Trump steps up trade war agenda
By
Nick Beams
28 February 2017
The address by US president Trump to the ultra-right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last Friday saw a further elaboration of the trade war agenda which is at the heart of the economic policies of his administration—a program which has already brought warnings of devastating consequences for the world economy.
It has been immediately followed by a report in the Financial Times (FT) that the administration has asked the US Trade Representative’s office to draw up a list of mechanisms that could be used to unilaterally impose trade sanctions against China and other countries.
According to the article, people briefed on the move said the goal was to find ways to circumvent the disputes settling procedures under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that have governed international trade relations since 1995. If successful, such manoeuvres could lead to the eruption of a trade war.
This is in line with Trump’s remarks on trade at the CPAC. Like all his public utterances, it was not so much a speech as a rant, denouncing the trade deals of the past which Trump maintains are the cause of the decline in the economic performance of American capitalism. And to chants of “USA, USA” from the crowd, it was accompanied by a commitment to carry out “one of the greatest military buildups in American history.”
Outlining the reasons for his decision to withdraw from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiated under Obama, Trump set out the way he envisages trade deals to be negotiated in the future.
“We’re going to make trade deals, but we’re going to do one-on-one … and if they misbehave, we terminate the deal. And then they’ll come back and make a better deal. None of these…