Posted on 07/26/2018 12:27:49 PM PDT by central_va
China does not have a “free trade” policy. It is absolutely managed trade, for the benefit of the Party and what their central planners deem they can manipulate for the country.
Trump is correct to simply say, as he did with Europe - reciprocity. We import your auto parts for a duty of 5%, we don’t require technology transfer, we don’t have outrageous testing standards. China must have the same, or penalties will ensue. Clinton should never have allowed China into the WTO on such unequal terms.
Trump himself says he is for “free trade.” But, he is the only politician actually trying to make it so.
So what does it mean to be for free trade? To support Trump’s policies?
“It will be interesting to see if he (Bongino) does the same—though not as interesting as what Mark Levin may or may not say.”
Rush’s awakening could signal a sea change in the Conservative movement on trade issues. Levin has been really harsh on tariffs, but he did come around recently on the case of China (for National Security reasons).
Not only has Rush been a mentor to Mark Levin, helping to make him very wealthy, but Rush explicitly addressed the ideas on trade of finance and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt, from whom Levin frequently quotes (Economics in One Lesson). It may have been a discussion partially intended for Levin himself.
Hazlitt was a huge figure in promoting free markets in theory. In practice though, it must be reciprocal to work as theorized, and it must be policed and enforced to address the inevitable cheating from self interest and political corruption - even deliberate sabotage by competitors like China.
Unilateral dropping of tariffs and other trade barriers is as foolish as unilateral disarmament is in military affairs.
That opinion piece was written in 2016, when the Naftaites still owned the story. The analysis therein about autos is propaganda not truth.
We can gear up in the U.S to produce autos. We do pay a huge price to expert autos into Mexico and it is so large it prevents many from so doing. Mexico sends assembled here no tariffs
You seem to be relying on theory rather than reality. I know the facts because of licensed import export brokers and cross border lawyers in my family. MAGA.
Now if he could just come around on healthcare, and stop looking at this from the perspective of a wealthy man with no worries, and realized that men and women who have worked hard all their lives, will lose all their assets to monopolistic, medical industrial complexes that set prices.
He said he was duped by economists.Sorry to say there is nothing good about that admission.
It means he either lacks logical thinking for himself.
or
he's been knowingly lying carrying the party line.
Don't forget who he supported as a "conservative" for President and who he DIDN'T support as "conservative" for president.
I'll admit he's come around, which is why he's still on the air...he definitely knows where his bread is buttered.
Some posts really get my attention (not saying yours).
I remember how he excoriated callers who disagreed with him about NAFTA and would talk down to them and used leftist style arguments to promote it. He was terrible with his audience at that time.
He was no better on the many issues of legal & illegal immigration. He mostly avoided it.
I understood Tariff Free Trade years ago at age 18.
Can I get a radio show?
Have EVER heard him talk about gays in the military or H-1B? Who knows, maybe he has really turned a corner.
You can replace that twerp Levin.
Hold on.
The idea of FREE trade is not a bad one. What Trump is fighting against is UNFAIR trade.
A difference that is subtle but very very real.
jmho
I’m happy to see him give up on the trade issue:) Take what we can.
“He said he was duped by economists.”
To be a talk show host (or politician), you have to be able to talk to issues outside of your core areas of expertise - International affairs, military strategy, law, economics, religion, etc..
It is only natural to take the advice of subject matter experts, who are widely respected among your allies.
People like Hayek, Von Mises, Milton Friedman and Henry Hazlitt no doubt appreciated that nuts and bolts monitoring and enforcement was necessary to maintain free trade, but the main thrust of their writing was targeted at convincing people of the inherent advantages of private property and free exchange (capitalism), to counter the constant propaganda of lying leftists (socialism).
It is probably the norm that non-specialists come away from reading the popular works of such great thinkers with a more theoretical (ideological) grasp of policy positions, than the more practical understanding that great experts themselves have.
We all just have to be intellectually honest to be able to adapt our positions as we learn more - and real world experience is perhaps the best teacher. Competitors will always seek advantages - if reciprocity is not carefully enforced, we will lose industries, along with their jobs, tax revenues and their whole supply chains.
Rush did pretty good today.
Dick-Head Troll Alert!
That’s the problem, Rush said the economists mislead everyone on the right(or they tried it didn’t work on me) into thinking that free trade was simply us dropping our import tariffs. The other side of the equation didn’t matter i.e. their tariffs on our exports, which as we all know is total BS. Free trade is two way street.
I will show my age, but there was an Animaniacs cartoon tht showed the Devil cussing out the Animaniacs after hell froze over.
Rush dump “free trade”. That made my day.
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