undefined | Better HN

0 pointsJumpCrisscross8y ago0 comments

> Even if it got around a law (which it doesn't), Congress would just write a new one. This doesn't change anything.

The Congress wrote the law, at Boeing's behest, to encourage American manufacturing employment. Airbus and Bombardier's deal sounds an awful lot like it accomplishes that.

0 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

Cacti8y ago· 2 in thread

This has nothing to do with this US employment. This is a trade 'war'. The issue is dumping, subsidies, and foreign competition. Whether the plane is temporarily assembled in the US or not is irrelevant.

JumpCrisscrossOP8y ago

> This has nothing to do with this US employment

The Department of Commerce announced its affirmative preliminary determination in respect of Bombardier's alleged dumping under its countervailing duties (CVD) powers from the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, as amended [1][2]. The Tariff Act was passed "to protect American jobs and farmers from foreign competition" [2].

There is a secondary concern in national security, e.g. if a country's automotive sector is decimated by foreign competition then it can no longer build tanks. But the driving concern behind "trade wars," and certainly this administration's enforcement of them, is employment.

[1] http://enforcement.trade.gov/download/factsheets/factsheet-c...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act#End_of...

Cacti8y ago

You realize that the justification for the action and the reason behind it need not be the same thing, right? The fact that they are citing a law that was, nearly 100 years ago, concerned with employment, doesn’t mean that is why they are doing this. This is a long term strategic calculation and has nothing to do with a few thousand jobs.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse