Donald Trump: Clueless About Free Trade

Townhall.com ^ | February 4, 2016 | Larry Elder

[HiTech RedNeck]

The fly in this ointment is that we don’t have a kumbaya world.

[dynoman]

Yes, even that is levels above what we are used to in our politicians/negotiators.

Unpredictability.

We haven’t seen competent leadership for so long many don’t even recognize it when they see it.

[Pelham]

Elder is the sort of libertarian who treats ‘free trade’ as a religious tenet.

East Asia with it’s keiretsus, chaebols, and qiyejituan love Americans like him, his foolish indifference to their practices give them an enormous advantage over American competitors.

[Lagmeister]

....because I really, really want the globalist defense of what they’ve done to the US economy

And all the while the same current crop of so called conservatives praise and admire Reagan, who put a 100% tariff on Japanese electronics!!

How long can we tolerate being lied to about what conservatism really is. Real Constitutional conservatism starts and ends with America first!!

If the founders were alive today their biggest issues with governance would be the hordes of third worlders coming here to live off of tax payer benefits and the loss of jobs by corporations shifting everything overseas. We are losing our heritage and our wealth all at the same time.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I said that kind of half kidding.

All goodness comes from God in the end. A fair symbiosis can be beneficial to both parties. But Trump can be beneficially crazy in the sense of not bowing to sacred cows that turn out to just be some men’s idols.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Where do you see that?

[central_va]

It is hard to tell because the slime ball Free Traitors™ don't properly mark their stuff clearly as to where it is made. Case in point, the good ole Daisy Red Ryder BB gun is now made in China. But pick one up in Wally World and examine the box YOU CANNOT FIND WHERE IT IS MADE FROM THE PACKAGING. You have to open it up to see the markings.

I bought my 7.5 y/o son a Daisy Red Ryder, like I had 35 years or so ago. He found it under the Tree this AM. He loves it, shoots it well (with shooting goggles of course). Then, while I was looking at this classic American X-Mass gift, there it was stamped in the metal.... "MADE IN CHINA". WFT?????? An all American (or so I thought), airgun company is importing Red Ryder BB guns from China? Is it just me, or does this just stink? Granted, I got it on sale for $29.95 at Dicks Sporting Goods on Black Friday, but even if they cost $100.00, if they were still made in the USA, I would feel better about it. The metal looks good, it shoots as fast and accurate as I remember, but the wood looks sub par, not as nice as my old one. But for me, the "MADE IN CHINA" stamp just kills it.

[DoodleDawg]

They suck.

Turn it around and ask the voter if they want to pay 30% or 40% more for their laptop or their tablet or their HD TV or their Nikes or their smart phone or their clothing or their furniture and see what answer you get. The industries that China and southeast Asia have taken are the ones that can be done with a poorly educated workforce. And their poorly educated workers still are cheaper than our poorly educated workers.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Just to be fair, the phenomenon could warn us against idolatrous treatment of our blessings.

We might even want fewer material things if we can’t worship ourselves through them.

[central_va]

I love you -- In a manly kinda way.

Cyber man hug. Eat raw meat, it helps.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The question could be fairer put as: would they welcome a lower welfare bill, less social problems with the unemployed, and a higher average salary, even though the price of “cheap junk” would be more? What if this ended up a wash or better?

The math has to be done. We do not have a single-variable issue here.

[SubMareener]

The title of the article is “Clueless About Free Trade” and Elder says, “He proposes tariffs, for example, on Chinese goods in retaliation for that country’s alleged ‘cheating.’” So wouldn’t you conclude that Elder thinks we have a “free trade” agreement with China?

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

I’m not sure what a Mexican flop house has to do with tariffs.

[HiTech RedNeck]

That does sound like the presumption.

And it is quite reasonable to ask: is that where we are?

[HiTech RedNeck]

It is part of knock-on effects.

[Trumpinator]

Free Traitors.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Batman knows...

It ain’t even free trade anyhow. It’s always been out of balance. Free trade would look like something in which the money flow was close to neutral and it was more like swapping our crops for China’s junk.

[Pelham]

Which is why we experienced that huge wave of illegal immigrants in the year after NAFTA went into effect. It destroyed the Mexican small farm economy.

Libertarians who know the price of everything and the value of nothing saw no problem with it, unless it happened to be their own neighborhood that was overrun and turned into Tijuana.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Tariffs subsidized some Americans - via higher prices and reduced opportunity for other Americans. The fact that some sectors of the economy were shielded by tariffs while others were not is the very definition of cronyism.

Remember the auto import quotas of the '70s? American manufacturers responded by raising prices and cutting quality. Worst cars ever built. Nothing before or after as bad.

Raise the price on Chinese appliances 45% and the result will be that locally-made appliances will go up 44%.

[pie_eater]

The retailers who sell better quality stuff need to explain why cheap Chinese made junk really isn’t cheaper. Our economy is starting to bring some manufacturing back to the US for a variety of reasons, but it actually is starting to happen.
If you buy tools or appliances from a big box retailer, know that it’s not the same quality as the same brand sells through specialty stores. The internal parts are cheaper and they don’t last as long. But the burden is on the retailer to explain that fact to the buyer. It’s not free trade’s fault.
My plumber showed me the inside parts of a faucet that he sold and the parts from the same faucet at Home Depot. I bought the more expensive one because it was better and would last longer.