Topic Category: Trade & Finance

With six months and counting before the UK-EU divorce becomes official, Britons understandably are frustrated by the absence of post-Brexit clarity. Genuine concern, lingering misgivings about the referendum, and a series of government missteps have invited justified criticism, but also heaps of hyperbole and fear-mongering from politicians and opinion leaders across the ideological spectrum.

On June 26, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker met with President Trump at the White House to talk about trade. Afterwards, to the surprise of many (including me), they held a press conference at which they said positive things about the U.S.-EU trade relationship. Then later, President Trump had five positive tweets about the meeting. It was more amicable than anything we’ve seen in U.S. trade policy for many months.

During the first week of June 2018, I had the opportunity to give a talk at the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation in São Paulo, Brazil. During the trip, a Brazilian reporter asked me about former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s assertion, made during his February 2018 address at the University of Texas at Austin, that the United States is a better partner for Latin America over the long-term than the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

President Trump’s recent decision to impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum was met with Chinese tariffs on U.S. products and agricultural goods. In turn, this has escalated with each country identifying additional barriers to trade. To prevent a damaging trade war, and for our mutual long-term benefit, the United States and China need to negotiate a free trade agreement.

2017 was a lost year for U.S. trade policy. We took several steps backwards and none forward. The losses started in January with the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement with 11 other nations that had been negotiated by the Obama administration, but not yet signed into law by Congress. Rather than suggest any improvements, the Trump administration abandoned the agreement entirely.

President Trump sees himself as a masterful negotiator. He is very critical of past U.S. trade negotiators, and has suggested that his tough-minded business colleagues like Carl Icahn could do a better job.

Like Hong Kong, Macau enjoys special status within China. The Special Administrative Region is effectively governed by Beijing, but retains liberal freedoms reflecting its Portuguese heritage. Much smaller than neighboring Hong Kong, Macau relies on gaming rather than finance as its economic foundation.

President Donald Trump is pushing all the right buttons when it comes to an economic agenda for his administration: eliminate excessive regulations, reduce corporate taxes, repeal Obamacare, pursue a sane energy policy, and fix immigration. But what is puzzling is that Trump has expressed some opinions about trade that are troubling.

Last week, President-elect Trump card his distaste for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and made withdrawal of the United States from the agreement a “Day One” priority. Although the move would hearten many of Trump’s supporters, history would judge it as folly — with a capital “F.”