The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.
Home » Posts tagged 'trade' (Page 17)
Tag Archives: trade
Pakistan Plans Replacing Dollar With Yuan In Trade With China
Pakistan Plans Replacing Dollar With Yuan In Trade With China
Pakistan is considering replacing the U.S. dollar with the Chinese yuan for bilateral trade between Pakistan and China, Pakistan’s Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said according to Dawn Online and The Economic Times. Interior Minister Iqbal, who has been central to the planning and implementation of China-Pakistan economic ties, was reported discussing the proposal after unveiling a long-term economic development cooperation plan for the two countries, Reuters added.
Iqbal spoke to journalists after the formal launch of Long Term Plan (LTP) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) signed by the two sides on November 21, Dawn online reported on Tuesday. The CPEC is a flagship project of China’s Belt and Road initiative. The 3,000 km, over $50 billion corridor stretches from Kashgar in western China to Gwadar port in Pakistan on the Arabian sea.
Asked if the Chinese currency could be allowed for use in Pakistan, the minister said the Pakistani currency would be used within the country but China desired that bilateral trade should take place in yuan instead of dollars, in yet another push to de-dollarize what China considers its sphere of influence.
“We are examining the use of yuan instead of the US dollar for trade between the two countries,” Iqbal said, adding that the use of yuan was not against the interest of Pakistan. Rather, it would “benefit” Pakistan.
It would also show that world that when it comes to Asia, the “superpower” of significance is no longer the US. And so, as China’s influence grows, the long-term plan highlighted key cooperation areas between the neighboring states including road and rail connections, information network infrastructure, energy, trade and industrial parks, agriculture, poverty alleviation and tourism.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Putin Orders End To US Dollar Trade At Russian Seaports
Putin Orders End To US Dollar Trade At Russian Seaports
Whether in response to rising scorching tensions with the US, or simply to provide support for the ruble, on Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to approve legislation making the ruble the main currency of exchange at all Russian seaports by next year, RT reported citing the Kremlin website.
The head of Russian antitrust watchdog FAS Igor Artemyev, many services in Russian seaports are still priced in US dollars, even though such ports are state-owned. So, in order to “protect the interests” of dockworkers and their complyees with foreign currency obligations, the government was instructed to set a transition period before switching to ruble settlements.
The commercial sea port of Novorossiysk
The proposal to switch port tariffs to rubles was first proposed by Putin a year and a half ago, but it was mothballed only to pick up speed again in recent days.
Originally, the idea was rejected by large transport companies, which said they prefer to keep revenues in dollars and other foreign currencies due to sharp fluctuations on the volatile ruble. However, the Russian anti-trust watchdog said the decision would force foreigners to buy Russian currency, which would stabilize rates and be good for the ruble.
In 2016, Artemyev’s agency filed several lawsuits against the largest Russian port group NMTP.
According to FAS, the group of companies set tariffs for transshipment in dollars and raised tariffs from January 2015 “without objective grounds.”
The watchdog ruled that NMTP abused its dominant position in the market and imposed a 9.74 billion rubles fine, or about $165 million at the current exchange rate. The decision was overturned by a court in Moscow in July this year.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Venezuela Begins Publishing Oil Basket Price In Yuan
Venezuela Begins Publishing Oil Basket Price In Yuan
Two days after the WSJ confirmed Maduro’s earlier threat that he would stop accepting US Dollars as payment for crude oil imports, Venezuela has done just that.
As a reminder, and as we reported previously, in an effort to circumvent U.S. sanctions, Venezuela told oil traders that it will no longer receive or send payments in dollars. As a result, oil traders who export Venezuelan crude or import oil products into the country have begun converting their invoices to euros.
Furthermore, Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA (whose bankruptcy is fast approaching), told its private joint venture partners to open accounts in euros and to convert existing cash holdings into Europe’s main currency, said one project partner. The new payment policy hasn’t been publicly announced, but Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who has been blacklisted by the U.S., said Friday, “To fight against the economic blockade there will be a basket of currencies to liberate us from the dollar.”
Fast forward to today, when according to a statement on the Venezuela oil ministry, the country’s weekly crude oil and petroleum basket “will be published in Chinese Yuan” – oddly, not in Euros as the WSJ hinted – going forward. We can only assume that Venezuela avoided the European currency on concerns that Brussels may follow in D.C.’s footsteps and impose financial sanctions on the Maduro regime next. Which meant that the only “safe” currency to transact in, was that of the country’s two big sources of vendor (and commodity) financing: China and Russia. For now Venezuela has picked the former.
