Over 260 Industrial Companies Thank Trump for China Tariffs Washington. Hundreds of US manufacturers have jointly signed a petition to President Trump reiterating their support for Section 301 tariffs on subsidized imports from China. In a letter to the president, sent ahead of a planned December 15 tariff increase, more than 260 domestic manufacturers expressed their “sincerest appreciation”…

Editor’s note: CPA signed this letter, led by R-CALF USA, in favor of country of origin labeling (COOL). The WTO struck down the US COOL law several years ago in a case of judicial activism. The WTO agreement does not prohibit labeling, but the WTO judges did not merely interpret the agreement but created new…

Editor’s Note: Really bad piece by Krugman defending the good old days of globalist free trade and offshoring. “This system worked well for many years.” No remorse for loss of important industries that we invented. Or job quality erosion. It’s all about the power — and the cronyism. [Paul Krugman | December 5, 2019 | NY…

Editor’s Note: In our view, the decades long situation of the excessively strong dollar is a major culprit, degrading our trade performance which disproportionately degrades the goods producing sector… which then dumps formerly full time employees onto the service economy.  Realigning the dollar, like Reagan did in the 1985 Plaza Accord, would reverse the trade imbalance…

Excerpt: President Trump should take the next step: executive action to realign the dollar to a more competitive level. Our nation’s farmers and manufacturers urgently need help in a tight, global economy, as this opinion piece asserts [Michael Stumo | December 5, 2019 | Lifezette] Wall Street didn’t enjoy President Donald Trump’s announcement earlier this week…

Editor’s Note: Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, savior of free trade in the Americas, is not doing so well. Where are all the jobs from Canada’s TPP deal and its European trade deal? OTTAWA — The Canadian economy posted its biggest monthly job loss since the financial crisis in November, pushing the unemployment rate higher and raising…

Trade deficit with China continues to decline By Steven L. Byers, PhD, CPA Senior Economist The US international trade deficit in goods and services fell 7.6 percent in October, to $47.2 billion, as imports declined more than exports. This is the lowest monthly trade deficit figure since May 2018. The October decrease is due to…

Editor’s note: This article is another example of fake trade news falsely raising fears of consumer price hikes on cheese and wine. The US produces cheese, wine and other products targeted by the administration’s proposed tariffs against France. We are not seeing price hikes from the China tariffs and won’t see them from any French…

Editor’s note: Curtis Ellis makes a fundamental point. Trade policy should be about building investment in production as well as employment. The cheap consumer goods pursuit is the wrong path to national greatness, as the Asian economies have shown us. It’s well past time to ask whether procuring cheap imported consumer goods should be the…

Editors note: Brian O’Shaughnessy, CPA Vice Chairman, recently was keynote speaker at a North Dakota Cattle association conference . On Nov. 15-16, the Independent Beef Association of North Dakota (I-BAND) held its 14th annual meeting at the Ramada Wyndam in Bismarck. Dozens of cattle producers from across North Dakota and surrounding states participated in a…