Posted on 03/07/2018 7:54:36 AM PST by Oklahoma
President Donald Trump has had a splendid first year in office. He has the economy moving again and at a healthy pace, some 2.6 percent in the most recent quarter. Unemployment is down, the stock market is up and the economic signs are mostly healthy. Well, for the stock market that was until last week. That was the week in which the President announced his intention to slap a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum. The market tanked, and more problems are said to be coming internationally. It appears the world does not favor President Trumps threat of high tariffs.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Americans favor free trade, not the farce we have now.
The market did not tank.
Reducing trade barriers remains a proven recipe for prosperity.
Truer words were never spoken. Now, all these people need to fan out across the globe and convince all the other nations of that truth who tax our imports and depend on the United States not to tax theirs.
Trump’s opponents don’t even believe in borders; they are wrong about tariffs, too.
International trade is neither free or fair. We pay huge tariffs on our exports, China does not. The system is designed to destroy America’s industrial capability.
The Goldman Sachs version of free trade is to eliminate borders and bring in cheap labor and pseudo slaves. Make the markets open for USA investors but closed for USA products. Make the few richer and the broad middle class poorer.
A free man should have the right to decide the details in the economic transactions he will engage in, not the government.
Just because you make widgets doesn’t mean you should have the power to force me to purchase your widgets or tax me to punish me for buying someone else’s widget.
This is all about freedom.
A tariff is a negotiating tool. Nothing permanent or that can’t be re-negotiated in the future. Just another tool in the tool box, not the Mark of the Beast as the ideologues would have us believe.
The author, greatly respected, makes several assertions not in evidence.
The most egregious is the assertion that “free trade” is obviously good.
I ask: What is the result of the US lowering/eliminating tariffs to enter our market while the entire world continues to practice Mercantilism?
Why do the advocates never mention the long-term result?
Export tariffs are rare. Why would the government want to increase the cost of our goods for export?
Our industrial capabilities are fine if you just get the government out of the way.
We’ve never had Free Trade.
Tariffs can be a tool to force other countries to engage in Free Trade, not rape.
Many are bummed at that (lack of ) development.
“A free man should have the right to decide the details in the economic transactions he will engage in, not the government.”
And there you stand in opposition to the Founding Fathers of the United States.
While they agreed with you in the context of the domestic economy, they had deep understanding of the consequences of a completely unprotected import market.
Back again, Republican Party Destroyer? Did you see where Cruz had more votes than the total of the democrats in the Texas primary?
Freedom (Free Trade) is good. Fewer barriers to trade is better than more. No barriers would be the ultimate goal. We should encourage any country to lower barriers to allow our goods in. The long term result is marginally better than allowing the barriers to remain.
Way back when, at the beginning of the US, and prior to implementation of the income tax, tariffs were viewed as a means of funding the operation of the government.
Flame away.
China ships steel to Mexico and Canada using them as pass through to us. Chinese steel is not as good as ours. I like the tariffs.
Our industrial capabilities are not fine because they can’t compete with oversea slave labor selling products for half the price that we can produce them. Especially with labor unions demanding higher salaries to pay for union dues.
Oh, you mean like when Walmart and the other big-box stores ruin Main Street and take over local politics with the power of black-robed judges and they zone everyone else out of business?
Or, maybe when they close our factories and hire slave labor in foreign countries and force us to buy junk?
There is only “freedom” for the elites. It’s not even morally right.
30 years of “free trade” and now the U.S. has no electronics industry and close to $800,000 debt per U.S. family
Just federal gov debt is 20 trillion dollars. Add to that state, city,consumer, personal corporate debt and your share is close to $800,000
So any free traders care to explain how we are going to pay all debt and how the USA is not done.
Trump is delaying the collapse .
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