Tire tariffs and the general cluenessness of the New York Times

I’ve been in this discussion of the Chinese tariff on Brad Delong’s website,

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/09/barack-obama-does-something-really-stupid-tire-tariffs.html

when this article from the New York Times comes in.  Geeze they are totally clueless.

China unexpectedly increased pressure Sunday on the United States in a widening trade dispute, taking the first steps toward imposing tariffs on American exports of automotive products and chicken meat in retaliation for President Obama’s decision late Friday to levy tariffs on tires from China.

China’s response is only unexpected if you know nothing about international trade and Chinese politics.  The Chinese response is perfectly expected if you have the slightest idea of what is going on.  It’s not as if the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, suddenly had a meeting on Saturday when they decides what to do.

Even if you know *nothing* about Chinese politics and economics, the prospect that the Chinese government would impose some sort of tariff in response to Obama’s tire tariff is hardly unexpected.  What would you expect the Chinese government to do, hug and kiss the US trade negotiations and heap love and praise on them.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for imposing tire tariffs.  Sheesssshhh.

Also, saying that maybe you will have the WTO look into something is not a *strong countermove*.

The Chinese government’s strong countermove followed a weekend of nationalistic vitriol against the United States on Chinese Web sites in response to the tire tariff. “The U.S. is shameless!” said one posting, while another called on the Chinese government to sell all of its huge holdings of Treasury bonds.

My God!!!!  This is dumb.  The New York Times is reduced to figuring out what is going on from *BLOG POSTS*.   What’s worse they are mentioning a blog posting without doing something creative like maybe linking to the posts.

So let me get this straight.  Some college student in some internet cafe somewhere starts writing some angry blog posts in between games of World of Warcraft and surfing internet porn.  The New York Times reads this and concludes that China is about to declare economic war on the US.  OK maybe, but can you at least do me the favor of *linking* to that blog post?

But the timing of the announcement — on a weekend and just after the tire decision in Washington — sent an unmistakable message of retaliation. The official Xinhua news agency Web site prominently linked its reports on the tire dispute and the Chinese investigations.

Well maybe can you link to that website?

Also you might try to find someone that can read Chinese, who can point out that the tire dispute isn’t being mentioned very heavily at all on any Chinese website.  Finally, you aren’t getting the hint.  The tire dispute on Xinhua is number two.  If you look at the number one article on any Chinese website (that is, assuming you can read Chinese), you’ll find that the number one article on Xinhua is Hu Jintao visiting the G20 summit to talk about financial regulation.

“Why did our government purchase so much U.S. government debt?” said one posting signed by a “Group of Angry Youths.” It continued, “We should get rid of all such U.S. investments.”

Yes.  The “Group of Angry Youths.”  As we all know the “Group of Angry Youths” is such an important group in Chinese trade policy.  Now that Obama has got the “Group of Angry Youths” upset, we know that there is going to be WAR!!!!!  The Politburo thought that they were going to issue just a formulaic response, but then they started reading the blogs and found out that the “GROUP OF ANGRY YOUTHS” was upset, so Hu Jintao got on the phone and told the Minister of  Commerce,  we need to do something because internet bloggers are after us.

Actually as the day goes on, I expect to see the New York Times gradually change.  Also, if any reporters from the NYT really do want some ideas as to what is going on.  Just go to the discussion on Brad Delong’s blog.

Here the general cluelessness of the NYT is just funny.  The fact that we got into a major war based on “intelligence” that wasn’t much better than this makes it less funny.

Also, I don’t have a problem with the NYT getting it’s news from blog posts and websites, but do you mind maybe *linking* to those sites.