Tariff wars could get out of hand

MEAT ants can bite you but they have no painful sting.

Country kids know what it is like to come across a many-hole meat-ant nest, then jump up and down on it to see what happens.

The ants rush out furiously and circle madly wondering what just happened. You could call it the thump effect.

The analogy on a grander global scene, is the same when Trump thumps the world economies with his promises to raise tariffs on steel by 25 per cent and aluminium by 10 per cent.

Economists are running round like Chicken Little, claiming the sky is falling in.

Unfortunately, Trump confuses patriotism with protectionism.

Fortunately for us, his golfing buddy, Greg Norman appears to have leaned on him not to send our steel and aluminium into the sand bunker with everybody else’s exports.

Trouble is, once countries start tariff wars, they are a bit like a soft drug habit that soon gets out of control.

Already our poor chickpea producers have to face a raised tariff of 60 per cent on their exports to India.

What will Turnbull do in retaliation, if anything? Probably nothing as chickpea farmers don’t have the political clout to influence him.

But Agriculture Minister David Littleproud should get his cudgel out and start swinging for our farmers.

If this tariff thing gets out of control then it could end up in a worldwide economic slump that will affect all of us.

My farming family elders told me they did not sell a beast for four years during the 1930s, as values collapsed in The Great Depression.

Trump thinks he is in the box seat on all this.

American cars exported to the E.U. attract a levy of 10 per cent.

European made cars to the US, attract a levy of two per cent.

No wonder Trump thinks he has plenty of wriggle room here to raise the levy.

At the same time the heads of Mercedes Benz, BMW and other car makers are reaching for the headache pills. PETER KNOBEL, Toowoomba

PLANET DESTRUCTION

HOW stupid are Australians in their refusal to take action to save planet earth.

We know polar reversal is immediate. Good news, earth does not survive man, but explodes when magnetic fields weaken below 10 per cent.

Australians will get exactly what they deserve for killing planet earth.

You think military weapon sales to our own enemies, drug trade, sex trade and organised crime is more important.

These destroyed our society. It is political greed. It is not just our politicians who are responsible for causing climate change. It is people’s acceptance of evil, allowing it to exist and refusing to do anything to protect our environment, to promote the health and vitality of biodiversity.

COLE SULLY, Toowoomba