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Actually, most EU tariffs are rather poorly targeted. China is much better at making sure the pain is felt in very specific states and congressional districts
by evgen 6y ago
Actually, most EU tariffs are rather poorly targeted. China is much better at making sure the pain is felt in very specific states and congressional districts to ensure that the message is delivered. Harleys, like wine, is generally considered a luxury good and so makes an easy target.
- r00fus 6y agoWhat's preventing the EU from being more targeted like this? Is it the collaborative deliberation (EU) vs. single-party rule (CN)? Is targeted tariffs something the G8/WTC doesn't like/promote?
- redis_mlc 6y ago> What's preventing the EU from being more targeted like this? The CCP is engaged in spying on the US down to the local politics level as part of their total war strategy. Read about FangFang to see that in action.
- evgen 6y agoTo be honest I am not sure. From what I have read you were right on the first guess. When China applies tariffs it is a single political body making the decisions, while the EU needs to deal with a lot of different national interest groups all applying to get the benefits of tariffs for their product or service. Back when Trump started doing his initial rounds of tariffs and inviting reciprocation from China and the EU the Economist had a nice map that showed the regions impacted by the tariffs from the EU vs. China. The EU tariffs were all over the place and a lot of them hit west coast areas that competed with the EU but had little impact on the decision-making, while the Chinese tariffs looked like a 2016 electoral map. (The latter was probably helped by the fact that China imports more cereal grains from the US than does the EU so they had an easy way to hit midwest and great plains states.)
- rhino369 6y agoIts unseemly to directly get involved in US politics by targeting specific congressional districts to send a message. That's the sort of stuff many Americans were outraged about after the 2016 election.
- brummm 6y agoI don't think wine is seen as a luxury good in most of Europe. Pretty big part of the local culture in most countries (at least France, Spain, Germany, Italy).
- runako 6y agoI think they meant in the country imposing the tariff. Wine is definitely perceived as more of a luxury good in the US than it is in Europe.