Unions praise Trump on steel tariffs

The Point was.....none of the Globalists were breaking out that BMW. You know, the Bitchin, Moanin, and Whinin.

 

Part 1.



The Chicken Littles Are Hammering Trump on Trade, but Charles Payne's Truth Bombs Blow Their Theories to Smithereens......



President Trump’s Thursday decision to begin the process of keeping his campaign promise to protect the American industrial base by imposing tariffs on imported steel and aluminum has seemingly gotten everyone in a tizzy, oddly uniting Big Business, top globalists, the IMF, the GOP Establishment and even liberal Democrats, all of whom never agree on anything yet are united that this particular decision will mean nothing short of an economic apocalypse for the United States.


Truly, to hear these folks tell it we’re looking at an economic scenario to rival the bleak hellscape of The Walking Dead, minus the zombies (unless you count liberals as zombies, which arguably wouldn’t be that far off).


Consider:


The American Chemistry Council, a group that represents some of the world’s largest corporations, including Procter & Gamble, 3M, DuPont and ExxonMobil, says the tariffs will have “punishing” effects for the economy. Anheuser-Busch, the largest beer maker in world, said the plan would “put jobs at risk and would be against the US consumer.”


Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs writes on CNN.com of President Trump firing the first shot in a “delusional and destructive trade war,” and that “United States as a whole, and the world, could suffer enormously from Trump's reckless ignorance.” The Washington Post laments the “world-spanning economic consequences” of Trump’s decision. Forbes contributor Steven Hanke even called Commerce Secretary Wilber Ross not just a protectionist, but an “arch” protectionist, as if the “arch” is supposed to make him more like Dr. Evil.


Liberals, too, are in agreement. The folks at Vox think Trump “decided to put the global economy at risk because he was in a pissy mood.”


Other nations are naturally piling on, but only because they see signs that their thus-far lucrative gravy train might be ending. Li Xinchuang, vice chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association, thinks Trump’s move is “stupid” and “does no good to everyone except a few American steel enterprises.”


Because really, if China doesn’t care about American steel enterprises, should anyone?


Canadians are also apoplectic, “flabbergasted” even, at the prospect of American actually standing up for its own manufacturers.


And of course, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the decision would not only hurt the United States, but other countries as well.


Because apparently the meaning of capitalism these days is for the United States to allow other countries to impose tariffs on its goods at will and never respond in kind to protect its own workers and industrial base.


Thankfully, Trump’s decision isn’t without its defenders in in the media, led of late by Fox Business host Charles Payne, who says he is not a “protectionist” but wants, like most people slandered with the term, fair trade for all. Lately, Payne has waged a heroic Twitter war with those who would sacrifice America’s industrial base on the altar of globalism. As Payne brilliantly points out, despite the grim prognostications of those who seemingly know better, tariffs not only have worked for America in the past, but are currently working for our competitors now.....snip~


https://townhall.com/columnists/scot...reens-n2457591

 

Part 2.


“I know tariffs are bad but...” Payne tweeted, “It seems to be working very well for the fastest growing economies in world.” The Fox Business host then listed several nations that employ tariffs and the 10 year average growth of each one.
Here are a few more truth bombs from Mr. Payne:


“Let's be clear, the EU is against tariffs when America uses or considers them but they levy 10% on all US car imports we only have a 2.5% rate on their car imports. #justsaying”


“Currently there are certain nations that take advantage of our civility and commitment to rigid belief that "free trade" really exist when there are hundreds of active cases at the WTO at any given moment. China isn't going to risk $500 billion to protect cheap subsidized steel.”


As for a trade war and the prospect for higher prices, Payne isn’t too concerned.


“There will be no trade war,” writes Payne. “Sure, but who would China sell $505,597,100,000 stuff Americans bought from them last year? Cuba? China isn't going to do anything the new Emperor isn't going to risk toppling his fragile empire.”


