FOREIGN POLICY/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on steel and aluminum prompted angry responses from U.S. allies around the globe Friday [3-2-18], driving down stock prices and generating warnings of a possible international trade war.
Allies in Asia and Europe lobbied for a change of heart and took issue with Mr. Trump’s invocation of a little-used Cold War-era law that gives presidents broad discretion to curb imports deemed a threat to national security… The European Union ‘will react swiftly, firmly and proportionally,’ said Alexander Winterstein, a spokesman for the European Commission. The commission, the EU’s executive arm and trade representative for all 28 EU countries, has countermeasures ready to rebalance the situation, he said.
Mr. Trump, who has championed an ‘America First’ trade policy that would turn the U.S. away from globalization, dismissed such warnings… The leading U.S. military allies in East Asia, South Korea and Japan, are both large steelmakers. Germany will also be hit particularly hard.”
-Kwanwoo Jun and Zeke Turner, “U.S. Allies Around the World Steel for Trump Tariff Tussle,” The Wall Street Journal online, Mar. 2, 2018 08:52am