Questions about the TPP

Now, with Trump apparently unraveling the TPP, I have a few questions for the Trump supporters.

1) What are your exact issues with the TPP? Be specific.

2) How is pulling out of the TPP going to benefit the common man?

3) The TPP supposedly benefits large businesses and corporations, by reducing barriers to trade in a region that comprises 40% of the world's GDP. So, does that mean that puling out of the TPP hurts large businesses and corporations? However, since they are usually called the "job creators" by the right, how is hurting those corporations going to create jobs (using right wing logic here). Aren't they just going to stop investing, if the old mantra of more taxes = less investment holds true?

4) How can the idea of tariffs be reconciled with the love of free markets? How can an unregulated free market be good within the US but bad for trade between the US and other nations? Isn't that an apparent contradiction?

5) How can Trump kill the TPP without going through congress? I thought conservatives were against executive action by pen. Are they now for it?

My thoughts: I am not enough of an expert on the details of the TPP to make a judgement as to whether it will hurt or benefit American workers. I believe that the TPP has both good and bad components. Good components are bringing other countries closer to environmental and labor standards of the US. This will increase costs in other countries doing trade with us, thus making the US more competitive. The bad is the increased ability of multinationals to further offshore.

 

Good luck getting any kind of response to this. They would need trump to tell them what to think first.

 

1. The tpp would further erode the American middle class, and eliminate all manufacturing jobs in America.

2. The common American person will benefit because production of American goods will be produced by Americans, instead of slave laborers in 3rd world countries.

3. The addition of tariffs will force large corporations to stay in America and hire American workers, instead of 3rd world slaves.

4. The US government should work to benefit the American people, not some super corp CEO. There is no contradiction about free markets.

5. No treaty can be created without a presidential signature. Who needs congress when the president won't even sign it?

Sadly, your need to ask these questions, reveals much about your lack of appreciation for America.

I have some questions for you.

1. Why do you support global free trade, knowing it will hurt every American and reduce America to a third world nation. In order for Americans to compete with slaves, they would have to become slaves.

2. Why do you demand we support large corporations over the needs of the American people?

Obama Hillary and McCain thought the tpp was the "gold standard" of trade deals, because they work for George soros instead of the American people. Do you?

 

Let's start there. How would the tpp erode the middle class?

 

Cheap trans pacific labor. Duh

All unions and comrade Sanders himself oppose it, all multinationals are staunch supporters. What does that tell you?

 

Jesus fking Christ! Exactly. Sanders the socialist and unions are against it!!!! What does that tell YOU???

And how does cheap trans pacific labor hurt the middle class????? FFS IT HELPS THE MIDDLE CLASS!!! I feel like I'm living in bizarro world.

 

Super corps "like apple" would have all their iPhones produced by trans pacific slaves, instead of the American people. There would be no unions because there would be no jobs. There would be no middle class because there would be no jobs.

 

So your position is that if the tpp were to have been enacted there would be no jobs in the US? That's your position? Wow...

 

There would be no middle class production jobs. You could work at mcdonalds, but by then you'd have to have a college degree to qualify for a $15/hr burger flipping job. NAFTA screwed the American middle class. China Free Trade screwed the American middle class. And now you wanna screw em again?

PS George Soros and his clowns can suck it

 

I am sick of the do as I say not as I do Democrats. So yes I voted for trump and I trust him to use his pen. Although news flash , we got the house and the Senate. And thanks to filthy harry Reid we can pull out the old nuclear option if we feel necessary. Maybe you want to explain to me why I'm wrong and you were right ?

 

Why did Hillary flip flop? Gold standard to don't support it ! How do you feel now?

 

And your insistence does not make them any less fantasy. But please, convince me. How has NAFTA hurt the middle class?

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I hate hillary but can we stay on topic?

 

1) I don't support global free trade in general. I do support setting environmental and labor standards for trading partners, leveling the playing field with the US.

2) I do not support corporations over the American people, rather that is a position the right held for decades. Because the corporations are the "job creators", see my point above you didn't address.

But, another question to you:

How can you support tariffs on corporations, but at the same time support cutting corporate taxes? Aren't tariffs also just another form of tax? That doesn't make logical sense to me.

 

I can see that most responses so far are generic "Trump good, Dem bad", without ANY specifics on which and how TPP agreements hurt the american worker, as you have correctly predicted.

