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Fictional free trade and permanent protectionism: Donald Trump's economic orthodoxy

By Binoy Kampmark - posted Thursday, 22 March 2018


Let's put it out there with suitable portions of provocation: free trade has never actually taken place. There is an uncomfortable, skirmish-ridden middle ground, where states compete for primacy over surplus and deficits, where the notion of prosperity is language deferred, not to citizens, but corporations who are often backed for pursuing technological remits.

The debate about US President Donald Trump's tariffs belies a fundamental point: the surrender of the state to non-elected entities which claim privileges over and above citizens and electors; the illusion that lifting citizens out of poverty demands an absence of government interference in favour of corporate industriousness. What tends to happen, if anything, is a blurring.

Even as zeal filled free trade racketeers have insisted on its virtues, governments continue, in varying degrees, to corrupt and distort that the very trade they supposedly claim to be unshackled. The news cycle here is key.

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The short memories encouraged by that news cycle ignore the snarky engagement that characterised the opposition by three US airlines – American, United and Delta – to the $52 billion government subsidies received by Qatar Airways, Emirates and Etihad. The logic here was simple and counter-intuitive to the free trade doctrinaire: by actually supplying such subsidies, the governments of the Gulf States were ensuring that their carriers could outperform their rivals. This was state interference to the good, and woe to the US on that score.

While steel and aluminium have been romanticised in Trump's policy drive, other metals have also fallen under the spell of tariffs. Despite only supplying mere ripples through the media, Washington has been busily targeting Chinese producers of cast iron products. One particular firm received a jaw-dropping 110 percent tariff.

Brussels, indignant by Washington's recent moves, has also compiled a list of targeted US imports. "Where action is necessary to safeguard the EU's interests in such cases, the Commission may take appropriate commercial policy measures in response, on the basis of objective criteria." The European Commission has given a 10-day grace period for companies to express concern before the list is formally adopted.

All to the good – except that such conduct has simply garnered more publicity than other acts of trade hostility waged by the good offices of the EU in the name of trade security. Over the years, European entities have been more than happy to target Chinese subsidized metals, a move featuring punitive tariffs.

In January this year, the EU imposed tariffs in the order of between 15 and 38 percent on Chinese cast iron products, adding to a considerable array of anti-dumping duties. In August last year, the EU levied provisional tariffs of the eye popping order of 42.8 percent on selected cast iron products after the findings of an eight-month investigation. Those, naturally, claimed that low prices affected the bloc's producers.

In the words of the European Commission, "Prices of dumped imports from the People's Republic of China significantly undercut Union industry prices during the investigation period with undercutting margins ranging from 35.4 percent to 42.7 percent leading to decreasing market shares and profits for the Union industry."

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Other examples populate the global trade system. US regulators intend enforcing a 20 percent tariff on the first 1.2 million washers imported into the country in its first year, with a 50 percent surcharge on any machines above that number.

There are also tariffs that have found their way on solar panels, mostly of Chinese origin. In January, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced levels of up to 30 percent, citing the ample assistance provided by Chinese government subsidies. On that score, both the EU and the US have been resoundingly dedicated, giving Beijing a certain moral high ground in claiming such measures to be anti-environmental.

The global trading system is characterised by the exchange of products that will, at some point, have found a sponsor, notably a government one. In the religious utterings of the free market priest, this is to be avoided with plague-like concern. In practice, finding products free of this taint is nigh impossible.

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About the Author

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and blogs at Oz Moses.

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Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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