Posted on 11/02/2010 5:11:48 AM PDT by expat_panama
Big business interests are hopeful that a Republican takeover of the House -- now looking more likely than not -- will thaw free-trade deals that have languished since President Obama took office. Those agreements are on a short list of priorities the White House has in common with GOP leaders.
But a rising protectionist tide brought about by the sour economy is threatening to complicate the task. And business groups in Washington are already preparing for the possibility that a new Republican majority stocked with populists from Rust Belt districts and beyond will present a less receptive audience than they once anticipated.
"We're going to have our work cut out for us," says Christopher Wenk, the senior director of international policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Even under the current Congress, Republicans have proven more inclined to register protectionist sentiment. That was on stark display in late September, when 99 Republicans joined 249 Democrats in approving a measure to strengthen the administration's hand in pushing the Chinese to let their currency rise.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
I am all for free and unfettered trade, so long as our trading partners exercise the same policies. But China, India, and others do not.
The plot thickens....
Oh please. The next you know we will be told that NOT subsidising corporations is “anti-business”
Exactly, it seems like there’s not a square foot of foreign soil that we don’t already give preferential treatment in trade already. If the country isn’t using undervalued currency or subsidizing certain industries, we’re giving them foreign aid.
LOL, unlimited but with limits! That's like saying 'I'm in favor of heterosexual marriage only when women act like men'. The fact that in real life partners will never behave exactly as we do means that you can be anti-business and deny it at the same time.
Seems to me that the tea party mindset will facilitate easier manufacturing which leads to jobs and even more trade.
How anyone could oppose that is beyond me.
Everyone has a different definition of “free trade.”
I, for one, support penalizing a company with a tariff if they are HQ’d in America, selling at a profit mainly to Americans, and enjoy a stable society in which to plan and enjoy business thanks to the US taxpayer...who then fires all their American employees and hires them overseas at a fraction of the cost.
And before you go on about your “broken window” theories and how they are just responding to excessive taxation and fines...I’m aware of all that. I’ve studied this situation for years.
Free trade begins at home. If a government is punishment business for whatever reason (Al Gore and his eco-fascists or whatever), that is NOT free trade.
But I am so sick of offshoring and on-shore offshoring and watching good people get canned because they dared to follow the American dream and work hard and capitalize on their skills and who dared to adopt a non-third-world living standard that I’m ready to tell those companies either go to Hell or charge them so much it is no longer profitable to fire Americans just to tweak their bottom line.
Right there are two of the biggest hurdles that must be eliminated if we ever hope to put America back on the track to success:
- The current White House resident and his comrades
- Current GOP Leaders
Indeed part of the deep appeal the Tea Party has, is that they do NOT represent the globalist, America-last RINOs.
America FIRST.
No more outsourcing. No more “globalism”.
America.
Bingo! I'm remembering an '08 advertisement Obama paid for in Texas where he attempted to counter the understanding that he was anti-military --by saying he was in favor of spending hikes for VA and GI benefits.
Helping the military by encouraging service personnel to leave...
No, I’m not talking about the usual kinds of imperfections in a trading partner’s policies. I’m talking about widespread abuse and “beggar they neighbor” trading policy. It means that in certain instances you respond with strength to anti_competitive behavior. Examples would be to threaten sanctions against China unless they stop currency manipulation and copyright/patent violations. You cannot just sit and let another nation literally steal from you.
Lately, though, we have done just that because the limousine liberals who run our largest corporations in this country are so desparate to exploit the 1.2 billion slaves in China, supported by China’s totalitarian regime.
To some extent I agree, but if those good people at home want to enjoy the American dream, the first step is for them to stop electing socialists who force our businesses overseas with excessive taxation and regulation.
The next step is for our country to adopt shareholder rights’ legislation that will enable stockholders to kick out the limousine liberal corporate executives who are destroying America’s largest businesses, and the country by extension
Fortune’s concept of a pre-election Tea Party hit piece? Every wrinkle in the road is being thrown at the Tea Party while they cower from Lord Obummer. Horse Pucky! Tea Party is and has always been “Lets get our Federal Government to do the things it’s supposed to do not the things it decides to do.” International trade agreements and working to make America come out on top appears to be something they are supposed to do. The how starts in January or maybe April after some much needed house cleaning...
Tariffs and duties should be to raise revenue, period. The lose cost of imports helps keep me in business. I don’t want to become unemployed because knuckleheads think that subsidizing overpaid union thugs is patriotic.
We have not disagreed. And I am aware of all the socialist policies that encourage and enable bad business. And, of course, those very same socialists then turn around and blame capitalism for bad business.
We need a whole lot of fixes.
The longer we keep sending our jobs overseas, the less “low cost” all those imports will be.
Gradually they will increase in cost, and all those “low-cost” manual labor workers will become competent, leading edge technological experts with all of what were once America’s best jobs. Sapping America not only of our jobs, and our abilities, but all of what remains of our money. And our technology.
Leaving once-great manufacturing powerhouse America, a backward, jobless, broke and broken shadow of our once-magnificent nation.
Then who will be the knucklehead?
Lol, people who support all these one-sided trade deals always work the slur word “protectionist” into their articles as often as possible, just as the Reverends Jesse and Al drop the “racism” accusation every other sentence.
Some things never change, but the great unwashed have caught on to the fact that these one-sided trade agreements are nothing but a sell out of the US for the benefit of a few. It’s long past time that the US stopped opening its markets to nations that use every trick in the book to keep theirs closed.
Sounds like the globalist free traders have become so reliant on the over taxation, over regulation, and over unionization excuses that they can’t give them up. The tea partiers oppose the exact same things so it makes zero sense to worry about how we will impact trade.
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