In good news to me (bad news to the market today) President Obama has reiterated his stance on tariffs on Chineese tires. Now I know that I am usually pro free market economy, and this may sound protectionist. But the fact is that everything with China is anything but free trade. Mostly this stems from the Chinese pegging their currency to the dollar, which as a result has seriously undervauled the yuan. In recent years this has been changed to a 'basket' of currencies but still puts a huge competative advantage with Chinese manufacturing due to undervalued currency. Ironically this tariff doesn't affect US jobs much- the tires here are the low end and almost non-produced in the US anyway, but its an interesting study. For a good op-ed piece here.
"Last month, Beijing was forced to change its tariffs on imported auto parts after losing an appeal of a WTO ruling in a case brought by the United States, the European Union and Canada. They challenged Beijing's policy of requiring automakers to use at last 40 percent Chinese-made components or pay more than double the usual tariff on imported parts."
From a different source... but sounds free to me, right?
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