{"id":1315590,"date":"2019-10-13T15:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-13T21:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/purcell-column-no-escape-from-trade-wars-effects\/"},"modified":"2019-10-13T15:00:01","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T21:00:01","slug":"purcell-column-no-escape-from-trade-wars-effects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/purcell-column-no-escape-from-trade-wars-effects\/","title":{"rendered":"Purcell column: No escape from trade wars\u2019 effects"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Tom Purcell<\/strong>
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The trade wars are hitting me where it hurts.<\/p>\n

One of my few respites from these rough-and-tumble times is to sit by an autumn bonfire with good friends, a Leaf and Bean cigar and some fine Scotch whisky.<\/p>\n

But, reports Forbes, the U.S. government announced last week a \u201c25% tariff on all single malt Scotch whisky imports, as part of a wider set of tariffs aiming to punish the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Oct. 18, Scotch whisky \u2014 and Parmesan cheese from Italy and olives from France and Spain, tasty goods I also enjoy \u2014 will be more expensive.<\/p>\n

Regrettably, that means I have to pay attention to government trade actions \u2014 which is about as fun as spending hours watching spirits be distilled.<\/p>\n

Forbes says the origin of my costly-hooch woes dates back to 2004, when the U.S. got steamed that the E.U. was subsidizing Airbus\u2019 development of its A380 and A350 planes, which made competing harder for America\u2019s Boeing.<\/p>\n

To retaliate, the U.S. raised tariffs on the E.U., which caused the E.U. to raise tariffs on, among other things, American bourbon, which led the U.S. to raise its tariff on Scotch whisky.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m certainly no expert on tariff diplomacy \u2014 I found trying to grasp Economics 101 at Penn State unpleasant \u2014 but it seems much like a playground fight among children:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a meanie!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a dodo head!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNuh-huh!<\/p>\n

\u201cYuh-huh!\u201d<\/p>\n

Investor\u2019s Business Daily (IBD) explains that tariffs used to be how America paid its bills \u2014 until 1913, with the introduction of the income tax (and later, payroll taxes).<\/p>\n

The average U.S. tariff then fell until 1930, when \u2014 early in the Great Depression \u2014 the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act hiked the average U.S. tariff by about 50%.<\/p>\n

This protectionist action spurred retaliation. IBD says \u201ceconomists generally argue that Smoot-Hawley helped dry up global trade and exacerbated the Great Depression.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, tariffs had steadily trended lower \u2014 until recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Trump took office, half of U.S. industrial imports entered the country duty-free, with no tariff imposed,\u201d IBD says. \u201cIn 2016, the average U.S. tariff rate was 1.6% across all products, according to the World Bank. \u2026 After Trump\u2019s escalation of tariffs in May 2019, the average U.S. trade-weighted tariff rate stood at about 7.5%, according to a Deutsche Bank calculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

China, no stranger to unfair trade tactics, is a primary target.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2018, Trump became the first president to systematically threaten and impose tariffs to try and reshape the flow of trade,\u201d IBD says. \u201cTrump\u2019s stated purpose for new and higher tariffs? Shrink the 2017 U.S. trade deficit of $566 billion, boost U.S. production and increase manufacturing jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019re in a bona fide trade war \u2014 which isn\u2019t going well. The trade deficit is getting worse, not better. Americans are paying more for low-cost imported goods they depend on. And American farmers, who depend on exports to pay their bills, are getting hurt as China retaliates.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a game of \u201cchicken\u201d that\u2019s imposing uncertainty and pain on global markets, including ours.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how it\u2019s going to turn out. But I do know these stresses and strains get more troubling by the day.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re so troubling that I can\u2019t even escape them by sitting by an autumn bonfire with good friends, a Leaf and Bean cigar and some fine, though ever-more-costly, Scotch whisky.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2019 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of \u201cMisadventures of a 1970\u2019s Childhood,\u201d a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@cagle.com<\/a> or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Purcell The trade wars are hitting me where it hurts. One of my few respites from these rough-and-tumble times is to sit by an autumn bonfire with good friends, a Leaf and Bean cigar and some fine Scotch whisky. But, reports Forbes, the U.S. government announced last week a \u201c25% tariff on all single […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 19:01:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}