Of Roberto Pecchioli
Cicero to your domo is the title of a famous speech by Marcus Tullius Cicero, with which the great jurist requested the restitution of the land on which his house stood. It has remained proverbial as an expression of blame for those who defend an exclusively personal cause, it could be an accusation made against the author of these notes, who writes a praise of duties having worked as a customs official. At least we will give ourselves credit for mastering the subject, returned to the fore following American President Trump's decision to impose heavy duties on imports of solar panels from China and washing machines and other household appliances from South Korea.
It is our belief that the US measure is correct and re-establishes a principle of political supremacy, or the national interest, on naked globalizing reason. America first, America first, it seems equally right to us as a desirable "Italy first" from our rulers. Passing by, We remind you that the import of solar panels has led to various scams against the Italian state in recent years. The EU did not place tariffs on Chinese-made panels, who soon became monopolists on the market, and Italy granted reduced VAT to 10 percent for those who did not limit themselves to marketing the manufactured goods, but he took care of its installation or made direct use of it. This is just an anecdote, The concrete fact is that the imposition of duties is one of the most important expressions of a State's economic policy, ultimately, of its concrete sovereignty.
There are traces of the importance of public customs and tax collection since 2.500 years ago, when goods entering the Greek port of Piraeus were subject to a tax of 2 percent on the value: the first import duties, called pentekostès. It was Rome that invented the word date, what is given, to define the transit tax on goods and people. The term customs itself has an ancient history. It comes from Turkish diwan, which designated the place on the Bosphorus where taxes were collected on goods in transit, both the mobile (Sofa) on which the dignitary in charge sat. The first Italian organic customs tariff, a list of products with a name and description for tax purposes dates back to the 18th century, for the textile sector, protagonist of the first industrial revolution in England, followed the inventions of machinery such as the spinning wheel (1770) and the mechanical loom (1786).
Today, a customs tariff of thousands of pages is adopted worldwide, organized into chapters and "customs entries", which identifies every artefact or product of nature. The European Union tariff with the indication of the tax treatment for the import and export of each type of product is unique for the 28 States, free trade area not burdened by internal duties and holder of a common customs policy towards third countries.
And give, In short, they are a very serious thing, so much so that the Davos party's hysterical reaction to Trump, the exclusive and dictatorial circle of globalists interested in the planetary free market, it was really strong. We listened to piquant lessons on free trade from a giant, at dinner, formally communist which certainly does not encourage free imports into its immense internal market. There was no shortage of Angela Merkel's integrity, an angry tear after three quarters of a century of subjection of the vanquished. The fact is that Germany, in tandem with China, it is the exporting nation par excellence, and boasts an annual trade surplus of well 287 billions of euros, which, among other things, is in conflict with European rules. Who's in charge, you are, he does what suits him. The reactions from the French and Italian sides were equally annoyed. The lay brothers are the most ardent: the former communists recycled into bitter defenders of the free market and the abolition of tariffs would be endearing if they did not work against the interests of their own electorate.
So let's try to clarify, starting from the circumstance that, like it or not, Trump's economic policy has two objectives in line with the electoral promises that brought him to the White House. The first, to be achieved through massive tax breaks, is to reindustrialize America, giving it back that role of queen of manufacturing that it has lost. Let's not forget that in the years following the victory of 1945 the US economy represented the 50 percent of world trade and this share has been reduced by half.
The other purpose is to contain the advance, so far irresistible, of the Beijing Dragon, holder of a large portion of the immense American public debt. The duties imposed represent a typical measure of commercial policy towards direct competitors of the industrial sectors that we choose to strengthen. The complaints of the fake or real free traders therefore leave the time they find. It's another thing to realize that such a powerful nation, champion of liberalism and the master market, when its interests are threatened, reacts exactly as every power has always done throughout history, protecting itself, erecting tariff barriers, defending the internal market.
Protectionism, ultimately, it is the normal condition of the commercial policy of all states. The most desirable situation is to sell more than you buy and the term mercantilism has represented this model for centuries, of which the France of the great minister Colbert was an expression, for over twenty years in the service of Louis XIV, the Sun King. The recipe is deceptively simple: since the wealth of the State is monetary accumulation, it is essential to acquire currency through exports while limiting the outlay for imports. It doesn't have to be nonsense, if Germany and China, large commercial creditors, they are so nervous about American tariffs.
Let's not forget the importance of currency leverage, which fueled the Italian boom in the post-war years up to the cage of the euro. The competitive devaluation of the lira was putting the wind in the sails of our exports, together with the brilliant capacity for work and problem solving(ah, the new language of the English-speaking scholars!), fueling one of the best seasons in our history. Today it's the USA's turn, accused not without foundation of manipulating the value of the dollar downwards and China, which artificially keeps the yuan at lows. With the single European currency, on the contrary, Germany achieved the devaluation of the old by other means, Marco is very strong and is eating up the economies of those who haven't understood the game, in the first place Italy.
