Los chinos que dejen de LLORIQUEAR, menos producir MIERDA con obra de mano ESCLAVA y más CONSUMIR... Ahora tocal consumil chinito buenol...

EU threatens legal action over American car industry bail-out

Brussels could dispute Obama administration's rescue package before World Trade Organisation

The EU today threatened legal action and retaliatory measures against the US if the Obama administration enshrines a "Buy American" clause in its multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package.

Brussels – concerned about protectionist measures in India, Russia and elsewhere – said it could take the US to the World Trade Organisation for breaching treaty rules on government procurement.

Its warning came just a day after Joaquín Almunia, EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner, pointed to "clearly protectionist measures" emanating from Washington. The EU ambassador to Washington has expressed similar concerns.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, told the World Economic Forum in Davos last week: "We must not allow market forces to be completely distorted. I'm wary of seeing subsidies injected into the US auto industry. That could lead to distortion and protectionism."

European ministers, including Lord Mandelson, UK business secretary, have called for a transatlantic pact on measures to bail out carmakers, including access to any capital and lending schemes.

The European auto industry is demanding the right to join in the American loan guarantee scheme for General Motors and Chrysler and is requesting a €40bn (£36bn)EU scheme – in which GM and Ford, with European plants, would participate.

Yesterday a spokesman for Lady Ashton, EU trade commissioner, said: "If the provisions that are finally passed by the US Senate and approved by President Obama infringe the provisions of the GPA [general procurement agreement], to which the US is a signatory, then this is something we will have to consider taking them to the WTO over."

The stimulus package now before the Senate contains amendments to that approved by the House of Representatives last week.

The most contentious clause in EU eyes would require US firms to use local steel and other components in state-funded projects. Similar national measures have been adopted or considered in Argentina, China, Indonesia, Ecuador, India, Russia and Vietnam, putting them on a WTO *surveillance list.

The EU ambassador to the US, John Bruton, a former Irish minister, told the White House and Congress in a recent letter: "Resorting to measures that may effectively close markets from foreign operators cannot be considered the right or effective response to the situation."

But, amid fears that the US and other countries could trigger a 1930s-style "Great Depression" through protectionist blocks on trade, the European commission warned of similar moves in Europe.

Questioned about French moves to buttress the country's car industry and other sectors in a €10bn aid programme, officials said the plan would require firms to source components solely from France, keep only the French plants open and scrap plans to "de-localise" jobs to elsewhere in the EU.

Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, is due to warn French ministers tomorrowin talks in Brussels that state aid must not only comply with competition rules but also with EU laws on freedom of movement and capital. She will urge the French and other European countries to avoid political pressure for protectionism and assert the job-creating potential of the EU's single market. "They have to realise that once they start down that protectionist path it's a descent into chaos," her aides said.

EU threatens legal action over American car industry bail-out | Business | guardian.co.uk

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Las instituciones mimarán a Renault si sigue en Valladolid

# La Junta y el Gobierno darán las ayudas si llega más carga de trabajo.
# CC OO exige, en cambio, que devuelva las subvenciones.

Las administraciones dejaron ayer claro que mimarán a Renault si se compromete con Castilla y León, si adjudica un nuevo vehículo, convencional o eléctrico, que garantice el futuro de la fábrica de Valladolid.

El vicepresidente de la Junta, Tomás Villanueva, y el ministro de Industria, Miguel Sebastián, hicieron ayer declaraciones públicas en favor de la multinacional. El primero aseguró que la Junta «va a apoyar a Renault como históricamente lo ha hecho» porque, en su opinión, Castilla y León debe liderar el sector del coche eléctrico.

El segundo dijo que la empresa automovilística tiene todo el apoyo del Gobierno. Espera que presente un proyecto al Plan de Competitividad estatal, dotado con 800 millones. El plazo termina en diez días, fecha en la que se sabrá si concurre a estas ayudas.

Todo lo contrario

En cambio, el sindicato CCOO exigió que Renault devuelve las últimas subvenciones que recibió de la Junta, aprobadas en marzo de 2008, para la formación de 4.152 trabajadores hasta 2010 (1.925 el año pasado). El sindicato considera que se ha incumplido el acuerdo puesto que desde el 23 de marzo se despedirán a 400 eventuales en Palencia al suprimirse el tercer turno.

Renault alegó ayer que la situación de Palencia, que también afecta a Valladolid, se debe a la caída de un 8% de las ventas del Megane, el producto estrella.

Hoy, marcha hasta el Ecyl

Los trabajadores realizarán este miércoles una marcha como protesta por la situación de la compañía y para que el presidente del Grupo, Carlos Ghosn, vea la situación de incertidumbre por la que pasa la fábrica vallisoletana.

Los trabajadores partirán desde Montaje, cuando salgan a las 14 horas, hasta las oficinas de empleo de la Junta (Ecyl) ubicada en el paseo Arco de Ladrillo. Además, el próximo 12 de febrero acudirán a París, fecha en la que Ghosn dará los resultados económicos.

Las instituciones mimarán a Renault si sigue en Valladolid - 20minutos.es

No es exactamente proteccionismo pero por ahí van los tiros.

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Falling US dollar sparks protectionist retaliation

CHINA slapped a 36 per cent tariff on nylon imports last week as part of its continued retaliation against the Obama administration's 25 to 35 per cent duties imposed on its tyre imports from China.

China has also started anti-dumping investigations on US chicken and car parts imports.

