>Has any country done this kind of political targeting before? Openly? How
>soon before we hear Trent Lott calling the Europeans Reds? I hate stuff
>that makes my "war with a real country" story look more possible.
I can't think of a time, but then again, the particular tariffs by Bush were unusual in being so targetted at swing states themselves; literally forms of steel from swing states weregiven heavier tariffs than those from non-swing states.
The theory of such tariffs is that the general loss of political support will be diffuse and the poitical gains so targetted, that such policies are worth it for Bush, but the EU is actually responding to that calculus by seeking to inflict pain on the US not generally but in as targetted a way as possible. In a sense, it's brilliant response, since it could actually deter such parochial tariffs in the future by upsetting the traditional calculus that pushed them forward.
And because the US has a mess of tariffs being targetted at it because of its loss at the WTO over its export tax subsidy, the EU is going to be able to respond with a howitzer level of tariffs against US targets. So should be interesting.
-- Nathan Newman