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| (2017) US / UK Trade -- Blue is import, Green is export. UK has a trade surplus of £34 bn with the US |
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When you go from promoting globalization for decades and 'u-turn' on this particular trading philosophy, you're in for a nasty surprise. If you can learn from this actuality it's comprehending our influential attributes are not remotely British but the result of international collaboration. Once the contagion of protectionism gathers momentum you'll rapidly find our trading allies happily will endorse countermeasures; notably 'special relations' an after-thought.
Plonking on 25% duty on European steel and an eye-watering 9% tariff on aluminium overtime will enable the US export market to shrink enough to encourage glocalization in the US, this'll be pinnacle to developing neo-capitalistic platforms --- the concept on a micro-management scale is not alien to British farmers, who've for years managed to sell good produce to the nearest city, through restaurants, eateries, cafes and the suchlike; it's so well-endorsed that menu's even conclude this is worth a mention through their internal marketing strategy. The major crux however, is poverty will evolve in nations not synonymous with deprivation if trade tariffs slip into an ideological psyche under the tent of internal democratic rulings. All dependent on how the US circumnavigates trade surpluses, this is why fiscal institutes prefer a testing model initially to value what impact duty charges can do to nations and their prosperity performance.
There's no better place than in London to key in the impact of trade tariffs over a durable epoch. Free movement of people and products is waning and has insanely become a pawn in a game of risk that potentially can cause systematic capitalistic meltdown if tests are overlooked. For 'test' reference, Brown's administration were global leaders in the rejigging of the subprime banking sector in 2009 ; devised to stave off bad-debt, identify parlous transactions and switch on the philosophy. Not untrue to proclaim a reconditioning of fiscal policy had to be reinstalled, to bend the bad-debt trend into something far more acceptable to swallow. Whether or not trade tariffs can re-established, provide better quality, regulatory management in the short term, the proof is in the pudding; albeit, I am left in a quandary if this matters to a nation hellbent on putting a nation first. In recent months I hear Anglo-American eager to put nationalism first on a grand-scale, media streams, they call it: 'in the national interest' -- pure rhetoric maybe, alas when politics emerge in economical prophecy you're on destructive ground, a stalemate of impracticality.
Enforcing tit-for-tat tariffs has a plethora of pitfalls, in simple terms the European Union have their hands bound in regards to retaliatory measures, under the World Trade Organisation terms a trade induced knee-jerk reaction is uncalled for and the end of June 2018 is the soonest any EU - US trade tariffs can be implemented. To complex issues, the process of determining a percentage tariff has to also be written in EU law too - hence, why trade war is unlikely. You could logically claim the US trade tariffs are from the looks of them are irreversible, unless the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades receives a make-over. But what struck me was the UK's response... considering the huge wider impact this could have on UK industries. May exclaimed: 'Deeply disappointing' - two words you'll say to a child who jumped into a puddle with white trainers on. Unconvincing and I believe I know why... Thomas Frank reported on the common interest Western governments have for they're purposefully trampling on the weak - thus stating it's for their own good. Idiotically the impoverish actually vote for it; because they see another enemy in society notably the foreigner. Tribal instincts automatically play havoc and current governments have seized on this protectionist attitude and sofar won the battles. Increasing external trade tariffs and breaking up a trading bloc by asking for impossible deals is prevalent today.
There's a Hungarian in 1944 named Polanyi who described tomorrow's utopia was a self-regulated market; they'll be designed by irrational theorists and evil dreamers attempting to put it all into effect. He alarmed his readership by concluding... 'to allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment has the capacity to demolish societal will.' You can grab the gist of Polanyi's prose and add tariffs to the equation because GATT in 1947 was created to derail tariff increases all thanks to the disconcerting Polanyi diagnosis. Perhaps the thought of polluted rivers and military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed. Within the debris of worsening trade relations, it could be a good time to unleash Polanyi and revert back to building up trade again - another economic crisis and you'll get another New Deal; henceforth, forgoing GATT could encourage trade and tariff reforms if agreed by the WTO. Seventy years of the same trade deal prophecy is stretching it somewhat and as we're capitalists, negotiations couldn't be easier... yes? One hiccup; part (b) is exacting the needs of the less developed nation so flexible tariffs / protections will assist their economic development.
Yep, 'evil dreamers' and historians such as Polanyi just wouldn't be able to contain themselves, due to the fact the authoritarian is so keen on trampling on the weak they'll pay money to witness the dehumanised spectacle, it's happening now, under the newly formed incantation of protectionism - punitive duties is the benchmark of self-interest, albeit the losers will be the 99 percent of consumerism picking up the duty tab. Custom tariffs don't touch taxpayers via governance payoffs; you'll just find vital consumer products too hot for your pocket; and furthermore another reason to venture into the unregulated black market to get your double glazing done. Grenfell actually is the UK's cornerstone of hope here, ironically, and should create subsequent laws to protect the UK from product trading tariffs; i.e. Consumer Rights Act (2015) 'fit for purpose' part -- I'm vexed, we've the wrong government to compute this opportunity; that'll via law, protect us against further towering infernos. I physically flinched when Liam Fox UK's International Trade Secretary saw US tariff hikes as a right to seek to defend our domestic industries due to the direct impact of US tariffs rather than get to the route of the tariff hike; a bewilderingly hypocritical statement as he's willing to gamble on offering Brexit, and UK's trade with the European Union as a bargaining chip.
Our protectionist platform agenda that Fox contently subscribes to is habitually toxic, for he's already claimed that the UK is prioritising a trade deal with the US once the UK left the EU customs union, which in turn may 'exempt' the UK in US - UK trade tariffs; thus any advantage of that is wiped away by not having access to the biggest trading bloc on the planet, meaning Fox is not compliant firstly with relaying negotiating UK's trade options correctly and secondly, is inflaming dire EU trade relations by even mentioning UK's customs union exit before any parliamentary custom agreement has been voted on or granted. Serious deal-brokering refrains from assumptive behaviour (s) and Fox is in incessant impeachment of set rulings; guaranteeing a bad deal from Brexit and the US. Indirectly, the US tariff hike is a mini taster of what's to come if May's administration continues down this inconclusive 'arrangement.' For a full allegiance to a democracy we so happily sell abroad since the German occupation in Europe -- allow the UK a right to vote on March 29th 2019 of all trade deals.
To myopically oppose this right has the potential to unravel a Brexit paradox, and it won't be pretty or neatly wrapped up for the nation to easily stomach. Suddenly our liberties and choices has the capacity to diminish and the UK will be thrust into a three-way trade war that'll give no protection on the global stage... by default, Asian and South American markets will prosper greatly and logistically little britain's 'prosperity, influence and extortionate trade tariffs' will open up the doors to integrated tax haven heaven (for the opulent) on par to British Virgin Islands. Inequality rife and civil war a behemoth possibility. Yes, the US tariffs are effectively protectionism, call it an economically divine intervention of actuality, and only a'special relationship' has the know-how and power to engage this effectively. To ignore this is to a nation's detriment.
Unbelievably, I was alerted to Rick Santorum's premise of a downbeat forefather's wish of introducing a dream or is it a nightmare when capitalism remained part of twenty-first century life - as the years rolled on... ... it became unregulated by elitist tyrants. And the public were fed a warped reality by tyrants who did this for their own self-interests. Why when it comes to elitism, socio-intellectualism is always left.... never right!
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