Free Republic

The basic issue is a simple one; for the U.S. NAFTA has a fatal flaw. Canada and Mexico are used by China and Asian nations as a way to work-around direct trade with the U.S. and use NAFTA as a backdoor into the U.S. market. It works out great for Canada and Mexico, but terrible for the U.S. We always knew there was a generally good trade strategy visible from POTUS Trump, but it needs to be said that NO-ONE realized just how well thought out it really is. Now I know what this guy does instead of sleeping… he...

One year after the United States pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it’s clear Asia-Pacific nations have not been waiting around for the Trump administration to change its mind. Just today, the 11 remaining TPP countries announced that they have reached a deal, which could be signed as early as March, without the U.S. A number of other regional and bilateral trade negotiations were concluded in 2017, including a landmark agreement between Japan and the EU. Several others were launched, with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Singapore each starting talks with the four Latin American countries of the Pacific Alliance....

Talks to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact have effectively collapsed after Canada pulled out. +++ According to a Reuters report, Canadian Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said “a misunderstanding about the schedule” was to blame for the absence of Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. ABC reported that one official familiar with the situation said: “The Canadians screwed everybody”, and that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had walked into the meeting after a delay to announce that the planned signing of the deal would not proceed

We’ll dig through the tax reform details as they become available. However, pragmatic #MAGA Trump supporters would be wise not to get too far out in advance of supporting this GOPe tax reform package yet. The reason for caution is quite simple. Notice the players, the key constructionists. These are the exact same Decepticons who constructed the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) trade deal, and who operate in DC on behalf of their multinational corporate sponsors and benefactors. The representatives within this press conference are the EXACT SAME members who constructed TPP and pushed Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to ensure its...

Rediff.com  » News » Does Donald Trump deserve a chance? Does Donald Trump deserve a chance? August 03, 2017 08:35 IST While political observers are unable to make head or tail of the US President, those moving in high business and industry circles tell B S Raghavan that Trump's style is exactly that of an aggressive and successful businessman.Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.comUnited States President Donald J Trump, both during his campaign and after assuming office, has stood on their head all the canons held sacrosanct by students of leadership, management, public administration and governance.He has, in fact, set at naught a whole...

Here's why Rajeev Srinivasan believes there will be nothing particularly positive about the prime minister's US visit. IMAGE: The fact that it has taken this long for the US to extend an invitation to Narendra Modi suggests that India is not on Donald Trump's event horizon. Photographs: Peter Nicholls/Getty Images and Carlos Barria/Reuters Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not naive, so he is surely approaching his fifth visit to the United States, and his first meeting with US President Donald Trump with careful preparation. He is also deliberately creating low expectations. Unlike the hoopla of his previous Madison Square Gardens...

First there were the “Never Trumps”, then there were the back stabbings and leaks, and all the while there has been a constant undermining of the President from both the Democrats and the Republicans. From the Democrats it is almost expected that they will try and destroy Donald Trump regardless the detriment to the nation, but aren’t the Republicans better served by having their Party’s President in the White House? Why are people like John McCain working on the international stage to ruin Trump’s reputation, and what is the benefit in “your President “ being derided to foreign leaders? The...

Two developments in the past few weeks suggest that America’s China policy is on a cusp.The more publicly discussed event involves the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Dewey, which conducted a freedom of navigation operation near Mischief Reef in the Spratlys island group.This is the first freedom of navigation action conducted by the Trump administration. It is the first true freedom of navigation conducted since at least 2012.By contrast, the Obama administration had undertaken a handful of “innocent passage” activities in the South China Sea, which failed to demonstrate the critical issues at stake.The actions carried out in the previous administration...

An influential activist who met with members of the Obama Administration to promote net neutrality campaigned on behalf of a convicted Al Qaeda supporter, Breitbart Tech can reveal. Evan Greer is the campaign director for Fight For The Future, which led grassroots efforts to promote net neutrality to the Obama Administration. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, and she describes herself as a “touring queer riot-folksinger.” For three years, she also campaigned on behalf of Tarek Mehanna, an open admirer of Osama Bin Laden who was convicted of aiding al-Qaeda in 2012.Mehanna was convicted in 2012, after prosecutors proved that in 2004...

