Trade War Winners: Logistics Firms Helping Flee PRC

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/31/2018 03:46:00 PM
Deserting PRC factories in the trade war era? Asian logistics companies are here to help...for a nominal fee. With assorted China-made, US-bound manufactures being hit with 25% tariffs, some firms have responded by moving their factories out of the PRC to elsewhere in Asia. From an efficiency standpoint, I am ambivalent about this phenomenon. On one hand, there may be some wastage in leaving already-established production facilities--especially if the end result is resettling elsewhere where it's not necessarily more efficient simply to avoid the aforementioned tariffs. (Yes, that's trade diversion.) On the other hand,...
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Asininity is Believing the *EU* Will Buy More US LNG

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/29/2018 05:00:00 PM
Actually, European countries are not among the most profitable destinations for American LNG. Ho-hum, here we go again. After the supposedly triumphal meeting between Trump and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, The Orange One loudly exclaimed that Europeans would buy lots more natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Recall that LNG is the product of, well, liquefying natural gas for the purposes of transporting it over long distances--usually overseas--when pipelines are physically or economically unfeasible to build. That said, there are additional costs incurred by both sellers and buyers in...
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Idiocy is Believing the *EU* Will Buy More US Soy

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/26/2018 06:50:00 PM
Don't count on so-called Trump "friend" Jean-Claude Juncker to somehow get the EU to buy boatloads of American soy. The stock market is not very smart: Late yesterday when it was announced that the US and EU had arrived at a temporary "ceasefire" on slapping additional tariffs on each other as they negotiate some nebulous trade deal--I hesitate from calling it an agreement--US stock markets rallied. However, there is significantly less than meets the eye here. Consider that most sensitive and vulnerable of products, the humble soybean. Actually, there are no tariffs being applied to the foodstuff already, hence there is...
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A Canadian Patriot's Guide to Boycotting America

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 7/24/2018 04:55:00 PM
I suppose those WWII-era posters still resonate during a trade war 73 years later. You must be a real @#%hole to annoy the normally placid and reserved Canadians. However, Trump has apparently accomplished this feat by slapping tariffs on softwood lumber used for building homes as well as steel and aluminum. The equally mild-mannered Justin Trudeau has even been reserved "a special place in hell" by Trump's ultra-protectionist trade advisor, Peter "Death by China" Navarro. What's next, Death by Canada (when it doesn't even have a trade deficit with the "US)? At any rate, bemusement over US hostility over some imagined...
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Tariff-Loving Whirlpool Suffers From...Tariffs

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 7/24/2018 04:36:00 PM
Whirlpool's tariff-loving geniuses are now having a hard time dealing with, er, tariffs draining away their profits. Just today, the uber-protectionist Trump tweeted about his enduring love for taxes on imported goods. Which, of course, is a rather contradictory thing to do for someone purportedly wishing to minimize government intrusion on people's lives. That's not to say he had his supporters. Take the case of Whirlpool. Apparently unable to compete with foreign appliances, it successfully petitioned the government to hit imported washing with tariffs. I suppose this story would be happier for Whirlpool had the Trump...
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Trump’s New Anti-Immigrant Assault: Denaturalization

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 7/18/2018 05:19:00 PM
If Trump had his way...[insert Pink Floyd lyrics of choice here]. I am simply astounded that a person purportedly engaged in the hospitality industry is the most incredibly inhospitable and, well, misanthropic person imaginable. How would foreign would-be patrons of Trump's businesses respond to blatantly discriminatory rhetoric and policies against any and all unfortunate enough to be of the *wrong* color or creed? Are there enough white Christians to staff and patronize Trump-owned and -licensed properties? The hypocrite's enterprises apparently don't believe so as they keep trying to hire foreigners, arguing there aren't...
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France & Belgium: Football's Cases for Migration?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/15/2018 06:37:00 PM
Why can't the non-footballing talents of Belgium and France be spotted and nurtured too? That is the question. Apologies for the light posting over the past few days. Like most of you probably, I've been following the World Cup rather too closely to have time to post. However, with the tournament over as I write--France has won and Belgium finished third--there is actually an IPE angle here. (Even fourth-place UK deserves mention here.)  Bloomberg op-ed writer Leonid Bershidsky penned an interesting commentary from a few days back asking whether immigration's case is bolstered by multicultural French and Belgian teams....
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Does Trade War Slow PRC Global Ambitions?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 7/05/2018 08:39:00 PM
How much should Indonesia and others the Chinese are providing infrastructure to fear its ambitions in this trade war era? Here's a thoughtful rejoinder to a previous post in which it was opined that the Chinese are lending to various infrastructure projects worldwide--with less regard to their borrowers' financial conditions or the viability of these projects--for as long as the PRC can ultimately benefit. So what if the borrowers can't repay? They might be able to obtain prime infrastructure on favorable terms in strategic locations when the fools default. Or, is that cynical viewpoint not really how the Chinese go about...
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