Tariffs

The Port of Baltimore enters the year hoping to continue its steady growth in cargo by capitalizing on last year's agreements liberalizing world trade.Both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade accord are expected to increase trade in Baltimore and elsewhere by significantly reducing or eliminating tariffs."We're anticipating a positive impact at the port of Baltimore," said Michael P. Angelos, executive director of the Maryland Port Administration, which oversees the state's five public marine terminals.

Peter Morici's recent article provides an excellent synopsis of our relationship with China and its practice of mercantilism ("China currency bill: America fights back," Oct. 11). He lists GE and Caterpillar as U.S. companies salivating at the prospect of gaining access to China's massive developing market and willing to agree to Chinese demands for technology transfers through forced joint-venture arrangements with local companies. Congress' threats of tariffs and attacks on the Chinese yuan are a rerun of the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which was a major cause of the Great Depression.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. steelmakers struck back this week against a push by the six largest automakers that assemble vehicles in the United States to end tariffs on certain types of imported steel. They warned that thousands of steel-making jobs could be at risk if the tariffs are lifted. The U.S. International Trade Commission will hear arguments as to whether tariffs on corrosion-resistant steel from six countries should end. The tariffs have been in place since 1993, after the steel industry accused foreign producers of dumping their products in the United States.

The Baltimore City Council gave its final approval Thursday to a 2-cent tax on bottled beverages, bringing to an end months of heated debate on how to close Baltimore's largest budget gap in memory. The 2-cent tariff, which is set to expire in three years, represents a compromise between Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who had proposed a 4-cent tax, and council members who were pressured to oppose the tax by beverage distributors and store owners. Baltimore appears to be the only jurisdiction to pass a bottle tax this year.

ONLY A FEW economic historians are likely to notice that tomorrow marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Hawley-Smoot tariff bill, and even economic historians are unlikely to be nostalgic about that disastrous legislation. Why not leave the bad news of the past in the past? After all, we have our own problems today. Unfortunately, the same kind of thinking that led to the Hawley-Smoot tariffs is still alive and well - and in full youthful vigor - in the media and in politics today.

WASHINGTON -- The government ruled yesterday that Honda avoided an estimated $16.5 million in U.S. tariffs it should have paid on Canadian-built Civics sold in the United States.The U.S. Customs Service said that the Civics -- assembled by the Japanese automaker in Alliston, Ontario, and sold in the United States -- did not have enough North American content to be exempt from U.S. tariffs in 1989 and 1990.The reason, the agency said, is that an aluminum engine Honda builds in Ohio and installs in Canadian-made Civics is more than half foreign in content and value.

GENEVA - The World Trade Organization ruled yesterday that steel import tariffs the United States levied a year ago are illegal, dealing a blow to the Bush administration's plan to rescue domestic producers. The United States said it plans to appeal. The preliminary decision by a three-member panel at the trade arbiter may undercut the ability of U.S. steelmakers such as U.S. Steel Corp. and the International Steel Group Inc. to reduce production and labor costs while raising prices. The European Union, Japan, Brazil, China, Canada and other nations had complained to the WTO that the levies of as much as 30 percent, meant to protect U.S. producers from surging imports, came as shipments were on the decline.

U.S. steel interests reacted angrily yesterday to yet another round of products that are being exempted from the steel tariffs that the Bush administration imposed in March. The Department of Commerce and the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced yesterday another 178 products that will not be subject to the tariffs, which range from 8 percent to 30 percent. That brings the number of excluded products to 727 and covers 3.2 million metric tons of steel - nearly 25 percent of the 13.1 million metric tons of steel included in President Bush's March tariff order.

In yet another effort to make the port of Baltimore more competitive, the Maryland Port Administration said yesterday it will not increase rates for steamship lines next year, despite moves by other East Coast ports to do so.The unexpected decision to hold the line on tariffs came just days after Baltimore dockworkers ratified a five-year contract that employers said was critical to retaining business at the struggling port and for attracting new cargo."

