NAFTA.
And only one presidential candidate spoke openly of fixing it.
> And only one presidential candidate spoke openly of fixing it (NAFTA). <
Actually two, if you count Bernie Sanders. And therein is a missed opportunity. There is common ground between Trump and the Bernie Bro’s on this one issue. (Yes, I know that the Bernie Bro’s are mostly socialist dreamers).
Anyway, I wish Trump would exploit this commonality. Don’t call Bernie crazy, as Trump has done. Instead frequently praise Bernie for his skepticism about NAFTA. End result: Some Bernie Bro’s take a second look at Trump. And the Democratic Party loses support. MAGA!
US workers and heavily regulated US companies competing against heavily subsidized foreign companies. The foreign competitors employ labor at substantially lower rates, enjoy special tax preferences for exports, often have access to zero interest funding for capital, and benefit from significant non-tariff barriers to keep foreign (i.e. US) companies from competing in their domestic markets. The foreign companies employ child labor and aren’t bound by high US minimum wages, overtime laws, worker safety protections, social security taxes, and payments into unemployment and workman’s comp funds. Health care expenses are significantly lower for foreign companies, many of which do not provide health insurance benefits to workers. Foreign companies also don’t deal with rapacious tort lawyers and aren’t bound by restrictive environmental protection regulations. To be fair, foreign CEO’s and upper management salaries are much lower than their US counterparts enjoy. Finally many foreign companies steal with impunity the intellectual property of US companies and are shielded in doing so by their governments, international trade organizations dominated by anti-US globalist, and the US State Department unwilling to take aggressive action to protect US interests.
With respect to trade policy the US has two options. The first is to continue the “free trade” policies of the past 35 years and see further loss of manufacturing and middle class jobs. The end game here is the complete destruction of the middle class and slow migration to a third world subsistence economy.
The second option is to employ trade policy crafted to encourage the rebuilding of the US industrial base, national economic self sufficiency, and preservation of a strong middle class. To do so the US should return to the trade and tariff policies it employed successfully from 1865 to 1900 when our nation transitioned from the economic devastation and ruin of a bitter civil war to become the world’s greatest industrial power. During those 35 years the US employed the highest tariff’s in its history and enjoyed the highest economic growth rate in its history. A protectionist trade policy should be combined with tax policies encouraging investment in the domestic economy, reform of the tort system, and redirection of government education spending to provide real job skills for an expanding economy. Let the private sector and individuals fund education in liberal arts and social sciences fields that don’t contribute to economic prosperity.
In addition the government welfare system must be overhauled to fund a safety net for the truly disabled. Able body unemployed, who cannot find jobs in the private sector, should have the choice of starving or joining public works employment projects which provide job skills training while working on improvements to public infrastructure (depression era WPA and CCC type projects). The perpetuation of successive generations of welfare dependency can only be ended by reinstating the economic incentive to work.
We have experimented with globalism and one sided open markets for 35 years and the scorecard is in. The greatest industrial infrastructure in the world has been gutted and exported to nations hostile to our country. The middle class has seen two decades of stagnant income for the first time in our history. Our national debt is at obscene levels as the tax base has dwindled and government has borrowed to fund the growing unemployed and underemployed population. We have over 90 million working age Americans unemployed today. We also have the greatest wealth disparity in our nation’s history.
Increasing tariffs will impose a cost on US consumers. Tariffs are a tax. Better a tax on imported goods, which will encourage domenstic production, than higher taxes on income which discourage investment or even worse higher government borrowing which acts as a drag on economic activity today and in the future.
Do you prefer the economic and trade policies that resulted in the highest level of economic growth in our history from 1865 to 1900 or do you prefer the destructive economic and trade policies employed from the 1980’s to today? There is a cost to both. One offers the potential for economic independence and long term economic growth. The other has been proving to result in concentration of wealth, income disparity, export of domestic manufacturing, higher national debt, high levels of unemployment, and a declining standard of living for the vast majority of the population.