Global trade hangs in the balance as new rules of trade might come in with the peoples choice or indicment of a candidate to rule america from Nov 05 - The US Presidential elections is between a Macho Man and A soft spoken but yet firm lady - Their grasp of the fundamentals of global trade will bring in a new economic order
Globalism faces its acid test next tuesday – The fragility of international trade would be put to severe litmus check when one of the two candidates Demo’s Kamala Harris & Republican’s Donald Trump unveil their economic policies that will impact the world after they win the presidential race
By TN Ashok
Its often said in the stock market and Wall Street by investors that if America sneezes the world catches a cold. Any calamitous disturbance in the NYSE, NASDAQ or SP 500 index is rudely apple carted then it has a ripple effect on the stock exchanges of London, Paris, China, Japan, India and others in Europe and South Asia.
The Impact of the U.S. Elections on Trade and International Supply Chains - Global Policy Watch
The upcoming U.S. presidential election on November 5 will have important implications for U.S. trade policy that are likely to affect companies reliant on international supply chains. There are important differences in how former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris approach the use of trade tools to advance U.S. policies and priorities, including whether such tools should be deployed unilaterally, or as part of a collective action with U.S. allies.
For instance, a victory by Harris will likely signal continuity in the current approach of the Biden administration, in which trade has not been a central policy priority, but has instead taken a backseat to—and been used as a tool to support—other key policies on climate, technology, human rights, and industrial development. While a Harris administration is therefore unlikely to pursue new trade initiatives aimed at increased market access, a Harris administration may consider joint action with U.S. allies and likeminded trading partners, or at least be receptive to input from such partners in pursuing trade-related actions.
In contrast In trade is expected to take center stage under a second Trump administration, with unilateral action expected to be the preferred approach. Trump has repeatedly referred to tariffs as his policy tool of choice, and views tariffs as important in creating leverage for dealmaking with international partners on both economic and non-economic issues. Trump and his economic advisors also view the U.S. trade balance as an important measure of economic performance, and bilateral trade deficits are likely to face scrutiny and provoke potential action.
The world is glued in and clued in by globalism and international trade and a national elections in one country should rarely cause disturbances in the economic fortunes of others. But the rare exception to this rule is the United States which goes to elect a new president on November 05 this year, next tuesday, from among the Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate,
The Biden Administration’s New Vision for Global Trade and Investment
Janet Yellen and Jake Sullivan have recently argued that pursuing industrial policy at home is compatible with an open and fair global economic order.
Donald Trump's thirsting for a 2nd term to complete the jobs he started in 2016 and left unfinished in 2020. When Biden per his belief stole the election from him when there was no evidentiary proof for the same.
Both the presumptive candidates for president have made known their policies. Trump has been tested and often he does not do what he says. There is an air of masculinity in his election rhetoric that holds his audiences spell bound but when it comes to goernance there is no machoism but only his self interests and policies to promote his false beliefs.
Trump is 78 and is not in tune with the world. He has lost it . He has not attuned himself with the global reality as to how other countries look to US for support. Hès delusional in thinking like Copernicus that the heavens march around the earthm(around the sun which Galileo proved wrong – that the sun was a fixed star and planets like earth revolved round it it) around USA. No way.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, that splintered USSR into different central Asian nations with own aspirations to grow like Ukraine which is now fighting for its sovereignty, the US became a universal policemen in geo politics and global trade with the us greenback as the major medium of exchange in trade.
Former KGB chief who became Russian President had been wanting to exact revenge by reclaiming all the territories he lost during Gorbachevs' time to build the soviet empire again to challenge the US position politically. 1st he took crimea and now its ukraine and the world fears tht if he goes unchecked he could expand his sovierignty to eastern europe startng with poland.
Whats this past history got to do with the US elections tuesday, you might ask. 
Trump and Putin are the greatest of friends and allies. Goes out the window all sanctions against Russia when he becomes president. Trump will look the other way to the war in Ukraine cancel funding and bring jitters to NATO. Harris will honour her committments to the NATO.
Trump will pull out of the climate change accords reached in Paris once again, but Harris would continue her support for climate change technologies. In keeping with the UN Charter.
Global trade, which had a heft with US and other European players , with China and India assumes a different dimension. Tarrifs of 10 to 20% on European and south asian goods is going to increase the prices of the goods coming into the usa making it costlier from the american population to acquire them.
The 60% tarrif he has proposed on Chinese goods – believe me the american market is flooded with chinese goods from toys, to electronic goods and even raw materials for IT enabled technologies and steel for manufacturing- This hefty tariff is only going to hit the bottom lines of american importers who will unconscioubly pass on the increased rates of imports to the consumers making their family budgets costlier by $2850 per year as a group of economists have analysed.
Most supportrs of Trump are not educated or college going youths who can understnd what the economist say – they saw the huge 500 pound man making an argument convincingly saying migrants are takaing over america, far from it, china is hitting our trade and we have a huge trade imbalance, tariffs is the only answer to blockng chinese imports.
Trump says he will abolish income tax and actually this benefits most the elite top 2% of the wealthy americans who control the entire economy and not the 98% middle class which will bear the brunt of high cost of goods imported into the country.
