Raise tariffs on America

[JohnT]

And Germany lost WW1. Or did I read my history wrong?

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Re: Raise tariffs on America

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I don't rant much, but here goes.

Why is it when the US initiates tariffs against Japan or China, these countries respond by raising tariffs for goods sold to America?

Or in the Canadian example. The Americans currently stiff us with a 28% tariff on all softwood lumber, in order to prop up their obsolete mills and lumber industry. Why don't we start raising prices on all of our electricity, and our oil that go the US?

The Americans have taken cheap and easy Canadian power and oil, IIRC, we are the largest supplier of oil to the United States, yet you never hear about Canada's contribution down south. We are like the wife that always waits while America toys with their mistresses.

Canada is part of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Now, if the province of BC (or the fed) gives lumber companies (say) $15 per stump, how is that free trade?

Canadians don't really seem to understand the issue... and the issue is government subsidies, which don't exist in their respective US counterparts, which have had to impose tarrifs to counter it.

Subsidies, and government economic intervention in general, are common place in Canada and so Canadians can't seem to get their minds around the idea that not all countries are like that. And there's nothing wrong with that, its just that if you intend to throw subsidies onto industries, don't join NAFTA....

[DinoDoc]

Re: Re: Raise tariffs on America

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Canadians don't really seem to understand the issue... and the issue is government subsidies, which don't exist in their respective US counterparts, which have had to impose tarrifs to counter it.

Correct. The only part where we erred was in calculating the size of the tarrif according to the board the looked at the case.

[Whoha]

Nope you didn't read your history wrong, the largest producer of steel during ww1, the US, beat them.

Today the semiconductor industry is also getting siphoned off.

add to that this:

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/in01_visclosky/magnequench030306.html

Some how the US managed to barely scrape by with protectionism for around 200 years, and some how all the fastest growing economies in the world are managing to get by with protectionism.

[DanS]

Today the semiconductor industry is also getting siphoned off.

Mostly, only low value work is being siphoned off. The latest and greatest is staying in the US.

But you appear to be missing the point. Japan is producing the most of a low value product, so who cares? Let them do it. I would be more concerned if the US were trying to keep these businesses.

[Ben Kenobi]

jimmycrackscorn:

Now, if the province of BC (or the fed) gives lumber companies (say) $15 per stump, how is that free trade?

Canadians don't really seem to understand the issue... and the issue is government subsidies, which don't exist in their respective US counterparts, which have had to impose tarrifs to counter it.

So the US does not subsidise their own timber industry? If they applied the same standards they insist of Canadians, they would quickly go out of business.

Secondly, the provincial government's stumpage is not a subsidy, but a method of financing Government coffers. The companies, in order to remain in business need to pay a fee to use crown land, that far outstrips any stumpage payment.

Often, the producers in the Interior pay a far higher fee than those on the coast as they can produce lumber much more cheaply. In essence you have one section subsidising the other, rather than the provincial government.

When the US went to WTO arguing unfair subsidies, the WTO found nothing wrong, and insisted that the Americans repay the money taken through tarriffs.

Finally, the American lumber producers are behind the times. They cannot produce as much lumber as their respective Canadian mills. My dad stays in business upgrading the American mills, who are amazed at the increase in production obtained by the same upgrades made 10 years ago in Canada.

[child of Thor]

i've kinda impossed my own tariff that will cease once the current thinking behind the present(and any following) administration changes.
I check all my current purchases, if its from America it stays on the shelf. This in the long run is the only kind of thing i feel will make a difference to any country that appears to abuse its power and operates on the free market. Its a drop in the ocean, but enough drops can make a difference.
I feel that most nations will be too intimidated to stand up to uncle sam with tariffs etc, but the people not buying the goods has to have some effect.
Maybe its a bit idealistic, and in the scheme of things seems a pretty pathetic protest,but i feel better for it

[HershOstropoler]

Re: Re: Re: Raise tariffs on America

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Correct. The only part where we erred was in calculating the size of the tarrif according to the board the looked at the case.

Has the case been decided yet? I used to think most of the lumber issue was still pending...

