Trump vows to 'rip up' all trade agreements
Source: The Hill
Trump argued that he would greatly improve U.S. relationships with nations such as Mexico and China while lowering trade deficits.
"I’m going to rip up those trade deals and we’re going to make really good ones,” he said during a campaign stop in Portland, Maine.
He lashed out at 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney for saying that a Trump presidency would ruin free trade for the United States.
“Ruin free trade?” Trump said. "If I’m losing $505 billion with China, if I’m losing $58 billion a year with Mexico, in terms of deficit, why do I want that kind of trade for anyway," Trump said.
"Ruin it? Who needs that kind of trade, seriously who needs that kind of trade,” Trump said.
Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/271723-trump-vows-to-rip-up-all-trade-agreements
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dhill926
(16,339 posts)but this kind of stuff will appeal to a lot of people.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)I like him on this issue.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)This is not good her. Even if Trump doing so has nothing to do with helping people, this will lower drug prices. At least it might.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)who unanimously agree that free trade is a good thing.
w4rma
(31,700 posts)A June 2015 New York Times / CBS News poll revealed that 63 percent of the U.S. public believes that
“trade restrictions are necessary to protect domestic industries” while only 30 percent think “free trade
must be allowed, even if domestic industries are hurt by foreign competition.” Democrats, Republicans
and independents all overwhelmingly supported protection of domestic businesses over “free trade” at any
cost.
https://www.citizen.org/documents/polling-memo.pdf
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)w4rma
(31,700 posts)against 'free' trade in her speeches.
Despite Walmart Ties, Support For Free Trade, Hillary Clinton Touts Commitment To Manufacturing Jobs
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/despite-walmart-ties-support-free-trade-hillary-clinton-touts-commitment-2323480
Angel Martin
(942 posts)that elite economists know better, and they should defer to them...
yeah, that will work...
Herman4747
(1,825 posts)We're interested in winning states like Ohio, NOT LOSING THEM!
Moreover, if (and I say "if"
Bernie is on the wrong side of the issue regarding free trade, this is more than compensated by his opposition to fracking, as Hillary's support for fracking indicates that 1) she doesn't care much about global warming, and 2) she doesn't care much about leaving unrenewable resources for future generations.
TheFarseer
(9,323 posts)She opposed CAFTA. She was for NAFTA. She was against a trade agreement with Venezuela and then voted for it after a nice donation to the Clinton Foundation. Most people think she'll flip flop on TPP after the election. Where does she stand? How can she cite anything? She doesn't have a real position! She probably can't even keep track of what she's for week to week.
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)Remember Al Gore?
mulsh
(2,959 posts)the worst thing she could do is lead with quoting economists and other wonks.
Listen to Trump, how he's saying what he says. It's the language of an aggressive but not too bright fourth grade school yard bully clothed in WWF villain trunks. He rarely speaks in complete sentence or ideas.
If Hillary wants to reach the highly intelligent media elites who keep pushing and supporting Trump she needs simple, readily comprehended statements.
Calista241
(5,586 posts)There's all kinds of rules and stuff in there.
William Seger
(10,778 posts)"His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University."
Elmergantry
(884 posts)a net flow of 500 billion per year leaving the country is a good thing.
Before the income tax, how did the govt raise money? Tariffs. What happened to US industry over that time? It grew.
The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)and they are getting pieces of paper that can circulate around the world.
The US is exporting dollars, and we are the exclusive source of dollars.
saturnsring
(1,832 posts)The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)over goods and services. Our trading partners' portfolios are too heavily invested in dollars because they judge the value of dollars to be higher than we do. For all practical purposes, they are taking pieces of paper for real stuff. They can come and buy land and such with those dollars, but they can't take the land with them. And we get to tax the land (and such). Living on top of a huge heap of dollars would only interest me for a little while. I have to eat and sleep and go to work and such. Doing a Scrooge McDuck dive into the pile might be fun for a few minutes, but what is the point?
Elmergantry
(884 posts)And we are net exporting wealth.
wordpix
(18,652 posts)So really, what are the dollars worth? We are so lucky the lights are still on....
Elmergantry
(884 posts)That's why they are called Federal Reserve NOTES. It get real complicated real fast.
Nonetheless every dollar I send to China when I buy their junk was a dollar of wealth I created that I sent off to that country in exchange for another form of wealth that has a realtively short life span.
RKP5637
(67,109 posts)or authority to do this.
w4rma
(31,700 posts)of Congress on trade bills, thus allowing a coalition of conservatives and progressives in Congress to "rip up"/"re-write" these trade bills with a bare majority of votes in Congress.
RKP5637
(67,109 posts)
houston16revival
(953 posts)when Trump stops imports from China.
What does he plan to do, invade and seize the factories and bring them back here?
