From the Strategic Culture Foundation Imagine a bird was led to believe that it was a fish. For a while it might get used to living under water, but it wouldn’t take long before it could sense that something was wrong. If the bird didn’t realize that its nature is to fly and breath the […]
US President Donald Trump said the G20 Summit was a success for America’s interests [PPIO]
World markets on Sunday may have sighed some relief after news emerged from the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires that China and the US had agreed to put the breaks on any new trade tariffs for the next three months.
The US agreed not to raise current tariffs on some $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10 to 25 per cent on January 1, 2019.
As key representatives of the three chief villains of international finance and trade, the IMF, World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) met on the lush resort island of Bali, Indonesia, they warned the world of dire consequences in terms of reduced international investments and decline of economic growth as a result of the ever-widening trade wars initiated and instigated by the Trump Administration. They criticized protectionism that might draw countries into decline of prosperity. The IMF cuts its global economic growth forecast for the current year and for 2019.
China: Commerce official Gao Feng said that US measures are essentially attacking global supply and value chains and that China will not bow down to threats and blackmail. US Customs and Border Protection officials are due to collect 25% duties on a range of products including motor vehicles, computer disk drives, parts of pumps, valves and printers and many other industrial components. [...]
At Russia’s ‘Second Capital’ of St. Petersburg, leaders from several nations and economic organizations called for an ‘economy of trust’. The theme was aimed at combatting the selfish protectionist measures that have been emanating from various nations in Europe and, most notably, America, the latter of which has been levying tariffs both targeted and global in their scope, as well as economic sanctions, in an attempt to restore the heights of its glory days, when its economy represented half of the world’s GDP, in order to ‘Make America Great Again’.
File photo of US President Donald Trump with Chinese President Xi Jinping
International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has called on China and the US to resolve their looming trade disputes through the use of existing multilateral provisions and organizations.
Both countries have been locked in a war of words and threats over US President Donald Trump’s decision to impose substantial tariffs on Chinese goods entering US markets. China has responded by doing the same, largely focused on agricultural industries in the American heartland.
US Presidents, European leaders and their academic spokespeople have attributed China’s growing market shares, trade surpluses and technological power to its “theft” of western technology, “unfair” or non-reciprocal trade and restrictive investment practices. President Trump has launched a ‘trade war’ – raising stiff tariffs, especially targeting Chinese exports – designed to pursue a protectionist economic regime.
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.
China has warned the US not to adapt protectionist measures to global trade [Image: Archives]
China has warned the international community not to follow in US President Donald Trump’s footsteps and impose trade tariffs.
Officials in Beijing have called on the US to practice restraint on protectionist measures, and to comply with multilateral trade provisions.
