Ireland's tax policy and budget surplus

[seafoid]

Things are getting awkward.

https://www.ft.com/content/5003b5b9-7d36-49a7-96cc-d5fecc7a0a96
Donald Trump asks arch protectionist Robert Lighthizer to run US trade policy

What will this mean for Apple and co.?

[Nanderson]

Things are getting awkward.

https://www.ft.com/content/5003b5b9-7d36-49a7-96cc-d5fecc7a0a96
Donald Trump asks arch protectionist Robert Lighthizer to run US trade policy

What will this mean for Apple and co.?

Can you post the article text please if you can

[seafoid]

Things are getting awkward.

https://www.ft.com/content/5003b5b9-7d36-49a7-96cc-d5fecc7a0a96
Donald Trump asks arch protectionist Robert Lighthizer to run US trade policy

What will this mean for Apple and co.?

Can you post the article text please if you can

Robert Lighthizer, who was US trade representative when Donald Trump launched his trade war with China, has been asked to take the job again as the president-elect starts to build his cabinet team. Several people familiar with the discussions inside Trump's transition team said Lighthizer had been asked to return to the role even though he was lobbying for a different position, including commerce secretary. Lighthizer had also expressed interest in serving as Treasury secretary, but that position will most likely be offered to a financier, with contenders including the hedge fund managers Scott Bessent and John Paulson. The possibility of an arch protectionist being reappointed to the pivotal trade role is likely to raise concerns in Beijing, as well as among US trading allies, given how influential Lighthizer was during Trump's trade wars during his first term. Trump has vowed to impose high tariffs on all imports into the US, particularly Chinese goods.

Trump had considered Lighthizer for commerce secretary but the people familiar with the personnel discussions said the president-elect was most likely to offer that job to Linda McMahon, the billionaire co-chair of Trump's presidential transition team. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia congressman who is the top Democrat on the influential House budget committee and a senior member of the ways and means committee that oversees trade, said he would welcome Lighthizer's appointment. "When Bob Lighthizer was USTR I worked with him on the [US-Mexico-Canada Agreement]," Boyle said.

"He was bipartisan in his approach and is well respected on both sides of the [political] aisle." Recommended US presidential election 2024 The highs and lows of the 'Trump trade' It remains unclear if Lighthizer will accept the position. He did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Trump also did not immediately respond. Robert O'Brien, who served as national security adviser during the first Trump administration and was viewed as a contender to return to that role or become secretary of state, this week told his private sector consultancy clients that he would not join the administration, said one person familiar with the decision. Lighthizer was highly regarded by Trump and was one of the few top-level officials who did not suffer his wrath during Trump's first term. As Trump's trade tsar, he presided over a turbulent era for global trade as the administration repeatedly hit its largest trading partners — including its allies — with steep levies and tariffs on billions of dollars' worth of imports. A former lawyer for the US steel industry, he frequently clashed with the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, which oversees international trade disputes, calling it a "mess" that had "failed America". His appointment would also signal trouble for Nippon Steel, the Japanese company that has proposed a $15bn acquisition of US Steel. Trump has signalled his opposition to the deal, but Lighthizer would almost certainly argue for blocking the acquisition. Recommended News in-depthUS trade From cars to planes: global manufacturers brace for Trump's tariffs

Lighthizer spent three decades as an attorney at Wall Street law firm Skadden Arps, where he fought imports from China on behalf of the US steel industry, including US Steel. In the early 2000s, he helped persuade George W Bush's administration to impose tariffs on steel imports to protect the US industry. During his previous tenure as trade representative, Washington moved away from trade deals driven by business interests and instead focused on measures designed to reshore manufacturing and protect American workers. Despite this, Lighthizer agreed limited trade deals with China and Japan, and updated the US's deal with Mexico and Canada. Writing in the Financial Times just before the US election, Lighthizer blamed free trade for the loss of American manufacturing jobs and called the US trade deficit "alarming". "Facing a system that is seriously failing our country, Trump has decided that action must be taken," he wrote.

