Posted on 06/13/2021 8:55:06 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Vice President Kamala Harris says she is determined to get at the “root causes” of the migration crisis at America’s southern border. There is one way to do that and at the same time stabilize Central America, attract factories from China, reduce America’s strategic vulnerabilities and cut global carbon emissions.
Harris has just wrapped up her first foreign trip as vice president — she visited Guatemala and Mexico — but she barely touched upon the primary cause of the relentless northward movement of people. There are many reasons for the devastation of the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, but loss of manufacturing from the region to China in the first decade of this century is a crucial one. Therefore, giving manufacturers larger preferences to the U.S. market promises both long-term prosperity for this now-troubled area and a more stable southern border for Americans.
The Biden administration’s primary means of addressing core problems in the Northern Triangle, the source of about 40 percent of the undocumented migrants crossing into the U.S., is American aid.
The administration provided $310 million in additional assistance for Guatemala in April. This week, Harris promised 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines and more funding on top of $26 million in coronavirus aid.
America’s assistance programs have inconsistent track records, especially in this hemisphere where money somehow manages to end up in the bank accounts of local elites. Northern Triangle countries do not need extraordinarily wealthy leaders.
Harris has been encouraging American investment in the region and late last month lined up about a dozen companies, including giants Microsoft and Mastercard, for this purpose. That’s an important start, but a more enduring solution is for manufacturers to locate in the Northern Triangle.
With manufacturing comes trade. Last year, thanks to the USMCA agreement, two-way merchandise trade between Mexico and the U.S. amounted to $536.7 billion. There are fewer undocumented migrants entering the U.S. from that relatively prosperous neighbor. In contrast, America’s two-way trade with the three Northern Triangle countries totaled a paltry $22.3 billion.
The trade solution has been tried before. The Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement came into force in 2006 and included all three Northern Triangle countries. CAFTA-DR FTA, as the pact is known, has not been a success in the Northern Triangle.
“The refusal to prioritize the region in the mid-2000s is the main reason that the Central America free trade agreement failed,” Washington, D.C.-based trade expert Alan Tonelson told me. “We paid no attention to the goal of making sure that the benefits were channeled to Central America.”
Benefits would flow to the region if the U.S. focused on goods made in the three Northern Triangle countries. Manufacturers of low-cost items would move there from China, especially if Washington’s three-year-old “trade war” with China continues, as it undoubtedly will.
“Near-shoring” is happening already, but at a pace slower than it should. According to the Inter-American Development Bank, Latin American producers each year could replace up to $80 billion of America’s imports from China. Many countries in the region, however, are missing the opportunity to woo factories from the other side of the Pacific.
Buying from factories in Central America would improve U.S. security. China continually threatens to use its position in supply chains to achieve geopolitical goals. For instance, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing threatened to throw America into a “mighty sea of coronavirus” by cutting off the supply of personal protective equipment.
And that was not a theoretical threat. Last year, according to Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network, Beijing had turned around at least one ship carrying protective gear for New York hospitals and, according to former Trump trade official Peter Navarro, “effectively” nationalized a 3M factory making N95 masks. Beijing periodically talks about halting the supply of rare earths, including last year when it launched a “verbal rocket” at American defense contractor Lockheed Martin for upgrading Taiwan’s Patriot air defense batteries.
Beijing continually maintains that U.S.-China “decoupling” is not possible. With a vibrant manufacturing sector in the Northern Triangle, decoupling would become inevitable, especially as companies seek to locate factories closer to consumers.
There’s one more benefit to buying goods from Central America. President Biden places great emphasis on slowing climate change. Manufacturing in the Northern Triangle would certainly cut down on carbon from transportation. Container ships plying the Pacific are one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. It is said that the 15 largest container vessels account for more carbon than all the world’s cars.
Prosperity generally follows trade. So why should Americans enrich a hostile Chinese state with everyday purchasing decisions when they can stabilize the Northern Triangle societies instead?
“If we are going to control immigration, then we have to take a more strategic view of global trade flows,” said Tonelson.
Humm interesting
We could shoot all border crossers.
