Author Archives: jfrankel

Protectionism is Nothing New for Republicans

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June 16, 2018 — Critics of President Trump’s aggressive trade policy have mostly gotten it right.  His tariffs cause economic damage at home – raising the cost of living for American consumers, hurting industry, and taking foreign sales away from farmers and other exporters.   Moreover the threats have been deployed erratically across trading partners and across time in ways that seem calculated to discourage cooperation with the US and rather to isolate the hitherto leader of the free world from even its closest allies. read more

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The “G-6 vs. 1” Summit

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June 8, 2018 —  I did an interview today as the G-7 Leaders Summit got underway in Canada.

In the video at BNN Bloomberg, I said I thought that if Trump’s tariffs are met with united and calibrated retaliation, he might eventually have to back down.

Here are the questions they sent me ahead of time and my responses,  

– Q:  Ideally – what do you want to see come from the Group of 7 leaders’ meeting that starts today in Canada?

– A:

  • If we were truly talking about an ideal world, one would aspire to progress on the issues that the Canadian hosts plan to talk about: environment, inclusive growth, equality, etc.
  • Closer to the real world, one would ideally see the G-7 cooperating to form a common front regarding economic issues with China (reduction of excess steel capacity & enforcement of IPRs) or geopolitical issues (esp. vis-a-vis North Korea & Iran & Russia).
  • This meeting will accomplish no such G-7 cooperation, and to the contrary will almost certainly go down in history as the “G-6 vs. 1” meeting.
    • read more

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    Trump’s On-Again Off-Again Trade War with China

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    May 31, 2018 — The Trump Administration on May 29, nine days after having said that the China trade war was “on hold,” flipped the switch back to “on”.  As of now, the White House again plans to move forward by June 15 with plans for 25% tariffs on $50 billion of imports from China.  But the areas where Trump is pushing China the hardest are the ones that make the least sense.

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