LONDON - Europe girded for a trade battle yesterday after the Bush administration's decision to impose tariffs on steel imports. While temporary tariffs of up to 30 percent may play well in American Rust Belt mills, they're furiously opposed by the 15-member European Union, which vowed yesterday to protect its steel industry and bring the dispute to the World Trade Organization. Criticism of the tariffs was also echoed in large steel-making countries such as China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

Democratic capitalism is in eclipse. From Berlin to Tokyo, governments struggle to instigate enough growth to pay their bills and gainfully employ workers. Meanwhile, anti-democratic but increasingly capitalistic China enjoys breakneck progress. Democratic capitalism is not flawed. Rather, government policymakers, through deceptions, delusions and abuse, are destroying a system that brought mankind from dark, feudal superstitions to cracking the secrets of life. Politicians from Athens to Sacramento — and yes, most certainly in Baltimore too — have deceived voters by telling them that pension systems can be constructed allowing retirement at ages 55 or 60. Whether funded by savings and investments or taxes, no solvent pension system is possible that permits educated professionals, unionized workers and government employees, who get most of the income and benefits, to work only 30 or 35 years and retire for another 20 or 25 years.

President Obama on Sunday called a House-passed energy bill "an extraordinary first step" toward halting global warming and reducing the use of fossil fuels, but he expressed reservations about a controversial provision that would slap tariffs on imports from countries that do not similarly crack down on greenhouse gas emissions. He predicted that the measure would spark innovation and jobs, and that its costs to consumers would fall well short of critics' warnings. "What seems contentious now is going to seem like common sense in hindsight," he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Seven months ago, Pakistanis hoped elections would usher in a brighter era. Instead, skies are darkening. As President Asif Ali Zardari visited the United Nations and met with President Bush this week, Pakistan watchers worried that simultaneous political and economic crises are pushing the country toward disaster. In response, both the administration and its Democratic critics advocate a new round of foreign aid increases. But past aid increases have failed to achieve results. If we expect different results, we need a different approach: an economic policy built upon trade and job creation for Pakistan's people, not just aid to its soldiers and ministries.

Chiquita Brands International Inc. Shares gained 44 cents, closing at $17.08. The produce distributor is poised to gain from a World Trade Organization ruling against the European Union's import tariffs for bananas.

Dealing a blow to a major Western Maryland manufacturer, the U.S. International Trade Commission decided not to slap tariffs on cheaper Asian paper imports. The 5-1 decision to overturn a decision by the Commerce Department to impose anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on coated and glossy paper from China, Indonesia and South Korea could have repercussions for NewPage Corp.'s Luke paper mill, with 950 employees the largest manufacturing plant in Allegany County. NewPage had filed the complaint seeking punitive tariffs, claiming the imports were being illegally subsidized and sold at unfairly low prices.

LUKE, Md. -- China is 7,000 miles away from this speck of a town in the mountains, half a world away. But as a looming economic threat, the country has never seemed so stiflingly close. The paper mill here that employs 950 is feeling the pressure of cheaper Chinese imports. On New Year's Eve, it shut down one of its three huge manufacturing machines and cut 130 jobs, touching off rumors across the tri-state region where employees live that it was only a matter of time before the plant closed.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration exempted yesterday 295 steel products from import tariffs levied a year ago, including wine-barrel strips for Illinois Tool Works Inc. and zinc-coated sheets that Sharp Corp. uses to make microwave ovens. The exclusions, which producers estimate represent 360,000 tons of imports, bring to 995 the products exempted from duties that are as high as 24 percent. A quarter of the 13 million tons of steel imports originally covered by the tariffs imposed by President Bush in March last year had been exempted in subsequent months, according to the Commerce Department.

WASHINGTON - The future of the U.S. shrimp industry and the price Americans pay for shrimp could be affected by a decision tomorrow by the Commerce Department on whether to charge tariffs on foreign shrimp. The tariffs would be imposed if the department determines that foreign shrimp farmers dumped cheap exports on the U.S. market - meaning sold for less than it costs to produce them - in an effort to harm the domestic shrimp industry. The Commerce Department will issue final determinations on tariffs for shrimp producers in China and Vietnam tomorrow, and for Thailand, India, Brazil and Ecuador in December.

In a move that cheered automakers but angered domestic steel producers, the U.S. International Trade Commission yesterday eliminated most of its controversial tariffs on carbon-steel imports. The independent federal agency's ruling ends an unusual, high-profile feud between two American smokestack industries battered by global competition, Big Steel and its major customer, the auto industry. The commission's action will lower the price auto companies pay for steel and bring a similar benefit to other major steel buyers, such as implement makers Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co. Those same lower steel prices promise to pressure profits at many American steel producers.

NATIONAL Ex-FDA chief set to plead Former FDA Commissioner Lester M. Crawford, who was charged by federal prosecutors with lying about owning stock and options in companies regulated by the agency, was to plead guilty to two misdemeanors today, his lawyer said.