The ministry also unveiled a price of 306.26 Yuan per barrel for the week of Sept. 11-15, up 1.8% from the 300.91 in the previous week, saying “the more favorable outlook on world oil demand and reports of lower global production contributed to the strengthening of crude oil prices this week.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China Slams Trump’s Trade Threat As “Unacceptable”
China Slams Trump’s Trade Threat As “Unacceptable”
An angry China slammed President Trump’s threat on Monday to cut off trade with countries that deal with North Korea, as “unacceptable” and “unfair.” As a reminder, following Sunday’s nuclear test by North Korea, Trump threatened to increase economic sanctions and halt trade with any country doing business with North Korea, a threat he has used before without following through. That list would include China, the U.S.’s biggest trading partner, which accounted for about a sixth of its overseas commerce.
The comments were seen as a not-so-veiled warning to China, Kim’s closest ally and commercial partner, and led to a prompt response by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang who classified Trump’s comments as “definitely unacceptable.”
“What is definitely unacceptable to us is a situation in which on the one hand we work to resolve this issue peacefully but on the other hand our own interests are subject to sanctions and jeopardized,” Geng said at a regular briefing in Beijing, according to the Associated Press.
Of course, a full-blown trade war would have adverse consequences for both nations: China would be drastically affected if the US were to cut trade ties with it, as the United States imports goods worth about $40 billion a month. Of course, such a move would have devastating, and inflationary, consequences on the US as supply chains are forced to find alternatives to China.
When asked on Monday whether Beijing would support tougher UN sanctions including cutting off oil supplies to North Korea, Geng said that whatever happened would depend on discussions among UN Security Council members. He added that China – a permanent member of the UN’s Security Council with the power to veto UN actions – would take part in a “responsible and reconstructive way.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China May Import Its Workers To Canada As It Seeks “Total Access” To Canadian Market
China May Import Its Workers To Canada As It Seeks “Total Access” To Canadian Market
China’s ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, told the Globe and Mail that Beijing is seeking full access to Canada’s economy ahead of free trade talks, a move that could result in Chinese state-owned companies bringing their own employees to work on projects in Canada. Charles Burton, an associate political science professor at Brock University, said bringing their own workers abroad is “normal practice” for Chinese companies. “It’s not as if [the Chinese] would be asking something of Canada that they don’t expect from other countries,” he said.
Earlier this year, Canadian and Chinese officials held exploratory talks on a free trade deal and another meeting is set to take place this month, Lu told the Globe, just as the US prepares to renegotiate NAFTA with Canada and Mexico.
Lu said that his government wants to avoid discussions of human rights issues, fearing it could become a “bargaining chip” in negotiations. Additionally, anticipating what has become an increasingly regular response by sovereign governments to China’s money-laundering disguised as M&A ambitions, the ambassador said China’s government would interpreted any attempt by Ottawa to block takeovers of Canadian companies on national security grounds as protectionism.
“Investment is investment. We should not take too much political considerations into the investment,” he said. “Just like the negotiations of the (Canada-U.S.) FTA, we should not let political factors into this process. Otherwise, it would be very difficult.”
Meanwhile, Canada’s ambassador to China, John McCallum, told the CBC that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “is very clear that we want to pursue stronger ties with China. We think that in the medium term this will lead to more Canadian jobs.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
True Free Trade vs. ‘Free Trade Deals’: The Misappropriation of Freedom
One of the most frustrating aspect of those trade negotiations that are sold as ‘Free Trade Deals’ is that they are not truly ‘Free Trade’ and, instead, they are just selective liberalisations that work to enrich particular interests, that increase the disparities between those who are endowed with political resources and those who are not, and that work to foster global, systemic trade imbalances (whether that be frustrating, persistent trade deficits or gross trade surpluses). Of course, this leads to advocates of True Free Trade to have a bad name despite the fact that the purist position is the most morally humaneand efficient means through which to alleviate global poverty, improve peoples’ welfare and tackle corporatist privileges.
Free Trade, broadly speaking, in the purest sense of the term would involve a situation where there are no tariffs, subsidies, quotas and significant trade restrictions such as licensure restrictions (which all work to unduly restrict exports and imports and, thereby, impede the flow of goods, services and income globally). Such a situation would work to alleviate both domestic and global inequalities.
This is because tariffs, subsidies, quotas and licensure restrictions are all, effectively, forms of quantity and/or price controls and manipulation that impose incentive structures that redirect the expression of demand and supply across the affected markets inefficiently and in ways that they otherwise would not have been expressed in a more ‘natural’ equilibrium.
