The Trump administration’s trade strategy is dangerously outdated

The trade weapons of Navarro

ON THE marketing campaign path, Donald Trump’s trade coverage was an alarming combination of coruscating complaints and fierce threats of protectionist retaliation. However the world has been at nighttime about how a lot of this rhetoric his administration may flip into actuality. A flicker of sunshine got here on March 1st because the administration’s trade-strategy doc was introduced to Congress. Washington wonks see the hand of Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser and writer of a guide (and movie) known as “Dying by China”. Robert Lighthizer, the nominee for America Trade Consultant (USTR), has not but been confirmed.

Little is new within the doc’s guarantees of “new and higher trade offers” or of strict enforcement of American trade legal guidelines. However a desire for bilateral trade offers over multilateral ones is a change of tack. And the tone is definitely confrontational: “It is time for an extra aggressive method.” The doc additionally provides a sign of how a Trump administration may take a trade struggle to China: through the use of sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The first weapon,…Proceed studying

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Organized labor's Trump predicament How to back him on NAFTA, without sacrificing other goals

Empty factory floors. High-paying jobs shipped to Mexico and overseas. Once-thriving Rust Belt towns hollowed out and left for dead.

Those are the images Donald Trump painted during his unlikely rise to the presidency. Trump was describing what he saw as the effects of decades of poorly negotiated free-trade deals, presenting himself as an economic nationalist who would bring good-paying manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

In describing free trade as harmful to the American worker, Trump aligned himself with the longtime view of organized labor, which has fought free trade for decades, even as presidents they endorsed signed new agreements into place.

Now, as Trump pursues his renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, labor unions such as the UAW find themselves in a precarious spot: How do they work with the president to pursue their decades-long goal of overhauling NAFTA while maintaining enough distance to oppose him on a variety of other measures?

The answer could have ramifications for how the UAW approaches Trump over the next four or eight years -- and to the potential alliances unions could strike with traditional foes.

UAW President Dennis Williams told reporters this month that he plans to set up a meeting with the president to discuss NAFTA.

"Corporations have been taking advantage of cheap labor here in North America, which is something, quite frankly, the American people are fed up with," Williams said, echoing critiques Trump has made in the past. The UAW had endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the presidential race and campaigned against Trump.

"Changes to NAFTA will fundamentally affect the auto industry, and that's a core interest of the UAW," said Kristin Dziczek, director of the Industry, Labor and Economics Group at the Center for Automotive Research. "It's not surprising that they would want to get involved" in discussions with Trump.

Friendliness with Trump on trade, if not elsewhere, even extends north of the border to Canada, where Unifor President Jerry Dias says Trump's trade talk has blown open the doors to renegotiate NAFTA.

News from:http://www.autonews.com/

LEAR CEO claimed Trump’s new policy is blurred making the industry at a loss

Although US President Trump and the top manufacturers ( includes three major car manufacturers in Detroit ) had a meeting. But after the meeting, the decisions of parts supplier still remain obscure. The three major car suppliers have come to power to express their demands to the Trump government at the meeting at Detroit Economic Club on 14^th, Feb. 2017.

CEO of LEAR Matt Simoncini said that the Trump government now has a border tax policy but the definition of “imported goods” is ambiguous, so that major suppliers cannot make judgments on Resource planning and central layout.

Simoncini said that if the provision of specific content can’t be provided then the major companies will be caught off guard under the time and unable to respond. There are still many projects to be launched in the US border line, such as "making a wall order" at the border, which is too sudden for the whole industry, and we are not ready at all.

"Infrastructure investment will often drive the demand for light trucks and trucks," he said, adding that it is necessary to set aside capacity adjustments for the automotive industry to prevent competition.

Linamar called on parts suppliers to protest the Trump tariff policy

Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of Linamar Group, said recently that major Canadian, US and Mexican carmakers should join forces to boycott the Trump government’s tariff bill, foreign media reported.

Hasenfratz stated at the Detroit Automotive News World Congress on Wednesday, the border tax Trump made for Ford, GM and other companies is not conducive to the development of trade.

“It is very disturbing to increase trade barriers between these countries, and no one can imagine the consequences of a sevenfold increase in tariffs on products imported from these countries, which is much more than the average person can afford. The final victim is the customer.” In addition, she said, the end result of the rising cost of the auto industry is the intensification of global competition.