Good article. Worth thinking about. Best case would be jobs in US but if that’s not feasible, a factory in say Guatemala would be better than a factory in CCP-land.
Why is it the establishment types’ solutions to problems always requires massive spending and other actions that hurt Americans. Those solutions don’t work either. In some ways, this is no different than Lame Brain’s war on poverty. There was and continues massive spending and programs to lift certain Americans out of poverty. A more effective solution is simply lead by example. In America make it clear that the formula for success is straight forward. Graduate from high school. Learn a trade or a profession. Get married and stay married prior to making babies. Stay out of jail. The forumla to be an international example for success is also pretty straight forward. It’s called the MAGA agenda. It would likewise work when applied in other nations. Unfortunately, we are not in a position for other countries to observe our ways to lead them to prosperity. Really, all we need to do is be prosperous and other nations will emulate us. That’s pretty damn cheap. It no different than the poor in America emulating the prosperous in America.
If the USA completely decouples from communist China, then that country loses all leverage over American business, American media, and American politicians. If this country does not break the leverage that communist China uses against us, we will probably cease to exist as an independent country in the next decade.
The border crisis can be solved by:
1. Ending Birthright Citizenship
2. Ending refugee resettlement
3. Ending the asylum program
4. Implementing the Visa Entry/Exit program
5. Taxing remittances back to any country south of the border at 40%
6. Ending the farce that is Birthright Citizenship.
7. Mandating EVerify for every job
8. Ending the farce that is Birthright Citizenship
Nothing to do with China
BULLCRAP!!! We can start by refusing to give illegal invades free stuff!!! AND end birthright citizenship.
We had the solution to the Border crisis and the bad guys stole the election from him because they could not win any other way.
China.
Bring US manufacturing back. For three entire decades, have been importing everything from China.
Has everything to do with China.
For three entire decades, every politician in the United States has sold us out.
Both parties. Trump seemed to get it, but even he did not reverse that.
9) Build fewer jails/
And our economic crises too. Re industrializing the US economy would be a boon to all!!!
Just stop giving them everything! If you do that and make them work to get citizenship ,they will stop flooding our country. It’s the free stuff stupid. They get more perks then our own citizenry.
Gordon Chang bump for later.....
Whether they sold out to China or not, and they have, isn’t why these people come here.
Building a factory down there will give them jobs, cut down on shipping costs, etc etc etc. Those things have been hashed out numerous times on here.
Take a look at a significant majority of the folks coming across the border. Women with kids. Old ladies. Teenage boys.
They’re here for one reason and one reason only....to take advantage of our benefits and take our money.
Take away their access to that and the immigration stops immediately.
Hashed out? Hash this bucko: BRING ALL INDUSTRY BACK TO THE USA. ALL OF IT!!!
Okey Dokey......Sure thing bucko....Get right on it bucko.....getting it done asap bucko.
It’d be wonderful, but I live in reality, not fantasy land.
It can never happen, as there are some things that are just not worth paying certain wages to make. Pure and simple. So, the manufacturer will find someplace else to make it.
But, if you looked past the end of your nose, you’d pay attention to folks that have talked about this. They’ve talked about how the idea of bring industries to, at least, this side of the Pacific Ocean, to Mexico/Central and South America, has been tried, looked at, etc etc, and it didn’t work. They don’t have slave labor in those regions. And the work force isn’t exactly the most educated nor do they have the greatest work ethic.
So, for whatever reason, off to China and other SE Asian countries the industry goes. I don’t like it anymore than anyone else.
Sure, some come here and frame the house, pour the concrete, mow the grass, clean the house, wash the dishes, pick the crops, etc etc etc...but there are millions sitting around collecting a check and doing nothing.
Millions popping out citizens and getting paid. Get rid of the greatest incentive for them coming to the US and the border crisis is over immediately.
Those are the facts, bucko.
You are Free Traitor. So please FOAD.
Not a traitor, just someone who sees things differently than you. I’ll say, more, maturely.
As I can see the forest for the trees. I can see past the end of my nose.
I do accept certain things as being what they are, no matter how much I may disagree with them or how negatively I think they’re effecting the country.
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