Spillovers onto other markets
This also has spillover effects on other markets – for example, targeting particular imports and particular countries’ exports with tariffs, licensure restrictions and/or indirectly by subsidising competitors’ products domestically will have an impact on other markets as consumers and producers are forced to substitute spending and production accordingly.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Deflation Is Blowing In On An Eastern Trade Wind
Jack Delano “Lower Manhattan seen from the S.S. Coamo leaving New York.” 1941
Brexit is nowhere near the biggest challenge to western economies. And not just because it has devolved into a two-bit theater piece. Though we should not forget the value of that development: it lays bare the real Albion and the power hunger of its supposed leaders. From xenophobia and racism on the streets, to back-stabbing in dimly lit smoky backrooms, there’s not a states(wo)man in sight, and none will be forthcoming. Only sell-outs need apply.
The only person with an ounce of integrity left is Jeremy Corbyn, but his Labour party is dead, which is why he must fight off an entire horde of zombies. Unless Corbyn leaves labour and starts Podemos UK, he’s gone too. The current infighting on both the left and right means there is a unique window for something new, but Brits love what they think are their traditions, plus Corbyn has been Labour all his life, and he just won’t see it.
The main threat inside the EU isn’t Brexit either. It’s Italy. Whose banks sit on over 30% of all eurozone non-performing loans, while its GDP is about 10% of EU GDP. How they would defend it I don’t know, they’re probably counting on not having to, but Juncker and Tusk’s European Commission has apparently approved a scheme worth €150 billion that will allow these banks to issue quasi-sovereign bonds when they come under attack. An attack that is now even more guaranteed to occcur than before.
Still, none of Europe’s internal affairs have anything on what’s coming in from the east. Reading between the lines of Japan’s Tankan survey numbers there is only one possible conclusion: the ongoing and ever more costly utter failure of Abenomics continues unabated.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Desperately Trying to Salvage Canada-EU Trade Pact after Brexit, EU Escalates Assault on Democracy
Desperately Trying to Salvage Canada-EU Trade Pact after Brexit, EU Escalates Assault on Democracy
The European Commission, it seems, will never learn. Despite the existential crisis caused by Britain’s decision to leave the EU and the serious questions being raised about the EU’s gaping lack of democratic legitimacy, the European Commission just escalated its assault on European democracy. This week the Commission announced that it would ratify CETA, the controversial trade deal between Canada and the EU, as a unilateral EU agreement, not as a so-called mixed agreement.
What that means is that the national parliaments of the 27 remaining EU member states will have no influence whatsoever over the approval process, even though (or more likely because) the trade agreement will have huge, sweeping effects on the society, governance, and economy of all the nations concerned. In other words, the EU’s democratic deficit, one of the decisive factors in Britain’s decision to sever the cord from Brussels, just got a whole lot bigger. Yet it was barely reported in the press.
Here’s more from Euractiv, one of the few English-language media outlets that actually bothered to cover the story:
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reportedly told EU leaders on Tuesday (28 June) that the Commission considers the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) an “EU-only” agreement and would propose next week (5 July) a simple approval procedure…
“The agreement we have made with Canada is the best agreement the EU has ever made,” Juncker said, insisting that the Commission had come to the conclusion that CETA was not a mixed agreement, after a detailed analysis. “But if the member states decide legal opinions are not valid in politics then I am the last person that would stand in their way.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Trade negotiations are not necessary
Trade negotiations are not necessary
From today’s Open Europe news summary:
WTO CHIEF WARNS OF “COMPLEX AND DRAWN-OUT” TRADE NEGOTIATIONS AFTER BREXIT
Roberto Azevêdo, Director-General of the WTO, has warned that it could take Britain decades to disentangle its trading relations with the EU and negotiate new ties with the rest of the world after Brexit. He told The Times, “It seems that there is a great deal of confusion about the trade implications of a British exit from the EU. I think it’s important to provide the facts. The likelihood is that a British exit would lead to a sequence of complex negotiations – with the EU itself, with the 58 countries that have trade agreements with the EU, and also with all the other members of the WTO. These negotiations would be complex and drawn-out.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that leaving the EU would cause an immediate shock, then uncertainty, and negatively impact trade. Boris Johnson said the risks of remaining in the EU are “massive”, due to the Eurozone and migrant crises.Source: The Times The Sun Institute for Fiscal Studies The Daily Telegraph: Hague
No so-called trade negotiations are needed. The idea that a nation must seek the approval and reciprocity in order to lower or completely eliminate barriers to trade is one of the most persistent myths in all of economics. It is akin to believing that one cannot start a diet until everyone else starts a diet. Lowering barriers to trade does not require the cooperation of any other nation. All a nation has to do is unilaterally eliminate all barriers to foreign products. Such an action will lower the cost of living for the citizens of the importing country.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia Frets about Risk of “Recession” in China
Russia Frets about Risk of “Recession” in China
What do they see that we don’t?
