Posts of 2019

Will the WTO Die on Dec. 10, 2019?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Litigation,Trade at 11/22/2019 03:03:00 PM

Meet (trade) Killer BOB. To those following international trade, it's been no secret that the United States has been blocking the appointment of appellate judges to the WTO's Dispute Settlement Mechanism--international trade court, if you will. Without having judges to hear appeals on different trade-related rulings at the WTO, a critical component of the organization will be terminally wounded--its legal one. With an avowed isolationist like Trump as the US leader--and a US trade representative with a similar view of the world in Robert Lighthizer--this outcome was perhaps inevitable after the 2016 elections: The ...

Trade War: Wall Street Titans Ditch US Farmers

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Agriculture,Trade at 8/19/2019 11:49:00 AM

Hey Trump, maybe you should berate Wall Street for not helping farmers in their time of (trade war) need Here's another thing for Trump to tweet about: amid his trade war hysterics, he's somehow overlooked bellyaching about large Wall Street banking concerns getting rid of their agricultural loan portfolios as quickly as possible. Just as the government is extending more financial supports to farmers--probably WTO illegal--so it probably will have to provide more loans as well as private lenders cower in fear: [A]fter years of falling farm income and an intensifying U.S.-China trade war - JPMorgan and other Wall...

Trade Smackdown: Trump Vs. Santa

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Trade at 8/03/2019 07:46:00 PM

"You want toys this Christmas, junior? You'll get fewer of 'em if they're from China, kid!" Until very recently, the Trump administration has taken care not to hit Chinese exports of consumer goods--especially electronics--with its assorted tariffs. Now, though, the gloves have fully come off as he announced that practically all remaining PRC imports would be hit by these import taxes. 10% tariffs, here we come. What's particularly interesting is the timing: Trump attributes it to China not buying more US agricultural products as had been agreed to as well as its inaction on controlling illicit fentanyl production destined...

Raptors' Multicultural Canada, Antidote to Trump's US

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Migration,Multiculturalism,Sports at 6/16/2019 04:35:00 PM

The chances of a Sikh gent being the face of Trumpmerica: 0.00%. For multicultural Canada, it's already reality. The white supremacist sympathies of Donald Trump have put paid to the idea that diversity is inevitable in the United States, as have any number of actions his administration or party are pushing: asking citizenship status in the census (which is a population and not a white person count); strategizing electoral victory through disenfranchisement of minorities, reducing all forms of legal and illegal immigration---you name it. For a country whose birthrate is below replacement, the inevitable consequence of continued...

City of Londoners: PM Boris Johnson = Disaster

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Casino Capitalism,Europe at 5/28/2019 12:59:00 PM

Some fat white guy with weird "blonde" hair: from the US to the UK, it brings disaster. This is a no-brainer: when the likely next prime minister of the United kingdom has said "f--k business" when asked about Brexit's fallout on British commerce, businesspersons are going to be concerned. With the recent resignation of Theresa May from that post, and Boris Johnson (former London mayor) being the front-runner, denizens of the City of London are antsy. Will he be the kryptonite of the financial services industry that plays an outsized role in UK commerce? Folks in the City are pessimistic on the arch-Brexiteer Johnson,...

Big Biz: Helping Move Mfg Out of China

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Southeast Asia at 5/23/2019 04:03:00 PM

Trade war or not, manufacturing in the lowest-cost sectors will inevitably move out of China to places like Vietnam. How do you make money in China nowadays...as an export-oriented concern? Yes, this is a trick question whose answer should be obvious from the post title. Firms that help manufacturing concerns move their production facilities to lower-cost locations in the aftermath of Trump's trade war is the obvious answer here. Notably, while rising costs in China have already become plenty evident--higher wages and more stringent labor and environmental regulations--the forthcoming declaration of total tariffication...

