Posted on 08/29/2015 6:23:47 PM PDT by dennisw
The Tariff Act of 1789, was the first major Act passed in the United States under its present Constitution of 1789 and had two purposes as stated in Section I of the Act which reads as follows;
The Federal legislature, acting under the recently ratified US Constitution, authorized the collection of tariff and tonnage duties to meet the operating costs of the new central government, to provide funds to pay the interest and principal on revolutionary war debts inherited from the Continental Congress.[2] It also provided a degree of protection. "The protective acts of the states furnished the experience on which the national legislators based their proceedings."[3] The general range of duties was by no means such as would have been thought protective in later days; but the intention to protect was there.[4]
The debates over the purpose of the tariff exposed the sectional interests at stake: Northern manufacturers favored high duties to protect industry; Southern planters desired a low tariff that would foster cheap consumer imports.[5] The final bill extracted concessions from both interests, but delivered a distinct advantage to maritime and manufacturing regions of the country.[6][7]
Representative James Madison of Virginia navigated to passage, but was unable to insert provisions that would have discriminated against British imports[8][9] and shift the carrying trade to French and American vessels.
The Tariff Bill was passed in the House by a vote of 31-19 on July 1, 1789; the resultant enrolled Bill was signed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate on July 2, 1789; and President Washington signed the Act in law on July 4, 1789. [10]
"I'm speaking of the historic free trade agreement negotiated between our country and Canada. And I can also tell you that we're determined to expand this concept, south as well as north. Next month I will be traveling to Mexico, where trade matters will be of foremost concern."
Well I certainly stand corrected rudeboy. I must have missed that last State Of The Union speech, January 1988 I'm guessing.
It appears Reagan indeed initiated a deal to include Mexico ( there was some existing thing with Canada already in effect, I remember this because it was a big deal with the Canadian PM who was a friend of Reagan ). It sure looks like Reagan was whole hog for an expansion with Mexico. Ah well, one more mistake he made.
I did just look it up though, and the actual NAFTA took a long time create and didn't go into effect until 1994 with Clinton. So I would still say *most* of the blame still goes to Bush41 who sheparded this thing along, Reagan for dreaming it up in the first place, and Clinton for piling on extra treaties. Uniparty in action.
The 2nd Reagan term was a disaster on many fronts. I can never forgive him for not pardoning Oliver North, Poindexter and Secord. Nancy Reagan and Howard Baker neutered the man and many of us who watched along cursed those two constantly. Then there was Amnesty. Letting Bork be Borked by Joe Biden and the rest of the (D)ummycrats. So many lost opportunities.
But Perot gets a pass. LOL
China won't. U.S. consumers would. So go with the Fair Tax instead.
A north America trade pact was kicking around for years. It took the fall of Soviet and East European communism to get NAFTA rolling and passed under Clinton. Prime culprits are George Bush, Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin who was Secretary of the Treasury and the Republicans in the Senate and House who voted for NAFTA in greater numbers than did the Democrats.
Ronald Reagan had just a small part in this sellout of US jobs and the US worker
After communisms fall the US no longer had to play chess against a primary adversary USSR and to make sure that certain industries were kept at home for national defense and security reasons. So all the international trade wise guy lawyers and big corporations that could make money from sending manufacturing off shore began to do so. Also include all the hacks in DC who got bribes and campaign contributions for promoting the destruction of US industries.
I’d like you opinion on something. If you could eliminate the income tax completely and replace it with tariffs and a national retail sales tax would you be in favor of that?
Tariffs are voluntary taxes, don't buy don't pay.
I believe Free Traitors™ want the USA to become the agrarian nation of planters it once was. We export food stuffs and import finished goods.
It was his idea. Fact. As was a Free Trade Area of the Americas. Fact. And he kickstarted the negotiations that led to the creation of the WTO. Fact.
Protectionists, read and weep.
