artificially lower the price of EU steel to drive out US competition.
The government subsidized the manufacturing, so they were able to make a profit by building up a lot of steel and then introducing it all to the US market at once, driving prices down - and the US made steel couldn’t compete. So it was sold as government protection against foreign government interference in the market.
It’s growing on us - we have the UK-produced Star Bar, which is sorta kinda like a Reeses Nutrageous.
Alas not Cabra - local to my office I mean - the Spar on College Green. My local convenience store in Cabra got burned down by some $%&^s with fireworks. :mad:
Apologies for hijack. Here’s my contribution to the debate.
Steel tariffs: protectionist, anticompetitive, anti free-market, leading to trade war with erstwhile allies = bad. However, SenorBeef, I’d be interested to see the details of what you’re saying. I thought it was caused by Eastern European steel, but that doesn’t explain why they’re targeting the EU, so maybe there’s something in what you say.
Because no European government has ever interfered with a third world nation’s politics in the last 50 years.:rolleyes:
Maybe. Another (still unlikely IMHO but highly undesireable) possiblity is that the multilateralism that has underpinned the whole thinking of the WTO and before it the GATT will fall apart and be replaced by bilateralism and regional blocs.
There is some evidence of this in the US going after preferential trade deals and the abject failure at Cancun (not that the US is solely to blame for that).
Oh, they are legal tariffs, particularly on food products, and the US businesses hate them. But we’ve never had any leverage to get them eliminated. Actually, not too long ago, the US put an offer on the table to eliminate certain American subsidies if the Euros dropped their advantages. The Euros backed out at the last minute when they realized we weren’t bluffing, or least didn’t consider it an important bluff. So, I rather enjoy free trade, but I would think this is a nice way of getting it. Ironic, but perhaps effective.
And of course, its not like Bush could get the Euros to like him even if he pledged his support to ANSWER and proposed a three-way between himself, Chirac, and Schroeder.
And of course, if they start a trade war now, they’ll be sinking their economy rather painfully.
Something along those lines is what the USA might have aduced in its defense but the WTO wasn’t buying it and ruled against the USA.
I do not understand the notion that the USA implemented the tariffs in order to get concessions from the Europeans and it sounds more like ignorance of how WTO works. The WTO ruled against the USA and authorized Europe and other countries to put tariffs on American products. The USA is not getting any concessions from Europe nor can it by doing this.
of course they have, and any right thinking person has slated them for it.
just like the US is being slated for this tariff.
It’s raised 650 million dollars for the federal coffers and created 5000 jobs in the Steel industry. However its going to hurt steel using industries to the tune of 25,000 jobs and increased prices passed on to the consumer. If its not removed before the election, lets see how that Pans out in Ohio and Michigan.
Doesn’t apply to my comment, except superficially. If you’re going to make snotty comments in a my-country-is-holier-than-yours tone, expect to get called on it and have your country’s skeletons pulled out of the same closet. I never justified nor excused US participation in various coups around the globe during the Cold War, on the basis that other states did it, too. Merely a comment on L_C’s typical sanctimonious and off-topic anti-US sniping.
But congratulations on putting on a pretense of being learned.
As I’ve already stated a few posts up, I agree that the US is being rightly knocked for the tariff - that’s not the issue my comment was in response to. (See above).
Nice! Are you comparing Europe with Iraq? Would you really like to walk down the road of European imperialism and colonization? There isn’t a country in the Mid-East that doesn’t have a history of Euro flags stuck in every crack and crevice. Every border that is marked off is a European fabrication. When you speak of non-interference doctrines you do not speak from historic experience.
On the contrary, LC does speak from historic experience, coming from a place which has a long interventionist (if that’s really the term for British colonialism) policies. If Americans (and here I speak institutionally, as it were, and not referring to individual Americans) were wiser, they’d take the lesson the Europeans have from that interventionist past, instead of repeating all the same old mistakes.
Sorry, could you quote where London_Calling did this? I can’t see it in this thread.
Us Brits are perfectly aware of the sins committed in the name of our country. Where’s their relevance to this discussion?
I’m quite happy to tell you only learned the phrase and its definition through this board about a year ago. However, I find its use entirely appropriate in this instance. If you call that “pretense of being learned” then it appears you’re assuming motivations that aren’t there - a bit like your response to London_Calling.
I quoted it.
Where’s the relevance to the CIA in this discussion?
My assumption is dead on with regards to L_C.
hrmm… reread the London Calling Post three times now, and I keep missing the part where he said ‘unlike my country’ or ‘my country has an impeccable foreign relations record’, or something of that sort. Could you point it out to me?
How much are the labor costs in China? It is my impression that the workers get next to nothing; no savings plans, health, and very low wages.
Everyone knows the ‘Irish Troubles’ have nothing to do with the Bits. In just the same way Belgium had nothing to do with that nasty little business in the Congo, or the French in North Africa, etc, etc, etc. What any of that has to do with this, I have no idea.
My pretty uncomplicated point is, if you dish out the shit for decades, it’s a little rich to start whining (“it’s not kosher”) at the mere suggestion that someone might just do something infinitely less significant in your backyard. Big boys don’t cry, big-girls-blouse and all that; especially when the world body (you’re signed up to as arbitrator) says you’re well out of order - and on which, just about everyone in this thread is in agreement.