Trump:
1. great on immigration
2. great on taxes
3. great with regulation reduction
4. great with foreign policy
5. terrible when it comes to free trade
You’ve got it with your 5 points. I don’t think Donald gets the connectedness of economics.
He’s right that free trade is good, up to a point, at the point where it really isn’t free, but instead is asymmetric.
An example: Tariffs can be used to protect against predatory activity, such as operating at a loss to steal an industry. China does this in a number of ways, including forced technology transfer. Tariffs would work against that.
But, tariffs also encourage a bit of shirking domestically. It’s a fine line between unfair competition and feather bedding.
Another example: Administration after administration talks about infrastructure investment. However, these investments involve union employment at what is called the prevailing wage (Davis-Bacon). But, that wage is only the prevailing wage if you are in the exclusive union club. So, you have inefficiency and excess payoffs to a political client.
I hope Donald has people advising him how to balance the need for protection of US from the outside versus the taking advantage of US from groups within.
I am a lifelong supporter of free trade. However, what we have in today’s United States is not free trade. Instead we have managed (i.e., rigged) trade. Free trade does not require multi-thousand page agreements and international bureaucracies for monitoring and enforcement. Additionally, free trade does not trump (pun not intended) the constitutional provision for treaty ratification with unconstitutionally ratified “trade deals”.
Gee because what we are doing now is so beneficial to employment, wages and trade deficits. /sarcasm
Or at least giving some that impression. Watch and learn grasshopper how it all plays out. This is all pert of his strategy, and it attacks several different fronts at the same time. Talk is always cheap as my dad used to say, and actions always speak louder.
There is no such thing as “free trade”.
It’s managed trade through rigged treaties. .
The United States from 1945 to 1996 was a world Super Power. That’s not even debated. We led the world in a lot of categories took. At the time we did not have NAFTA, GATT, etc.... How do you explain that?
The current rigged trade deals have been put in by the Globalsit to weaken the Unites States and THAT is what it has done. The United States was a stronger country from 1945 to 1996 than it is from NAFTA going forward.
The current trade agreements are RIGGED AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
1) WE PAY TARRIFFS 20 to 40% and they (China and Mexico) pay nothing. THow is that fair and not rigged???
2). When aour exports increase, then China is allowed to manipulate their currency. So that it’s even harder for us to export. How is that fair?
3). Our industry has massive regulations, but China does not have to follow the same regulations. Hence, it encourages good jobs to leave the United States and open up in China with dirty coal plants, factories, etc... Plus they can export for free version having a factory in the U.S. where they have to pay TARRIFFS to China and Mexico.
4). Many of theses jobs in China are paid at slave labor wages. Ten cents an hour like at Foxcon for Apple. There is no way a U.S worker can work for 10 cents an hour over here. That’s not enough to pay your electric bill.
5). The only jobs tag at are coming in are minimum wage jobs that used to be called summer jobs when I was a kid. We are watching the United States being de-industrialized and weakened.
If you goal is to weaken the United States then you should be all for the RIGED TRADE DEALS. However, if you are for a strong United States, then let’s get the United State back to when we were a Super Power before NAFTA from 1945 to 1996.
Free trade is great for attaining Marxist internationalist goals, but not much else.
I agree. The Japanese press is not the only ones laughing at him for proposing a 38 percent tariff on cars when under TPP American beef imports are scheduled to come way down. The American people and Congress are not going to stand for a tax on their Hondas and Toyotas either. He needs to get more sophisticated on the issue before a general campaign.
“[Trump] terrible when it comes to free trade”
So I guess that means you get a warm, glowing feeling when you go to the large box stores, and see everything manufactured overseas.
As an old economist once said, when you buy something foreign made, the money and the job goes overseas (and now Mexico).
Which is great because so-called free trade is terrible for America and is anything but free.