Edwardsson: En ny global ordning håller på att ta form

The US and China have reached an agreement on tariffs What does this mean for the US and what does it mean for the rest of the world This is indeed the last major piece of the puzzle If everything works as intended here this is the final major piece for the global trade cooperation that has fallen into place The EU did it about a month ago and since then there have been a series of other agreements India Australia The part that still lingers a bit is Canada and Mexico but that's a bit of a special chapter I'm sure they will also be present here after this All the big real parts that the Chinese promise to gain better control over these chemicals that are part of fentanyl earth minerals and minerals All these really big sensitive parts that have been up and down since January when Trump came back But now it seems that the Chinese have realized they've played this game as far as they can They must reach an agreement because the Chinese economy has been performing so poorly lately This will provide the stability that all markets want China is also re-exporting rare earth metals to Europe which is important for many high-tech industries to continue their production here in Europe This has created many problems for a long time the trade war Elisabeth Svantesson believes it is one of the reasons why Sweden has recovered so slowly economically How does Sweden get affected by the tariffs that exist against Europe when we have had our own free trade agreement with the US As a member of the EU Sweden can't really do much on its own Car tariffs have gone up from practically 0 to 15 percent Depending on the fact that the US had chosen for a long time to be kind and take 0 percent in tariffs on European cars while it was up to 30 percent on American cars in Europe It was one of the major concessions the EU had to make a few months ago As an EU member a customs union belongs to it and one of the pillars of that is a common customs policy If Sweden had not been a member perhaps something better could have been negotiated on its own It's impossible to say it would be counterfactual history if it never finds out Swedish workshop exports to the US are very large They were 117 billion last year Passenger car exports were 40 billion Tariffs are still partially uncertain The US is imposing tariffs on steel very high steel tariffs and products made of steel which a large part of the manufactured products are How can Sweden be affected by this and how does the US reason when it comes to steel tariffs Steel production has a special place in the American economy so to speak historically and otherwise On one hand it is important from a supply and readiness perspective and also because there are still many jobs in the steel industry First of all I would say it's emotional Steel was one of these two three four major things that made the US extremely powerful at the time and this legacy remains both politically and culturally Steel production is largely concentrated in swing states like Pennsylvania and similar ones where parties compete to be as kind to the steel industry as possible Many evaluators including the Swedish National Board of Trade argue that this will hit the United States the hardest The sentiments are similar when talking to people who strongly support free trade How is this discussed in the United States these tariffs This debate is also present here More than in Europe there is a two-sided debate on customs attachés and customs opponents in a way we haven't seen in Europe since the 1980s at least They have certainly had this whole free trade discourse wrong If you just look at this in isolation as economists can and should it is surely costly The thing behind Trump's tariff policy and the whole approach regarding this is to take another step back and look at the bigger picture How much unemployment do low or no tariffs lead to How dependent are we on foreign steel and foreign raw materials and what social problems does unemployment create among blue-collar workers and such The debate is almost entirely absent in Europe because most European countries have more developed social safety nets making these issues less visible in Europe They are hidden in the statistics It's something no one questions Here in the US people look at things in a broader context and also take into account the costs that unemployment and relocations and all that kind of thing lead to Oh well it was a bit but then it didn't get any more than that This total free trade discourse has been taken for granted so much that there's almost no debate Not even trade unions for these debates It's not really the case in Sweden at least to any great extent Maybe in France Germany and England but I wouldn't swear to it So it's a completely different debate here The arguments are the same but as I said the debate is much broader here Sweden is truly a country that advocates free trade If you look at France they are much more protectionist Also other countries in Europe are similar Just before Just before meeting with Xi Jinping Trump decided that the US would conduct the first nuclear tests since 1992 What does this decision signal It must be placed in a historical and global context For Russians and Chinese they have continued to develop new generations of nuclear warheads while the US practically abandoned further development in the 90s It's at the very least that American nuclear weapons are starting to become obsolete So it's rocket technology and everything else but this is also technology that one can't do much with Those who understand it say that sometimes you have to test new techniques for maximum impact But this must be viewed from a global perspective as it relates to the United States' deterrent capability against Russia and China There are also a number of new nuclear weapon states in India Pakistan and North Korea that must be taken into account here Trump is certainly not the type to be afraid of making controversial decisions He would have been it otherwise it would have probably been whoever becomes president in 2028 It was scheduled to happen I would say it's on its way to being resolved I would be very surprised if this isn't solved within another week maybe even sooner For the price is starting to get so high politically for the Democrat But this time they have at least partially handled and won the media war in a different way so the opinion is much more 50-50 this time than it usually is It now seems that voices are beginning to emerge from the back benches of the Senate from the Democrats saying this has gone too far and it's costing too much Among other things for the first time in probably over a hundred years one of the largest labor unions here in the US which represents public employees turned to the Democrats and said "That's enough you have to give this up " Access to the web for just 49 kronor the first month