Russia’s economy has been shrinking five quarters in a row, though in the first quarter of 2016, it contracted at an annual rate of “only” 1.2%, after having contracted 3.7% in 2015, the longest recession in two decades. The budget deficit has swollen to 8.6% of GDP in April – way beyond the 3% the government is projecting for the year. It might require additional and unpopular budget cuts.
So the jump in oil prices recently, while not nearly enough, is a huge economic relief for the world’s largest oil & gas exporter.
The surge in oil prices has boosted the ruble, which had plunged late last year and early January. Now it’s back at 69 rubles to the dollar, where it had been in November, and there’s a sense that a currency crisis has been averted.
Putin’s pivot to the east with his energy policy has led to mega-contracts and projects with China, largely to supply oil and gas to the energy-hungry nation. Already, exports of crude oil to China soared 28% in 2015, which elevated Russia to China’s second largest supplier, behind only Saudi Arabia. China has become Russia’s biggest trade partner, accounting for 12.8% of Russia’s total trade.
The ties are also growing in the financial realm. Russian oil and gas companies have bought yuan-denominated bonds last year. And in 2014, the Central Bank of Russia signed a 150-billion-yuan ($23 billion) swap agreement with People’s Bank of China to allow both countries to directly settle their trade in rubles and yuan, without having to resort to the dollar.
So Russia is increasingly joined at the hip to China, and will be even more so as the new projects mature. But now Russia is fretting about the slowdown in China and a further devaluation of the yuan.
These worries percolated to the top on Wednesday at a Credit Suisse conference on emerging markets in Moscow.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Trade Deals and the Environmental Crisis
Trade Deals and the Environmental Crisis
Those representing the U.S. in these negotiations are mainly business lobbyists who have been given the frame of state power to promote policies that benefit the businesses they represent. The thrust of the agreements is to enhance corporate power through legal mechanisms including patents, intellectual property rights and ISDS (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) provisions that create supranational judiciaries run by corporate lawyers for the benefit of corporations. Shifting the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions to the corporations producing them precludes effective regulation in the public interest. The position that environmental harms must be proven before regulations are implemented leaves a dead planet as the admissible evidence.
U.S. President Barack Obama is both the most articulate American politician urging action on climate change and the central Liberal proponent of the trade agreements. The apparent paradox isn’t difficult to understand— the trade agreements will be legally binding on signatory states while Mr. Obama’s statement of the problem won’t be. As evidence of global warming mounts the Republican tactic of denial is looking more and more delusional. By articulating the problem Mr. Obama poses Democrats as the solution while handing the power to curtail greenhouse gas emissions to business lobbyists and corporate lawyers.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Destabilizing Consequences of Globalization
The Destabilizing Consequences of Globalization
Gordon T. Long and I discuss the failure of the status quo’s “New Normal” in a new 34-minute YouTube program.
It is not possible to coherently discuss the “New Normal” economy without discussing financialization–the substitution of credit expansion and speculation for productive investments in the real economy–and its sibling: globalization.
Globalization is the result of the neoliberal push to lower regulatory barriers to trade and credit in overseas markets. The basic idea is that global trade lowers costs and offers more opportunities for capital to earn profits. This expansion of credit in developing markets creates more employment opportunities for people previously bypassed by the global economy.
Though free trade is often touted as intrinsically positive for both buyers and sellers, in reality trade is rarely free, in the sense of equally powerful participants choosing to trade for mutual benefit. Rather, “free trade” is the public relations banner for the globalization of credit and markets that benefit the powerful and wealthy, not the impoverished.
Financialization and mobile capital exacerbate global imbalances of power and wealth.
Trade is generally thought of as goods being shipped from one nation to another to take advantage of what 18th century economist David Ricardo termed comparative advantage: nations would benefit by exporting whatever they produced efficiently and importing what they did not produce efficiently.
While Ricardo’s concept of free trade is intuitively appealing because it is win-win for importer and exporter, it doesn’t describe the consequences of financialization and the mobility of capital. In a world dominated by mobile capital, mobile capital is the comparative advantage.
