Tech lobbyists turn on Trump over Mexican tariffs, then quickly try to smooth the waters A top, and usually rather conservative, technology trade body has turned on President Trump over his threat to impose tariffs on goods imported from Mexico into the United States. Last week, Trump tweeted that from next week he would "impose a 5 per cent tariff on all goods coming into our country from Mexico, until such time …
Mexico has an estimated $60B trade surplus with the USA. Add a 5% tariff and wow, Mexico will have only a $57B trade surplus with the USA.
Of course U.S. corporations will complain, the tariff will cut into their big fat profits from their manufacturing plants in Mexico. These are corporations where the CEO's annual bonus is greater than the tariff. I'm sure the CEO will deflect that tariff increase's effect on their company by refusing their annual bonus (just kidding).
Take away 5% and their big fat profits become only fat profits. That means they'll have to cut their lobbyist efforts and lavish gifts to Congress (just kidding).
In all seriousness this is good news for manufacturers. They can raise prices by, oh, 10% or more and blame it on the tariff. I'm not joking - watch the news and see me proven right.
All is very simple. Only people who do not know the situation on US borders joking around. I've seen how guys coming in track loads and useless attempts of police to catch them. That is in Arizona. Each person illegally coming costs us money. Stopping them will reduce waste of our taxes. That is not about liberty or what ever human rights. Did you like crows coming from Middle East for better life in EU in millions? More likely you do not. Trump talks about money. Mexico cannot stop? Ridiculous! They definitely can but just do not want such headache. Then - pay for your inactivity. That is the same story as of narco-traffic. It cannot be stopped by one country. That requires mutual efforts.
So you're saying US economic and social policy depends on illegal immigration and you think this is a good thing? How about paying US workers a fair wage (funded by agricultural subsidies) or legalising temporary foreign workers for certain jobs? A rise in food prices would lower obesity and shift expenditure so there's less money chasing real estate or spent on imported goods.
This just makes the situation worse.
A) Any goods coming from Mexico will just be more expensive for the average US consumer causing inflation which in turn will mean higher interest rates.
B) Hardship in Mexico will be even worse driving more people towards the boarder and the so called promised land.
You're assuming in (A) that the goods coming from Mexico will continue to be bought by Americans at a higher price, instead of being sourced from another country sans tariff.
While I do agree with (B) a large amount of the current migration isn't Mexicans, it's people that are merely passing through Mexico. Their countries will not deteriorate as a result of US tariffs on Mexico, and may even benefit (due to Mexico now having a production surplus it needs to dump somewhere). I'm also pretty confident that a lot of migration from Mexico is influenced by differences in living standards (and safety) far beyond the economic impact of 5% higher prices on Mexican goods.
"You're assuming in (A) that the goods coming from Mexico will continue to be bought by Americans at a higher price, instead of being sourced from another country sans tariff."
Of course we will buy them because they,re not going to come from somewhere else. Companies that have invested lots of time, money and effort to set up production facilities in Mexico aren't going to duplicate all that work to set up operations somewhere else just because the Tweet-Potato-In-Chief imposed a 5% price hike.
Well definitely not left or centre.
Does it make sense to make the economic migrants crossing the US Mexico border even poorer so that they want to cross even more?
With regard to the 'crows' i.e. refugees from US sponsored wars and policies in the Middle East, perhaps Europe should impose tarrifs on the US to stop them from causing trouble in our backyard that wastes our taxes?
I understand some evidence indicates that these immigrants you are speaking of, on the whole, are net contributors to US society. It's a contentious subject and the net economic effect is very difficult to judge.
Here's a page discussing various factors; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_illegal_immigrants_in_the_United_States
So unless you've got anything more solid than simply asserting that they are a net cost to the US, it is clear that you literally don't know what you're talking about. I don't just meant that as an insult. You literally do not have the information and analysis necessary to make a good judgement here.
Using a Wikipedia page as a reference? If you had researched the authors of this page you would notice some definitive astroturfers, blocked IP addresses, and non-existent user accounts. Fail.
So unless you have something more solid than a political hack playground, it is clear you don't know how to assert facts.
google search "economic impact immigration usa" : First article is from University of Pennsylvania:
https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-effects-of-immigration-on-the-united-states-economy
The conclusion is interesting...
To be honest, this is not an argument I want anything to do with - I was just indicating that if you want something other than a Wikipedia page you don't have to go far.
That said, it is pretty obvious that if poor people cross the border to the USA in search of greater wealth then making them poorer is not likely to solve the problem!
Thankfully, illegal immigration won't have much of a downward effect on my wages. But it's another story for the unskilled. Time and time again, those who are ok with illegal or rampant legal immigration look at the effect on overall wages, not on the effect on different socioeconomic groups.
