President Donald Trump has issued a series of tweets on trade and tariffs, showing no signs of backing down from threats of a trade war.
‘When you’re almost 800 Billion Dollars a year down on Trade, you can’t lose a Trade War! The U.S. has been ripped off by other countries for years on Trade, time to get smart!,’ Trump wrote on Saturday.
It followed noisy threats of reprisal from Canada and the European Union on Friday, when Trump allowed those countries’ exemptions from steel and aluminum tariffs of 25 and 10 per cent to expire.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded by slapping retaliatory tariffs on $12.8billion worth of US goods, including metals, toilet paper, mayonnaise and handkerchiefs. EU leaders have also threatened a tariff counter-strike.
Trump sounded unfazed by the threats in his latest tweets, however, making the case that his tariffs are necessary in order to restore balance to America’s trade relations.
Trump fired off a series of tweets on Saturday evening saying that the US has nothing to lose in a trade war, sounding unfazed by Canadian retaliatory tariffs and EU threats
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (right) responded to the steel tariff by slapping retaliatory duties on $12.8billion worth of US goods, including toilet paper and mayonnaise
‘The United States must, at long last, be treated fairly on Trade,’ he wrote earlier on Saturday.
‘If we charge a country ZERO to sell their goods, and they charge us 25, 50 or even 100 percent to sell ours, it is UNFAIR and can no longer be tolerated. That is not Free or Fair Trade, it is Stupid Trade!’
The weighted average tariff that the US imposes on all imports is 1.5 per cent, according to 2016 World Bank data.
Last year, the US ran a $796billion trade deficit with the rest of the world. China accounted for the largest share of the deficit, at $375billion.
However, the US also ran significant trade deficits with the EU, at $151billion, and Canada, at $17.5billion.
Canada is America’s largest source of imported steel, accounting for about 17 per cent of US steel imports by volume.
However, some critics accuse Canada of buying cheap Chinese steel and flipping it in the US for a profit, using NAFTA as a backdoor for China to avoid US anti-dumping regulations. Canada denies the charge and last week launched a probe into Chinese steel dumping.
Trudeau is set to host Trump for the G7 summit next week in Quebec’s Charlevoix region.
This map shows the top 10 countries that export steel to the US, and their share of the total
Earlier Saturday, Trump lashed out at the business press, which has largely responded with horror at the prospect of a trade war.
‘Why is it that the Wall Street Journal, though well meaning, never mentions the unfairness of the Tariffs routinely charged against the U.S. by other countries, or the many Billions of Dollars that the Tariffs we are now charging are, and will be, pouring into U.S. coffers?’ Trump wrote.
Fears of a trade war were triggered by the expiration on Friday of steel tariff exemptions for US allies. Australia negotiated a side agreement and continues to be exempt, as did Argentina and Brazil.
Trudeau on Thursday made an emotional appeal, citing Canada’s war dead who fought alongside America in WWII and Afghanistan, while taking a swipe at Trump.
‘Americans remain our partners, friends, and allies,’ Trudeau said. ‘This is not about the American people. We have to believe that at some point their common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the US administration.’
Earlier on Saturday, Trump fired off a range of early-morning tweets praising US jobs growth and slamming the CIA, Democrats and the Mueller probe.
First, he tweeted the words of New York Times economics reporter Neil Irwin who, in a glowing assessment of the economy on Friday, wrote an article under the headline ‘We Ran Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are.’
Trump tweeted the headline along with a credit to Irwin.
Next, he moved on to Fox And Friends and its coverage of former CIA Director John O’Brennan who, on Friday, penned a scathing piece in The Washington Post about the president.
President Trump fired off three tweets on Saturday morning from Camp David
On Fox and Friends, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino labeled Brennan a ‘liar’ and suggested his word was not to be trusted.
He said: ‘John Brennan, no single figure in American history has done more to discredit the intelligence community than this liar. Not only is he a liar, he’s a liar about being a liar.’
One of Trump’s targets was Obama’s CIA director John Brennan
It was in reference to Brennan’s alleged role in the compiling of or leaking of the infamous ‘dirty dossier’ about Trump which was put together at the request of the Clinton campaign during the election but which contained unsubstantiated and widely disputed claims about the president’s dealings in Russia.
On Friday, Brennan wrote: ‘The esteem with which I held the presidency was dealt a serious blow when Donald Trump took office.
‘Almost immediately, I began to see a startling aberration from the remarkable, though human, presidents I had served.
‘Mr. Trump’s lifelong preoccupation with aggrandizing himself seemed to intensify in office, and he quickly leveraged his 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. address and his Twitter handle to burnish his brand and misrepresent reality.’
Trump tweeted the remark along with another of Bongino’s about the ongoing special counsel probe into Russian interference in the election.
‘$17 million spent, it’s a scam Investigation. Americans are being worked. We now know there was Russian collusion, with Russians and the Democrats.
‘The Mueller team is stacked with anti-Trumpers, who actually represented Clinton people (& gave $’s to Crooked H,’ Trump wrote, crediting Bongino again.
A few hours later, apparently with itchy fingers, he resumed his tweeting.
First, he credited golfer Byron Nelson by responding to a PGA tweet about hsi 1945 season.
‘Now this is a record that will never be broken!’ Trump said.
Next, he retweeted Kim Kardashian West, with whom he met earlier in the week to discuss prison reform.
Kardashian West had asked him to pardon Alice Marie Johnson, a first-time offender who is serving a life sentence for a ‘non violent drug offense’.
Later, Trump resumed his tweeting and spoke of a variety of subjects with very little connection to one another, if any at all
Trump has not yet said whether he will let Ms. Johnson go free.
After retweeting the reality TV star, the president moved on to posting a video of his ‘weekly address’.
Next, he tweeted his surprise about a New York Times article which reported Defense Secretary Jim Mattis accusing Beijing of using intimidation and ‘coercion’ to get its way in the South China Sea.
‘Very surprised that China would be doing this?’ he said, seemingly bemused.
After his brief reference to China, it was back to Fox News and his sworn enemy CNN.
‘Real Fox News is doing great, Fake News CNN is dead!’ Trump wrote in response to a post about each network’s ratings.
The president is tweeting from Camp David where he is spending the weekend with his family.
They departed the White House en masse on Friday but the First Lady was notably absent.
Melania has not been seen for 22 days since undergoing kidney surgery in Maryland.
She is said to be back at the White House but is yet to make a public appearance.
The president will hold meetings this weekend in preparation for his eagerly anticipated summit with Kim Jong-un on June 12.
The pair are scheduled to meet in Singapore in what will be a historic moment after decades of hostility between North Korea and the West.
President Trump is at Camp David for the weekend where he will prepare for his looming summit with Kim Jong-un. He is pictured leaving the White House on Friday
Ivanka and Jared Kushner joined the president along with his daughter Tiffany. There was no sign of the first lady