G20 Finance: the United States inflexible, the commercial standoff continues

The Great-Power Trade War Continued During the G20: The IMF regretted that it is starting global growth, France has called for Washington to backtrack, but the United States is inflexible

After the tariffs on steel and aluminum, aimed first and foremost at China, which set fire to the powder, the United States threatens to overtax European car imports, to punish the countries that trade with Iran and promised to drastically limit their purchases of Chinese goods.

Saturday in Buenos Aires, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ratified this controversial policy, criticized even by US allies at the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will visit Washington Wednesday for talks, but s question for the European countries to accept the commercial dictate of the United States.

"Gun on the temple"

"We refuse to negotiate with a gun on the temple. It is in the United States to take a step to start a de-escalation, and arrange all that, "said the French Minister of the Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, firmly to journalists.

The day before, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had ensured that the European Union was "ready" to respond to a possible revival by Washington of its taxes on imports of European automobiles.

IMF Director Christine Lagarde said the war a few months ago could reduce global growth by 0.5 points. "

Representative of the world's leading power, Steven Mnuchin monopolized the attention, calling on China and the European Union to concessions to achieve a more balanced trade relationship, after the startling statements of Donald Trump who treated "commercial enemies" Beijing, Brussels and Moscow.

Multilater crisis in progress

Faced with China, the United States has a trade deficit of 376 billion USD in 2017 and intends to reduce it. The Trump administration has threatened to impose punitive taxes on all Chinese imports, which amounted to 500 billion dollars in 2017.

Beijing accuses Washington of wanting to trigger "the worst trade war in economic history" and has reacted by imposing new taxes on American products.

Faced with the only rider of the United States, the other countries are the apostles of multilateralism.

For the Brazilian Minister of Economy, Eduardo Guardia, "all what goes against free trade, a rules-based trade, must be resolved through international organizations, capable of resolving this type of conflict. "

" World trade can not rest on the law of the jungle The unilateral increase in tariffs is the law of the strongest, it can not be the future of commercial relations in the world ", said the French Minister.

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Europe demands the United States to exempt from surcharges on steel and aluminum, which is undermining its iron and steel industry. It hopes that Washington will spare its old European ally, which is suffering collateral damage, because the world's leading power first targets China, number two in the world economy.

The G20 Finance also deals with the risks of crisis in the emerging countries, the taxation of the digital giants, which are currently little taxed.

According to a source close to the talks, the final communiqué of the G20 Finance released Sunday after the close of the debate should put the risk for the global growth of trade tensions, the commitment to work on the taxation of digital commerce and the supervision of crypto badets, in order to prevent money laundering, fraud and their taking over by terrorist organizations.

22/07/2018 08:05:07 –
Buenos Aires (AFP) –
© 2018 AFP