By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Kate Duguid at Reuters reports the alarm at UBS that China’s new oil futures exchange will hurt the standing of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. That development in turn would start the reverse snowball down the hill, with the dollar falling against other currencies, […]
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Trade
George W. Bush tried steel tariffs. It didn’t work
By William Hauk | (The Conversation) | – – President Donald Trump finally followed through on his almost year-old threat to restrict imports of foreign steel. On March 8, the president slapped a 25 percent tariff on the metal, while also putting a 10 percent duty on foreign aluminum. After initially suggesting there’d be no […]
The last time the US enacted Punitive Tariffs it enabled the Great Depression
By Charles Hankla | (The Conversation) | – – President Donald Trump finally appears poised to make good on his promised threats to slam the door on free trade and erect walls around the country’s economy. Citing the need to protect national security, he released plans to impose tariffs of 25 percent on foreign steel […]
Europe’s big Plans for Iran Trade announce Independence from Trump’s Washington
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Despite the significant economic problems Iran faces, and despite the real problems in unequal income distribution, Iran’s economy is seeing bright spots that the Western press rarely admits. In the year after international sanctions were lifted on the signing of the nuclear accord, spring 2016-spring 2017, […]
Goodbye to 2017, the Year Trump Coarsened our World
From ignoring Rohingyas to threatening Trade Wars to deep-sixing Mideast Peace
Yes, America, there is a Class War, and you Just Lost It
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Republican Party did not just overhaul the tax code and they did not cut “your” taxes. They engineered a coup against the middle and working classes and they threw enormous amounts of public money to private billionaires and multi-millionaires. Americans do not understand this sort […]
Will China’s New Silk Road jump-start the World Economy?
One Belt, One Road could help a lot of less developed countries in the Global South
France’s Macron slams Trump ‘Bad Policy’ by Mulling Iran Visit, Seeking Trade
TeleSur Macron’s visit to Iran would be the first by a French head of state or government since 1976. Widening transatlantic divisions are coming into focus as traditional U.S. allies are recoiling at U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempts to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran. The divide was underscored Sunday as French President Emmanuel Macron […]
Germany’s Merkel: A Selfish & Isolationist America isn’t “Great Again”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In an interview with Handelsblatt , German Chancellor Angela Merkel took on Donald Trump’s philosophy directly. She said that Trump’s isolationism cannot make America greater. Turning inward and abandoning friends can only diminish America, she said: “An America that does not care about the rest of […]