Trump mocks countermeasures and relaunches protectionist line



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New York. Those who thought that the tough protectionist line of Donald Trump was nothing but a tactical bluff to scare and get immediate concessions from their opponents and their allies without negotiating levers, are now forced to review their certainties. The president continues to proclaim the rights policy until the trade rules are not "fair", again threatens the extension of tariffs to cars ("we can talk about steel, we can talk about everything, but the big question is the machines ") And claims a position of presumed strength for all the other countries which, as for them, take countermeasures:" Every country calls every day to say "let's do an agreement "Everything will be wonderful," he said in an interview on Fox News. Last week, some White House sources had fled, perhaps in a calculated way – but to distinguish calculations and accidents is a matter – that at the last meeting with Emmanuel Macron, Trump had even launched the idea of ​​a "Frexit". "Hypothesis that would have allowed Paris to obtain better commercial conditions with the United States.When it is a question of dividing Europe, there is no reason for it. opportunity for the president to miss it, but the threats of a trade war are directed at all and increase the presence of countermeasures.Canada announced Sunday US products worth 12.6 billion of dollars and China is preparing to pay $ 34 billion in property costs in response to a similar measure announced Friday by the White House.

Meanwhile, the European Union has punished the Trump's policy that imposes "in fact a tax on US consumers" and in an eleven-page document delivered to Washington threatens to raise barriers on US products to $ 290 billion if Trump will really dare to make protectionism in the auto market. "Protectionist measures – reads in the d ocument – would put American growth at risk, negatively affecting employment without improving the trade balance. " In addition, the imposition of rights on cars "would further damage the reputation of the United States". Trump's reaction: "The European Union is probably as bad as China, but only that it is smaller."

To complicate the commercial war scenario is the election in Mexico of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a populist leftist leader who promised to fight the nearby superpower. Trump has been content to wring oblique congratulations to the new president ("we have to do a lot for the United States and Mexico") and postpone Nafta negotiations after the mid-term elections. This is not the end of the exhibition of weapons by Trump in the nascent trade war : the draft of a bill on trade policy has arrived in the hands of the journalists of # 39; Axios. The text, whose preparation was ordered personally by the president in May, basically laid the groundwork for the systematic violation of the WTO rules, allowing the United States to negotiate bilaterally, state by state, commercial terms and conditions. . The two supranational pillars of the project are: the principle that any state can make the agreements it wishes apart from international treaties and the possibility of modifying the ceilings of already defined agreements. Many of the same authors of the text say that it is an unrealistic plan and died at the outset, but those who seriously believe it is Peter Navarro, the protectionist cross who has taken these past months the heads of advisers of Trump on the subject. Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce, who said peremptorily yesterday, has also been in line with Navarro: "No negative market performance will change Trump's trade policy"

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