[Ben Kenobi]

Let's see if I can find the WTO case.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/05/27/wto_ruling030527

OTTAWA - The World Trade Organization has ruled in favour of Canada in its softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

The preliminary ruling, which is not binding, was released to the federal government Tuesday.

"Yet again, it appears that the U.S. is being told that its attempts to prove our softwood industry is subsidized are flawed," International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said in a news release.


RELATED STORY: WTO to rule today on U.S. lumber tariffs

A final report on the dispute is expected in July.
The crux of the dispute is an American claim that Canada's system of charging low "stumpage" fees – the fees lumber companies pay to the government for the right to cut trees on Crown-owned land – amounted to a subsidy.

The current dispute was triggered in April 2001 when the United States Department of Commerce (DOC) launched an investigation of Canadian softwood lumber. It was the fourth such investigation in the past 20 years.

In August 2001, the DOC imposed a countervailing duty of 19.31 per cent on softwood lumber imports from Canada. Canada sells approximately $10 billion worth of lumber each year to the U.S.

That duty was later reduced to 18.79 per cent.

Canada's challenge to the WTO was launched in October after other efforts to resolve the dispute were unsuccessful.

The dispute is estimated to have cost Canadian lumber producers up to $1.5 billion in duties and cost thousands of jobs. Some sawmills closed.

It might not be over yet, either. Washington can appeal the WTO ruling, a process that some experts say could take another six to eight months.

The North American Free Trade Agreement dispute resolution body is to rule on it in July. That group's ruling would be binding

[Ben Kenobi]

Text of NAFTA ruling which reaffirms the WTO ruling.

http://www.truckloggers.com/breaking_news.shtml

It's a PDF file.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Oh, and yes NAFTA is in danger. There are people in Canada who want us out of it.

There is also a US Communist Party. It doesn't make me think we're in danger of a Red revolution

[realpolitic]

"If the President does it, it isn't illegal" - Richard Nixon

Take a look at www.americancetury.org the neocons say they have the right to do whatever they want in the name of "democracy".

Just want you nonAmericans to realize there are many Americans fighting these bastards tooth and nail.

[notyoueither]

There is zero government subsidy of lumber, or wheat, in Canada.

What Ben posted mentions it, but here it is boiled down.

In BC almost all of the forested land is government owned. Lumber companies pay the government for licenses to harvest certain pieces of land, and then they pay an additional fee per tree they cut. That additional fee is called stumpage. It is paid by the producers to the government, not the other way around. It is the royalty to the people who own the trees for taking them.

Now, what value the people of BC place on their trees, and how much they charge lumber companies for them, seems to me not to be in any way a subsidy. How you get a subsidy out of such a situation baffles me, but apparently the brain trust in Washington can delude itself. It is good they cannot delude anyone else.

[HershOstropoler]

Well allowing the use of public property for below market price is a subsidy. The problem is whether the fees really are too low.

If it is one, as it is not export-related, it is not a forbidden, just an actionable subsidy under WTO law, and how the US wants to meet the standard of proof there is a mystery to me...

"How you get a subsidy out of such a situation baffles me, but apparently the brain trust in Washington can delude itself."

Well it's possible, just barely a problem under WTO law. They're living in lala land. The arguments they presented in the FSC case were so hilarious, I thought they are joking. But they really believe in the stuff. It's the "think" tank disease, I suppose....

[notyoueither]

They've tried this 4 times now. Anytime it has gotten near a tribunal we have won or an agreement is struck. Yet they come back again the next time.

Somehow, with union rates being paid to people in BC, rights to leases being paid for in advance, stumpage being charged, and costs of reforestation being born wholly by the lumber companies in Canada I doubt they have an unfair advantage.

Besides, assume that they are charged low stumpage. That might be because there is so much of BC, and so many trees, that the people of BC might want to encourage activity in that sector. What is the difference between cheap trees in BC, cheap labour in Mexico, or dense populations supporting greater manufacturing effeciency in the East of the US? That's right, each has an advantage owing to local circumstances.

The playing field is never totally equal in any given field. Some areas will have certain advantages over others elsewhere, but we signed a treaty saying that we would trade freely with each other regardless. It would simply be nice if the US elephant would stop crying about the mighty Canadian mouse, and honour this agreement. One starts to question the value of agreements with parties that never abide by them in good faith.