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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The wierd thing is "we must address our balance of trade with Germany and China, it's too far in deficit" is an entirely rational position to take for any country that isn't the United States who can print the global reserve asset for a few cents and trade it to Germany+Friends for piles of actual stuff while incurring minimum risk to exchange rates.
At this point I'm surprised more people aren't calling for some kind of international trade currency to take that trick away from the USA in punishment for the trade war. I know China wanted to turn Special Drawing Rights into that back during the GFC, but the EU probably just wants to displace the dollar from that slot so they can do the same trick with the Euro.
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It's only half of the picture anyway...yes, in rare goods we sell more to the Us than the other way around. But if add in what the US sells in services, ie through google aso to the EU, than suddenly the relationship is very balanced, with the US making a slight plus. And nobody hinders the US to produce products which are just as good as the EU ones to the same price.
Last I checked the big multinationals had their finances in Ireland because it's a tax haven, so all the money they transfer from there gets registered as an Irish services export and provides Ireland with shiny numbers despite being very little benefit to the actual people. Same with Luxembourg, so although the money from Apple, Amazon and Google probably eventually shows up in the US it's not on the trade books as US exports.
US trade deficit in goods with Germany is about 5 billion a month, which is pretty huge, and the thing stopping the USA making nice cars is the fact they'd be competing with the German companies who have more money, brand recognition and an artificially cheap currency, plus the ability to extend an extremely cheap supply chain through lower-wage Eastern Europe. Tariffs are a really terrible way to rectify a trade imbalance and the USA doesn't even need to, so this is pointless since most of their factories are already gone.
A growing rejection/reduction of purchasing American goods/traveling to the US appears to be catching on in Canada, and I would presume its going on elsewhere as well. Trade wars can get awfully emotional, and it makes them harder to deescalate.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/pocketbook-patriotism-hallman-1.4709439
As a personal (and ultimately meaningless in the big picture if it isn't being replicated) anecdote, I went to the liquor store yesterday. Spoke to a manager I knew from High School, and he did say that sales for American spirits and wines are noticeably dropping, with more than a few cases of people asking for European/South American alternatives to their usual fare. Now, this is only one NSLC in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia but all polling suggests that this is a cross market trend.
My dad goes skiing in Maine more or less every winter. He's seriously considering places in Quebec now.
edited 16th Jun '18 4:53:29 AM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.![]()
@Death or Cake Not according to the US own statistics.
A lot of people (including me) already have the US blacklisted since the travel ban, due to what nowadays passes as customs check in the US (and I would call an unnecessary intrusion into the privacy of the traveller).
edited 16th Jun '18 4:49:14 AM by Swanpride
They are just providing anecdotes on how specific Trump policies like the travel ban and the trade war with Canada are making people change their behaviours in response to them. It's just facts, nobody's bragging.
edited 16th Jun '18 5:10:08 AM by Grafite
Life is unfair...I wasn't rubbing anything in (don't believe that Swan was either) just offering some examples of how all the predictions from economic experts are coming true. And the article I linked did state that its primarily (for now) anti-Trump and anti-US (or even anti-GOP) rhetoric, but there is a risk that this will get more personal and emotional once the damage starts setting in.
Hell, my own neck of the woods is about to be burned in a specific way; recreational boating will take a serious hit if Ottawa' retaliation goes through. Hundreds of people, in an already delicate economy, are at risk of losing their jobs in that industry alone. I'm not relishing a trade war of any kind, but its still superior to giving in.
That said, a trend I see online and among people I know is saying that if the GOP doesn't get nailed in November, they'll take it as Americans more or less supporting Trump's trade policies, and will want responses.
edited 16th Jun '18 5:17:28 AM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.![]()
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From the data Google gives me the USA has about a 60 billion trade deficit in goods and 2 billion deficit in services, but another source said overall German surplus is 14 billion Euros, so there's probably something else there in the accounting. I think Germany's trade surplus at this stage is actually so high it's in breach of the Maastricht requirements in the other direction.
