Weekend Hits
Things you might find interesting, but I haven’t had the time or inclination to blog about:
- My protectionism alerts go off loudly when U.S. auto companies complain to Washington, but this time they have a point. Japan has created a “cash for clunkers” program that, like the U.S. program last year, links the payment for the old car to purchase of a new one. The difference is that Japan’s rules favor Japanese-made vehicles over imports – a pretty blatant violation of the national treatment principle. For the record, the U.S. “cash for clunkers” program was wide open and non-discriminatory. The top ten models purchased were: Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, Ford Focus, Toyota Camry, Hyundai Elantra, Toyota Prius, NissanVersa, Ford Escape FWD, Honda Fit and Honda CR-V AWD. Anybody see a pattern here? Washington, Seoul and Brussels should take Tokyo on over this one.
- The European Union and the United States have joined together to challenge China’s export controls on bauxite, coke, silicon metals, magnesium and other raw materials. China has export quotas on these products, ostensibly for environmental reasons, but Brussels and Washington are making the case in the WTO that the quotas are meant to reduce costs for Chinese exporters while raising input prices for their overseas competitors.
- In other WTO action, China has asked for a review of the egregious (at least in my opinion) Obama Administration action against tires from China.
- New Year’s Day marked the advent of the new ASEAN/China free trade area, which will follow the European Union and NAFTA as the third largest free trade area in the world. Business between the ASEAN countries and China is growing quickly and most observers see the new free trade area as an unalloyed good thing. Undoubtedly, it will be of net benefit, but there are some in ASEAN who worry about rampant Chinese competition in their home markets. Take a look at a good summary of their views in the New York Times.
I’m still traveling, currently in Colorado, but will try to post as often as I can this coming week.
