Kiselev: Toilet Paper! Treaties Made With America Not Worth the Sheet They Are Written On

Let's get back to America. By the way, we have a good reason for it. To recap, president Trump announced in March that he would impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum 25% and 10% respectively.

Dmitry Kiselyov:

Let's get back to America. By the way, we have a good reason for it. To recap, president Trump announced in March that he would impose tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum 25% and 10% respectively. He granted a respite till the 1st of June for some countries — Canada, Brazil, Australia and the EU countries. This move is fraught with multi-billion losses for everyone. The respite seems to be for the allies. The latter rushed to negotiate, like, how come? Canada and the EU got indignant most of all.

 

Trump wasn't interested in negotiations, he just put forward his demands. One of the requirements for the EU was to abandon the Nord Stream 2 project with Russia and to make up for the gas shortfall with the expensive American liquefied gas. Europe's answer was evasive, fairly referring to the WTO principles, which Trump is violating. According to the US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, Trump was thinking it over till the last minute and only on Thursday, on the eve of the fixed date, he announced that he hadn't changed his mind. Negotiations went down the drain, America failed to gain traction. No compromise.

What does that mean? From now on Trump treats all the international agreements like a loo roll. He gets as much paper from the roll as he needs.

I almost forgot: The only exception was made for China. The Americans managed to agree to put on hold the trade war with the Chinese. The Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, announced that just on the 20th of May. That was the result of the Chinese-American trade consultations. Trump spent a bit more than a week thinking. And now he announced that he was ready to impose a 25% tariff on Chinese goods too, which is worth 50 billion dollars, in violation of all the agreements. The list of the Chinese goods is not yet made, but Beijing will have got it by the middle of this month.

I imagine quiet rage in Beijing right now, let alone the capitals of the EU and other countries who suffered from further unpredictable steps by Washington.