{"id":379066,"date":"2018-09-29T18:38:12","date_gmt":"2018-09-29T17:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-threatens-strategic-allies-with-auto-tariffs\/"},"modified":"2018-09-29T18:38:12","modified_gmt":"2018-09-29T17:38:12","slug":"trump-threatens-strategic-allies-with-auto-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-threatens-strategic-allies-with-auto-tariffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens \u201cstrategic allies\u201d with auto tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Trump threatens \u201cstrategic allies\u201d with auto tariffs<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Nick Beams<br \/>\n    <br \/>29 September 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>While the main focus of the trade war launched by the Trump administration is directed against China\u2014labelled by the US military and intelligence apparatus as a \u201cstrategic competitor\u201d\u2014it is stepping up pressure against supposed \u201cstrategic allies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The key economic weapon it is employing is the threat of tariffs on cars and auto parts of 25 percent under section 262 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act which empowers the president to impose levies on the grounds of \u201cnational security.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This threat has now been wheeled out on three occasions in the past two months.<\/p>\n<p>The first was when Trump met with the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker for one-on-one talks in July. According to Trump\u2019s version of events, which he outlined in a press conference with Polish President Andrez Duda earlier this month, the European Union had refused to engage in negotiations but then agreed under the threat of imposts on cars.<\/p>\n<p>The Europeans had previously rejected bilateral talks on the grounds they would not negotiate unless tariffs imposed on steel and aluminium, from which the EU had been denied an exemption, were withdrawn.<\/p>\n<p>But when threatened with the auto tariffs, Juncker \u201cwas in my office so quickly from Europe that I did not know they had airplanes that flew that fast,\u201d Trump said. The US and the EU now had the \u201csemblance of a deal\u201d because \u201cit\u2019s\u2014to a large extent\u2014economically all about cars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On several occasions, Trump has designated the EU as bad as China on trade, or even worse, only smaller, and his chief trade advisers in the White House are just as hostile to Germany, the EU\u2019s major exporting country and its chief car producer, as they are to&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/09\/29\/trad-s29.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Trump threatens \u201cstrategic allies\u201d with auto tariffs By Nick Beams 29 September 2018 While the main focus of the trade war launched by the Trump administration is directed against China\u2014labelled by the US military and intelligence apparatus as a \u201cstrategic competitor\u201d\u2014it is stepping up pressure against supposed \u201cstrategic allies.\u201d The key economic weapon it [&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-379066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}