 

US auto jobs moved to Mexico where labor works for slave wages, with no union, no healthcare, no job security, etc. Then cars and trucks move back across the border, tariff free, to be sold in America.

Net result: Detroit "The former Motorcity" becomes a ghost town and implodes... etc...

And it's not just cars, it's virtually every industry, and if they didn't move to Mexico, they moved to China.

 

China has no environmental regulations and that's why it's a polluted mess.

They are job creators but taxes and idiotic regulation make creating jobs in China and Mexico a more profitable choice, even though those goods have to be put on a ship to cross the Pacific Ocean.

Lowering taxes and raising tariffs change the profitability equation for job creators. America becomes an attractive place to do business, again.

 

Did you suddenly become a socialist?

The left has held the position for a long time that offshoring produces job cuts, with the effect of reducing aggregate demand -- producing more job cuts. And the cycle continues.

Yet, the right has always held the position that it is just the lazy moochers who don't want to work.

Now, which one is it?

And why does Trump want to give corporate tax breaks to those corporations who offshore? And why hasn't he brought his own company's production back home?

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Can't you see the contradictions in your own reasoning?

 

I'm an American. I love my country. I want help my country. I want a better life for Americans.

That's why you don't understand the difference. I love America, and you dont

Oh and to answer your silly trump questions: he didn't build stuff in America because it wasn't profitable to do so.

 

As a general rule, I'm opposed to multilateral trade deals. They eliminate the ability for the larger players to negotiate since you can't pull out of the deal without pulling out of the entire group of countries. For a poorer, weaker country, it doesn't matter because you are getting access to larger richer markets and the richer markets will do your negociating for you since they want countries will low labor costs to have full availability to the richer countries markets. Since we already trade with all the TPP countries, the only benefit is to export labor costs to a low cost market.

So...to take jobs.

Trump can kill it because Congress already gave full authority to the executive branch to negotiate.

As far as the free market=tariff issue, This was the basis of our countries economic policy for over 150 years and it seemed to have worked pretty well. The founders were far more free market than any contemporary President so what's the issue?

 

That companies will be moving well paying american middle class jobs to where this cheap foreign labor is.

by taking their high paying middle class jobs

Agreed, you are.

 

The left abandoned this position decades ago, around NAFTA I suppose, it got in bed with multinationals, outsourcers, H1B abusers, special interests and betrayed the middle class and the poor.

For better or worse, this is Trump's position now, vehemently opposed by the left. What's your position, with the left or with the interests of the working American people? They are polar opposites now, you have to choose one.

 

If there were any shortage of jobs here you would have a point. There isn't. Ergo, the middle class benefits as a whole for losing the jobs in industry in which we don't compete well. In return we all get cheaper goods that in turn raises our collective standard of living. Now if we go full protectionists the opposite happens. More US jobs but a collective lowering of standard of living.

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If there were any shortage of jobs here you would have a point. There isn't. Ergo, the middle class benefits as a whole for losing the jobs in industry in which we don't compete well. In return we all get cheaper goods that in turn raises our collective standard of living. Now if we go full protectionists the opposite happens. More US jobs but a collective lowering of standard of living.

 

If there was no shortage of good middle class jobs, Hillary would be president today. Whopping 12% less american families self-identify as middle class today than 8 years ago when Obama came to power.

And we're NOT getting cheaper goods and higher standard of living, we are getting skyrocketing income inequality with the top 1% pocketing all that extra profit and the rest of the country stagnating economically, working longer hours and more jobs for lower pay and still struggling to make the ends meet.

 

Thanks for giving at least some specifics on your issues with the TPP.

I already said that I agree with the offshoring of jobs aspect. Now, an economist would counter that tariffs (or lack of trade agreement) will make offshoring less attractive, but at the same time will result in price increases for products, because they will now have to be made with more expensive labor at home (or through automation). So, what is your opinion on more expensive products?

From an economist point of view, I always heard that the economy benefits overall if the products are made the cheapest possible way, for example with foreign labor. That is supposed to benefit the US because the foreign workers are basically giving us their labor for very little money in return. Now, I don't subscribe to that theory, but I am surprise conservatives, who often pride themselves in understanding the free market and economics, don't have a problem with these protectionist tendencies.

 

supposing vietnam was in tpp and had to increase its cost because it increased its labor and environmental standards. Now suppose malaysia was not in TPP. Wouldnt you get the parts from them as they have the lower costs now?