Yes, Peter Mandelson is still a complete tit. His latest pronouncement on China and trade:
Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner, has accused China of
abusing the world trading system, warning in the bluntest language to
date that Europe will not sit idly back while its exporters are blocked
from the Chinese market.
Typical mercantilism. Measuring the good or not of trade by how high our exports are.
The outburst came as China’s trade surplus ballooned to $22.45bn
(£11.4bn) in April, an increase of 73pc over the year before. The
surplus has risen almost tenfold in three years, much of it at the
expense of Europe.
"Europe’s trade deficit with China is growing
at €15 (£10) an hour. It could reach €170bn in 2007 on the current
trend," said Mr Mandelson.
"This is not tolerable. The current
trade balance is artificially inflated. It is a product of politics, as
well as economics. China must take concrete steps to address the
problem," he told a small group of reporters yesterday, on the eve of
the EU’s annual trade summit with China.
Seeing the imports as something bad.
"If things do not change, if EU member states are not persuaded that
this partnership is a genuine two-way street and is fully based on
reciprocity, the policy of dialogue and cooperation can be
‘challenged’," he said, using the Brussels code-word for retaliation.
And what in buggery do "states" have to do with this, or reciprocity? We should never be concerned with bilateral trade, whether it’s deficits or surpluses. China ain’t the sort of place that buys much that we Europeans make but it does buy lots of commodities to manufacture what we buy….and those places selling the commodities do buy what we do make. That’s why it’s called trade, d’ye see? We all do what we’re best at and swap the results.
Further, the thing we actually want, the thing that makes us richer, is those imports. We’re getting things cheaper than we can make them at home. This is the good part of trade: exports are simply those dreary things we send away to pay for them. If the Chinese are manipulating their currency, holding it artificially low, then they are impoverishing themselves (they get less for their exports than they would do, pay more for their imports than they would do) while making us richer (we pay less for our imports and get more for our exports). So why anyone would complain about such an obvious bargain is entirely beyond me.
Opps, sorry, yes, I forgot. Mandelson’s a complete tit, isn’t he?
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