This completely ignores a couple of critical facts:
Can you name any free trade agreements between the US and anyone else that doesn't include tariffs, subsidies, or market protections for certain markets or industries? These agreements are always 1000+ pages long, it would seem a real free trade agreement would be a few paragraphs long.
“Free trade works”
What exists today isn’t free trade.
I'll try to ignore your stupid slam and educate you a little: We don't have free trade - we have lopsided ripoffs where China hangs costs and strings on us while shipping duty free to us. Why do you think we have such trade deficits? That should tell even the most mind numbed individuals that we don't have free trade.
Moreover, the cost of goods is not cheaper coming into our country. Check the price of an IPhone lately? Hey! How about those Nike shoes there guy - or better yet... what a bargain those 90 dollar Polo shirts are, right?
Granted, we don't have a trade war right now because we are simply hapless and not fighting back.
And finally, try to explain away the half million jobs created each month when Reagan was slapping all those tariffs! Even Levin really knows better about trade. Problem for him is that he is just a globalist stooge and doesn't really care about the average person in this country... Reagan surely did.
“Free trade is the greater good.”
Perhaps it is, if it is reciprocal. Our auto industry didn’t lose to the Japanese auto industry; our auto industry lost to the entire might of the nation of Japan.
Their initial goal was not to make a profit in the US market; it was to expand market share. And how could they operate at a loss? Subsidies. Outright transfers of funds, tax breaks, and higher prices at home.
Trump isn’t badmouthing free trade; he’s saying that he’s tired of us getting raped, and so am I.
>> the effect of cheaper goods coming in means that everybody else has more money left over to spend on other things.
This is true to a point, but what about when nearly half of the country doesn’t even have the job to make the money to have left over cash? Your reliance on free trade over everything else is the single greatest reason why we have a welfare state and big government.
Free trade is great, but there needs to be a balance. You can’t build an economy on wealth for the few and government handouts for the rest...unless you are willing to accept the pre-JFK tax rates.
Outside the effects of cheaper goods and lost jobs and factories, there's another, pernicious effect.
The economically literate know it as the transfer of Capital Stock.
Wealth.
And we are witness to the largest transfer of capital stock in the history man...well, except for when we acquired it.
Mercantilism will make you very, very rich. Why we surrendered it to China is beyond comprehension.
We are in a trade war and have been for years, particularly with China, Taiwan and South Korea.
Is it "free trade" when china has a 27% tariff on most US goods and an additional 22% on autos? Is it free trade when they devalue their currency? Is it free trade when japan bans 70% of all USA products via 45% tariffs?
WHO STARTED THIS ON GOING TRADE WAR?
Like so many US policies, the other side is fighting, while we are just participating.
BS. Were all the founding fathers economically illiterate when the erected massive trade barriers in the 19th century?
while the damage of international trade is concentrated and obvious to the makers of widgets, the effect of cheaper goods coming in means that everybody else has more money left over to spend on other things.
More globalist propaganda. I am waiting for Ford, Carrier and Nabisco to announce price reductions the products they now make in Mexico. /sarc
“[free trade] means that everybody else has more money left over to spend on other things. Free trade is the greater good.”
What you leave out of your equation is that you have to have a job first in order to have money left over after buying all those cheaper goods.
And in those other countries that we have to compete against, their workers will never have any money left over to buy OUR goods because their wages are so low. That is why we have a deficit with Mexico; they can’t afford to buy our goods. That was correctly foreseen and pointed out before NAFTA was ever launched.
When Ford has its Mexican plant up and running, do you really believe Ford will decrease its price to reflect the cheaper labor cost, which is why they are moving in the first place?
In your perfect world of free trade, why do you think our manufacturing has been moving out of the country?
Can you explain how that is a good thing?
We have 12,000 tariffs already in place in this country and our economy continues to suck wind. Only the blind would think that prosperity is just another tariff away. But here they are. It's interesting and elucidating that they argue for more government control of the economy, and higher taxes for all Americans, rather than reducing regulation, taxes and litigation. Smaller government would solve a lot of the problems they identify but they're too busy pleading with government to save them to realize it. They aren't even aware that we don't have a free trade agreement with China.
The country was up to 95% funded, at the entire federal level, off of tariffs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_history
We had no income tax for business or individuals. We made as much stuff as we could here and it employed everyone that had a job. We had no welfare, unemployment, and far less crime than we have today. Jobs do that.
Tariffs are simply a tax and all taxes are penalties. Why is it better to tax income over a penny on imports (which paid none of our taxes)?
There is nothing special about tariffs over these other taxes. It is a tool to penalize something to fund government, just like sales, income, and property tax.
Would you rather disincentivize income, sales, or things built elsewhere?
You and Levin are apparently the ones who are “economically illiterate.”
The White House is in agreement with you.
Much to the detriment of the New Balance employees in Massachusetts and Maine.