The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
WTO warning that Trump risks new trade war
The World Trade Organization warned Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump is risking an economically damaging trade war if he goes ahead with plans to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Trump, who has long railed against what he deems unfair trade practices by China and others, said Thursday he planned to levy penalties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports from next week.
Roberto Azevedo, the director-general of the Geneva-based WTO, said the agency was “clearly concerned” at the U.S. plans and warned that “a trade war is in no one’s interests.”
“The potential for escalation is real as we have seen from the initial responses,” he said in comments emailed to the Associated Press by a WTO spokesman.
Azevedo said the WTO, the body that oversees global trade, “will be watching the situation very closely.”
The European Union is already thought to be considering retaliatory tariffs, roughly one third of which would target steel, one third agriculture, and one third other products.
“We are not going to sit on our hands while our industry is at risk of being hit with unfair measures,” said European Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein.
“We are going to respond swiftly, firmly and in a proportionate way.”
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told reporters in Paris he was planning to talk with counterparts in Germany and Britain about the response.
“The United States must know that if these unilateral decisions were to be maintained and confirmed, they would lead to a strong, coordinated and united answer from the European Union,” Le Maire said.
Trump appeared to shrug off worries of a trade war in an early Friday tweet, saying “when a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.” Trump has argued that increased foreign production, especially by China, has driven down prices and hurt U.S. producers, creating a situation the country’s Commerce Department has called a national security threat.
Financial markets have taken fright at the prospect, though — Germany’s DAX index, for example, was down 2 percent in lateafternoon trading in Frankfurt, as investors fretted over the impact of a trade war on Germany’s exportheavy economy.