One of the main pillars holding up the platform of which Donald Trump is running for president on is trade, and how the United States continually gets screwed by businessmen and their companies that continually do business outside the U.S. in an attempt to save money. Companies and the billionaires that run them will practically do anything to skirt United States law all in the name of improving their bottom line. There may be no clearer example of these practices than that revealed thanks to a recent Wall Street Journal investigation.
Six percent of the world’s aluminum, worth some $2 billion, was discovered buried in a desert just below the U.S border with Mexico, seemingly there in an attempt to smuggle it into the United States in an attempt to benefit from laws and provisions set forth in the North American Free Trade Agreement. The stash was uncovered after the information obtained in the investigation led to aluminum executive Jeff Henderson flying a plane over the area to check it out.
Once uncovered, fingers immediately began to point back to Chinese billionaire Liu Zhongtian, who runs China Zhongwang Holdings, an enormous industrial aluminum company that would have many reasons to want to save a dollar or two on aluminum deals. When asked about the buried booty Lui told the Journal “These things have nothing to do with me,”.
The attempted dodging of tariffs would be the most recent example of China “cheating on trade“, and further weaken relations President Obama was just in China to help strengthen. The dropping of cheap Chinese aluminum could be devastating to a Unites States market that has seen production in the states from to five aluminum smelters left in the U.S. down from 23 in 2000.
(Via Mic)
