{"id":349759,"date":"2018-02-25T05:40:05","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T04:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-growing-threat-of-global-trade-war\/"},"modified":"2018-02-25T05:40:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T04:40:05","slug":"the-growing-threat-of-global-trade-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-growing-threat-of-global-trade-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The growing threat of global trade war"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>The growing threat of global trade war<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Nick Beams<br \/>\n    <br \/>24 February 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Aggressive moves by the Trump administration in pursuit of its economic nationalist \u201cAmerica First\u201d agenda are bringing the world close to trade war\u2014a conflict with significant military implications.<\/p>\n<p>Two major initiatives by the US administration over the past month have ratcheted up global tensions, bringing the threat of retaliatory actions from the European Union and China.<\/p>\n<p>In late January, the US slapped major tariffs on the imports of solar panels and washing machines directed against China and also South Korea.<\/p>\n<p>This was followed by the recommendation earlier this month from commerce secretary Wilbur Ross that tariffs and other restrictive measures be introduced against the imports of steel and aluminium. The Ross recommendation was the outcome of a lengthy investigation conducted under section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act which allows restrictions on imports to be imposed by the president on the grounds of \u201cnational security\u201d, a provision sometimes described as the \u201cnuclear option\u201d in trade relations.<\/p>\n<p>The report said the increase in the imports of both metals in recent years \u201cthreaten to impair our national security\u201d and Ross has sent the report to Trump with a range of options for restrictions, including a 24 percent global tariff on steel and a 7.7 percent tariff on aluminium, for action by April.<\/p>\n<p>The militaristic overtones of the trade measures were underscored by Trump in his remarks to members of Congress last week when he said that while he wanted to keep prices down, steel and aluminium were needed for national defence and \u201cif we ever have a conflict I don\u2019t want to the buying steel [from] a country we are fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The move against solar panels and washing&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/02\/24\/trad-f24.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 The growing threat of global trade war By Nick Beams 24 February 2018 Aggressive moves by the Trump administration in pursuit of its economic nationalist \u201cAmerica First\u201d agenda are bringing the world close to trade war\u2014a conflict with significant military implications. Two major initiatives by the US administration over the past month have ratcheted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-349759","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}