Last I checked the USA was the big consumption economy and Germany was the third largest exporter, I'd be extremely surprised if Germany wasn't making a big pile of money off that when their entire economy and most of the EU's EEA regulations are set up to that end and have been since the 1870s.
edited 16th Jun '18 5:20:12 AM by DeathorCake
Germany's trade with most of the other Eu nations is balanced or nearly balanced (I think it even has a deficit with the Netherlands). Outlier is the UK, but even if they weren't on their way out, they got the whole Euro business in return, doing most of the banking for the EU.
The majority of Germany's trade surplus is with third states (the US, China (yes, China), South Korea aso), and not only has this nothing to do with Mastrich (which, btw, does NOT contain any limits on how much surplus a state is allowed to have), the other EU countries are profiteering from it due to Germany importing a lot of the stuff they need to built what they export.
And no, I am not gloating, I am just pointing out how much damage Trump already did to the economy. The tourism industry was hit first, because the US has less visitors since Trump is in power. It is not quite as bad as in Turkey, where Erdogan has managed to reduce tourism to half of what it used to be, but it is bad enough.
edited 16th Jun '18 5:31:58 AM by Swanpride
@Physical Stamina: Please stop trying to shut down people's conversation about how much the US 's policy sucks and the country right now sucks. Because right now it does, and speaking as someone who also lives in the US, because of our electoral system the USA in general sucks right now because we couldn't keep our right-wing crazies in line the way other, better managed countries could.
Hope Canada continues to boycott American goods, frankly I think the only way American government and the people who voted them in learn their lesson is if they lose money.
edited 16th Jun '18 5:44:31 AM by Wildcard
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Nevermind, it wasn't in Maastricht, it was in the Alert Mechanism Report [1]
and supplemented by a bunch more stuff they introduced mostly to squeeze the PIIGS more during the crisis. That memo then goes on about how it's not a problem worth disciplining because it provides more savings, which is slightly overkill when you already save lots and don't invest a lot domestically anyway. If the German government boosted domestic demand and raised wages you'd lose some of your surplus and make the population of Germany better off.
Technically Germany should be getting hauled up in front of the Commission and fined for it's trade imbalance under the Excessive Imbalances Procedure right now, regardless of who it's from. Eastern Europe is probably doing very nicely out of doing a lot of the supply work for German industry, not denying that.
edited 16th Jun '18 5:56:17 AM by DeathorCake
If you can’t handle people respectfully explaining negatives about the US then I would suggest not following the thread, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break from this thread for your own mental well being.
We do have a German politics thread, a European politics thread and an economics thread, this conversation would likely be better suited to one of them.
edited 16th Jun '18 5:58:32 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
That and "leave as big a constraint as possible on the next Democrat". Lift a bunch of regulations and transfers in one go, slash taxes in an attempt to constrain government spending and generally play scorched earth politics so they can later occupy time obstructing the replanting. The next crisis will be interesting, they don't have much left to cut in the name of Fiscal Responsibility.
edited 16th Jun '18 8:53:36 AM by kkhohoho
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Let me guess, "These programs will be insolvent if we don't increase the budget using some of our infinite supply of dollars between now and some date a quarter century in the future, so we should slash them massively now because reasons." will be the cover?
In the grim darkness of the near future, there are only poor? Beware the corruption of the four Chaos Gods of Intellectualism, Worker Solidarity, Heterodox Social Views and Revolution, the Orange Emperor's Holy Job Creators will prevent wage-heresy.

One thing for sure, having no ambassador at all for a year was better than what we got now. Since he arrived, his first act was to threaten Germany if they dare to hold onto the Iran deal, has tooted the whole "imbalance in trade" horn and is now actively meddling in German politics by encouraging the right wing parties.
It is a good thing that the mood in Germany is more "keep Trump at arm length until the US is half sane again and emancipate yourself from the influence of the US as far as possible in the meantime" and not open confrontation.