Editor’s note: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was supposed to increase investment by US multinationals here, but it instead increased investment by those companies in other countries. The reason seems to be that the act exempted the income of foreign subsidiaries from federal taxation. U.S.-based multinational companies devoted more capital investment money to foreign…
Editors note: The retrospective analysis on where we went wrong by engaging with China continues. For decades U.S. politicians and analysts told us economic growth in China would spur liberalism. Denying that fact could lead to more big mistakes. [Hal Brands | July 23, 2019 | Bloomberg] Did U.S. policymakers in the 1990s and 2000s really believe…
Editor’s note: We agree the USMCA is likely to pass this year. CPA has taken no position as of yet. The USMCA improves upon NAFTA in certain important respects but does not address country of origin labeling for meat. Also the enforceability of labor provisions are not yet clear. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), the House…
Elizabeth Warren released an “economic patriotism” jobs plan recently that takes two bold positions. First, it emphasizes manufacturing as the key driver of middle-class job creation in the U.S. And second, it presents concrete proposals to actually rebuild domestic American manufacturing. This distinguishes her from other Democratic presidential contenders who are merely preoccupied with raising…
Editors note: This is an excellent result that CPA has been working on for some time. The effort threatens to further fray trade talks with China, which wants to become a global player in transport and is already fuming over the U.S. decision to blacklist telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. [Trefor Moss and Lindsay Wise |…
Across-the-board China tariff would produce more jobs, increased GDP Washington. The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today released the results of an updated studyon the impact of a permanent 25 percent across-the-board tariff on all imports from China (PATB-25), showing such a tariff would stimulate growth in GDP and jobs in the US economy.…
Editors note: CPA’s work on currency is gaining steam. Exchange rates are, as we advocate, the next front in the trade skirmish. Foreign-exchange strategists say the risk of a U.S. move to weaken the dollar has risen after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said there’s no change in the nation’s currency policy “as of now.” [Alyce…
Editors note: This is an interesting article because Democrats are most likely to break with free trade fantasies based upon human rights abuses. Republicans are most likely to do the same for national security reasons. Several of the leading Democratic presidential contenders told Axios that if elected, they would go further than the Trump administration…
Editors note: The markets are increasingly expecting dollar realignment efforts by the US. Very good. Washington’s FX policy has oscillated between heavy interventions and benign neglect [Eva Szalay | July 16, 2019 | Financial Times] The US dollar is near a multi-decade high, on a trade-weighted basis, and President Donald Trump is not happy about…
Editors note: Our work to achieve dollar realignment, rather than an overvalued dollar, is gaining steam. Wall Street is fearful even though they should be supportive. US policy towards the dollar maybe set to turn as Trump looks for ways to weaken the world’s most important currency. [Marshall Gittler | July 15, 2019 | NASDAQ]…