After all, our tariff policy has long been based on the selective use of the tariff lever. From us, the countries of the world were divided into three zones, A, B, C. Only Japan belonged to the latter, which for decades was our direct competitor, against which very high duties and import bans were imposed, the most severe of which kept Fiat safe from Japanese competition in the automotive sector. Now Marchionne has turned his back on Italy and is taking advantage of the advantages of US fiscal and commercial policy with the FCA in Detroit. Zone B included the communist bloc states, for whom there was a closure policy with exceptions, represented by the regime of ministerial authorizations and the interests of large industry. Fiat built a large plant in the Soviet Union, with the founding of the city called Togliattigrad in honor of leader Italian communist.
Zone A was in turn divided into three groups. The first included the European Common Market of the time, the second the rest of Europe and the richest countries such as the USA, while the third brought together Africa and South America in the large group of developing countries, Developing Countries, with unilateral preferential customs treatment, on the model of the most favored nation clause well known to international law. Tariff levels were modulated to support our role as a transformative economy, avoiding duties on raw materials, at the same time defending with high input taxes those industrial sectors that would have been damaged by massive imports.
At the same time, exports were supported, abolishing bans and duties on exit, as well as taxing the so-called drawback, or the refund to exporting companies of the duties incurred on the importation of re-exported or processed products and materials. The chronic slowness of VAT refunds through the mechanism was also treated as an opportunity ceiling, which allowed exporters to purchase goods of foreign origin without tax as a discount on VAT payments.
Residual export bans came – and remain- maintained for political reasons. No weapons are sold, computer systems or chemicals to states with which we have bad relations; plus there is the system of embargo and ministerial authorizations. Today we are witnessing serious losses for Italian companies working on the Russian market and energy supply is more expensive, which shows how important national sovereignty is. An independent Italy would hardly have imposed sanctions against Russia, from which no territorial disputes divide us, nor economic disputes or irreconcilable political conflicts, cheap energy supplier, buyer of the leading products of our economy. We know who to thank.
The duties resemble the locks of a river. Depending on your needs, the bulkheads can operate at different speeds: more or less water passes based on the choices of the authorities or the availability of the water resource. What cannot be done is to completely close the flow; at all times and under every sky, man has traded with neighbors and also with those far away. The customs, Always, she identified herself with a border, a dividing line, a place of decision, inside or outside. Today it is fashionable, in deference to economic liberalism combined with its double, cultural universalism, the cloying expression “building bridges, breaking down walls". We claim that this is nonsense disguised as virtuous common sense. Men have always built bridges, but at the very moment in which they joined two shores, they recognized its distinct existence, they took note of the distances and convergences of those who lived on the sides.
A recognized and respected frontier, from which arise duties of identification and commercial limitations of which duties are the symbol, it is a place of knowledge, drive belt, acknowledgment of differences which are both recognized and neutralized by the presence of a mobile barrier, that opens, but which can also close, the customs line, the border. Philology rarely lies: border comes from with the end, have a common limit. It is obvious that every border must open, but under certain conditions, established criteria are observed. The economy, trade are part of men's lives, who sometimes put up walls or barriers to protect themselves. Open indiscriminately, abolish the limes, it limits, the barrier, exposes it to incalculable risks. It is no coincidence that engineering works such as the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall exist.
The euro currency, about it, It presents a symbolism that leaves no doubt: no images of great men, re o regine, no iconography linked to recognizable works of art by the European genius, only stylizations of bridges and windows. No limes, no border lines, no more customs. Everything and everyone can come and go without control and in the absence of political judgment, indeed the pre-judgment is that there should be no limits. Cultural madness that becomes practical impotence and the free unfolding of destructive forces. John Keynes called them animal spirits of capitalism and Joseph Schumpeter, more imaginative, creative destruction.
The ideology of free trade does not stand the test of reality. This is not only demonstrated by the controversy over Trump's tariffs, but the European Union itself. Indeed, towards various states, from Russia to Ukraine, from China to Malaysia up to Bangla Desh, a wide range of so-called tariffs remain in place antidumping. These are very heavy impositions that the EU reserves for productions, companies, countries in direct competition with the continental industrial system. Unfortunately, the law is that of the strongest, thus it is Germany above all that benefits from the additional duties to protect its industry. Italy has requested measures in favor of our manufacturing in vain, opposed by the countries of central and northern Europe. About it, It is surprising that responsible political leaders promise the institution of new duties, pretending to ignore that this is a matter of exclusive community competence, exactly like the proceeds that derive from it.
Globalist free trade is the result of neoliberal ideology at the time of the historical defeat of real twentieth-century communism. Not by chance the old GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) has transformed into the very powerful World Trade Organization (WTO) American-powered, promoter of the Marrakesh agreements e, subsequently, in Doha. A Marrakesh, at the end of the Uruguay Round negotiations, after the end of the USSR the entire architecture of global trade was redesigned, with the progressive and massive reduction of duties and the general opening of the markets, total surrender after China's admission to the WTO, on December 11th 2001, a date destined to change the history of the world, the true beginning of the third millennium. In Doha there was a partial victory for protectionism, especially in the agricultural sector. The countries of the North of the world defended their respective agricultural productions, also inflicting a very hard blow on the hopes of the Third and Fourth World. A sign that the ideology of free trade can and must be derogated.