The United States' new hostility to free trade deals under President Donald Trump is benefiting the European Union, the bloc's top trade official said Tuesday. After Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal in late January, "many countries are now turning to us, because they believe protectionism is not the right answer," Swedish European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström told German business newspaper Handelsblatt. "We are already negotiating with almost all of them, or preparing conversations" with the countries around the Pacific Rim that had signed up to the US-led treaty, she went on. Since Trump's election, the Commission has sped...

The maverick is back. Sen. John McCain once again is basking in the media spotlight as the go-to Republican on Capitol Hill for voicing opposition to the Republican in the White House. This time, he’s bucking President Trump and doing it with newfound vim. In Mr. Trump’s first two weeks in office, Mr. McCain broke with him over the decision to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, said his proposed import tax on U.S. businesses relocated to Mexico was “insane” and took the lead in raising alarm about the reorganization of the National Security Council. He also found a reason...

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) says it’s not President Trump but “the people who raised their voices” that deserve credit for the United States quitting the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP). On Monday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum removing the United States from TPP. “You didn’t like TPP, are you pleased with how swiftly Mr. Trump moved on it?” CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked Ellison on Tuesday’s New Day program. “I'm pleased that the American people over the course of years raised up the problems with TPP and I'm glad that their voices got heard, even if it was...

In he Oval Office on Monday, President Trump signed an executive order formally ending the United States’ participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The move was mostly symbolic, TPP was dead in Congress anyway. But signing this EO on his first full weekday in office signals that Trump is serious about two issues that are, sadly, tied to together: pulling out of trade agreements and replacing them with new barriers to international trade. Trump described withdrawing from the trade pact a “great thing for the American worker.” That’s likely as true as his press secretary’s inauguration attendance numbers. International trade has...

In a major victory for American national sovereignty and self-government, President Donald Trump on Monday fulfilled his campaign pledge to withdraw the U.S. government from the "free trade" regime known as the Trans-Pacific Partnershi p (TPP). Despite strong support from Obama, most congressional Republicans, and the establishment wing of both parties, the secretly negotiated "trade" scheme was unconstitutional, dangerous, and extraordinarily unpopular across the political spectrum. But with a simple executive action by the new president, the globalis t establishment's cherished dream for what lawmakers described as a "Pacific Union"-style super-government we nt up in smoke. Globalists were furious, while...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), who campaigned hard against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in last year’s Democratic presidential primaries, praised President Trump for an executive order to officially pull the United States out of the deal. “I am glad the Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead and gone,” Sanders said. “For the last 30 years, we have had a series of trade deals — including the North American Free Trade Agreement, permanent normal trade relations with China and others — which have cost us millions of decent-paying jobs and caused a ‘race to the bottom’ which has lowered wages for American workers. Now is...

“I think as an industry, we’re excited about working together with the president and his administration on tax policies, on regulation, and on trade to really create a renaissance in American manufacturing,” Fields told reporters after the meeting, according to the Detroit News. Fields also praised Trump’s decision to kill former President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, pointing out that it failed to address currency manipulation.

The America-First winning is exponential.   Union leadership met today with a pro-jobs, pro-growth, pro-USA president.  Leadership from construction/manufacturing, pipe fitters, steel workers and industrial machinist unions met today with President Trump and exit the meeting with incredible praise for the respect he showed them.

Tyler DurdenJanuary 23, 2017Zero HedgeShortly after Donald Trump made good on one of his core campaign promises on Monday morning by signing an executive order formally withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal, Trump told labor union leaders that he would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement "at the appropriate time." The remarks came at the start of a meeting at the White House with leaders of construction, carpenters, plumbers and sheet metal unions, during which Trump pledged to stop trade deals that harmed American workers. According to the White House, participants included North America's Building Trades...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blasted President Trump on Monday, warning that his decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will spark a wave of negative consequences. “President Trump’s decision to formally withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a serious mistake that will have lasting consequences for America’s economy and our strategic position in the Asia-Pacific region," McCain said in a statement.

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