After a thirty year test drive, I think most voters agree.
“As father of a united Germany, Chancellor Bismarck said, when he decided to build Germany on the American and not the British model, ‘I see that those countries which possess protection are prospering, and that those countries which possess free trade are decaying.’”
The Bismarck model didn’t work out too well for Germany in the end.
I tried to explain this to several of my Representative in Congress, but I was blown off. why? Because they were getting money from the very countries that were screwing us.
Tariffs are bad for consumers, and require more bureaucracy to impose fairly (e.g., how much of a stove is assembled in the US?). No more taxes.
But without a doubt, Trump and his forbear PJB have nailed it.
Drastically reduce regulations and corporate taxes. Make Japan, Korea, and the EU pay for defense, or we get out. What else?
“Controlling the largest market on earth, we might impose on foreign producers a cover charge, an admissions fee, a tariff, to get into our market.”
BS! You won’t be charging “foreign producers”. You will be charging American consumers.
Conservatives are right to point out that taxes are ultimately paid by the consumer. Tariffs are no different. Higher prices are not in the interest of the consumer.
I remember flying over those shallows many times back and forth to Vietnam in the 60’s. They were a bone of contention even then.
I remember when working with the Commies was a bad thing.
It is very telling to look at the announcement speeches of Trump, Cruz and Rubio. This was the time to present what THEY thought was important to them and and the American people.
Comments On Trade....
Cruz
Imagine instead of economic stagnation, booming economic growth.
(Not specifically ‘trade’, but as close as he got to it!)
Rubio
They are busy looking backward, so they do not see how jobs and prosperity today depend on our ability to compete in a global economy.
Trump
Renegotiate our foreign trade deals.
When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.
When did we beat Japan at anything? They send their cars over by the millions, and what do we do? When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in Tokyo? It doesn’t exist, folks. They beat us all the time.
When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.
The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.
Last quarter, it was just announced our gross domestic product — a sign of strength, right? But not for us. It was below zero. Whoever heard of this? It’s never below zero.
‘ll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I’ll bring back our jobs, and I’ll bring back our money.
Right now, think of this: We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more than that. So they come in, they take our jobs, they take our money, and then they loan us back the money, and we pay them in interest, and then the dollar goes up so their deal’s even better.
How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow this to happen? How stupid are they?
. I’m going to tell you a couple of stories about trade, because I’m totally against the trade bill for a number of reasons.
Number one, the people negotiating don’t have a clue. Our president doesn’t have a clue. He’s a bad negotiator.
So we need people — I’m a free trader. But the problem with free trade is you need really talented people to negotiate for you. If you don’t have talented people, if you don’t have great leadership, if you don’t have people that know business, not just a political hack that got the job because he made a contribution to a campaign, which is the way all jobs, just about, are gotten, free trade terrible.
Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people, but we have people that are stupid. We have people that aren’t smart. And we have people that are controlled by special interests. And it’s just not going to work.
So, here’s a couple of stories happened recently. A friend of mine is a great manufacturer. And, you know, China comes over and they dump all their stuff, and I buy it. I buy it, because, frankly, I have an obligation to buy it, because they devalue their currency so brilliantly, they just did it recently, and nobody thought they could do it again.
But with all our problems with Russia, with all our problems with everything — everything, they got away with it again. And it’s impossible for our people here to compete.
So I want to tell you this story. A friend of mine who’s a great manufacturer, calls me up a few weeks ago. He’s very upset. I said, “What’s your problem?”
He said, “You know, I make great product.”
And I said, “I know. I know that because I buy the product.”
He said, “I can’t get it into China. They won’t accept it. I sent a boat over and they actually sent it back. They talked about environmental, they talked about all sorts of crap that had nothing to do with it.”
I said, “Oh, wait a minute, that’s terrible. Does anyone know this?”
He said, “Yeah, they do it all the time with other people.”
I said, “They send it back?”
“Yeah. So I finally got it over there and they charged me a big tariff. They’re not supposed to be doing that. I told them.”
Now, they do charge you tariff on trucks, when we send trucks and other things over there.
Ask Boeing. They wanted Boeing’s secrets. They wanted their patents and all their secrets before they agreed to buy planes from Boeing.
Hey, I’m not saying they’re stupid. I like China. I sell apartments for — I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them? I own a big chunk of the Bank of America Building at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, that I got from China in a war. Very valuable.
I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower. I love China. People say, “Oh, you don’t like China?”
No, I love them. But their leaders are much smarter than our leaders, and we can’t sustain ourself with that. There’s too much — it’s like — it’s like take the New England Patriots and Tom Brady and have them play your high school football team. That’s the difference between China’s leaders and our leaders.
They are ripping us. We are rebuilding China. We’re rebuilding many countries. China, you go there now, roads, bridges, schools, you never saw anything like it. They have bridges that make the George Washington Bridge look like small potatoes. And they’re all over the place.
We have all the cards, but we don’t know how to use them. We don’t even know that we have the cards, because our leaders don’t understand the game. We could turn off that spigot by charging them tax until they behave properly.
