Bernie, Hillary, and Trump all rejected the Pacific Trade Pact. Who the hell was for it? Egg McMuffin and the Dope Smokers on the Libertarian ticket?
Would you eliminate the US tariffs on trucks. If so I think you would find Europe ready to remove tariffs on US cars. Watcha say?
Our position was that Afghanistan attacked the US. As per NATO charter, NATO nations committed their forces to our war in Afghanistan. More than a thousand non-US NATO troops died in our defense. Show some FREAKING respect. And, if you want to change the way we make war decisions, START A THREAD.
Hillary and Barack wanted the Libyan war, Americans never backed it, certainly never called for it, and certainly never authorized it. You keep claiming we are obligated to NATO because NATO destroyed Libya and murdered its leader, and I'm pointing out to you, that the American People never called for war in Libya and never authorized it. Now you are claiming that I need to start a new thread if I want to refute your point? OK, you are waving the white flag. I get it. If we face an imminent threat, the War Powers Act allows the President to act. We faced no imminent threat in Libya and we are not obligated to NATO because they engaged in destructive adventuring in league with Drunken Hillary and Corrupt Obama. We work with our allies by giving them tremendous access to our consumer markets and more than meeting our NATO commitments. Where they do not reciprocate that, Trump is taking them to task, as well he should.. They should have been taken to task for this decades ago.
No, I point out that NATO is an ASSET for the US - that we WANT the US because of the support it gives us as we look to solve various problems throughout bordering regions. Obviously, we can back out if we want. It's just that backing out is a profoundly stupid move. Trump's ham handed bullying causes problems for the leadership of NATO nations in that it moves Europeans to despise America. We're asking Europe to spend more money for something that WE want. Berating Europeans isn't going to cause them to want to spend more money on stuff WE want. This is Polysci 101.
I want trade balance with our trading "partners" and our NATO allies to meet their defense spending commitments.
They aren't meeting their spending commitments. We may chose to leave. France chose to leave at one point, did that cause you to wet your pants? I don't see them as much help. Iceland has ZERO military, not even one person, how much help are they? Luxembourg has 1,057 active military, in the entire country. How much help are they in a fight? Montenegro has 1950 people in their entire active military. We are committed to a nuclear exchange with Russia if necessary to protect Montenegro? How do you make these risk/benefit assessments? Go down the list, look at their military expenditures, their levels of active military forces, they aren't serious about defense, though they are very comfortable with us providing their defense. Not just the cost, but the material, the equipment even the lives of our young people. You are clearly fine with that. I'm not. And we very well may walk. As Gates pointed out during the Obama Administration, future Americans may decide this isn't worth the risk and cost. I think we are here. And really, all we are doing is noting that these NATO members themselves, do not think defense is worth the effort, risk and cost. No. It's the recognition that its a farce. We ask them to make their OWN spending commitments, LIKE WE DO and you whine that we are "bullies". Yet they are the ones presuming a foreign nation will defend them when they won't go to the effort and expense to defend themselves, not us. When we ask for them to do the same volume of trade with US as we do with them, we are "bullies". We are "bullies" to ask for balance, but they are justified in demanding that they continue to run surpluses? If they don't want NATO, then, that's their choice.
... as written. The US has long seen a Pacific trade pact as highly important in moving China on serious issues such as intellectual property. Trump just surrendered.
Well, we've been running $350B trade deficit ranges with China under your approach, we'll see if Trump's approach is an improvement or not.
Nixon's approach demonstrated the power of joining in trade. Over the intervening years, we've made progress with China on labor and other factors through interaction with them, backed by pur trade allies. There is no possibility of denying that has moved us forward. We needed to strengthen that through stronger ties with allies and more focus on specific issues that have not yet been resolved to our satisfaction. Trump has now switched to attacking even our allies.
Our trade balance with China: 2016: -$345B 2014: -$345B 2012: -$315B 2010: -$273B 2008: -$268B 2006: -$234B 2004: -$162B Our deficit with China doubled in 10 years during the Bush/Obama era. Now we are going to try something else. If their running a surplus against us isn't attacking us, thenOur insisting on balanced trade, isn't attacking them, Silly!
The single most important reason for the trade imbalance with China is that they have a lower standard of living. Thus they pay less for labor. We're not really going to fix that. We're not interested in lowering our standard of living OR trying to raise theirs, right?? And, we're not going to force the Chinese government to move away from capitalism and artificially impose higher wages. There ARE things we can work on - like intellectual property rights. That's important, because as we move forward our US competitiveness is going to be tied less to manufacturing and more to innovation, high tech, information handling, automation, clean energy, etc. These areas depend more on intellectual property. Trump's trade war isn't going to change the difference labor cost between the US and China in any way that we like.
