President Donald Trump pledged Thursday the United States will show \u201cflexibility\u201d to \u201creal friends\u201d as the White House prepares to roll out steel and aluminium tariffs that have sparked fears of a global trade war.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s impromptu announcement he intends to slap 25% import taxes on steel and 10% on aluminium has sparked a revolt within his own Republican party, pushed a top aide to quit, and angered major trading partners who vowed retaliation.<\/p>\n
The proposed duties which have already roiled world markets for days \u2014 are to be formalised at a signing ceremony later Thursday, and Canada and Mexico will initially be exempt according to Trump\u2019s top trade advisor Peter Navarro.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to protect & build our Steel and Aluminum Industries while at the same time showing great flexibility and cooperation toward those that are real friends and treat us fairly on both trade and the military,\u201d the president tweeted — saying he was \u201clooking forward\u201d to the 3:30pm White House meeting.<\/p>\n
Administration big guns commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin rushed to calm market jitters Wednesday over the tariff plans, which they indicated were still negotiable and would not hurt growth.<\/p>\n
The US would offer temporary relief to Canada and Mexico for 30 days, the Washington Post reported citing senior US officials, breaks that could be extended depending on progress in the ongoing North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations.<\/p>\n
But Brussels warned against letting individual European states off the hook — such as Washington\u2019s close ally Britain — saying any such exemption would be viewed as applying to the whole bloc.<\/p>\n
European Commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen said Brussels would not accept a carve-out for Britain, which has voted to leave the EU but remains a member until 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I have read today is that they are probably considering some exemptions to NAFTA countries… but also they have mentioned the UK and maybe some other countries,\u201d Katainen told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if they try to make (an) exemption for one of our member states it means the EU as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EU had already sounded a stern warning Wednesday as it readied to lash back with US-targeted tariffs of its own on everything from steel to peanut butter, orange juice, cranberries, bourbon and denim jeans.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrade wars are bad and easy to lose,\u201d EU president Donald Tusk warned, directly rebuffing Trump\u2019s assertion last week that they were \u201cgood and easy to win\u201d.<\/p>\n
With markets tumbling following the resignation of Wall Street favorite Gary Cohn — Trump\u2019s top economic adviser who had lobbied ardently against the tariffs — Ross tried to assuage fears.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have sensible relations with our allies,\u201d he told CNBC, claiming that Trump\u2019s policy was well \u201cthought through. We\u2019re not looking for a trade war.<\/p>\n
Data released Wednesday showed the US foreign trade deficit widened in January to its highest level in nine years — heaping pressure on Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to reverse that trend.<\/p>\n
Trump blamed the deficit on his White House predecessors, while also taking aim at Beijing.<\/p>\n
\u201cChina has been asked to develop a plan for the year of a One Billion Dollar reduction in their massive Trade Deficit with the United States,\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur relationship with China has been a very good one, and we look forward to seeing what ideas they come back with. We must act soon!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump pledged Thursday the United States will show \u201cflexibility\u201d to \u201creal friends\u201d as the White House prepares to roll out steel and aluminium tariffs that have sparked fears of a global trade war. Trump\u2019s impromptu announcement he intends to slap 25% import taxes on steel and 10% on aluminium has sparked a revolt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24262,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24260\/revisions\/24262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}