Local agriculture and livestock farming defend the environment, they preside over the territory, allow the maintenance of typical features, they preserve biodiversity and transmit the immense peasant material culture of which we are children and debtors. In Europa, for decades the cornerstone of the community was agricultural policy. The PAC system (community agricultural policy) was aimed at supporting the various national productions with a vast system of cash aid for exports. Italy, Unfortunately, he was unable to defend his reasons, and we had the milk war, the supremacy of Franco-German interests, the abandonment of Mediterranean crops, with the associated scandalous destruction of entire production chains.
Even without help, cornered by the abolition of limits and duties, Italian farmers are still standing, authentic civilian heroes of a disarmed nation, so much so as to have increased exports and decreased Italian food dependence on foreign countries. All this in the face of marketism whose only belief is to produce exclusively what cannot be purchased at lower prices, read relocations, exploitation, slavery. It is the dark lesson of David Ricardo, but in practice the British Empire extorted textile production from the Indian subcontinent, prohibited the use of looms on site to concentrate production in the homeland; the Manchester model, facade free trade, mercantilism imposed by force.
Today we face new problems, the scenarios are completely different: e-commerce is advancing, that crosses and escapes borders, new global players are throwing trade mechanisms and tax systems into disarray. Just think of Amazon to realize how necessary a different way of acting is by public powers in large spaces like the EU which are no longer able to impose and enforce rules and collect taxes from the new giants. In the end, the people remain defenseless, all of us, that we had the only collective protection in the States.
What Montesquieu called sweet trade has turned into a global trap, without the utopia of perpetual peace having been achieved. Let's think about the hypocritical actions of the international police, to economic blocks, to the embargo against countries that have not bowed to the new world order, to the iron control over fossil energy sources. Customs barriers, indeed, today they have other names, are of a non-tax nature, but they continue to exist in a new form, for the benefit of the private potentates who are masters of everything.
There are more customs than before, but it is reduced to doing the dirty work of private individuals. Today the borders are guarded not to defend national productions and interests or to collect duties, but to protect intellectual property, patents, industrial property rights, protect the exclusive rights of global economic players. Immense flows of products made where the cost of labor is lowest invade Europe, paying laughable duties on the value, with laws that prevent a serious fight against underbilling, while the customs police are the gendarme against a new absolute enemy, the counterfeiting of products and especially of brands, which is certainly a problem, but it mainly concerns large multinationals. At the same time, in immense areas of the world, Made in Italy is mocked with impunity.
Any attempt to organize the economic and legal defense of productive sectors attacked by customs measures is prohibited by the dogma of free competition, branded as state aid. Historically, beyond political ideologies, the customs lever has always been used on the double track of international politics and economics. In particular, productive sectors are protected with duties in the initial phase of their expansion, in times of acute crises and in the face of new competitors, while the system has proven to be ineffective or counterproductive in the face of major innovations. In Germany, political unification, made by Prussia in 1871, it was preceded by the customs union, the customs union of the 1834 which was the driving force of the industrial development of the great nation, under the direction of a great exponent of political economy, Friedrich List, now forgotten as an exponent of a thought hostile to the free market.
In Italy, it is sufficient to remember what would have become of Fiat and big industry without the prudent protectionism that allowed many companies to be consolidated on the domestic market and then launched to conquer international markets. Entire sectors have prospered for decades – leather goods, home appliances, textiles – enriching and changing the face of the nation, specializing in transformation, supported by zero duties on raw materials, duties moderated or refunded upon export for semi-finished products, high taxation of similar foreign products.
Today Donald Trump does nothing but provide oxygen to American manufacturing, betting on the ability of industries to produce at competitive prices with new competitors. To succeed, it needs a tax system favorable to investments but also to consumption and a reasonable period of time. Taking time is the historical function of tariffs in times of lively competition. A sign that the USA intends to maintain an international leading role and has a plan for the future, unlike Europe.
Prisoner of liberal fairy tales, serves foreign private interests, Harlequin Italy plods along without questioning the losing dogmatics of the market dominus, accepts being a loser of globalization, it proceeds rapidly towards a dissipation that increasingly resembles entropy, i.e. the maximum, irreversible disorder.
It’s urgent, somehow, return to the States, to balanced and non-ideological economic policies. Free trade is an incapacitating myth, a tiger that must be governed. Even with duties, also restoring the old dear customs barrier, the flag on the flagpole and the power to say yes or no to the entry and exit of goods, services, people, capital, the four indisputable liberal freedoms that have made us poorer, without identity, of sovereignty, of rights.
Source: https://www.maurizioblondet.it/elogio-dei-dazi/