20 hours ago, Boydstun said:
The EU let go of controls last year in finally accepting free trade with a bloc of countries in South America.* The USA has been offered that free trade deal from Argentina et al. but is not willing to try freedom. The USA could champion a free trade deal with EU just as the President of Argentina did last year and earlier, but the US leadership is not willing to try freedom.
That’s an absurd statement to make. We clearly mean two different things by the phrase “free trade”.
My definition is “the ability of all individuals to trade on a voluntary basis with each other”. What’s yours?
Here’s just one example of a clear violation of what I mean by free trade: https://inplp.com/latest-news/article/the-european-commission-confirms-that-argentina-has-adequate-legislation-for-the-international-transfer-of-personal-data/
That outlines just a tiny fraction of the legislative over-reach Argentina had to engage in, in violation of its own citizens’ individual rights, to obtain what you call “free trade with the EU”. A very tiny fraction. The EU has blocks of regulation like that for every single industry, that it forces its trading partners to adopt ahead of any trade agreement.
The EU bureaucrats aren’t interested in free trade. They’re after imposing their regulatory framework on the world. They’re shaping the world in their own image. And, up to this point, the US has been standing by, just watching, as the European Commission writes laws which are then applied in Canada, South America, Japan, Britain, etc., as a condition of access to the EU market.
That’s entirely absurd. The US should, at the very least, start offering the same exact deal: access to the US market conditional on the immediate abolishment of every single EU regulation. Start with Canada. Make them choose between trade with the EU and trade with the US.
The alternative, of course, would be what Elon Musk suggested the other day: free trade between the US and the EU. Keyword on “free”. But that’s not a realistic proposal. That’s every bit as unrealistic as suggesting free trade with North Korea (requiring Kim Jong Un to step aside, have free elections, liberalize its economy, etc.).
The probability of EU bureaucrats stepping aside and allowing actual free trade to happen is exactly the same ZERO. The only thing that will work is a contentious negotiation process that attempts to limit the EU’s power, under the threat of tariffs.
Another thing: when I buy something from Canada, for example, it’s zero tariff, right? But, fun fact: every European government has a tax of 20% or so on that purchase. It’s automatically deducted at customs. It’s the seller that HAS TO pay it. It works exactly the same way as a tariff would. And some might argue that that’s fine, since it doesn’t disadvantage to Canadian producers … oh, but how naive you are. Because here comes the next con: VAT exemption. That’s a little favor many European governments hand out to their favorite categories of local producers. So yes, Canadian companies do have to compete with local producers who don’t pay VAT.
It gets worse: honest Canadian producers also have to compete with Chinese companies that CHEAT. They sell me let’s say a pair of $100 shoes. That’s $80 for them, $20 for my government, right? Wrong. That’s $100 for them, 0$ for my government… because when my package arrives, it says the shoes cost $7-8 on the invoice. Low cost items like that aren’t taxed, because the accounting would cost the government more than the revenue. Obviously, my government can’t do anything to a guy in China who’s evading European taxes. He has immunity. The Canadian guy does not.
That’s your “free trade”. And I’m only mentioning a tiny fraction of the incredibly massive volume of things that make this “free trade” very, very unfree. I’m not talking about a mere tariff, where you hand over the 10% Trump just imposed, and beyond that you get to trade as you wish. This goes to the essence of the issue. This changes the fundamental nature of the trade. Countries which sign deals with the EU, and companies which produce for the EU, aren’t just paying a percentage. They’re selling their souls. The essence of what they do (how they regulate their economy, in the case of countries, and how they produce their products, in the case of companies) changes fundamentally.
[edit] If economic regulations aren’t scary enough, another condition of free trade with the EU is adherence to the ICC. That’s the so-called “International Criminal Court”. The one that wants to arrest Netanyahu, while refusing to indict any living Hamas leader. The one leftist EU bureaucrats set up and are trying to turn into a Court that rules over the whole world.
Feel free to look on any EU website for how that Court is described: they’re talking about it like it is a global judicial body representative of the population of Earth, legitimately making judgements anywhere on Earth it wishes to.
And it’s not. It’s something that’s been imposed on most of the countries that signed up for it. Certainly Argentina. You think Milei wants to be part of the ICC? But he can’t leave. The EU will punish him economically for it.