On the contrary Democratic candidate Harris promises graded tax breaks to benefit the middle class and at the same not sacrificing the $5.2 bllion revenue it raised every from taxes in income and other commodities of trade. The rich dont go scot free as under Trump but have to cough up taxes.
How much revenue has the U.S. government collected this year?
Government revenue is income received from taxes and other sources to pay for government expenditures. The U.S. government has collected $4.92 trillion in fiscal year 2024.
Fiscal year-to-date (since October 2023) total updated monthly using the Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) dataset.
Compared to the federal revenue of $4.44 trillion for the same period last year (Oct 2022 - Sep 2023) federal revenue has increased by $479 billion.
Who likes paying taxes to the government in any country of the world. Or does anyone understand how will a government sustain its social welfare programmes without taxes. Its the same scenario as the middle ages in England when the King kept increasing taxes on farm produce and other products of the people in the country side when he found he could not sustain his extravagant regal lifestyle and the treasuries were going empty.
Its the same phenomenon in all the countries of the world. The USA is no exception. Trump says he will compensate for the revenues lost in income tax by his “ Drill Baby Drill” progrmme of diggng for oil as he beleives the US is sitting on a reservoir of oil far greater than all OPEC countries put together.
Reserves is one thing. How to drill and get them out is another challenge for oil companies.
Trump is delusional with his policies losing sight of its lack of pragmatism and the pople who support not for once think that he will be hardput to keep all the promises he makes if the american economy were not to go into a tail spin with his skewed policiies.
While a Kamala Harris victory is, rightly or wrongly, being viewed as a "Biden continuity" outcome, governments and investors see a Donald Trump win as a case of all bets off. The big unknown remains how much Trump rhetoric would make it into Trump policy.
Look at it from Europe's perspective. It has long got used to the idea that barely anyone in Washington nowadays stands up for a world of freely trading nations - including President Joe Biden and Harris.
But Trump could go much, much further. For him, America's longstanding transatlantic trade deficit is an evil: he wants Europe to pay a "big price" for not buying enough U.S. cars or U.S. farm goods. And if it turns out that price is the 10% or even 20% export tariffs he has talked about, that could cost European manufacturing jobs dear. They could reroute their exports to other countries to escape the burden of tariffs that makes their products non competitive in global trade.
In China, meanwhile, sources told Reuters that authorities may approve as early as next week more than 10 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) in extra debt in coming years to revive its fragile economy. And they could go even bigger if Trump - who has threatened 60% levies on Chinese goods - wins, they said. China is now in overheat mode of its economy with piled up inventories and cannot afford a 60% export tariff.
It would have to reroute its trade. Trump may talk big but its the Washington Bureaucry that runs the country and the commerce department will point out the futility of tariff hikes.
A Trump victory would also send shockwaves through Latin America - even if the impact could fall unevenly. Mexico, whose automotive sector could face tariffs as high as 200% under a Trump administration, has much to lose. But others could benefit.
Many automobile companies of america, finding labour costs very high , changed their hubs for making small and medium sedan type cars to Mexico, China and India. When trade tensions with Beijing ballooned under Trump's first presidency, Brazil got a boost as China replaced all its U.S. soybean imports with Brazilian ones. When US imposed sanctions under Trump and Biden continued it, Russia found alternate routes to sell its oil to China and India and stay in business.
But one huge issue on which the disagreement between the two presidential rivals is, if anything, even starker is climate change. For Trump it is a "hoax", while Harris calls it an "existential threat". This potentially makes the election a decisive moment in the world's still-lacking effort to combat man-made global warming.
But all this international conferences of COPU, Tokyo protocols and the Paris climate change accords under the UN charter are big balooney for Trump and his supporters , mostly farmers and not even college going, cant absorb the nuances of the climate threat. Trump wants status quo and wants the fossil industry to survive . But Biden wants to meet the UN charter of demands of no carbon emissions by 2030 and absolutely no emissions that affect the stratosphere by 2050. India and China are racing to meet their targets.
Green technologies and EVs are heavily invested in. With Trump it will be a reversal of this policy as automibile companies and others who have invested in green techologies would find it all going down the drain.
That way a Harris win would spell continuity for the industry and its bottom lines.
In the nearly 20 years since the first carbon trading market was established as an economic approach to addressing clmate change, a patchwork of compulsory and voluntary markets has sprung up. But have they actually worked? A Reutres analysis asks.
IN summary , a Harris win means continuity of policies initiated by Biden on the climate change challenges. A Trump win would reverse and take us back in time. A harris win means benefits for the urban middle class struggling with high costs of goods and fuels, and healthcare as she seeks to bring down prices. A Trump winn would only mean concessions to the rich that would hit the middle class.
On the overseas front, a Trump win will not actually end wars , it will starve countries fighting for their severignty the werewithal to fight and preserve their soverignty over predators and aggressors. And if the countries los their fight for self determination against hegemonistic tendencies of countries like Russia and China , then the world would only see repat of World War II HITLER marches into Europe starting with Poland and swalliowig most parts of eastern and western Europe.
Thats exactly what Russia has in mind to win the Ukraine war. And China on south china seas and aggressive postures on Arunachal Pradesh which is part of India, though the people there ethnically seem similar to China.
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