Editor’s note: The array of Chinese subsidies to industries keeps metastasizing A new government program offers low-interest “red loans” to firms supporting the Communist cause. [May 1, 2019 | Bloomberg] President Xi Jinping has overseen a resurgence of party influence in China over everything from corporate boards to houses of worship, famously using a phrase…

Editors note. Tariff armageddon still is not happening. The first three months of the year saw wages for manufacturing workers rise at the most in over a decade. [John Carey | April 30, 2019 | Breitbart] The employment cost index, a measure of wages and benefits paid by businesses, for manufacturing workers rose by one…

Editors note: goods producing businesses in the US are all changing their supply chains because of the presidents trade strategy. A new survey of business economists shows that while a majority of companies have not made any changes in response to trade concerns, goods-producing businesses have had to make significant sourcing and supply-chain adjustments. [April…

Editors note: this is a very good analysis of the oversupply and exchange rate problems that are causing harm to the dairy industry.  The New York Times reports that Wisconsin’s dairy industry is in trouble: [Kevin Drum | April29, 2019 | Mother Jones] Wisconsin is known as “America’s Dairyland,” but the milk makers who gave…

Excerpt: FBI Director Christopher Wray said last week, “China seems determined to steal its way up the economic ladder, at our expense… They’re strategic in their approach—they actually have a formal plan, set out in five-year increments, to achieve dominance in critical areas.” On Tuesday, Vodafone, Europe’s largest phone company, “acknowledged that it found vulnerabilities going back years with…

Domestic Producers Tell Congress “Hands Off” Section 232 Tariff Authority Send letter urging support for key pillar of US trade law Washington. More than 50 different organizations have sent a letter to Congress opposing efforts to weaken a part of US trade law known as Section 232. In 2018, the Trump administration imposed Section 232 tariffs…

Editors note: we need to keep the tariffs, probably increase them, and use the revenue to compensate agricultural producers. U.S. pushes to leave in place some of the duties it levied on $250 billion of Chinese goods as a tool to enforce a coming agreement [Chao Deng | April 30, 2019 | Wall Street Journal]…

Editors note: Senator Grassley continues pushing for old-style unilateral trade disarmament by the United States. Didn’t work then and won’t work now. Congress won’t approve USMCA while constituents pay the price for Mexican and Canadian retaliation. [Chuck Grassley | April 28,2019 | WSJ] I’ve represented Iowa in the Senate for nearly 40 years and have…

Editors note: So far, there are no Democrats that are running on an economically strategic trade platform.  PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will hold his first event as a presidential candidate in Pittsburgh on Monday, speaking before union members whose endorsements may be key in the primary race. [James Oliphant |…

Editor’s note: This ruling impacts whether the US would win a WTO challenge to the administration’s Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, which are based on national security. WTO ruled on whether a country can use an exemption to invoke national security as justification for introducing trade restrictions. [Hans von der Burchard | April…