Trump’s tariffs
Brian Wilson’s article “After fighting on the Banana Wars front line, I know the harm Trump’s tariffs” will do (8 June) and your correspondents’ responses brought back memories of the early 1970s in Washington.
The UK entry to the EEC meant harmonising our tariffs with them. It did not matter that the overall impact was small on average; the losers reacted strongly and the winners silently gathered their gains. The Congressional hearings produced the stage for the lobbyists and political interest did the rest. One epic hearing had the Florida orange juice industry in full cry. To them, orange juice was a food with zero VAT. To the EEC it was a drink or beverage liable to VAT.
This sequence merely underlined the fact that special interests surface and the desire for less restrictions or more is always very specific. There is not much common ground between individual lobbies whether in favour of more protectionism or less. Thus any trade agreements are compromises. The defence of US and EU agricultural industries meant short shrift for primary producers, often the lessdeveloped countries. They in turn often wished to protect their infant industries and their interest in “free trade” was accordingly modified.
The US position remains as before in trying to protect their own, whether by inhibiting imports or encouraging exports. Their attempts to use “defence of the realm” arguments (as in placing military contracts) on a wider basis as safeguarding security is unsurprising. It does, however, sound alarms and we should be grateful the World Trade Organisation and EU are big enough to push back.
There remain other frequently used trade barriers such as human, animal and plant health barriers to defend US security. They will no doubt be deployed. As to currency manipulation and equivalent working conditions, they may help the US with the right kind of background noise.
The main fear is that the current US administration seems to believe its own rhetoric that it can go it alone. I am only glad the US departments of state, agriculture and commerce, as well as most politicians, can distinguish between rhetoric and facts. They live in the real world as opposed to its parallel universe of “reality TV”.
L V MCEWAN St Albans Road, Edinburgh