Because many a small or large US company sold its manufacturing equipment to the
highest bidder who moved it to China for the cheap labor. Products you would buy
in the 1980s made in U.S.A. disappeared for a couple years, then the new ones
were stamped Made in China
Bringing back jobs is expensive. Replicating factories is expensive. Patents are involved.
His whole scheme sounds delusional to me.
William Seger
(10,778 posts)... cheap labor is easily available elsewhere. There's no logical reason to think jobs disappearing in China will reappear here.
houston16revival
(953 posts)so we can work for 53 cents an hour like slave labor markets
Crowman1979
(3,844 posts)I'm not falling for this shit. Master negotiator MY ASS!!!
w4rma
(31,700 posts)opposed to 'free' trade? Clinton is in Michigan pretending to be against 'free' trade, right now.
Despite Walmart Ties, Support For Free Trade, Hillary Clinton Touts Commitment To Manufacturing Jobs
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/despite-walmart-ties-support-free-trade-hillary-clinton-touts-commitment-2323480
FreedomRain
(413 posts)the other party could just do the same as well. Is he a business man or a random number generator?
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)But his supporters are so easy to dupe into voting against their own best interests.
It matters less if the trade is imbalanced than the overall job picture.
If you rip up the trade agreements before negotiating then you won't be trusted. And why would China negotiate down a favourable trade agreement? They wouldn't.
If you don't have the trade, you can easily lose 2,000 billion (2 trillion) in US economic activity.
Where are Drumpf's goons going to get their cheap iPhones? Cook them up in their survivalist moonshine backyard stills?
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)is stopped?
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)Chinese products shipped to the US don't happen in a vacuum and don't magically appear on store shelves.
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)Miners and loggers? I don't get that part.
As it happens, the job market and corresponding wages are held down due to cheap made-in-China imports flooding the consumer market.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)Raw materials and processed goods are sent to Asia. If trade dries up, it will dry up both ways because other countries like Canada will step in. Factories and workers dormitories are built from American (and Canadian) plywood. Less trade, fewer factories, less plywood, fewer logging jobs. Ramify this across all US industries supplying with Asia and the devastation would be severe.
You can't make iPhones in the US for the same cost as you can make them in Asia, so they (as only one example) would become much more expensive.
You wouldn't be able to switch over industry instantly. It would take years to adjust. In the meantime, few if any iPhones (as only one example). That means fewer jobs selling them and less telecoms and fewer servers, etc.
Even after a massive economic adjustment, the higher wages here would not fully account for the increased prices of goods, so bottom line is that Americans' standard of living would go down.
The Great Depression happened fundamentally because world trade declined dramatically. It might not have been triggered by a drop, but the protectionism and the ensuing drop made it almost impossible for the world to climb out, including the US.
But part of the Drumpf fantasy is that the US can do everything alone. It can, but TheRump's followers would not want to pay even a tenth of the cost to their comfy couch potato lifestyles.
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)Last edited Sat Mar 5, 2016, 02:26 AM - Edit history (1)
All of which are underlined by the unavoidable fact that we don't really have "trade' with China: We export raw materials, a minor driver of the U.S. economy -- they import and flood our markets with cheap crap, that's it. We can't even sell our own manufactured goods to China as it has a constructed a giant wall of tariffs preventing them from being sold within their borders. That, coupled with China's undervaluing of its currency, has strangled US manufacturing -- both low-tech and high-tech -- to the tune of over 3.2 million jobs between 2001 and 2013, with losses in all 50 states.
You are also wrong to claim that the cost of manufactured goods would "become much more expensive" were they to be manufactured in the U.S. rather than in China: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-25/china-vs-dot-the-u-dot-s-dot-its-just-as-cheap-to-make-goods-in-the-u-dot-s-dot-a
Americans for a great many decades enjoyed a high standard of living purchasing mostly made-in-USA goods, thank you very much, so your boogy-man argument falls flat on its face.
Lastly, there's one spectacular omission on your part: the topic of debt. The unmistakable correlation of U.S. household and government debt with the contemporaneous increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China seems to be missing in your argument. Before speaking about the "dangers" of slightly more expensive iphones and plastic garbage cans, perhaps you should factor in the black hole of bottomless trade-induced debt and its permanently debilitating affect on the standard of living of most Americans.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)If manufacturing here were lower cost, all in, then manufacturers would be moving here in droves.
They are not.
Cosmocat
(14,564 posts)good quips.
The banal simplicity that people view these things is so exasperating.
It's all fine and well that people are straight dumbasses.
But, when it builds to a level where there is a critical mass that actually could alter our country's governance to operate from that dumbassness, it rises to a whole new, and seriously dangerous level.
Darb
(2,807 posts)Bravo!
pampango
(24,692 posts)Whatever did FDR find wrong with the trade wizardry and unilateral tariffs (we don't need no stinking trade agreemets) of Calvin and Herbert?