How Gen. Franco Begat Spanish MotoGP Dominance

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Europe,Sports at 5/19/2019 06:07:00 PM

A long-dead dictator set into motion the dominance of sporting figures like Marc Marquez and Jorge Lorenzo. I've been paying more attention than usual to MotoGP, the top flight of motorcycle racing. Formerly, there were three classes--500cc, 250cc, and 125cc denoting different engine displacements. Eventually, these have been rebranded MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3, respectively. Regardless, even a casual viewer like myself will notice that a lot of the top riders and teams in these competitions are Spanish. How did this happen? As it turns out, there is a potentially interesting history behind it all. One of the most fascinating...

Trump on LDCs: Give Shitholes Food Aid

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,China,Development,Trade at 5/13/2019 04:37:00 PM

Feed Shithole Countries Program [FSCP]--a forthcoming American "gift" to the world? Sometime ago, precisely zero people were surprised when US President Donald Trump characterized what were understood to be poor, migrant-sending countries as "shitholes." Rising to political prominence on a false, racist claim--the Obama "birther" conspiracy--displaying such verbal animus was to be expected. More recently, though, Trump has been toying with the idea that all the agricultural products which would have been sold to China can instead be purchased by the US government and distributed to these "shithole" countries as food aid....

US-China Trade Negos: The 'Rashomon' Effect

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Economic Diplomacy at 5/09/2019 10:45:00 AM

This guy looks about as crazy as Trump, which is no mean feat. How Rashomon explains international economic diplomacy. Blame in on Akira Kurosawa. The famed Japanese director's acclaimed film Rashomon featured the same event--a murder--as narrated by four different parties, to vastly different versions. Today, we have the same thing going on with trade negotiations that have been occurring between Chinese and American negotiators. The accounts are so vastly different that the rest of us aren't exactly sure whose version is accurate given that there is so little overlap. As the late film critic Roger Ebert keenly observed...

Paris Plays for Brexit’s Refugees

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Europe at 5/02/2019 12:00:00 PM

Paris' main financial district is La Defense. Nowadays, they aren't defending themselves from English speakers, apparently. When it comes to bourgeois world leaders, they don't come much posher than French President Emmanuel Macron. A former investment banker, there were fears before he ran for the highest office in the land that he'd be an easy target for being out of touch with the common man. And so it has proven: for months and months, he's had to endure endless protests from the "yellow vest" movement. Interestingly enough, though, Macron is still intent on luring more of those like him from London to Paris...

Why are US Firms Lame in 5G?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Security,Technology at 4/22/2019 04:01:00 PM

By failing to conform to GSM--the global telecoms standard--the US fell well behind the leading edge.. Recent times have witnessed the United States trying to stop Chinese telecommunications equipment manufacturers--most notably Huawei--from gaining market share abroad. The ostensible purpose is that the United States is concerned about Huawei and the rest accommodating Communist Party wishes to spy on other countries. If government buyers of this gear were to install Huawei gear, the explanation goes, it would make them vulnerable to Chinese spying that would hinder US intelligence cooperation. But what American gear...

US to WTO: China Isn't a Developing Country

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Trade at 4/09/2019 10:44:00 AM

If Trump had his way, the WTO would have far fewer "developing countries." (China wouldn't be one, of course.) There's an interesting fight going on at the WTO on the classification of developing countries as, well, developing countries. The Trump administration--never a fan of multilateral organizations like the WTO to begin with--wants fewer countries to be classified as such. At present, about two-third of WTO member countries have this status, and together with it, special and differential treatment (SD&T). SD&T allows preferences for developing countries that developed countries do not have such as a longer...

NOPEC: Will Saudis Deny USD Oil Payment?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Currencies,Energy,Middle East at 4/05/2019 04:03:00 PM

Here's some news important to the study of IPE that has been flying under the radar. American lawmakers have, since the turn of the millennium, been contemplating passage of a "NOPEC" law removing the immunity of nations from American antitrust laws. As the name implies, the main target is collusion on setting global oil prices by OPEC member countries. In response to the Trump administration's increasing browbeating about high oil prices and OPEC's role in causing them, Saudi Arabia has come up with a potentially consequential strategy. That is, the Saudis will begin pricing their oil in a currency other than US dollars: Saudi...

