WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #34 - DUTIES IN THE TIME OF TRUMP. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Donald Trump, as he had widely announced during his election campaign,

has launched a sovereignist and aggressive economic policy towards both
his historic Euro-Atlantic allies (in truth always very subordinate...)
and other countries. From the moment of his election he made it known
that he would impose duties on a whole series of products from Canada,
Mexico, China, the European Union, and beyond. This was the case, in
particular with regard to Chinese goods, towards which action was taken
at the beginning of February with an increase in the general duty from
10 to 20%, to which Beijing responded by saying it was ready for a harsh
commercial response but by applying tariffs from 10 to 15% only on some
American agricultural products: a reaction, at least for now, cautious,
which leaves the door open to possible and desired negotiations. The
decision to impose a strong increase in taxation on imported products
had also been announced with regard to Canada and Mexico; in fact,
towards Canada, Trump had threatened a 50% duty on cars with the
declared intention of bringing back home the production made in Ontario
on behalf of US car manufacturers; the Canadian response was immediate
with the announcement of a 25% tax on electricity supplied to some
northern states and the rejection of the provocative "proposal" to
overcome the problem by becoming the 51st state of the USA. The
resulting negative reaction of the financial markets, together with the
concerns of the Americans themselves, suggested to the president to
temporarily postpone the application of the measures announced both
towards Canada and Mexico, justifying the extension by what has been
implemented by these governments in the fight against the crossing of
the border by migrants. Meanwhile, the US has announced an increase in
duties from 10 to 25% on the import of steel, aluminum, and other
products not included in this supply chain, from the European Union
which in reaction has already prepared an equivalent increase on
American goods; but the concern of the E.U. It is especially in view of
April 2, the day on which the US announcement is expected on new duties
that would hit especially some exporting countries such as Germany,
Italy, France. The Italian government, in particular, fears the effects
on the agri-food supply chain, on pharmaceutical products, fashion and
luxury cars, but also on machinery and equipment; all of this, in 2023,
for a value of over 67 billion euros, with a total trade of 92 billion
with the US, and a positive balance for Italy of 42 billion. And another
reason for tension with European allies has been highlighted with
Trump's repeated expressions of territorial interest in Greenland, the
large island near the American continent, with few inhabitants and many
mineral resources, part - albeit with a certain autonomy - of the
Kingdom of Denmark; it initially seemed like one of the many election
campaign jokes, but for the US president it is instead a declared
objective. Meanwhile, in October 2024, while all eyes were on the
American presidential elections and their possible consequences at an
international level, the European Commission decided to impose duties on
the import of Chinese electric vehicles deemed to penalize European
cars, to which China responded with duties on brandy, meat, luxury cars.
As they say: he who is without sin...

In reality, the imposition by the US of duties on imported goods is not
new; right under the first Trump administration, in 2018, duties had
been applied on goods coming from Canada, Mexico, the EU, but above all
a trade dispute had developed with China that had caused problems for
the economies of both countries, while at the same time increasing
uncertainty on the markets at an international level; in the following
year, agreements were then reached between all parties to regulate
trade. But it is not a novelty even in the history of the United States,
which has always had a predominantly liberal economic policy: duties on
some goods, and for some periods, have been implemented by various
presidents, not least in the 1980s by the champion of liberalism Ronald
Reagan against cars from Japan. In this last case, the Reagan
administration won, but only because the Japanese considered it more
convenient not to respond with economic retaliation to avoid triggering
a devastating trade war. In general, however, this policy has not had
the desired effects. A striking example was the failure of President
Herbert Hoover who, after the Wall Street crash of 1929, approved a law
introducing generalized duties of 20% to protect farmers and industries
from foreign competition, which triggered a reaction from many European
countries with the consequence that trade between the two sides of the
Atlantic decreased by two thirds in the space of two years. The result
was that the situation worsened further, so much so that his successor
F.D. Roosevelt subsequently signed a free trade agreement with nineteen
countries, which in that case led to an improvement in the economic
condition of the country. We cannot know, at the moment, what the
American government will announce on April 2, nor what the future
developments of this current "tariff war" will be, even if it would seem
more likely that all this will serve the United States to set up a
future negotiation to achieve a rebalancing of its trade balance, which
currently sees a strong deficit, and a return of those productions that
have been relocated to other countries, especially Canada, Mexico,
China. We will see, but in any case all this is part of a repeated and
heated confrontation between the various national interests of global
capitalism.

The objective of these protectionist proposals by the various
governments is always the same: to try to safeguard the interests of the
national bourgeoisie and the industrial and agricultural productions of
each individual state from the import of foreign goods, with the
consequence of the defense of employment and therefore of social
stability. The effects, however, as we have already seen, are almost
never those hoped for, and for various reasons. First of all, because
the application of strong duties risks generating equivalent responses
from countries that feel damaged, with possible replies and
counter-replies, and therefore with an increase in prices and the risk
of inflation growth. Furthermore, integration between the various
economies is now very developed and not all products are available at a
national level; thus, for example, many industrial products are
indispensable for the production of other goods, with the consequence
that their higher cost for duties would be reflected in production
capacity and would determine a slowdown in economic growth. Another of
the effects of trade wars could be the even more serious one of
triggering a global economic crisis, with the consequence of increasing
political tension that over time, worsening, could lead to a real armed
conflict, the result as always of obvious or hidden economic interests.
This is probably not the time for such a dramatic outcome, even if the
confrontation between the US and China in the Indo-Pacific area - now
the main area of interest for American imperialism - risks increasing in
intensity and leading sooner or later to a war that would be global.
This possible conflict, devastating and fatal for the fate of all
humanity, would be the consequence of a system that can also perpetuate
itself by deluding the subordinate classes with the myth of "democracy",
or when this is not enough through the use of force and repression by
governments, but which only produces tensions and wars also because of
an unbalanced economic development between the areas of the planet. Of a
system that destroys nature and at the same time creates growing poverty
for large masses in the face of increasingly disproportionate wealth
concentrated in the hands of a few. Of a system that lets goods
circulate, even if burdened by duties, but that raises increasingly
insurmountable walls in front of people forced to migrate due to wars,
persecutions, economic necessity. Of a system, the capitalist one, that
cannot be reformed but that must be overcome by fighting to build a
self-managed society from the bottom, supportive, internationalist,
communist, libertarian.

Mario Salvadori

http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
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