The mobility of capital radically alters the simplistic 18th century view of free trade.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
TTIP—American Economic Imperialism
TTIP—American Economic Imperialism
Greenpeace has done that part of the world whose representatives are so corrupt or so stupid as to sign on to the Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic “partnerships” a great service. Greenpeace secured and leaked the secret TTIP documents that Washington and global corporations are pushing on Europe. The official documents prove that my description of these “partnerships” when they first appeared in the news is totally correct.
These so-called “free trade agreements” are not trade agreements. The purpose of the “partnerships,” which were drafted by global corporations, is to make corporations immune to the laws of soverign countries in which they do business. Any country’s sovereign law whether social, environmental, food safety, labor protections—any law or regulation—that impacts a corporation’s profits is labeled a “restraint on trade.” The “partnerships” permit corporations to file a suit that overturns the law or regulation and also awards the corporation damages paid by the taxpayers of the country that tried to protect its environment or the safety of its food and workers.
The law suit is not heard in the courts of the country or in any court. It is heard in a corporate tribunal in which corporations serve as judge, jury, and prosecutor.
In other words, the “partnerships” give global corporations the power to overturn democratic outcomes. Allegedly, Europe consists of democracies. Democracies pass laws protecting the environment and the safety of food and labor, but these laws democratically enacted reduce profits. Anything less than a sweatshop, with starvation wages, no environmental protection, no safety legislation for food or worker, can be overturned at will by global corporations under the terms of the “partnerships.”
Only a traitor, a well paid one, could sign such a pact.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Government Cannot Create Inflation
QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I have listened to the gold propaganda and believed in it initially but with time they always say the same thing and nothing happens. One would think that this helicopter money should have produced inflation. This effort has failed as Japan and Europe keep moving negative punishing people for not spending. Now it seems that Americans are also starting to save more and spend less. Do we need reinflation and can government even tackle such a task?
Thoroughly confused
Thank you for your efforts
SJ
ANSWER: Governments have been pretending they can control the economy ever since Roosevelt adopted Marxism. The root of our problems lies directly in this idea that government can steer the economy as it desires. The rise of Trump and Sanders proves that something is wrong beneath the headlines.
There is a growing awareness today that the financial markets are beyond the control of national policymakers. We are even beginning to hear people in the business saying that publicly. While a few economies do have the scale to shape interconnected global markets with trade barriers, etc., they face serious constraints in doing so, not to mention political and economic consequences. As a result, the global economy is stuck in a declining financial cycle with few options for escape.
This idea of helicopter money is poorly constructed and assumes that the quantity of money is the explanation for inflation. There is no historical evidence of that proving to be true. The Roman Empire funded its budget on a general mix of 80% taxes and 20% through the creating new money. This did not result in 20% annual inflation.
Look closely at the chart above. The sharp collapse takes place because Maximinus I (235-238AD) declared war on the rich. He simply declared that all their wealth was his and paid informants to report on anyone they thought had unreported money.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Trans-Atlantic & Trans-Pacific “Partnerships” Complete Corporate World Takeover
Trans-Atlantic & Trans-Pacific “Partnerships” Complete Corporate World Takeover
As I have emphasized since these “partnerships” were first announced, their purpose is to give corporations immunity from the laws in the countries in which they do business. The principle mechanism of this immunity is the granting of the right to corporations to sue governments and agencies of governments that have laws or regulations that impinge on corporate profits. For example, France’s prohibitions of GMO foods are, under the “partnerships,” “restraints on trade that impinge on corporate profits.
The “partnerships” set up “tribunals” staffed by corporations that are outside the court systems of the sovereign governments. It is in these corporate tribunals that the lawsuits take place. In other words the corporations are judge, jury, and prosecutor. They can’t lose. The “partnerships” set up secret unaccountable governments that are higher and have power over the elected governments.
You can ask yourself how much money the representatives of the countries who “fasttracked” this system were paid by the corporations and how much the bribes will be to get the agreements approved by the legislators. As you witness American, British, German and other government officials agitate in behalf of corporate rule, you will know that they have been well paid.
Peter Liley, Minister of Trade and Industry in Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government and currently a Conservative member of the British Parliament took the trouble of looking at the Trans-Atlantic partnership and is warning against it. As a politician he cannot speak as forcefully as he might like, but he gives you the picture. Here is Eric Zuesse’s report: http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/04/09/british-conservative-breaks-ranks-opposes-ttip.html
No government representative who has the slightest bit of integrity and patriotism would have approved these agreements, and no legislative body that is not competely corrupt would hand its power and function over to global corporations.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