Oh, yay: a wikipedia page.
Which starts with:
"The economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States is challenging to measure, and politically contentious. The scarcity of reliable statistics leaves room for many methods of study, leading to diverse conclusions.
One possibility is that foreign workers entering the country illegally can lower wages"
Thanks for that.
Of course the tariff threat is, like most of Trump's actions, the misguided thrashing of a man whose economic worldview is stuck in the middle of last century.
As noted, his tariffs are a tax on anyone who imports goods into the USA. Automakers import both cars and car parts from Mexico. Ford and Chrysler and General Motors will all have to pay the tax, and sometimes multiple times if components move back and forth across the border multiple times during assembly.
The result? Car prices in the US rise (faster than usual). Manufacturers will use foreign factories more, and idle more capacity at US automobile plants. That way they only pay the import fee once, and any cars marketed abroad don't have to pay Trump's tariff at all. That means layoffs for US workers, of course.
Is that really Trump's goal?
He doesn't have the first clue.
What does he want Mexico to do, specifically?
He hasn't given any specific actions. Just "stop the flow of immigrants". Does that mean closing borders with other countries, defying international law, creating internment camps in Chaipas or Campche, or what, exactly?
Trump doesn't know. In his view, the US -- the world's only remaining superpower -- can't deal with migrants at the southern border, so he wants Mexico -- a developing nation with something like 1/15th the GNP of the US -- to do it instead.
He'll back down on the Mexican tariffs, just as he has did with his government shutdown, just as he did with the idea of closing the border with Mexico. It's a stupid idea born of his ignorance about the world outside Mar a Lago.
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However, with respect to human migration, I think that the world is headed for bad times. Crop failures due to hotter temperatures and inconsistent rainfall have already driven some coffee farmers in Central America off their land (contributing to the migrant movement north). Parts of the Middle East and northern Africa will soon be too hot for human habitation. Much of Bangladesh will also become uninhabitable, invaded by salt water and intermittently flooded -- as will much of Micronesia. And then it will get worse. People will have to leave. They will go somewhere.
I read one historian who, thinking of the wars and weapons of the 20th Century, called it The Century of Human Smoke. The coming century will the be the century of mass migration, the Time of Human Diaspora.
Interesting aside from the author in para 11: "...[China]...has not only ignored intellectual property for years..."
This is regularly trotted out as a known fact which needs no justification in article comments, but not normally by the high-quality journalists who write articles for the Register. Does the author have some examples he can cite to back this statement up? As it's in the present tense, ones from the last five years or so would be best.
China has certainly played the IP game for years. But taking advantage of companies which somehow think a US or EU patent gives them protection in China is hardly ignoring it. (A patent is a government-granted licence which allows the owner to prevent others from making, importing, selling or using the owner's invention in that country. If you want to stop this happening in China, you need a Chinese patent. Having a US one doesn't help).
Just because Trump says it doesn't automatically make it wrong.
China has knocked-off equipment for years, from factories running an extra shift for themselves to deliberate offensive hacks.
But the way to deal with this is concerted effort with the WTO and with your allies, not to first attack all your friends and then randomly target competitors for personal political gain
If you want to stop this happening in China, you need a Chinese patent. Having a US one doesn't help).
The problem is that unless you are Chinese a patent cannot be filed by non-Chinese. Generally, most countries do recognize patents from other countries. The Chinese do not.
>The problem is that unless you are Chinese a patent cannot be filed by non-Chinese.
That is not true
>Generally, most countries do recognize patents from other countries. The Chinese do not.
Generally countries do not "recognise" other countries patents - except in special cases such as Eu wide single filings. You file in every country you want protection from anyone making OR selling copies. Certainly some countries make it easier or harder for you with respect to translation and local agents.
However the real problem with China is enforcement, rather like say Huawei going up against a US company in front of a East Texas jury. Try suing a Chinese government owned national champion in a Chinese court.
All were greedy to take advantage of the peoples with ultra-low wages. Now the boss of those underpaid peoples says, Hey Ho, wait a minute! Intelligent people, like with an IQ above 160, like me, saw this coming for the last 41 years. Democracy prohibits these kind of insights to be used in politics, the average IQ IS 100 . Voters CANNOT make decisions benificiary in the long run for their own good. Entrepeneurs WILL act for their own good in the short/mid term future. Excuse my english, despite college degree english trained, I am not top level speaker/writer.
The article author makes an irrelevant back-handed swipe at the steel industry as the source of tariff implementation. If the author had experience outside of the San Francisco monotheistic society, and a more effective understanding of base economics, we could avoid this type of inane comment.
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