Good example of ideological nonsense rather than economic science. Easy to put down fair trade when one ignores the other side of so called free trade. We have lost millions of jobs, all those wages, profits, taxes to overseas because we ignorantly insist on free trade when it is only free on our side. Trump is setting up for a negotiation stance to remove tariffs and other impediments to American business. He cannot do that with the stupid type negotiations we have done in the past, he has to use leverage. Everyone understands this, except of course those blind ideologues who don’t have a clue about what they are talking about. Sorry assed article to post that is anti American and just plain ignorant.
And his leverage is to add tariffs on imported goods raising the cost to all U.S. consumers as Williams points out. How will that cause foreign countries to renegotiate instead of retaliate?
I had an email exchange with the John Batchelor Show executive producer, Lee Mason. Here’s what he wrote, and I’ve never seen it put better:
“What galls is the cavalier attitude of those who made megabucks from shifting American income to Chinese robbers, among others. Twenty-five years ago most Chinese people were barely hanging on, slopping pigs, and praying for good farming weather. It’s phenomenal that hundreds of millions of almost-starving people now have satisfactory homes (for as long as they can hold on to them) and a good meal a day. However, today there are more billionaires in China than in the US, and I think most of them are in the national parliament.
Most Americans haven’t figured out how to make a billion dollars legally within two decades or so, and I doubt others have, either. So our work was handed to the cheapest - heavily government-subsidized - manufacturers across the Pacific; they responded by pricing us out of the market, channeling income to their wickedest, creating a vast economic chasm there, and now we see the capital flight ($1 trillion PA) that pours stolen dollars into US real estate and prices New Yorkers out of their homes.
People making over $100K don’t seem to grasp the logic here.”
The underlying dilemma here that doesn’t get any attention in these discussions is that a wealthy country like ours with a high standard of living is usually going to be at a competitive disadvantage in any trade arrangement. There’s nothing anyone can do to “fix” that without undermining our living standards here in the U.S.
Aw heck why now billions --no, WE'VE LOST TRILLIONS OF JOBS!!!
[Don't we all feel a lot better now?]