Turkey:You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” The timeless quote by Leon Trotsky aptly describes Turkey’s predicament in the escalating trade dispute triggered by the Trump administration’s decision to slap tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium. Turkey is also targeted, alongside China, the EU, Canada, Mexico and others.
The tariffs have been piling up; the United States has imposed duties ranging between 10 to 25 percent on $74-billion worth of Chinese goods (over 11 percent of overall imports, $635 billion), $26 billion from Canada (little under 5 percent of imports), $11 billion from the EU (1.5 percent), and $6 billion from Mexico (1 percent).
Of course, the Chinese, the Europeans, the Canadians are not sitting by idly. They have all responded with tariff increases of their own. China’s countermeasures are targeting $34 billion worth of American imports, the EU is slapping tariffs on $3.3 billion and so forth. Last month, all affected parties filed complaints at the World Trade Organization (WTO) disputing the U.S. decision and asking for authorisation to retaliate with tariffs of their own.
The United States is not in conciliatory mood. Trump is threatening to increase levies on additional sectors that, in the case of China, would lead to more than 80 percent of imports being hit. European cars have come in the crosshairs as well.
In parallel, the United States has lodged its own complaint with the WTO. Irrespective of its disdain for multilateral institutions, the Trump administration is fighting this battle at the very heart of internationalism – the global trade organisation’s headquarters in Geneva that was once the home of the League of Nations.
