Inflation, tariffs, and Iran
(Dan here…lifted from comments)
Barkley Rosser writes:
There are two things Trump did that added to inflation that Biden has somehow not undone yet. One of them is reversing the Trump tariffs, which he clearly fears doing because of opposition by Organized Labor and many white working-class voters in the crucial Rust Belt states. Some of them even support tariffs that hurt them personally, such as the autoworkers who lost their jobs at the Lordstown assembly plant in Ohio partly due to Trump’s steel tariff, but who reportedly supported it and him as well anyway.
The other thing is his failure to rejoin the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran, which he should have simply done immediately upon taking office. But he went along with the idea of making demands on Iran to expand the deal such as limiting them from building missiles, which pretty much all experts warned they would not accept, and they have not. Now they are on the verge of having enough enriched uranium to make a bomb.
But rejoining the deal would have allowed for a relaxation of the economic sanctions against Iran, which have it producing only about half a million barrels of oil per day. Before sanctions were reimposed it was producing about two million more barrels per day than that, enough to really impact the global price of oil and help hold down gasoline prices. Instead, we have Biden running hat in hand to MBS in Saudi Arabia to beg him to increase oil production, which I suspect he will not do or do very much.
And Iraq is now attempting to control oil reserves in the semi autonomous Kurdish region.
Oil minister says Iraq to act to annul Kurdish oil deals – ABC News (go.com)
And indeed Biden is going ahead to visit Saudi Arabia this week. I do hope he can get some of the people currently unfairly imprisoned released, but I do not see much else positive to come out of it beyond perhaps entrenching the cease fire in place in Yemen.
His comments on Iran simply make no sense. He listened to the wrong advisers on that matter, and now I fear it is just too late.
Not sure Biden is running “ hat in hand” to Saudi Arabia, but if someone knows did Trump implore the Saudis to cut production during the pandemic, ostensibly to help out US fracking operations, but in reality to help his buddies in Russia?