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Iran Must Raise Steel Import Tariff to Counter Trump's Levy

March 11, 2018 01:54·
President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker said Friday

President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker said Friday"we can also do stupid if Trump imposes the steep levies

Berlin backs the European Union in "seeking dialogue with the United States, but also with countries that could be affected, like China", she said.

During the nearly 10 years since the global financial crisis of 2008, it is obvious that a currency war is being experienced between countries with substantial weight in global competition such as the U.S., EU, Japan and China over the expansionary monetary policies of the central banks.

Trump's declaration coincided with the signing by 11 countries of a new Trans-Pacific trade pact that the United States withdrew from past year.

Republican congressional sources said Ryan and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady had been pressing Trump all week to avoid across-the-board steel and aluminum tariffs that would hurt US allies, and were working to suggest ways to narrow the tariffs further. The top European Union trade official Cecilia Malmstroem insisted the entire bloc "should be excluded" from the tariffs as a "close ally", vowing to "seek more clarity" from Washington.

The world's two largest economies buy and sell a huge amount of other goods from each other, though.

Finally, Britain Trade Secretary Liam Fox said Trump's approach to tariffs is doubly absurd because they would apply to British suppliers to the US military.

"It's really an assault on our country", he blasted, announcing the tariffs on the metals used in everything from cars to construction, roads to railways.

US President Donald Trump last week announced that he would impose tariffs of 25 percent on all imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

US Steel was down 3.2% at $42.92 Friday afternoon. China is the world's largest producer of "met coal", but it consumes it all and buys more from overseas, including from the U.S. Australia is also a major exporter of metallurgical coal.

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By law, the U.S. can impose trade restrictions on any country which has been shown to undermine American businesses. In his remarks, Wang issued one of China's most forceful responses yet to the looming trade actions.

Canada's Conservatives stand with the Canadian steel and aluminum workers who will be severely impacted if the United States moves forward with crippling tariffs on aluminum and steel exports.

Seoul will "actively respond" to the tariffs, the ministry said, but it didn't specify whether it would take any retaliatory action against U.S. goods. He also added Australia to the list of likely carve-outs. "All necessary steps" However, he took aim at Germany, reviving a longstanding gripe that European Nato allies do not pay their fair share.

NPR's Philip Reeve tells Morning Edition that Brazil is gravely concerned about the USA tariffs, saying that they will hurt trade relations and that the South American country has not ruled out sourcing its coal from elsewhere.

Elsewhere, Brazil and Britain were also quick to launch broadsides against the tariffs, which are worth billions of dollars.

"So we need to increase steel tariff to the extent that major producers see no benefit in trying to penetrate into the Iranian market", he said.

Business leaders, meanwhile, continued to sound the alarm about the potential economic fallout from tariffs, with the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce raising the specter of a global trade war.

But dispute cases can take three years to resolve, and there is nothing stopping countries from imposing tit-for-tat trade restrictions while the legal process plays out.

White House officials even say the specifics of the plan remain fluid and it's unclear when they will be finalized.

Trump said he was merely fulfilling a campaign promise, saying he had been talking about perceived trade injustices "a long time, a lot longer than my political career".

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