Trillion-Dollar World Trade Deal Aims To Make IT Products Cheaper

itwbennett writes: A new (tentative) global trade agreement, struck on Friday at a World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva, eliminates tariffs on more than 200 kinds of IT products, ranging from smartphones, routers, and ink cartridges to video game consoles and telecommunications satellites. A full list of products covered was published by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which called the ITA expansion 'great news for the American workers and businesses that design, manufacture, and export state-of-the-art technology and information products, ranging from MRI machines to semiconductors to video game consoles.' The deal covers $1.3 trillion worth of global trade, about 7 percent of total trade today. The deal has approval from 49 countries, and is waiting on just a handful more before it becomes official,

Comments

Re:Sure, ok.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying that my iPhone and Mac aren't made in the USA??????

Those are consumer devices that are nowhere near the level of a MRI machine - that is made in the USA, or at least most of it.

Apple, Microsoft and others are consumer commodity device and software makers.

But what kills me about these trade deals is that they benefit the multinationals. They now can arbitrage worker pay, import workers, etc ... and lower their costs, but yet increase their markets and keep prices the same.

If anyone thinks that "Comparative Advantage" exists in the 21st century, you need to get with the times. Those high tech whatevers have parts, design, assembly done all over the World. And it doesn't matter what industry it is. Your Toyota Camry is more American than the F-35.

The only comparative advantage any country has to offer is who has the cheapest and most educated workers.

Spiral to the bottom.

And the owners - the folks with capital - will be the winners.

Non-tariff barriers?

[nbauman]

What about the non-tariff barriers? https://www.wto.org/english/tr...

That's where they sneak in the provisions about intellectual property rights, "market pricing," "investor-state dispute settlement"?

Is this like the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

Are they going to settle disputes by private arbitrators, whose decisions can't be reviewed by courts or changes by national legislatures?

Free trade with non-free countries?

[mi]

I doubt, free trade with non-free countries is beneficial to humanity. Though one can argue, that it makes such non-free countries more free, it is not at all evident, that that's what happened to China, for example.

Meanwhile, the US is gradually losing freedoms as there appear more and more things we aren't allowed to do or even say, and the list of places requiring identification is growing.

Re:Free trade with non-free countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what? Free trade with the US is bullshit too, because free trade is a lie.

America still heavily subsidizes corn, but insists everybody else stop agricultural subsidies.

America is protectionist of their steel industry, despite being told not to.

America imposes tariffs on softwood lumber, despite WTO rulings against them.

America has instituted Country of Origin labeling requirements, which have been deemed by the WTO as illegal and harmful to anything but US business.

Trade with the US a pretty much a bullshit agreement when American assholes ignore the rules, claim they don't apply, and then whine and complain about hoe undemocratic the WTO is when the rulings don't go their way.

Fuck America. Fuck one sided trade agreements. Fuck you bunch of assholes who refuse to abide the rules you've insisted everybody else to.

America is the most protectionist and dishonest player at the table here.

Why the fuck should the rest of the US sign on to any agreement which improves the ability oft asshole Americans to sell into a country, while simultaneously ignoring their obligations to us?

Free trade with Americans is a fucking joke and a lie. Because America refuses to play by the same rules.

Fuck all of you. Free trade is a fucking libertarian fucking lie.

Worthless cunts.

Re:Free trade with non-free countries?

[Khashishi]

Hasn't China become more free?

Oh please

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

...anytime they say it's going to be "great news for American workers", you know it's going to be the exact opposite. More like, "great news for multinational conglomerates who couldn't care less about individual workers".