Trade war TransAtlantic

If you're reading this from within the EU or the USA or a lot of other places you will have heard the same information as a billion other people. A few weeks ago the Trump Administration started to levy a tariff on EU steel and aluminium products imported into the USA. Last Friday the EU retaliated . . . by imposing tariffs on such iconic movie-props as Harley-Davidson motor-cycles, Levi blue-jeans, Skippy peanut butter and Jack Daniels Bourbon whiskey. These seem to be weirdly specific choices to make 25% more expensive in Berlin and Barcelona. Some pundits have been explaining the full Machiavellian plan as targetting key US swing states in the run up to the mid-term elections. As we know from the Bush/Gore election in 2000 AD, Florida is a key swing state; so that is why imported orange juice is now being taxed.  That speaks of a really alert and effective group of EU-employed economists and researchers who know the difference between Smoked Irish Salmon and Smoked Irish Salmon [prev] and are prepared to interfere in the politics of a sovereign state. I can do that too by endorsing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic Congressional Primaries today June 26, 2018: her piece to camera and here The Young Turks expose The Man and The Machine against who she is running. Indo [UK] weighs in. Dang! I had to push this back for a local story. But now the results are in: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has slain the Giant.

Well, of course, it's not really like that, or that simple. The new regulations are highly specific in some ways but more general in others: it's not just Harleys it's any American motorbikes:

• 87115000 Motorcycles, incl. mopeds, with reciprocating internal combustion piston engine of a cylinder capacity > 800 cm³
• 62034231 Men's or boys' trousers and breeches of cotton denim (excl. knitted or crocheted, industrial and occupational, bib and brace overalls and underpants)
• 20081110 Peanut butter
• 22083011 Bourbon whiskey, in containers holding <= 2 l

So you can import a motorbike with a Wankel engine and you're okay to buy denim underpants or bib-overalls from the USA but not jeans. There are also 15 pages of other precisely specified commodities including

• 20098111 Cranberry "Vaccinium macrocarpon, Vaccinium oxycoccos, Vaccinium vitisidaea" juice, unfermented, whether or not containing added sugar or other sweetening matter, Brix value > 67 at 20°C, value of <= € 30 per 100 kg (excl. containing spirit) 

So you're okay if you have a taste for, and a supplier of, Vaccinium arboreum sparkleberry juice.  And there's a lawyer's paradise here because lingonberry is strictly Vaccinium vitis-idaea not Vaccinium vitisidaea. And whereas peanut butter in all its forms (smooth, crunchy) and brands is captured by a single CN number 20081110, the Rice Section of EU bureaucrats had more time on their hands to capture the detail:

• 10063021 Semi-milled round grain rice, parboiled 
• 10063023 Semi-milled medium grain rice, parboiled 
• 10063025 Semi-milled long grain rice, length-width ratio > 2 but < 3, parboiled 
• 10063027 Semi-milled long grain rice, length-width ratio >= 3, parboiled 
• 10063042 Semi-milled round grain rice (excl. parboiled) 
• 10063044 Semi-milled medium grain rice (excl. parboiled) 
• 10063046 Semi-milled long grain rice, length-width ratio > 2 but < 3 (excl. parboiled) 
• 10063048 Semi-milled long grain rice, length-width ratio >= 3 (excl. parboiled) 
• 10063061 Wholly milled round grain rice, parboiled, whether or not polished or glazed 
• 10063063 Wholly milled medium grain rice, parboiled, whether or not polished or glazed 
• 10063065 Wholly milled long grain rice, length-width ratio > 2 but < 3, parboiled, whether or not polished or glazed
• 10063067 Wholly milled long grain rice, length-width ratio >= 3, parboiled, whether or not polished or glazed
• 10063092 Wholly milled round grain rice, whether or not polished or glazed (excl.parboiled)
• 10063094 Wholly milled medium grain rice, whether or not polished or glazed (excl. parboiled)
• 10063096 Wholly milled long grain rice, length-width > 2 but < 3, whether or not polished or glazed (excl. parboiled)
• 10063098 Wholly milled long grain rice, length-width ratio >= 3, whether or not polished or glazed (excl. parboiled)
• 10064000 Broken rice 
• 19041030 Prepared foods obtained by swelling or roasting cereals or cereal products based on rice
• 19049010 Rice, pre-cooked or otherwise prepared, n.e.s. (excl. flour, groats and meal,food preparations obtained by swelling or roasting or from unroasted cereal flakes or from mixtures of unroasted cereal flakes and roasted cereal flakes or swelled cereals)

All of the above are now taxed at 25%. From the detailed description and definition of rice and rice products, kindly supplied by the EU, it looks like brown rice from the USA is okay . . . for now.

Check your forbidden fruit here.