[LexBaird]

First, quit making assumptions. I am not a "globalist" or "free trader" or any other type of bugaboo catagory you want to shoehorn me into so you can diatribe. I am a pragmatist. The conditions that exist are what exist, and simplistic solutions like isolationism won't work. You can claim that we control access to our markets 100%, but that's just theoretical gobbletygook when the "we" consists of 350 million competing interests. "We as a People" rarely decide anything, and never with close to unanimty. The closest we come is Constitutional amendment.

Empirically, these are just unassailable facts.

It is a fact that these men have written those words. The words themselves are just opinions.

So I was right to surmise your position, not ludicrous at all. You don't believe in enforcing our intellectual property. And, hence, you don't believe in our country or its future...because you don't believe in our Constitutional Rights to protect our Intellectual property, or the right to control our own market access or regulate trade.

You seem to have a great deal of difficulty separating facts from opinions. You also have trouble with the logical fallacies of False Dilemma and Strawmen. Go back and read it again without your predecided answer. You might discover that what I said was that "intellectual property" cannot be protected, in spite of what you or I would wish. Protection is different from punishment; one occurs before violation, the other after. You can attempt to impose sanctions for violated agreements, but once an idea is "in the wild", it cannot be protected from copy by anyone who has the knowledge and resources to do so. The question becomes, what punishment works without punishing us more than them?

No trade that violates our laws protecting our own Intellectual Property needs be permitted. Especially if a nation wants access to the U.S. market. The Big Enchilada. Not China. The U.S. ...

Simple. Revoke MFN status to both nations. They would both be instantly subject to the automatic imposition of 50% import tariffs, and restrictions on U.S. citizens FDI in those countries. Or if really necessary....outright Ban BOTH violators. Ban both China and India from selling anything into our markets...and you would see some changes...especially by our own companies which have been the only real engines of both countries growth.

See, that wasn't so complicated. It won't be easy or without pain. But it wasn't complicated.

So, you would grant the Fed Govt. full control over with whom or where its citizens may trade. And to punish China for violating MS's patents, you would disallow, say, Mattel, General Electric and Mom and Pop Mfg. from trading with them?

That isn't simple, it's simplistic. You slap a 50% across the board price increase on huge sectors of the economy via tariffs, and you have just caused instant inflation. Everything that used to cost $1.00 now costs $1.50. Manufacturers can't pay for components without raising prices. Retailers must pay more than 50% as supply chain problems inevitably occur. People stop making purchases. Other people who make and sell those things lose their jobs. An U.S. government that did it would find itself voted out on its ear in a flash.

What is needed is a method of enforcing trade agreements that doesn't gut us in the enforcement thereof. Cutting off trade only works if you have an alternate source to replace it at near the same cost.

[Paul Ross]

So, you would grant the Fed Govt. full control over with whom or where its citizens may trade.

Lex, meet the U.S. Constitution:

Article I, Section 8.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exe rcise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

I reprinted all of Section 8 because so much of it is clearly rejected by you, as either an over-reach or unenforceable in your self-styled "pragmatic" universe. None of it is an overreach. And none of its unenforceable...despite your fevered denials.

Nor is your pragmatic position on enforcement of trade a legitimate one...putting the rights of all America and Americans hostage to your having first a lower cost alternative to China.

This is UnAmerican. It is a type of betrayal of our Republic which George Washington explicitly warned us of in his Farewell Address.