Donald Trump once said trade wars were easy to win. He has changed his tune somewhat. Photo / AP
As a marketing soundbite, it is ingenious. Make America great again. But what happens when one nation decides it is the nation that is to be great and to hell with any knock-on effects?
Around the time of his election, Trump said trade wars were easy to win. However, last
week he proclaimed he had never said trade war with China would be easy. Now there is discussion being had in regard to expanding the tariff war with its northern neighbour.
Canada had acted in the past to reduce the number of dairy farms due to an oversupply of milk at that time. They set up a tightly regulated market in which supply is limited to expected demand. So now exporting milk from the US into Canada incurs high tariffs and the US dairy industry is demanding the president act. In Wisconsin he recently targeted Canada's dairy industry as unfair to America's farmers.
We are witnessing a knock-on effect of the tariff wars being waged. Globally, trade is shrinking, causing the downgrading of projected economic growth, global and individual nations. This in turn has fuelled fears of recession and reserve banks around the globe reacting by lowering interest rates — in many cases to zero or below.
Around one third of government bonds are now offered with negative interest rates. Two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported negative-yielding bonds were valued worldwide at US$15 trillion.
Late last week that had grown to US$17 trillion. It has spilled over into retail banking with Denmark's third largest bank offering a 10-year mortgage rate at -0.5 per cent last week.
Pension funds, insurance companies and big banks are among those buying the negative-yielding bonds. All those investors will receive less money than they had originally invested.
That monetary shortfall will have an impact on societies, both now and in the future. The strategies adopted by policymakers to achieve Trump's rallying call have led us into uncharted waters that future generations will probably not thank us for getting into.
MAX WARBURTON
Whanganui
Do as I say ...
I'm sure Potonga Neilson is correct and research would prove that the English colonisation of New Zealand was "an unlawful invasion".
However, by the same logic, the occupation of the country by his ancestors, the Māori, would also be unlawful unless they had some claim to the land that history has not recorded.
Perhaps he should be careful what he wishes for.
IAN PASHBY
Montsenelle, France
We are the guilty
Well said, John Archer (letters, August 17), but let's take that one step further.
Those manufacturing, mining, transport, retail, airlines giants would not exist if we humans weren't too immersed in our culture of instant self-gratification to stop buying and using their services.
Let's not pass on the blame for the future mass murder of our own grandchildren and great-grandchildren, which is looming. We, ourselves, will be their murderers.
Who allowed this shocking state of affairs to bloom to such proportions? You and I did. Who used those services and demanded the goods, the oil and coal? We did.
Who ignored all the warnings over the decades? You and I.
We are the guilty who have passed those behaviours on to descendants.
So we had all better stop feeding our personal desires for the useless, damaging goods and services that are killing our world. Before you install a new kitchen/bathroom/ shower dome, whatever; ask yourselves, "Is this really necessary?" "Why am I buying this?" Is keeping up with the Jones' the prime driver? Or some other non-essential urge?
Then think of your grandchildren gasping for air and starving in 20 years' time, dying a slow death. And resist the urge.
Mea culpa.
DENISE LOCKETT
Castlecliff
Sexual revolution
Did I see the first light of a new day peeking through the last paragraphs of Keith Beautrais' opinion piece? The sanctioning of marriage and the protection of children?
The world power that led the hippie movement (that is, the sexual revolution) in the '60s has much to answer for.
F.R. HALPIN
Whanganui
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