So Mexico takes a company, a car company that was going to build in Tennessee, rips it out. Everybody thought the deal was dead. Reported it in the Wall Street Journal recently. Everybody thought it was a done deal. It’s going in and that’s going to be it, going into Tennessee. Great state, great people.
All of a sudden, at the last moment, this big car manufacturer, foreign, announces they’re not going to Tennessee. They’re gonna spend their $1 billion in Mexico instead. Not good.
Now, Ford announces a few weeks ago that Ford is going to build a $2.5 billion car and truck and parts manufacturing plant in Mexico. $2.5 billion, it’s going to be one of the largest in the world. Ford. Good company.
So I announced that I’m running for president. I would...
(APPLAUSE)
... one of the early things I would do, probably before I even got in — and I wouldn’t even use — you know, I have — I know the smartest negotiators in the world. I know the good ones. I know the bad ones. I know the overrated ones.
Let me give you the bad news. Every car and every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a 35-percent tax, and that tax is going to be paid simultaneously with the transaction, and that’s it.
Now, here’s what is going to happen. If it’s not me in the position, it’s one of these politicians that we’re running against, you know, the 400 people that we’re (inaudible). And here’s what’s going to happen. They’re not so stupid. They know it’s not a good thing, and they may even be upset by it. But then they’re going to get a call from the donors or probably from the lobbyist for Ford and say, “You can’t do that to Ford, because Ford takes care of me and I take care of you, and you can’t do that to Ford.”
And guess what? No problem. They’re going to build in Mexico. They’re going to take away thousands of jobs. It’s very bad for us.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3396178/posts?page=2#2
IBTSHL - In Before the Smoot-Hawley Lie.
And the opposite is true. Every time a new trade deal reduces or eliminates tariffs on goods imported into the US, that increases the incentive for US transnationals to move production to some cheap labor nation.
That's been a primary goal of many trade agreements: eliminate tariffs and make relocating US plants to cheap labor nations even more profitable because the goods they ship to the US will be tariff free.
And TPP will only continue and accelerate that practice. The usual BS about opening foreign markets for US products and creating jobs in the US is just that, BS. Agriculture and a few industries benefit from some trade deals, but that's about it. The deals always increase the incentives for US manufacturing to be relocated to cheap labor nations.
I’ve come to the conclusion that FRee trader types, meaning those whose espouse and make excuses to offshore business to communist (china, vietnam, cuba) and socialist (mexico, central-south america, europe) are no better than the people who did business with the NAZIs or the USSR.
If you want to abandon the US to deal with communist and socialsts, go right ahead. Pack up all of your US assets, shed all of your US workers, close all of your US assets, and leave. But keep this in mind: you will have NO protections under US law, anything that you want to import into the US will have a stiff tarriff against it, I.P. laws won’t apply to you, your former US patents and copyrights will be null void, and your now foreign company will be removed and not allowed to be listed on any US stock exchange.
If the FRee trader globalists want to continue, this is what will happen.
This is 30+ years of outsourcing/offshoring rearing its ugly head. People are truly pissed of, and they want blood.
I expect to get flamed on this, but Trump is NOT right on trade. If he starts a trade war with the rest of the world, the American economy will tank. Our economic problems are due to socialism, faulty bank regulation, and radical environmentalism. We need to stop blaming the Chinese for our economic folly.
Thanks for posting this Kaslin.
The crux of the biscuit is currency manipulation. If we allow China to peg the yuan to the dollar artificially in the world system, they have a built in advantage for trade. The ONLY lever we have to make them stop manipulating their currency is by threatening (and following thru with if necessary) huge tariffs to compensate.
Those who say this hurts consumers are profiting from the current system and don’t want their fortunes to change. Consumers will benefit by once again having real jobs instead of having to ask “do you want fries with that?”.
I’ve been to China a lot. My wife is from Xiamen, just across from Taiwan on the mainland. We have exported our entire middle class over there, and they are spending like trailer court tweakers that just won the lottery. It’s time to bring our economy back from the NWO.
Bernie Sanders is wrong on trade.
bkmk
History - it's not just for books anymore.
Just as with Ann Coulter, you can add PB to clown posse lining up behind Trump. Jimmy Carter leads that crap pack.
Economic nationalism is one of those concepts American heartily approve of - in theory. When it is their own money at the cash register, “Made in the USA” suddenly becomes far less important.
Back when bringing China into the WTO was discussed, I wrote Dick Armey, Ann Richardson and Phil Gramm that all we were doing is arming our enemy and that we'd be at war with them in 20 years (OK, I was off a bit). I told them they would then want to send my grandson off to war and it was gonna be "Hell no, he won't go!".
Gramm patted me on the head, saying that "globalism was good", Richardson never bothered to answer. Armey sent me a two page letter, laying out why it was good for America. At least he (or his staff) took the time to give a reasoned response.
Now, of a sudden, the current bunch is worried. I ought to suggest that they contact the above.