Monthly US Trade Deficit Rises $0.9B to $55.5B, Advanced Technology Deficit Surges 14% in October

Non-competitive Dollar, Front-Running of Tariffs Drive Up October Deficit, Imports By Jeff Ferry, CPA Research Director The monthly US trade deficit rose by $0.9 billion in October, reaching $55.5 billion, as exports fell slightly while imports rose by $600 million. The monthly data suggests that tariffs have yet to impact the trade picture. Anecdotal evidence…

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Dethrone ‘King Dollar’

Editor’s note. This four year old article by Jared Bernstein, former Chief Economist for former VP Joe Biden is an excellent explanation of why and how the US dollar value has a major influence on our trade deficit. CPA has the solution, a market access charge to moderate incoming capital flows and push the dollar down to…

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Why Tariffs Are Not Raising Prices

It’s now eight months after the first set of Trump administration tariffs went into effect, and so far the much-feared economic costs of tariffs have yet to appear. In most cases, consumers have not seen any increases in the pricesof goods containing tariffed products because the costs have been absorbed by producers in the supply…

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The Tariffs Are Working

By Jeff Ferry, CPA Research Director Since January, the Trump administration has implemented five major tariff policies, on the solar panel, washing machine, steel, and aluminum industries, as well as the so-called Section 301 tariffs affecting $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, chiefly in intermediate manufactured goods. And so far, the evidence is that the…

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Trump Names Lighthizer to Run U.S.-China Negotiations

Editor’s note: This is a positive development.  WASHINGTON—President Trump has named U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, a hard-liner on China, to head trade negotiations with Beijing following a weekend summitwith Chinese President Xi Jinping, people familiar with the decision said. [ Bob Davis and Vivian Salama | December 3, 2018 | WSJ] The president informed Mr. Xi of his…

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Scholars Warn of Chinese Influence Operations in U.S.

Excerpt: Many of the people who contributed to the report are prominent scholars with a deep affection for China who held out hope that its government would liberalize. Their disillusionment represents a shift in the debate over the trajectory of U.S.-China relations. More hawkish administration officials and advisers said they saw the report as evidence the U.S. China-policy establishment is…

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