WTO ‘National Security’ Ruling Meets Trump

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Litigation,Trade at 3/30/2019 07:36:00 PM

From Crimea to America: considering the plight of "national security" trade barriers. Here's a heads-up for everyone; over the next few days, the World Trade Organization is expected to rule over Russia hitting the Ukraine with trade sanctions on "national security" grounds [DS512]. In the past, such claims were considered unquestionable by the WTO. However, the expectation now is that the WTO will rule against Russia and in favor of the Ukraine. You should be asking by now, "What do Russia-Ukraine 'national security' dust-ups have to do with the United States?" Well, it sets a precedent for the WTO proceeding with cases...

Grindr, a US National Security Threat

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Americana,China,Security at 3/27/2019 04:07:00 PM

Fat, old guys like Trump and Xi need not apply on Grindr, but their geopolitics still shape the app's governance. Never let it be said that American protectionism was always staid. As it turns out, the Committee On Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is now forcing the divestment of the gay dating app Grindr by its Chinese owners who bought the service in 2016. It may sound strange, but it's true: gay bureaucrats on Grindr appear to be a security concern since they may disclose too much about their employment to boys they meet [hunky PRC spy guys, mayhaps?] in this Chinese-owned digital playground: Chinese...

Will Boeing's 737 Ground US-China Trade Talks?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Trade at 3/20/2019 05:19:00 PM

The only thing being "maxed" around here are US-China trade tensions. It's a major embarrassment for the mainstay product of the United States' largest exporter of manufactures to be grounded worldwide. Remember, though, that Chinese aviation authorities were among the first to do so. Boeing's workhorse model, the 737, has had teething problems with the rollout of its latest edition, the Max 8 and 9. Worse still, the two recent crashes of the plane appear to have been caused by similar factors, shifting the likelihood of blame away from pilot error to the software of the plane. Now, we learn that not only is the Boeing...

Did PRC Cave In to Trump on Knowledge Transfer?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Intellectual Property,Trade at 3/15/2019 12:20:00 PM

All hail great American leader Trump! Sort of. One of the main grievances the United States has had about Chinese trade practices concerns requiring knowledge transfer to domestic firms. To Westerners, such provisions are increasingly questionable intrusions on their intellectual property rights at a time when PRC firms are not so far behind their developed-world counterparts or even surpass their knowledge in certain respects like in 5G. It is certainly up for debate whether China or the United States is being hurt the most amid Trump's ongoing tariff-slapping frenzy, but that the Chinese are eager to have these tariffs...

Did US Win Big Over PRC Ag @ WTO?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in Agriculture,China,Trade at 3/12/2019 02:31:00 PM

There was actually a (pre-Trump) time when the "WTO court" actually functioned. But no longer. In case you missed it, the WTO recently ruled against Chinese agricultural subsidies that the United States complained about. Note this case, DS511, predates the Trump administration and was originally during that of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Given that China is a huge market for foodstuffs--they need to feed 1.4 billion folks--it's a pretty big deal for those who hope to export agricultural products to China. Unbeknownst to most of the rest of us, China is by now actually the biggest agricultural subsidizer of them...

Techlash: Huawei Strikes Back at Canada, US

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in China,Security,Technology at 3/04/2019 02:37:00 PM

I suppose the headlines Huawei garners is related to what's at stake with 5G coming into wider commercial use. Will China be able to capitalize on its little-doubted technical advantage in 5G, or will the US be able to negate this advantage by getting its allies to boycott PC 5G gear over "security" concerns? Previously we talked about its attempts to use soft power--gaining influence not through the use of coercion but rather through attraction. Apparently, though, there are limits to the Huawei folks' patience with trying to win friends and influence people. Not having been very successful swaying North American (US and...