“India will review a policy that gave preference to locally made electronics goods in government and private sector procurement, the government said on Monday after protests by trade groups representing global companies such as Apple Inc.,” Manoj Kumar reports for Reuters.
“Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Commerce Minister Anand Sharma will be in Washington this week for meetings with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Trade Representative Michael Froman,” Kumar reports. “India’s federal cabinet last year approved the policy, known as preferential market access (PMA), citing national security.”
Kumar reports, “Last week, U.S.-based trade group the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) said a plan to include private sector purchases in the policy was inconsistent with World Trade Organization rules and suggested it was designed to protect local manufacturing. The ITI represents 52 companies, including Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp, IBM and Intel Corp.”
Read more in the full article here.
Who gives a shit. Apple and Microshaft can suck it.
What about Samsung and Google? Can they suck it too?
good for India, they’re looking out for their own workers first and their own sovereignty…remember when the United States did that back in the pre NAFTA/GATT/WTO days? Back when the US made things and had an economy?
So you’re implying that there’s a down side to globalisation? 🙂
global economy has existed since the Spice Trade routes…the trick is being the one producing and selling the goods. Signing trade agreements that screw your own economy is the biggest threat to national security. Also, it is stupid.
It’s all those damn Canadians sneaking in through New York.
yeah! put em all on Ellis Island and make em brew beer.
signed,
Floyd R. Turbo
(Americun)
free trade has it’s downsides but protectionism isn’t great either even for the country that implements it. If India doesn’t let in the best tech then COMPETING countries who DO have access to the technology will eventually draw ahead and crush it in competition.
China a couple of hundred years ago decided to have ‘Bamboo Curtain’ policy under the Manchus to protect it’s local economy: like SWORD MAKING while the other guys like Japan were making GUNS (tech imported from Western Countries ) . the Manchu emperor famously said “China created everything it needed “. Guess what happened…. 60- 100 million dead chinese, ….
(then Deng decided to open the doors and guess who is building Apple computers now. )
(I don’t mean to be offensive to Chinese people but pointing out a historical fact about the nature of societies and competition. )
Protectionism isn’t the cure, what you need is your society to be able to compete better and harder.That is often HARD and a PAIN in the BUTT (people who lost their jobs to foreign competition want to string me up) but walling yourself off in this day and age is long term suicide.
imagine if the USA walls itself off to US tech only and some dude in europe invents a workable Cheap Hydrogen renewable energy reactor , the USA is not going to use it… ?
If the device is only made in Europe than no Americans will lose jobs by buying it, right?
protectionists will argue you can’t buy it because it will put american workers building oil generators out of work.
Then if other Countries had a source of cheap energy and the USA didn’t….
(this of course is an exaggerated example to illustrate my argument )
Oh, I see your point. In my book that would be pushing protectionism to the extreme–however our attitude on globalization is already pushed to an extreme in the opposite direction. I think it is time for this country to find some balance.
yes it’s difficult issue
you are right: balance is needed.
Who cares what the WTO wants? Screw em
fuck ’em, fuck ’em all.
Delightful repartee.