Of the strong history of so-called “protectionist” policies, the venerable Pat Buchanan, who has been brilliant on this issue for decades, opines, “Under protectionist policies from 1865 to 1900, U.S. debt was cut by two-thirds. Customs duties provided 58 percent of revenue. Save for President Cleveland’s 2 percent tax, which was declared unconstitutional, there was no income tax. Commodity prices fell 58 percent. Real wages, despite a doubling of the population, rose 53 percent. Growth in GDP averaged over 4 percent a year. Industrial production rose almost 5 percent a year.”


So much for the "kooky" theory that trade protectionism equals economic disaster!


Payne promises to release a report early this week on the average tariffs for the fastest growing countries in the world. Will those who view the data still insist that America cannot possibly protect its industrial base and win economically?


In a piece last July arguing against Trump’s trade policies, even the Atlantic had to admit that “Many economists and industry experts agree that the United States faces unfair competition and artificially low prices that have damaged the domestic steel industry.”


“But they don’t agree that a tariff is the right approach for addressing the problem,” the piece continued, because tariffs “could backfire,” or something.....snip~

https://townhall.com/columnists/scot...reens-n2457591

 

Indeed....the Canucks and the Euros. They don't like their gravy train being affected, and **** what China has to say!

 

Competitive free markets have advantages and disadvantages, with different outcomes for different sectors of the economy in different countries depending on the level of development of a particular country - obviously a complex picture.

The Cold War was a contest between wholly planned economies and free-market economies; both systems had advantages and disadvantages; in the event, the free market system won that battle.

But the world must now deal with the disadvantages of the free-market system which is currently in place.

An ideological commitment to free-trade - on your terms , which you seem to be displaying with terms like "bad trade deals" - will prevent arriving at a solution that can benefit all nations, a necessary outcome to avoid trade wars
(Trunp's chosen remedy to a bad situation in the US)

Not that Trump is an ideologue, but he certainly lacks the vision exemplified, eg, by Keynes' Bretton Wood proposals for a new post-war global trading and financial system, a vision which I have already noted was swept aside by the economic competition known as the Cold War.

But the need for a system of global oversight (or management) of international competitive free-trade remains.

The US is already the world's wealthiest nation (and has been since the end of WW2), both in absolute GDP and most GDP per capita figures; yet you are talking about "bad deals" that are responsible for the US rust belt.
But the rust belt is an entire first world phenomena resulting inter alia from competition with poverty level wages in Asia, post WW2.

I am tempted to ask:

Does your idea of a "good-deal" in international commerce - where the lives of millions of people are at stake - extend beyond the outcomes for your own nation?

 

Obviously I do realise all that: the destruction of Detroit by forces of international competitive free-trade occurred over decades, during the post war reconstruction of Japan and Germany (with more competitive products like Toyota and VW).

But my previous post has explained the historical background and the possible solutions that enable better outcomes than those achievable by Trump's tariffs, so I repeat the question:
does your idea of a "good deal" extend beyond the outcomes for your own nation?

 

Ronstar started a thread specifically declaring he hopes there is a trade war that devastates the USA as this could negatively affect Trump's support.

 

Way back when Trump first got into the election - and many times since - I have pointed out that Trump is not a Republican, not a Democrat, not a liberal, conservative or libertarian. He is Trump. His philosophy, ideology, perspectives and values are whatever Donald J Trump thinks. Thus, to him, the right or wrong thing to do is whatever he, Donald Trump, thinks is right or wrong. Donald Trump believes in Donald Trump. He will do whatever he thinks should be done. He is his own measure of all things.

Accordingly, trying to judge or evaluate him or what he says based on partisan, ideological, philosophical or ethnic standards doesn't work because it does not really apply to him. The only rational way to evaluate and judge him - politically or otherwise - is to evaluate what he actually does and does not do - and then the result. Specifically, since Hilary Clinton was the other option, has what he has and has not done in real effect been better than what could be anticipated Hilary Clinton would have done, and I say yes.

Evaluating and judging any politician against the mythical perfectly omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent alternative non-existent person is worthless. President Trump can only rationally be evaluated by the actual results of his presidency. So far it has been far more positive than negative in real effects.

 

The post WW2 "red scare" had devastating consequences. Motivated by containing communist Russia and China, we literally created our own economic competitors to empower them against world communism. Instead, we empowered them to price war against us.

It was Japan that first put our steel and smelling industries, auto industry, electronics industries and a great many other industries into tailspins - with this worsened by extreme liberal regulatory policies, excessively powerful unions, and the belief that somehow our fantastically growing post WW2 economy was somehow just going to last forever - while giving away the farm and writing endless massive hot checks to ourselves for decades, now $20,000,000,000.oo+ worth - and growing exponentially.

Who would have ever guessed China would buy out IBM's computer division? That Japanese motors would be put into Chryslers? That Kodax would lose 99+% of its sales to imports? That the American textile industry would essentially cease to exist? That China would own and be collecting the tolls on American highways? That Japan would virtually own Hawaii and foreign Arabs own much of NYC? Who would have guessed the largest auto manufacturer in the West would be German - and the largest auto industry on earth would be Chinese?

That our newspapers and press would increasingly be owned by foreigners from Mexico to the UK? Or that Sam Walton's stressing putting American made products in his stores would shift with his children to pressuring all suppliers to move production to China - even food - to be able to save another nickle - then have the government subsidize WalMart by giving their employees food stamp? Walmart is now far more a Chinese company than American company. Without cargo containers from China we would have to cancel Christmas presents.

The time to rethink our foreign trade strategy and policies was when the first cheap transistor radio arrived from Japan long ago. Is there even 1 American company you can buy a stereo from that was made in the USA anymore? Is there a toy on the shelf left to buy not made in a foreign country?

While some point to debt to GDP ratio numbers and say it doesn't look that bad, those were horrifically doctored when flipping burgers, driving taxi cabs and financial money brokering was added to GDP - when prior it meant "production of durable goods" (why it is called Gross National PRODUCT and not Gross National Money Flow.)

 

10-15 years ago, I fought with GOP'ers over free trade agreements and ignoring illegal immigration so that they could have cheap lawn care, maids and nanny's. Now I fight with Democrats over the same thing. So instead of deflecting over something that happened 25, 30, 35 years, how about concerning yourself with Democrat policies that hurt the middle class right now? Maybe you should review history and find out who signed off on NAFTA, the great sucking sound of American jobs soon followed.

My father worked at Beth Steel for over 40 years. I heard a lot of the talk. Steelworkers complained that we bombed the steel mills in Germany and Japan and then helped them rebuild and they would rebuild with the latest tech. I heard how the Japanese would dump steel and other goods on the US and after awhile, they would get slapped with tariffs. But the damage was being done. Beth steel in Sparrows Point, MD tried to update the mill. I believe they built a brand new blast furnace for example. As the steel industry declined, union wages were blamed. My father and all the rest took a huge pay cut. It took him many years to get back to his previous wages. A few years after he retired Beth steel went bankrupt and the government took over his pension at a greatly reduced rate. The top executives got their bonuses so it worked out fine for them.

 

I am not a D or R. They are one in the same in the end.
Neither party cares about the middle class.
And the middle class has been degraded. To try and correct what happened 30 yrs ago, today, will likely hurt more people now than it will help.
I was dead set against NAFTA, but it's been in place for 20 yrs. We are now just starting to recover from that.
If we put tariffs on all goods that are made cheaper overseas so we can bring those jobs back, will it work?
It's like the only market we'll have is within our borders.

Most every industry that had those guaranteed pensions, didn't get to collect fully on them.
It's why the world moved to 401Ks.