We don't need to. We are going to do as much trade with them, as the wish to do with us. Embrace the power of "AND!" I love the way these folks who all pinky swear that they can't wait to pay more for goods and services in order to support a $15 minimum wage, crap their pants when they find out cheap chinese goods might go up by a buck or so.
No, their surplus comes from the natural course of free market economics. We have more wealth per capita and thus buy more stuff. Our decision to have a trade war is NOT some sort of natural outfall of free market economics. It's a proposition that someone is doing something deserving of economic war by us. What are our allies doing that justifies economic war? What is Canada doing, for example?
China doesn't have a free market economy. If they don't buy more of our stuff, We are going to buy less of their stuff. A trade-war with us will cost them $350B a year, I don't think they can afford that, but, if that's their choice, that's their choice. If running a surplus against us isn't economic war against us, our insisting on trade balance, isn't economic war against them. Their pretty boy Prime Minister with the fake eyebrows is a big mouth. I think that might cost him a lot.
Tell that to Harley Davidson. What you are ignoring is that tariffs are barely even coming into effect.
Harley Davidson only survived because Ronaldus Maximus (The Great One) protected them with TEN-FOLD tariffs on heavy motorcycles. Harley now has plants all over the world. Harley now bets against America. They call it free trade, but given the low wages paid in Thailand, where Harley is building a plant, maybe we should call it slave trade. One-way "free trade" is economic euthanasia. Government's role, particularly on the trade front, should be one of creating the conditions where fair trade will flourish, and this is precisely what has been done here. Our trade laws should work to foster growth and trade, not shut it off. And that's what's at the heart of our fair trade policy: opening foreign markets, not closing ours. Where U.S. firms have suffered from temporary surges in foreign competition, we haven't been shy about using our import laws to produce temporary relief. Now, there are those in Congress who say our trade policies haven't worked, but Harley-Davidson is living proof that this works. That's what President Trump is doing today.
In the end, we can't demand that other countries buy our products. We have to compete. And, that includes noticing where our competitive advantage is going, and making the moves necessary to be competitive there. Take China and clean energy. They encourage that segment and the result is that they have more patents on innovations than anyone and they have more exports than anyone. A while back, their government CUT coal production enough that it gave the world coal price a notable boost! It was a serious cut. What are WE doing? Trump pushes for more coal!!! And, he makes other moves in the OPPOSITE direction of clean energy! Thus, we have continued emphasis on a dying energy source while China is clearing the table in the clean energy market. This is the kind of mistake we can not afford to make. And, tariffs are not going to mitigate the damage.
We aren't, We are willing to do as much business with any country as they are willing to do with us. Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 3:16 AM - Jun 8, 2018 Canada charges the U.S. a 270% tariff on Dairy Products! They didn’t tell you that, did they? Not fair to our farmers! Canada manipulates their markets so that non-Canadian milk is nearly 3 times the price as Canadian milk, And that's their right, they have every right to protect their dairy industry if they think that's in their national interest. And funny thing, I don't see you posting about how they have declared a "trade war" by protecting their dairy industry against foreign competition In 2016, Canadian farmers received an average price of C$0.79 a litre for milk, compared with C$0.49 on average for US farmers. The Canadian Tariff model has some real advantages over the US Farm Subsidy Model. Canadian dairy farmers enjoy incomes 60% above average in the country. The policy obviates the need to subsidize farmers directly in the manner of the US and the EU – the two greatest culprits behind the current world dairy glut. “The system works so incredibly well,” said Bruce Muirhead, associate vice-president and professor of history at the University of Waterloo. “And the big thing about it is that it doesn’t cost the government a cent. Consumers pay the full cost of production.” Coal is a key ingredient in steel production. Coal is converted to lump coke in a coking oven. Raw iron is made by reducing (removing the oxygen from) iron ore (iron oxide - Fe^2+0^3)) by reacting it at high temperature with coke in a blast furnace. About half of the carbon in the coke (C) combines with the oxygen from the iron ore, forming CO^2. The resulting pig iron typically contains 2.5-4.5% carbon, making it relatively brittle and unsuitable for most uses. Steel is made in a subsequent process as an alloy of iron and carbon (along with some other elements). Around 1% of the carbon from the coke remains in the raw iron to provide the source of that carbon, in carbon steel. Trump has attacked Chinese Steel dumping, and as a result, China is reducing steel production, which is reducing China's coal needs.... you're welcome!
This is not about milk and coal. It goes WAY farther than that. And, remember that coal used for steel is not the same as the coal used for energy. And, those mining coal for steel are still hurting.
