U.S. and EU Trade Barriers Are Too High: Bring Back the TTIP!

In response to threats of retaliation by the EU over his announcment of steel/aluminum tariffs,  President Trump has been complaining about high EU trade barriers. Here’s a recent tweet of his:If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!And here ’s somethinghe said yesterday:“The European Union has been particularly tough on the United States,” Mr Trump said at Tuesday’s joint press conference with the Swedish prime minister.“They make it almost impossible for us to do business with them,” Mr Trump complained.President Trump is right: EU trade barriers are too high. In addition, U.S. trade barriers are also too high. Here ’s something I wrote a few years ago about tariffs:In the context of the recently launced US-EU free trade talks (formally, the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,” or TTIP), commentators have noted that tariffs between the US and EU are low, and thus the key part of the talks will deal with so-called regulatory barriers to trade. An article in Inside U.S. Trade  observes: “Overall, the U.S. average tariff rate is 3.5 percent, although the average tariff rate on goods that the EU actually shipped to the U.S. last year was even lower, at 1.2 percent, … .”But these average figures mask ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs