Free Republic

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has come to represent the most efficient form of colonization the world has ever seen – reaping all the benefits with no downsides of occupation. The corporate agenda of the organization has destroyed the American economy, allowing multinationalists to exploit the world’s cheap resources and put America out of work and out of business.

Lobbyists in Washington say they are being flooded with questions and concerns from foreign governments about the rise of Donald Trump. Officials around the globe are closely following the U.S. presidential race, to the point where some have asked their American lobbyists to explain, in great detail, what a contested GOP convention would look like. The questions about Trump are “almost all-consuming,” said Richard Mintz, the managing director of Washington-based firm The Harbour Group, whose client list includes the governments of Georgia and the United Arab Emirates. After a recent trip to London, Abu Dhabi and Beijing, “it’s fair to...

When President Reagan imposed a 100 percent tariff on selected Japanese electronics in 1987, he and the press gave the impression that this was an act of desperation. Pictured was a long-forbearing president whose patience was exhausted by the recalcitrant and conniving Japanese. After trying for years to elicit some fairness out of them, went the story, the usually good-natured president had finally had enough. When newspapers and television networks announced the tariffs, the media reminded the public that such restraints were imposed by a staunch free trader. The less-than-subtle message was that if "Free Trader" Ronald Reagan thought the...

After World War II, America was on the rise. The Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan were defeated. It was time to rebuild. To tighten ties with our allies and help rebuild Europe, new global organizations were created to unite against the perceived next threat to democracy: communism. Thus were the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, born. Along with the World Bank and IMF came the International Trade Organization (ITO), an agency of the United Nations, and, separately, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Even with the GATT, there was no...

“Free trade” sounds great: consumers get the benefit of increased competition for their buying dollars, manufacturers get to locate or source from the lowest cost labor pool, and exporters have the opportunity to sell into new markets with no tariffs. What could be bad about that? Fundamental Flaws In “Free Trade” There are at least two fundamental flaws with “free trade” that have led to the most massive wealth transfer in the history of the world (over $8 trillion has been lost by the United States from 2000-2013 through trade deficits caused by the elimination of tariffs). 1. Impossible to...

“Free trade” would more accurately be called “freedom for other countries to undercut and destroy American domestic production” because in practice that is what is happening. This is an undeniable fact that should be obvious to any consumer or business in this country. Very little of what is consumed here is made by American-owned companies operating in America. This was not formerly the case, and it was not how the wealth of this country was created. Proponents of “free trade” justify their position by saying it is supplying American consumers with access to the lowest cost, most competitive market. However,...

Trump Campaign Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller addressed Friday why immigration and trade are key issues in the Republican frontrunner’s campaign. “Well, there is very little right about our trade deals, there is virtually nothing right about our trade deals. We’ve been getting taken to the cleaners by every country we trade with. We have a trade deficit with almost all of our major trading partners. If you look at, for instance, say Japan, and our car trading deficit, or you look at China, where we have hundreds of billions of dollars in trade deficits, so our entire trade policy...

Current U.S. trade policies have become deeply unpopular with a critical mass of Americans — that much is clear from recent primary results and exit polls, and the longer running presidential campaign success of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders. Voters mainly, and understandably, fear that their job and wage prospects have been kneecapped by free trade agreements and related policy decisions like ignoring predatory practices by foreign governments. Yet Washington’s decades-long, bipartisan trade strategy has fueled an more fundamental problem — dramatically slowing an already dismal U.S. economic recovery. National economies can’t truly be healthy without enough good...

When Donald Trump threatened to “break” the North American Free Trade Agreement, auto industry workers offered up some of the loudest cheers. Mr. Trump easily won the Republican primary in Michigan this month. The state, home base for the American auto industry, also delivered an upset victory to Bernie Sanders, the Democratic anti-NAFTA standard-bearer. But the autoworkers’ animosity is aiming at the wrong target. There are still more than 800,000 jobs in the American auto sector. And there is a good case to be made that without NAFTA, there might not be much left of Detroit at all. “Without the...

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free." "You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money." "It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money." "There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to...

Make America Awesome is a political action committee owned by Liz Mair, that launched attacks on Donald Trump’s wife, Melania. The organization exploited pictures of the potential next first lady, laying nude, posing on top of a bed, for a GQ photo-shoot. On Thursday, Carly Fiorina personally emailed her supporters, announcing that she is re-launching Carly for America as a multi-candidate PAC. Here is where it gets interesting — Make America Awesome and Carly for America have the same mailing address: P.O. Box 26141, Alexandria, VA 22313. Carly for America & Make America Awesome Carly for America & Make America...

Mar. 28, 2016 - 10:21 - GOP candidate weighs in on US refugee program, war of words with Ted Cruz

No issue is more entwined in paradox than free trade versus protectionism. Here’s the first. Polling suggests that voters recognize the benefits of free trade more now than at anytime in many years, even as the presidential candidates advocate more protectionism. The polling company Gallup recently studied public attitudes on trade over the past quarter century. The question Gallup has asked over the years is whether free trade is more of a “threat” to America or an “opportunity.” In 2016, 58 percent said trade was more on “opportunity” versus 34 percent who said it is “a threat.” This may not...

Among many other topics, respondents were asked whether they were struggling economically — or whether they were comfortable and moving up. They were also asked whether they thought it was more of a problem that African-Americans and Latinos are "losing out because of preferences for whites" or whether whites are "losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics." The survey asked this question in order to gauge the sentiment that racial and ethnic groups don't just feel they are facing difficulties in general, but that those losses are being caused by other group's gains.

In Donald Trump’s Worldview, America Comes First, and Everybody Else Pays By DAVID E. SANGER and MAGGIE HABERMANMARCH 26, 2016 Mr. Trump’s views, as he explained them, fit nowhere into the recent history of the Republican Party: He is not in the internationalist camp of President George Bush, nor does he favor President George W. Bush’s call to make it the United States’ mission to spread democracy around the world. He agreed with a suggestion that his ideas might be summed up as “America First.” “Not isolationist, but I am America First,” he said. “I like the expression.” He said...

The news report goes back in time documenting US history of international trade agreements starting from the time of Reagan administration who proposed a North American Common Market to current history. Fast Forward to November of 2004 when the Independent Task Force on the Future of North America is formed. Their focus is no longer trade and prosperity but security. Three private groups headed by the Council of Foreign Relations(CFR) and their respected organizations in Canada and Mexico. They claim in their own words North America is vulnerable on several fronts: the region faces criminal and terrorist security threats, increased...

For decades, the benefits of free trade have been something that both political parties have agreed on. Eliminating tariffs, proponents said, would reduce the cost of goods for U.S. consumers and put more people to work in exporting industries. Recently, though, some economists have concluded that the costs of free trade have been greater than expected, and both Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump have run successful presidential primary campaigns on protectionist platforms. Many of their supporters are now rejecting more than half a century of bipartisan economic consensus. Outside of Sanders's and Trump's coalitions, however, there...

Most significantly, the TPP does not address a massive cost to U.S. goods and services that has a chokehold on our export levels: foreign Value-Added Tax (VAT) schemes.

An active industrial policy geared toward recovering our manufacturing capability can work and has worked before. There are many examples of this from U.S. history, championed by both sides of the aisle. In fact, tariffs effectively built the wealth of this country and have been a very valuable tool for managing growth for the better part of 200 years. We should not strive to return to a type of colonial “subject” status with respect to today’s new economic imperialists in Japan, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, or Mexico.

A report released Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., reports the spectacular failure of efforts by the U.S. to improve its trade imbalance with China by allowing it into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The report, “China Trade, Outsourcing and Jobs,” states that U.S. officials including President Bill Clinton boasted of the improvements that would come with allowing China into the organization. According to the authors of the report, the following are five predictions made about the benefits of the move matched with research about what actually occurred. According to the supporters of the move, the...