To give an idea of how much content is in this bill, please see "Sec. 74029. Beverage containing coconut water." where duties on imports of beverages containing at least 10% coconut water are hereby free.
I'm sure the coconut water lobbying group (never thought I'd say that phrase) worked its ass off for this. Time to pop the coconut water flavoured champagne.
All to circumvent tariffs on their exports to remain competitive
Well, the distinctly American alternative
If this results in a lot of things soon containing 11% coconut water, I might just snap.
Having trade policy is as old as government, skeptics or not. "Free markets" in the absolute sense have never and will never exist, and talking in absolutes isn't helpful, a "assume a spherical cow" kind of approximation which is just as useful to the real world.
I'm open to the idea that trade policy is sometimes useful but such a defense of it is facile nonsense. The ubiquity of something across time and space doesn't make it good or pragmatic or savvy or endow it with any other nice quality. Some things, like war, are basically bad, and at best perhaps necessary in some very limited situations.
This isn't even true. Government is much, much older than trade policy.
Just wait until the hearings, the media frenzy, when those products are tested and found to contain 9% juice!
Big companies pay lobbyists to add these in. It is no accident that these end up in the tax code.
More specifically, Bai Brands[1], owned by Keurig Dr Pepper.