Consider that the administration(Reagan) has done the following:
— Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports. The agreement set total Japanese auto exports at 1.68 million vehicles in 1981-82, 8 percent below 1980 exports. Two years later the level was permitted to rise to 1.85 million.(33) Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution found that the import limits have actually cost jobs in the U.S. auto industry by making it possible for the sheltered American automakers to raise prices and limit production. In 1984, Winston writes in Blind Intersection? Policy and the Automobile Industry, 32,000 jobs were lost, U.S. production fell by 300,000 units, and profits for U.S. firms increased $8.9 billion. The quotas have also made the Japanese firms potentially more formidable rivals because they have begun building assembly plants in the United States.(34) They also shifted production to larger cars, introducing to American firms competition they did not have before the quotas were created. In 1984, it was estimated that higher prices for domestic and imported cars cost consumers $2.2 billion a year.(35) At the height of the dollar’s exchange rate with the yen in 1984-85, the quotas were costing American consumers the equivalent of $11 billion a year.(36)
— Tightened up considerably the quotas on imported sugar. Imports fell from an annual average of 4.85 million tons in 1979-81 to an annual average of 2.86 million tons in 1982-86. Not only did this continued practice force Americans to spend more than other consumers for sugar, but it created hardships for Latin American countries and the Philippines, which depend on sugar exports for economic development. The quota program undermined President Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative and intensified the international debt crisis.(37)
— Negotiated to increase restrictiveness of the Multifiber Arrangement and extended restrictions to previously unrestricted textiles. The administration unilaterally changed the rule of origin in order to restrict textile and apparel imports further and imposed a special ceiling on textiles from the People’s Republic of China.(38) Finally, it pressured Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, the largest exporters of textiles and apparel to the United States, into highly restrictive bilateral agreements. All told, textile and apparel restrictions cost Americans more than $20 billion a year.(39) The Reagan administration has stated several times that textile and apparel imports should grow no faster than the domestic market.(40)
— Required 18 countries—including Brazil, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, and Australia, as well as the European Community—to accept “voluntary restraint agreements” to reduce steel imports, guaranteeing domestic producers a share of the American market. When 3 countries not included in the 18—Canada, Sweden, and Taiwan— increased steel exports to the United States, the administration demanded talks to check the increase. The administration also imposed tariffs and quotas on specialty steel. These policies, with their resulting shortages, have severely squeezed American steel-using firms, making them less competitive in world markets and eliminating more than 52,000 jobs.(41)
— Imposed a five-year duty, beginning at 45 percent, on Japanese motorcycles for the benefit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems.(42)
— Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles.
— Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory-chip exports and increase Japanese purchases of American-made chips. When the agreement was allegedly broken, the administration imposed a 100 percent tariff on $300 million worth of electronics goods. This episode teaches a classic lesson in how protectionism comes back to haunt a country’s producers. The quotas established as a result of the agreement have created a severe shortage of memory chips and higher prices for American computer makers, putting them at a disadvantage with foreign competitors. Only two American firms are still making these chips, accounting for a small percentage of the world market.(43)
— Removed Third World countries from the duty-free import program for developing nations on several occasions.
— Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more American-made parts.(44)
— Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools, with some market shares rolled back to 1981 levels. Other countries were warned not to increase their shares of the U.S. market.
— Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings, because the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen. The U.S. Customs Service was ordered to collect duties equal to the so-called dumping margins.(45)
— Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes.(46)
— Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and of timber cut from federal lands, a measure that could substantially increase U.S. exports to Japan.
— Redefined “dumping” in order “to make it easier to bring charges of unfair trade practices against certain competitors.”(47)
— Beefed up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to promoting the exports of a handful of large companies at the expense of everyone else.(48)
— Extended quotas on imported clothespins.
Sitting here drinking an imported beer that I paid for with money earned at my manufacturing job, ya loser™. Go ask the government to help you on another website.
"On 1 May 1981 the Japanese Ministry of Internationa l Trade and Industry announced that Japanese producers would limit their shipments to the United States for two years to 1.68 million units annually. The VER subsequently evolved in response to changing market and political conditions. Although the United States decided in 1985 not to request a further extension of the agreement, Japan nevertheless maintained the restrictions until they were terminated in March 1994. As the data in Figure 1 show, the quotas did not prevent growth in the total value of automobile imports from Japan."
Reagan negotiated a free trade deal with Canada. Canada BTW is a first world nation much like we used to be in the 80s'. The US-Canada trade agreement became the blue print for NAFTA however Mexico is not a first world nation so the benefits of free trade with Mexico to the US were/are nill. The lesson being that among equals or near equals free trade works. However free trade does not work if the two economies and corresponding life styles are vastly different.
You’d better read the rest of the thread.
It was on his platform as he ran for President. To young to remember?
WRONG!!! It was many people idea. Not just Ronald Reagan. Free traitors know nothing! To blame Reagan is stupid because without the fall of Communism (after Ronald Reagan) we would not have gotten a NAFTA...for quite a few reasons.
What, exactly, is “WRONG” about the comment to which you responded? The NAFTA part, the FTAA part, or the WTO part?
"Mexican President Salinas and President Bush began negotiations for a liberalized trade between the two countries. Prior to NAFTA, Mexican tariffs on U.S. imports were 250% higher than U.S. tariffs on Mexican imports. In 1991, Canada requested a trilateral agreement, which then led to NAFTA. In 1993, concerns about liberalization of labor and environmental regulations led to the adoption of two addendums.
NAFTA was signed by President George H.W. Bush, Mexican President Salinas, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1992.
Reagan had nothing to do with NAFTA, perhaps as a senile old man he thought it was a good idea. However he had nothing to do with NAFTA as it was negotiated after he left the presidency.
Sorry. I am immune to historical revisionism. Reagan proposed a common market between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico during his campaign for the presidency. He later announced his desire to expand it to the entire continent.
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