USA starts a trade war with allies

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Octavious
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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#21 Post by Octavious » Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:36 am

ksako8 wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:10 am
@Octavious: the EU sells mostly specialized steel to the US. Some of it is not even made in the US. Hence trade.
Well, that confirms Trump's national security argument then. If the US relies on overseas powers for types of steel unavailable at home he has a valid point.

As for Ethics 101, is that relevant? Politics 101 gave us countless strong and well thought out arguments about why Trump would never win the election, and it was utterly wrong. I am less eager to believe in received wisdom these days.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#22 Post by ksako8 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:36 pm

Overseas powers? You mean NATO allies

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#23 Post by ksako8 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:37 pm

And those NATO allies buy US military planes. Should they stop that too?

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#24 Post by ksako8 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:39 pm

US national security is serviced more by working with allies than going alone.
Article 5 of NATO was invoked only once.
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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#25 Post by Condescension » Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:55 pm

Octavious wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:36 am
ksako8 wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:10 am
@Octavious: the EU sells mostly specialized steel to the US. Some of it is not even made in the US. Hence trade.
Well, that confirms Trump's national security argument then. If the US relies on overseas powers for types of steel unavailable at home he has a valid point.

As for Ethics 101, is that relevant? Politics 101 gave us countless strong and well thought out arguments about why Trump would never win the election, and it was utterly wrong. I am less eager to believe in received wisdom these days.
Plenty of experts believed that Trump had decent odds of winning. It was the media that spun it as impossible.

Some experts being wrong about some things doesn't mean you should just throw out the whole of academic knowledge. The reality is that a race to the bottom is, by definition, sub-optimal.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#26 Post by Octavious » Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:42 pm

Condescension wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:55 pm
Plenty of experts believed that Trump had decent odds of winning. It was the media that spun it as impossible.

Some experts being wrong about some things doesn't mean you should just throw out the whole of academic knowledge. The reality is that a race to the bottom is, by definition, sub-optimal.
Were you watching the same election :P?

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#27 Post by Condescension » Sun Mar 04, 2018 7:35 pm

Octavious wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:42 pm
Condescension wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:55 pm
Plenty of experts believed that Trump had decent odds of winning. It was the media that spun it as impossible.

Some experts being wrong about some things doesn't mean you should just throw out the whole of academic knowledge. The reality is that a race to the bottom is, by definition, sub-optimal.
Were you watching the same election :P?
Plenty of polling aggregations gave Trump more than 10% to win. The issue is that the media considers 10% to be negligible when it is not.

The polls also couldn't predict the Comey letter a few days before the election.

In other words, there's no real evidence to say that polling science was incorrect at all, that's just hindsight bias.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#28 Post by leon1122 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 7:45 pm

The title is misleading and false. Our “allies” started the trade war. We just refused to fight back up to now.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#29 Post by peterlund » Sun Mar 04, 2018 8:05 pm

USA violates the rules of WTO of which it is a signed member.
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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#30 Post by ksako8 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 9:13 pm

Leon: you mean that US steelmakers just could not compete with Canada or the EU? And don't tell me it is because of environment or worker rights: EU rules are much stricter than US, even before the EPA got dismantled by this administration. US steel makers just lost in fair competition and went cry baby to Trump. WTO rules are followed by the EU.
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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#31 Post by Jamiet99uk » Mon Mar 05, 2018 12:37 am

leon1122 wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 7:45 pm
The title is misleading and false. Our “allies” started the trade war. We just refused to fight back up to now.
Would you care to verify this, dickhead?

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#32 Post by Ogion » Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:14 am

Incrementalist wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 12:05 am
"ut the American ALSO pays taxes on what ever is left over."

Is there anything left over after the French collect their taxes? I would assume that the US has a lower income tax rate, so after the foreign taxes paid to France are deducted, there isn't anything owed to the US.

Someone has to know this concretely though, anyone?

"Naturally, anyone hiring foreign nationals to do work (say, any third world country wanting foreign expertise) would not hire an American because htey [sic] cost more."

In reality more than zero Americans work abroad, so this is not the case.


Actually, it is the case, even if it is a tendency rather than a rule. Economics works that way.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#33 Post by Ogion » Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:16 am

Octavious wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:42 pm
Condescension wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:55 pm
Plenty of experts believed that Trump had decent odds of winning. It was the media that spun it as impossible.

Some experts being wrong about some things doesn't mean you should just throw out the whole of academic knowledge. The reality is that a race to the bottom is, by definition, sub-optimal.
Were you watching the same election :P?
Yes, we were. And better, we were watching it from the US. not sure what the UK press had, but according to Nate Silver, Trump was actually the favorite at various times. in any event, Silver nailed his prediction: Clinton by 3%, which is what she won by.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#34 Post by Ogion » Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:17 am

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Mon Mar 05, 2018 12:37 am
leon1122 wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 7:45 pm
The title is misleading and false. Our “allies” started the trade war. We just refused to fight back up to now.
Would you care to verify this, dickhead?
He means Europeans started it by being smarter, harder working, and more competitive that Americans. I think that's what he means.
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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#35 Post by Jeff Kuta » Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:56 am

Octavious wrote:
Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:42 pm
Were you watching the same election :P?
Ogion wrote:
Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:16 am
Yes, we were. And better, we were watching it from the US. not sure what the UK press had...
If I was a betting man, and I am, I'd bet that Octavious was reading about the 2016 election in The Spectator.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#36 Post by ksako8 » Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:19 am

And if I were a betting man, which I am not, I think the steel tariff thing will go the same as the tariffs that George Bush imposed early 2000's.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#37 Post by Octavious » Mon Mar 05, 2018 10:19 am

Ogion wrote:
Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:16 am
Clinton by 3%, which is what she won by.
Gosh... with victories like that I'd hate to see what a defeat looks like :P. It strikes me that a lot of Democrats need to have a conversation along the lines of "just because the the Russian territories look big doesn't mean you're winning".

I think you're focusing too much on polls, which despite heavily favouring Clinton do tend to swing quite a bit. I'm more talking about the campaign itself, in which I lost count of the number of times experts told me that Trump has done something that will write him off. He wasn't given a hope in hell by all but a handful of experts until the closing stages, and he was only given more of a chance then because the experts had been proven wrong so many times they began to question the received wisdom.

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#38 Post by ksako8 » Mon Mar 05, 2018 12:44 pm

I thought this was about the trade war, not a revisit of an election some years ago.
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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#39 Post by Octavious » Mon Mar 05, 2018 12:51 pm

ksako8 wrote:
Mon Mar 05, 2018 12:44 pm
I thought this was about the trade war, not a revisit of an election some years ago.
It's about whatever people want it to be about, as always :). The trouble with talking about trade wars, much like with diplomacy, is there's only so much you can actually say before just sitting back and waiting to see what happens.

If you have something new to say by all means say it. Until the situation develops a bit more I don't think I do. We could always talk about Italy in the mean time? That's always good for a laugh :P

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Re: USA starts a trade war with allies

#40 Post by ksako8 » Mon Mar 05, 2018 3:02 pm

Agreed

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