[armaghniac]

If I was Michael O'Leary then I'd say would you ever deliver my bloody planes and the Irish trade surplus would be a lot less.

[Hound]

That article is focused on foreign companies importing stuff into the US. The vast majority of US companies in Ireland service Europe and other non-US markets. Their US companies service the US markets. Tariffs will be bad for trade generally and would impact our big domestic companies, but won't hit Ireland harder than anywhere else.

What we don't want is a reduction in US corporate tax rates down to about 15%. Even that wouldn't cause an immediate problem, but would certainly lead to a drip feed reduction and significantly impact the pipeline of new US companies coming to Ireland.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/11/10/cliff-taylor-ireland-may-be-about-to-find-itself-stuck-between-an-eu-rock-and-an-american-hard-place/
A Danish employers' study based on a model from Oxford Economics business group stated Ireland would be one of the EU member states hardest hit by a full imposition of Trump tariffs, with the potential loss of 30,000 jobs and GDP in 2027 at 4 per cent below what it would otherwise be.

[armaghniac]

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/11/10/cliff-taylor-ireland-may-be-about-to-find-itself-stuck-between-an-eu-rock-and-an-american-hard-place/
A Danish employers' study based on a model from Oxford Economics business group stated Ireland would be one of the EU member states hardest hit by a full imposition of Trump tariffs, with the potential loss of 30,000 jobs and GDP in 2027 at 4 per cent below what it would otherwise be.

Irish GDP declined 3.2% in 2023, GNI* went up 5%.
The point is that Irish exports to the US are not labour intensive, in general. They are high value exports which indicates a big "surplus", but since most of that "surplus" is profit it goes straight back to the US companies shareholders. The jobs will not be much use to MAGA supporters in Rustville, Pennsylvania. Ireland will lose revenue, but fortunately from a high point where some slippage is not ruinous.

[Hound]

Yep, it's the trade war that will hurt Ireland moreso than Trump's tariffs (noting of course that it would be Trump's tariffs that cause the trade war and EU will have no choice but to retaliate). I do think that Danish study has forgotten about how 'leprechaun economics' artificially inflates our GDP and they have inflated the knock on negative impact. But no doubt a trade war will be bad for everyone including Ireland. 

[lurganblue]

Whiskey distilleries wont like this (along with other exporters of course). 

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/11/10/cliff-taylor-ireland-may-be-about-to-find-itself-stuck-between-an-eu-rock-and-an-american-hard-place/


A man called Robert Emmet Lighthizer is tipped to be Donald Trump's "trade tsar" overseeing a key part of his economic agenda. Despite his name, this is not good news for Ireland — or for Europe in general. Lighthizer supports a drastic shift in trade policy and a section of his recent book shows that Ireland — a "tiny island nation" as he calls it — is in his sights.
In Trump's economic philosophy, trade deficits are seen as bad and are portrayed as giving away wealth to other countries. And in terms of trade in goods, the US has a big deficit with Ireland, meaning the value of goods we sell to the United States is well above what we buy from them.
That gap is growing. Trade figures from the Central Statistics Office on Friday showed that Irish exports to the US in the first nine months of the year shot up by 28 per cent to €52.5 billion. From the US point of view, the trade deficit with Ireland so far this year is more than €35 billion. The vast bulk of Irish sales to the US — 80 per cent so far this year — are chemicals and pharmaceuticals, where Irish exports to the US surged by no less than one-third compared to the same period last year. To say the least, it was not a good time for this to happen. And the pharma sector — a big employer and taxpayer — looks exposed as the new administration examines why the US has a big trade deficit with Ireland. Unlike most other big US companies here, it targets much of its exports back to the American market.

"Ireland gets a substantial part of the tax revenue that would normally be due to the US Government, and the pharmaceutical companies employ tens of thousands of Irish workers"
—  Robert Lighthizer

[Don Cockburn]

For a couple of decades now, we've been hearing how the MNC gravy train is coming to an end.
However, US corporations usually tell their lawmakers what to do, instead of vice-versa.
Maybe Trump will turn the tables.

[Rossfan]

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41521019.html