But if you think tariffs are so good, how about some data to back it up?
I've posted links how tariffs have not done good for the whole of the economy. Think back to Smoot-Hawley. Think back to 2002 when bush II tried steel tariffs. It hurts more than it helps.
But I'm not closed minded, if you got something that says this is a win for all, then I'm for it.

I don't need to hear how the R's are suddenly for the middle class. I have yet to see one action that helps the middle class from them.
And I don't put this tariff as one that helps the middle class as a whole.

 

You fake people pretending to care about the middle class, spare us.
You and the conservatives were the one's who pushed for these trade deals 30 yrs ago. Starting with you favorite god Reagan. He didn't get it done, bush I tried and didn't get it done either. But Gringrich and the R's of the 90s got Clinton to sign off on it.
And we've been bleeding jobs since the 90s. Now, all of a sudden you care. F off R hypocrites.

Not to mention, the R hypocrites have been whining for 20 yrs about all the people needing gov't subsidies, like welfare, food stamps, medical assistance. All because the R's signed all those trade agreements.
Why did they? It made for bigger corporate profits at the expense of the American workers.
Now that that the country is growing again, you want to kill it off, yet again.

 

Every single one of you R's that are 40 yrs or older, cheered 20 yrs ago when your R party sold out the workers to the lowest cost bidder back then.
Now you whine because there are no good paying jobs. Such fools.

 

You say you're not a D or R, yet you put the entire blame on one party. At least back in the day the GOP was honest and admitted it was the party of big business. To this day you would expect the same. On the other hand the DNC claims to fight for the little guy, but they dishonestly don't. At least I agree with you in that neither party cares for the middle class, it's why I've been a life long Independent. But at least now there is an anti-Globalist wing of the GOP, it's not very big and the establishment GOP resists it. I don't see anything from the DNC that benefits the working class.

I have not read the full report on the tariffs Trump is talking about. For all I know he's once again throwing it out there in order to rock the boat to show he means business with the trade re-negotiations. I've heard from at least one economist that this tariff won't start a trade war because they need us as consumers more than we need them. In the end, I think cooler heads will prevail and it will turn out fine.

 

They are still the party of big business. And the bulk of the trade agreements started in the 80s with Reagan. And it was Gingrich and his R congress that got it signed. So I put it on them, because they initiated it. But certainly the D's since then, are in agreement with them.
I don't think the DNC claims anymore to fight for the little guy. That went out the window at the same time Clinton signed the R trade agreements.
The little guy has been left to fend for themselves.

It's far to late, IMO, to be anti globalist. That cat is out of the bag, and with all the technology of the last 20 yrs, it's now the way of life.
The world has shrunk. Now, in the globalist market, we must work to be at the forefront of international business and trade. And tRUMP is doing the exact opposite. We will fall way behind China, if we start sucking our thumb and crawl in the corner.
In reality, I don't think tRUMP has a clue to what he does on a daily basis as prez. Will he learn? I have my doubts, that is just my opinion. He's not one for learning.

 

Ron is a typical liberal

They all want to burn down the house to get rid of trump

 

We have been getting our asses kicked by China and around the world with bad trade deals and Trump is working on the problem. First the corporate tax cuts to make our companies more competitive in the world market and now tarrifs on those that have tarrifs on us and threats of tarrifs on those that are profiting at our expenses from bad trade deals. He is doing the right thing here and that is just my opinion.

 

Liberals would rather see a bad economy than let trump get credit for anything positive

 

Spoken like a true globalist. To answer your question I want to put America first and the rest of the world can put their interest first. That's just reality and we have been getting played for decades now. If we don't wise up soon we will be sucking hind tit

 

Actually, we don't have any free trade agreements with China

 

Actually I never said we did

 

Yet the only country you used as an example was China. Smart

 

In here for honest debate and grow weary of your games. Have a nice day

 

You came here to discuss something you don't know enough about... clearly

 

Pissin contest bait noted and rejected. Now run along and enjoy your day