The family is exempt
by digby
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| A sweet portrait of father and daughter posed atop copulating parrots |
The steel and aluminum industries in China will soon be slapped with tariffs up to $50 billion by President Donald Trump. On Thursday, after China announced their intentions to retaliate against the United States with $50 billion in tariffs of their own against U.S. goods, Trump warned that his administration would respond with another set of tariffs, this time targeting $100 billion worth of Chinese goods.
Exempt from the proposed tariffs against China, however, is the clothing manufacturing industry.
U.S. officials say they used an algorithm to determine which goods to exclude from new tariffs. According to the Washington Post, the list was drafted to achieve “the lowest consumer impact,” ensuring goods like clothing and toys were excluded so as not to raise the cost on domestic consumer goods.
Exempting clothing from the tariffs provides a big break to American clothing companies that hold trademarks in China. One of those clothing companies belongs to the First Daughter of the United States, Ivanka Trump.
A recent report by the Huffington Post found that the president’s daughter and closest adviser rakes in a total of $1.5 million a year from the Trump Organization while still working at the White House.
Her dual role as adviser to the president and private business executive has continuously raised ethical red flags. No one can be entirely sure that public policy by this administration isn’t being driven by business motives, or whether countries may pursue business deals with the Trump family as a means to curry political favor with the administration.
Actually, I’m entirely sure that any public policy that could help or hurt her and the rest of the Trumps is very much at the center of presidential decisions. Anything that would help or hurt them today is certainly going to be taken into consideration. But I can’t even imagine the scope of the deals that are quietly being made today and held in abeyance until Trump is out of office. They are undoubtedly planning for a windfall in the billions.
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