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China files WTO challenge to US $200B tariff plan

PeteEU said:
Let's see... US has pisses of the EU, most of North and South America, large parts of Asia including China... maybe it is time to dump the dollar as the world currency and stop the US manipulation of the world markets.
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Two minor points:

  • The US Dollar is NOT "the world currency", rather it is ONE OF the world's "reserve currencies" (admittedly it comprised around 62.70% of the "reserve currency" holdings in 2017) and there is absolutely nothing stopping the rest of the world coming to the conclusion that it would be better off holding fewer US$ and more Euros, Japanese Yen, Pounds Sterling, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, Chinese Renminbi, an/or Swiss Francs.
  • The United States of America does NOT "manipulate the world markets", the US merely "regularizes interest rates and promotes free trade [while imposing the occasional tariff in order to promote internal economic growth]". OTHER COUNTRIES "manipulate the world markets" when the "manipulate internal interest rates and demand unfettered access to markets [while imposing illegal trade restrictions in order to allow their unfairly subsidized industries to dump goods and cause economic hardship in other countries while unfairly extracting extortionate profits from the countries they sell their goods to at below marked prices so that they can cause the domestic industries in those countries to collapse and thereby gain effective monopolies in those countries]".

Surely you can see the difference.
 
Ikari said:
I think that it just takes some major steel balls for them to actually file something with the WTO given their long list of telling the international community and courts to go **** themselves.

I don't think the trade war is a good idea, I don't think that it's going to end well. But this action by China, it's just about mind boggling. Running to the courts they cannot themselves abide.
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I definitely don't disagree with what you're saying...but it is interesting timing. I guess we'll see how the world views America at the moment... I mean, I doubt China would have EVER attempted this under any other administration. And given the way Trump has been running around pissing everyone off (aka, key trade partners around the world), I wouldn't be surprised if this got some traction.

I doubt China actually expects to collect anything here...but they might find it advantageous to further isolate America by goading Trump into pulling out of the WTO...one more step towards removing America as a world power without firing a single shot.

This is all speculation, of course. One more time: this is all speculation. Not sure it's "wild" speculation, though... :)
 
OlNate said:
This is all speculation, of course. One more time: this is all speculation. Not sure it's "wild" speculation, though... :)
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The Chinese are "Fighting The Long War".

I'm not sure that Mr. Trump is even aware that "The Long War" even exists.

Another way of looking at it is that Mr. Trump is playing Checkers while the Chinese are playing Go and Mr. Trump thinks that they are both playing the same game because the board is ruled in squares while one side has black pieces and the other has pieces of a different colour.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
Two minor points:

  • The US Dollar is NOT "the world currency", rather it is ONE OF the world's "reserve currencies" (admittedly it comprised around 62.70% of the "reserve currency" holdings in 2017) and there is absolutely nothing stopping the rest of the world coming to the conclusion that it would be better off holding fewer US$ and more Euros, Japanese Yen, Pounds Sterling, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, Chinese Renminbi, an/or Swiss Francs.
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  • Bull****. The US dollar is the world currency by far, especially when you go into key industries like oil and gas. It is mostly done in dollars. That has a massive effect on the dollar and the US economy.

    [*]The United States of America does NOT "manipulate the world markets", the US merely "regularizes interest rates and promotes free trade [while imposing the occasional tariff in order to promote internal economic growth]". OTHER COUNTRIES "manipulate the world markets" when the "manipulate internal interest rates and demand unfettered access to markets [while imposing illegal trade restrictions in order to allow their unfairly subsidized industries to dump goods and cause economic hardship in other countries while unfairly extracting extortionate profits from the countries they sell their goods to at below marked prices so that they can cause the domestic industries in those countries to collapse and thereby gain effective monopolies in those countries]".
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The US has constantly manipulated world markets, either through government action or through the private sector. The US government has used anti-terror laws, sanctions and many other methods to manipulate the world economy.. for example, the US has seized US dollars being used in a transaction between companies in Denmark and Germany.. their crime? Trading in Cuban cigars.. Just one of many examples.
 
PeteEU said:
Bull****. The US dollar is the world currency by far, especially when you go into key industries like oil and gas. It is mostly done in dollars. That has a massive effect on the dollar and the US economy.
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That is because that type of trading is done in "reserve currencies". As I said, the US Dollar comprises around 2/3rds of the world wide holdings of "reserve currency".

