Posted on 10/16/2018 6:00:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
For those on the left and right who were certain that President Donald Trump's presidency meant the end of global free trade ... think again. Though Trump's critics have dismissed the significance of the new Mexico and Canada trade deal, it's hard to deny that it is a welcome advance for the economy of the entire continent.
The pact will extend for years a (mostly) tariff-free North American trade zone. This was Ronald Reagan's vision nearly four decades ago -- and that legacy can now live on for hopefully many years to come.
Here's just one example of the importance of this agreement. In the area of energy production, the integration of our economies and the freer flow of energy investment capital across our southern and northern borders means more pipelines, more LNG terminals, more oil refineries and more exploration. North America is poised to be the new Middle East for energy production for the next 50 years, with all the related economic advantages that confers on our region.
One of the most favorable outcomes of the new trade pact is the provision that locks in 10 years of patent protections for new pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines. While some critics are portraying this as a sell-out to the big drug companies, the opposite is true. Patent protections for drugs invented in America reduce costs for American consumers by forcing foreign countries to help pay for the research costs (about $1 billion for each new drug brought to market) and stop free riding on our innovation.
As University of Chicago professor Tomas J. Philipson puts it in a 2018 study on the drug industry: "There is no free lunch. If neither Americans nor foreigners pay for the R&D to develop new drugs, then soon nobody will receive new treatments."
One research team that found that price controls and inadequate patent protections will prevent the development of six new blockbuster drugs each year by 2020 and more than a dozen a year by 2050. No one can benefit from a drug to cure cancer, MS, Alzheimer's or epilepsy at any price if it hasn't been invented.
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will both save lives by accelerating medical research and reduce drug prices at home by ensuring that foreigners no longer enjoy medical innovation without paying their fair share.
Despite these virtues, Democrats in Congress are threatening to vote as a bloc to prevent passage of the trade pact. These are the same people who just a few months ago were complaining that Trump's "reckless and dangerous" trade policies were harming the economy and alienating our allies. Now he has a deal that helps the economy and unifies our neighbors -- and they are against it. They have exposed themselves as free trade hypocrites.
Opponents of the new trade agreement on the left and right have nit-picked about certain hard-to-defend features of the plan -- such as foolish wage requirements for Mexican autoworkers. But this misses the bigger point. USCMA means that free trade is alive and well across the borders of North America.
Congratulations to Donald Trump and his trade team for delivering an agreement that will promote prosperity across all three nations.
Feint praise by a Free Traitor™.
I seriously doubt any Mexican autoworker would see a hefty raise as "foolish".
I don’t understand your comment. Moore’s praise of the pact is unequivocal. On top of that, he brings out nuances in the pact I wasn’t aware of, owing to the fact the media isn’t going to cover it, and the conservative press is waiting for the tribunals to start.
I think The Donald is getting the hang of this presidenting thing.
ESAD liberals.
The Mexican wage requirement actually works to US benefit at least 2 ways.
1. Lessens the attractiveness of sneaking into the USA.
2. Makes Mexican low wages less attractive as reason for moving factories to Mexico.
We have posters on FR that are opposed to any trade with foreign countries. Some of them have been pushing the idea that Trump should put up more trade barriers and if the truth were known they probably don’t really like the new trade agreements. Moore is a traditional free trader and they hate the idea that he is advising Trump.
Ah. Thanks for that.
Trade is pretty key. The fairer the playing field internationally, the better it is for our partners, who tend to have lower barriers to entrepreneurialism than the US does right now.
I’ve owned a US company. I’m not likely to do it again, especially in WA state. (The People’s Soviet of Washington)
The best thing out of this is the US can veto any bilateral trade agreement between Canada or Mexico and anybody else. Suck on that China.
At this point in history, with the way the USA has been bled dry and de industrialized and our exports tariff-ed to death, I am definitely and proudly in that camp. If you can't understand that then you are a Free Traitor™.
It's the key to bleeding the USA dry and suppressing wages and bankrupting the USA.
The USA beat the Axis and the Empire of Japan plus supplied our allies in WWII. Trade was virtually zero in the decades leading up to WWII. So using that as an example then trade is a CHOICE for the USA and not a necessity.
It WAS bleeding the US dry, especially the generational theft of the H1-B program and the invasion from Mexico.
The other thing bleeding us dry was the theft of intellectual property by China, and to a lesser extent Russia.
Actual trade with other countries? You have to have it. It creates strategic interdependencies that are stronger than defense pacts.
So you wish for their to be strong praise for a free trade agreement instead of “faint praise”?
This is 20th century gloBULList trash talk. Who is "you". Ain't me. OMG is this George Bush? LOL. THE LAST THING THE USA WANTS IS INTER-DEPENDENCIES.
This is why Trump won to get rid of the globalist mid set in the GOP and MAGA.
Yes, especially the part about mandatory minimum wages in Mexico.
We are about to build a plant in Kentucky to build cloud servers for export.
You are for or against this?
For years, we have created an environment where it was artificially cheaper to build things in other countries. 45 is changing that.
Are you saying you are against EXPORT?
There are strategic metals available less expensively from other countries. Are you against importing them?
I don’t understand your opposition to buying and selling on an open global market WITHOUT global control over sovereign governments and their people.
Explain it to me. I’m trying to understand what it is I’ve missed. No sarcasm. You can go along and not see what is right there in front of you sometimes.
Exports are great but their is a domestic market for every product made in the USA. When something has been abused for so long and the American worker has been made to eat it for decades EVERYTHING involving trade is suspect.
Ok, this classic. You are using a tiny little example, rare earth minerals, and projecting that onto the entire $3.5T trade we have with rest of the world.
This is what liberals do, projection. It's like when the MSM show Syrian "refugees", they show a little girl when in fact 90% of the "refugees' are military aged men.
Easy chief, just an example.
Same question, what am I missing? What’s the economic or security argument for a completely self-contained domestic supply chain for all industries?
I’m earnestly asking. No projection.
You don't understand because you appear to be another boring gloBULList brain washed tool.
The 30 year globalist experiment in "Free Trade" is an abject failure. Why? because the rest of the of world didn't play fair, practiced mercantilism against us, and destroyed US wages and work the ethic suffered. The US workforce cannot be placed in direct competition with 3rd world peasants without huge social/economic ramifications HERE IN THE USA.
I am not so greedy as to destroy the USA industrial base, cause social havoc, lower GDP growth, in order to buy a cheaper poor quality turd world made goods. IT'S NOT WORTH IT AT ANY PRICE.
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