Posted on 01/09/2017 5:31:31 PM PST by WatchungEagle
A couple of years ago, free trade was seen as a key principle of the Republican Party. Then Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president, and things got more complicated.
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
The Republican Party has been hampering and hog-tieing free trade for decades, maybe since its inception. These trade deals are NOT free trade. They are heavily regulated and directed Managed Trade more akin to Mercantilism than to any sort of Free Trade. It the Republicans wanted Free Trade and the rapidly rising prosperity for all of America that goes with it, then they would simply push to take off all the restrictions and taxes that hamper trade. Industry would flood back to the USA and jobs with it. NAFTA is not about Free Trade nor is the Pacific Agreement. Anything that calls for government or other agencies, national or international to manage trade and issue rules is NOT Free Trade. Too many people think it all is because these things are all termed Free Trade but they are as much Free Trade as XY George is a woman just because he calls himself one and wears a dress.
This chart pretty well illustrates the issue we're facing:
The program was stable when there were more than 3 workers per beneficiary. However, future projections indicate that the ratio will continue to fall from two workers to one, at which point the program in its current structure becomes financially unsustainable.
Yeah! A hundred years ago was when Americans worked and had jobs.
Hey Bob for the umpteenth millionith time WE ARE IN A TRADE WAR NOW. We are just not fighting back.
We reaffirm our belief in the protective tariff to extend needed protection to our productive industries. We believe in protection as a national policy, with due and equal regard to all sections and to all classes. It is only by adherence to such a policy that the well being of the consumers can be safeguarded that there can be assured to American agriculture, to American labor and to American manufacturers a return to perpetrate American standards of life. A protective tariff is designed to support the high American economic level of life for the average family and to prevent a lowering to the levels of economic life prevailing in other lands.
In the history of the nation the protective tariff system has ever justified itself by restoring confidence, promoting industrial activity and employment, enormously increasing our purchasing power and bringing increased prosperity to all our people.
The tariff protection to our industry works for increased consumption of domestic agricultural products by an employed population instead of one unable to purchase the necessities of life. Without the strict maintenance of the tariff principle our farmers will need always to compete with cheap lands and cheap labor abroad and with lower standards of living.
The enormous value of the protective principle has once more been demonstrated by the emergency tariff act of 1921 and the tariff act of 1922.
We assert our belief in the elastic provision adopted by congress in the tariff act of 1922 providing for a method of readjusting the tariff rates and the classifications in order to meet changing economic conditions when such changed conditions are brought to the attention of the president by complaint or application.
We believe that the power to increase or decrease any rate of duty provided in the tariff furnishes a safeguard on the one hand against excessive taxes and on the other hand against too high customs charges.
The wise provisions of this section of the tariff act afford ample opportunity for tariff duties to be adjusted after a hearing in order that they may cover the actual differences in the cost of production in the United States and the principal competing countries of the world.
We also believe that the application of this provision of the tariff act will contribute to business stability by making unnecessary general disturbances which are usually incident to general tariff revisions.
How does having documents thousands of pages long (NAFTA and TPP) with hundreds of dos and don’ts constitute free trade?? There would be free trade if there were no agreements between nations and private individuals and businesses could trade as they wished across borders.
If you have an agreement, there are certainly terms in said agreement, therefore, one can surely examine those terms and determine whether they benefit or hurt you overall.
So Trump wanting to revisit the terms of these unfree trade agreements is not only perfectly fine but his duty, especially in light of a couple of decades of not such good results for us.
Welcome to Free Republic. Thanks for bringing in the “other side” for us to weigh.
Back when people had jobs
The problem is “free trade” isn’t free trade.
When South Korea exports a bzillions of vehicles to America with NO import duties then charges a 400 percent impport duty on American vehicles it isn’t free trade, It’s screwing America for the betterment of South Korea.
It is EVERY American product not just vehicles. and Korea is but the tip of the bad trade deals our federal gub mint has screwed us with.
Free Trade should be fair trade, not government funded dumping of inferior goods made by slave labor on our shores.
Vox - remembering history as it wasn’t....
“I’m always shocked by how many conservatives sincerely believe...”
Welcome to FR, n00b.
LOVE the smell of roasted troll in the morning!
That’s what I’m saying. The globalists call their policies “free trade,” but its not. It’s managed trade managed in a way to protect certain special interests and not others. Taxes and regulations are a major problem with the business climate here. It’s hard to untangle the various causes of job losses. At the same time, the free trade fanatics are like communists. They won’t admit that trade liberalization has costs as well as benefits and try to have opponents blacklisted and silenced.
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