I’m not surprised Tancredo did something boneheaded – he’s done that before. But I am worried this might pass. Because then the WTO will grant retaliatory tariffs, and the U.S. will have ruined yet another part of her reputation for nothing other than petty grandstanding.

Nick, I looked through Tancredo’s legislative record, and in the 109th Congress, he was part of a resolution to resume normal diplomatic relations with Taiwan (Res. 69). Res. 76 was another he was on. It also supported Taiwan. I’m sure there’s much more to be found…

Josh, regarding MENA, he’s on the Africa subcommittee. I wonder if that has anything to do with his lack of listing African states.

Now if Tancredo had put down Republic of China (aka Taiwan), that really would’ve caused a stink … but as it, there’s a note in the original bill excluding Taiwan from the definition of China.

I think this bill resembles an early-day motion in the House of Commons (UK), where an MP suffering from ADD puts down a headline-grabbing motion for debate without any expectation of legislative action.

(c)(1)(C) also gives the President broad authority in leveraging tariffs, basically allowing him, aside from the illogical blacklist in (c)(1)(A), to mark any country that displeases him as “non-market” and thus subject to tariffs.

If this gets through Congress (which I’d put at 50/50), I will LOVE watching most of the WTO (esp. member countries China and Vietnam) file official complaints.

I’m thinking that right after they wrote down “Republic of China” they didn’t put much thought into the rest of the list.