Equally, there is nothing stopping any country from trading in those key industries using whatever currency they chose to use.


PeteEU said:
The US has constantly manipulated world markets, either through government action or through the private sector. The US government has used anti-terror laws, sanctions and many other methods to manipulate the world economy.. for example, the US has seized US dollars being used in a transaction between companies in Denmark and Germany.. their crime? Trading in Cuban cigars.. Just one of many examples.
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If you want to re-read what I actually wrote, you will see some very strong parallels to your "rebuttal".

I can let you have a replacement battery for your AKME Mk 3 Sarcasm Detector at a very reasonable price.
 
TU Curmudgeon said:
From ABC News

China files WTO challenge to US $200B tariff plan
​

China announced it filed a World Trade Organization challenge Monday to President Donald Trump's latest tariff threat, stepping up its diplomatic efforts to counter U.S. pressure in a spiraling technology dispute.


The Trump administration has criticized the WTO as unable to deal with the problems posed by China, suggesting a challenge there might have little impact in Washington. But it might help Beijing rally support from governments that criticized Trump for going outside the WTO to impose tariffs on Chinese and other imports.


The move is unusually swift, coming less than one week after the U.S. Trade Representative proposed 10 percent tariffs on a $200 list of Chinese goods. Those wouldn't take effect until at least September.


China's lopsided trade balance means it will run out of U.S. imports for penalty tariffs before Washington does. Beijing is trying to recruit support, so far in vain, from Europe, South Korea and other governments.

COMMENT:-

An interesting development. True, if the WTO rules against the US then that doesn't mean that the US has to take the tariffs off - but it does mean that China may well be in a legal position to collect "damages" by sequestering exigible American assets around the world.

On the other hand, things do take a while to wend their way through the WTO bureaucracy and the US may not be a member of the WTO for much longer so is it really going to matter to the US what the WOT decides? [NOTE - International protection of intellectual property rights is provided through the WTO and leaving the WTO would mean that the US would have no international protection for American intellectual property rights.]

Who knew that international relations could be this complicated?
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“Who knew that international relations could be this complicated?”

Obama did.

During the Obama administration, there were 25 WTO challenges made by the US, 16 against China alone. The United States has brought more WTO challenges over Obama's eight years than any other country and won every single decision.

Trump doesn’t have the neural transmitters capable of carrying such complications over his own synaptic cleft to make the electrical connection necessary for him to even understand such, let alone then cognate and carryout the action to succeed in the trade challenge by what the world most accepts as appropriate legal recourse, the WTO. Obama did. Trump only knows the bully approach and is willing to sacrifice the treasure of the US, ultimately on the backs of the people, to carry-out his narcissistic ways. What a dangerous man that so easily submits the greatest country on earth to satisfy his need to make everything about him.
 
bluesmoke said:
During the Obama administration, there were 25 WTO challenges made by the US, 16 against China alone. The United States has brought more WTO challenges over Obama's eight years than any other country and won every single decision.
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I'm simply too lazy to get involved in researching every single WTO challenge that concerned the US over the past 8 years so I'll accept your statement that the US has prevailed in every case where the US brought a WTO challenge and where that challenge has been finally resolved.

On the other hand, the US hasn't been quite so successful when other countries filed WTO challenges to American actions with the WTO.

Generally speaking, at the WTO level you don't start court cases that you don't think that you have an excellent chance of winning because the facts are on your side and the law is clear. (Now if only the same could be said lower down the food chain.)

bluesmoke said:
Trump doesn’t have the neural transmitters capable of carrying such complications over his own synaptic cleft to make the electrical connection necessary for him to even understand such, let alone then cognate and carryout the action to succeed in the trade challenge by what the world most accepts as appropriate legal recourse, the WTO. Obama did. Trump only knows the bully approach and is willing to sacrifice the treasure of the US, ultimately on the backs of the people, to carry-out his narcissistic ways. What a dangerous man that so easily submits the greatest country on earth to satisfy his need to make everything about him.
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You would be surprised at some of the things that are going to get caught by Mr. Trump's tariffs on China HERE IS ONE of them.

Who knew that tariffs could be so complicated?
 
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