Fortunately for Donald the people whom Calvin and Herbert fooled (income inequality soared to historic highs we still have not equaled) with their tariffs are all dead now. And a new generation is around to hear and believe the siren song of the magic of tariffs and the evils of negotiated agreements between nations. Tear them up! The ghosts of Calvin and Herbert smile whenever Donald speaks.
The magic is hard to resist. (Tariffs only hurt THEM and help US. What's not to like?) Tariffs will come back. If not with Donald, with someone else. The magic is irresistable. In due course they will facilitate an implosion and another FDR will come along to negotiate them down again. History does go in cycles.
houston16revival
(953 posts)has erroneous assumptions in my view.
When FDR came into office he raised tariff protection for commodities to support
prices that businesses were able to charge, and relaxed antitrust regulation in exchange
for whatever employment help Big Business could give in preventing layoffs and
increased business taxes to pay for the New Deal. This record is very clear in any
reading of the actions of Congress and the Administration in his first 6 months in office.
It prevented bankruptcies and helped farmers too. FDR's legislative record is very distorted
because all the GOP focuses on is Social Security and the WPA, but he was very concerned
about deficits and what deficits he did run were puny by any modern measure. The 1937
Roosevelt Recession, for example, was created when he stopped deficit spending due to
balanced budget concerns, and the economy tanked without government stimulus.
A thorough read is "FDR: The New Deal Years 1933-1937" by Kenneth S. Davis
pampango
(24,692 posts)to negotiate lower tariffs with countries which he did dozens of times. It even gave him power modern presidents don't have. Once he signed a tariff agreement, it was law and did not have to be approved by congress.
Lowering tariffs was the exact opposite of what Coolidge and Hoover did and Trump is proposing.
And of course in 1944 his Bretton Woods Conference proposed, among many international bodies, the International Trade Organization which would have governed trade multilaterally. That would, he hoped, avoid future tariff wars and the 'beggar-thy-neighbor' trade policy of his republican predecessors. Again that was the antithesis of what Coolidge, Hoover did and now Trump is proposing.
I do agree that FDR tried many things to stimulate the economy, employment and wages. He refined his policies as time went on. By 1944 he had settled on international cooperation, rather than enhanced nationalism, as the best approach in trade and many other areas.
Cosmocat
(14,564 posts)thanks!
jwirr
(39,215 posts)agreements were mainly about trade issues. Today it seems to me that they are about corporate profits that have nothing to do with trade.
Probably because for the corporation profit has to do more with cheap labor in other countries.
pampango
(24,692 posts)to have something to do with "cheap labor in other countries". Apparently FDR considered the benefits to be greater than the costs when he lowered tariffs.
Of course his ITO proposal included labor rights and business regulations enforced by arbitration panels - much more comprehensive than modern trade agreements.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)Read Galbraith's "The Great Crash". He's a long time stalwart Democrat.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)
pampango
(24,692 posts)They were all negotiated by 'stupid' Obama or other 'stupid losers'. And they all restrict our national sovereignty in one way or another. Once you agree not to do X if another country does not do Y, you have given up your 'sovereign' right to do X. Hence, Trump's preference for no international agreements. That way the US can do X and anything else all it wants.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)We can address the trade deficit without electing a fascist, but rather, Bernie Sanders.
Koinos
(2,792 posts)We are already engaged in a partial "dispute" with China.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-imposes-266-duty-on-some-chinese-steel-imports-1456878180
One factor is that trade seems to be contracting worldwide. Shipping is down. It costs less and less to lease cargo vessels. Some of this is due to less oil demand.
At the same time, the trade deficit with China is a big problem. Unfortunately, China is the "factory for the world," and the difficulty of restoring manufacturing in the US (buildings, machine tools, know-how, and the like) is almost insurmountable.
truthisfreedom
(23,148 posts)
King_Klonopin
(1,306 posts)How do you plan to do that, Donald ? Gonna be crowned King of America, like W.?
I'm tired of hearing his "I'm gonna do great stuff!" routine, which always omits any details.
rockfordfile
(8,704 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)but there is a saying "better the devil you know than the devil you don't". I can only imagine the trade agreements that Trump would write.
Ok so I know none are here, but if there are any Trump supporters that happen to weave themselves through this site to cause a stir, or to just spy on the good guys, listen to these few important pieces of information...... ready...ok
1. Trump will NOT be King of the USA
2. Nothing Trump says he is going to do will EVER pass the House or the Senate. DID YOU READ THIS... it is very important....NOTHING
3. If he is so fired up about free trade, and is pissed at China, then why is he getting his suits made there....
Quit going to the rallies just to see if any minority get beat up, because if you do... YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)Ripping up is not an option
olddad56
(5,732 posts)and all of his followers are to naive to realize that. He appeals to the haters and the complainers because he is a hater and a complainer.
But, we get the government we deserve. Maybe we have gotten to the point where he is what we deserve. If it could happen to Germany in the 30s, it could happen here also.