Trump versus Rwanda in trade battle over used clothes

[spanone]

A worker prepares thread at the the Utexrwa garment factory in Kigali, Rwanda April 17, 2018. Picture taken April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Jean Bizimana

KIGALI/ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Early last year, weeks after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, a little known American trade association filed a petition with the U.S. Trade Representative.

That seven-page letter set Africa in the cross-hairs of the new administration’s ‘America First’ trade ideology, pitting the world’s largest economy against tiny Rwanda over an unlikely U.S. export: cast-off clothes.

In March, the USTR warned Rwanda it would lose some benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), America’s flagship trade legislation for Africa, in 60 days after it increased tariffs on second-hand clothes to support its local garment industry.

“The president’s determinations underscore his commitment to enforcing our trade laws and ensuring fairness in our trade relationships,” Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney said, announcing the decision.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rwanda-usa-trade-insight/trump-versus-rwanda-in-trade-battle-over-used-clothes-idUSKCN1IP0WB

[sandensea]

1. Cast-off clothes - that were almost without exception made in Asia.

MAGA. Make Asia Great Again.

[bettyellen]

2. Great, yep China swoop in and take advantage and pollute all of Africa with their factories

[Hortensis]

3. We're actually trying to stifle garment production in Rwanda?!

Tiny desperately poor and unstable Rwanda's presumably been "cheating" us and we're not going to put up with it any more?

“It delegitimizes so much of what we’ve worked for for so many years,” said Gail Strickler, who served as the top U.S. trade official on textiles until 2015. “I think it’s horrible. I think it’s sad. I think it’s pathetic and I think it’s obscene.”

Yes.

NOVEMBER 6, WE START FIXING THIS BY KICKING THE BASTARDS OUT OUT OF CONGRESS.

[Hortensis]

4. Correction, because Rwanda's authoritarian leader

has imposed a stability that has mostly eliminated "desperate" poverty and allowed enterprises like this one. Guess I was thinking of little Burundi next door.

This is the eternal greed of natural plunderers struggling to break through barriers created by decent people.