They are minor disturbances in the vast flow of trade between the two countries, but are a sign of things to come if, as seems likely, Asia's recovery proceeds much more rapidly than those of the US and Europe.

The unequal pace of recovery is already making global imbalances worse and introducing new tensions to global relations.

The market's judgment of the severity of financial problems confronting the US has sent the dollar on a slide since March.

This is greatly increasing the competitiveness of US exporters, but with the Chinese yuan and a range of other Asian currencies, including the Thai baht, the Vietnamese dong and the Hong Kong dollar, more or less roped to the US dollar, they too are gaining great export advantage.

The US dollar has fallen by about 14 per cent on a trade-weighted basis since March but, excluding China and other currencies linked to the US dollar, the fall has been more than 20 per cent.

The US dollar is now approaching levels not seen since the crisis of 1971 when the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates collapsed.

Australia is unique in regarding its rising dollar as a kind of manifest destiny -- every other country suffering from a rising currency is screaming. The Bank of Canada's latest economic review said the strength of the Canadian dollar was acting as a drag on recovery and its governor, Mark Carney, declared last week that "intervention is always an option".

The euro hit a 14-month high of $US1.50 last week, despite European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet only a few days previously calling for US policy-makers to pursue a "strong dollar" policy.

Last week the Brazilian authorities responded to the flood of capital entering and pushing the value of its currency higher by imposing a 2 per cent tax on foreign portfolio investment.

Central banks of those Asian countries that do not keep their currencies in a tight band with the US dollar, including South Korea, Taiwan, The Philippines and Indonesia, have all intervened in the last month to stem their rise in value.

At the moment, most of the global focus is on the currencies and the action of central banks, but it can only be a matter of time before the fall-out on trade fires protectionist moves at a political level. Trade action is likely to be aimed squarely at China, particularly if its economy is seen to be achieving respectable growth while those of Europe and the US remain depressed.

In Australia, the view from Treasury is that a strong local dollar is part of the necessary adjustment to our long-term future as Asia's preferred supplier of resources.

However, the Rudd government will not remain deaf for long to the pleas of manufacturing industry, or to the plight of Queensland's tourism industry or the university sector nationwide.

World trade is showing a slight improvement, with volumes rising 0.5 per cent in the three months to July. But trade remains 11.1 per cent lower than it was a year ago, so competition in the reduced export markets is fierce.

A report in The New York Times shows that China is winning market share in the US at the expense of other exporters.

"Those market share gains are threatening to increase trade frictions with the US and Europe," the report says.

China has overtaken Canada as the biggest supplier to the US in the past year, its imports rising from 15 to 19 per cent while Canada's have dropped from just under 17 per cent to 14.5 per cent.

The cheap currency countries -- China and the US -- recorded falls in their exports to the world of 22 and 24 per cent respectively, whereas high currency Germany's sales were down 34 per cent and those of Japan were down 37 per cent.

The New York Times report noted that in some markets China was achieving absolute gains in sales.

In knitwear, for example, US imports from China rose by 10 per cent in the first seven months, while purchases from Latin America were down by between 19 and 24 per cent.

The leaders of the G20 nations vowed at their first summit, in the heat of the crisis last November, to "refrain from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing World Trade Organisation (WTO) inconsistent measures to stimulate exports".

The ink was barely dry on the grandly titled Washington Declaration before the new Obama administration allowed a "buy American" clause to be slipped into its stimulus bill.

The UK-based Centre for Economic Policy Research has since tracked 121 blatant violations of the pledge by G20 nations. "A G20 nation has broken the no-protectionism pledge every three days," the centre says. Russia, India, Indonesia and Germany have been the worst offenders.

About a third of these measures have been government bailouts of locally owned industries, 15 per cent have been tariff measures, 14 per cent were direct trade measures such as anti-dumping, while public procurement, local content requirements, export subsidies and outright import bans have all been used to protect domestic industries.

The increasing tension created as nations and industries emerge from the crisis at different speeds will be on show at the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs in Scotland on November 9, and at the APEC economic leaders summit in Singapore a week later.

There will be talk at those meetings, as there has been at international gatherings of economic officials for almost a decade, of achieving a "speedy" conclusion to the Doha trade talks. Trade minister Simon Crean has been attempting to restyle the trade round as an "economic stimulus", arguing that trade multiplies the benefits of economic growth. "What sort of nonsense is it for us to be talking about co-ordinating fiscal stimulus strategies unless we're going to co-ordinate as well the multiplier," Crean says. "And that's why this government in particular needs to get the message that Doha ain't just a trade round. Doha is fundamentally about an economic stimulus."

But at the heart of the multilateral trade negotiations is a bargain in which every country agrees to make individual sacrifices in order to achieve a greater shared gain. No one will be prepared to make sacrifices if the gains from trade are seen to be flowing overwhelmingly in one direction.

Falling US dollar sparks protectionist retaliation | The Australian

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Por que no nos decidiremos ya por compartir en este planeta?

Que estas cosas no se saben como empiezan pero se sabe como acaban..
Que todos sabemos ser muchísimo mas hijos de puta que el otro cuando nos la hacen.
Y no todos saben reprimirse aun.

¿No tenemos ya suficiente historia escrita cometiendo los mismos errores?
A que es que a algunos les interesa, discúlpenme...

Pero leyendo el articulo de la crisis en el diario El Pais, como que se me recalienta el cerebelo oches.

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