@LaFeminista As Trump already signalled with the Carrier gift deal, Trump's idea of how to bring back American jobs is to give business everything they want at the expense of workers - and fund it with rents taxes extracted from those same American laborers.

I'll bet a Trappist ale that 'renegotiation' of NAFTA is all about removing labor and environmental protections and ramping up neoliberalism. (My guess is that they will quickly move to strengthen investor protections by expanding 'regulatory takings', e.g) He and the Republicans will do this while using race to divide Americans against each other and using the war vs terror (in place of communism) to whip up the hysteria and justify organizing official and para-official forces of 'law and order' in the US to suppress any remaining opposition.

Because that is how fascism has always worked in the US, whether in the 1890s or the 1920s or the 1950s...

the hit list. I'm happy of stopping the TTP and a look at NAFTA, although I am not fooled by this with respect to the objectives as far as the Republicans are concerned. this can be seen from the noises of decreasing the Corporate tax rate by 10% [35 to 25%], no doubt there will be a tax holiday for all the corporate money just waiting to be repatriated, around $2.1 trillion.

I'm watching our war industry share prices going up pretty much 5% across the board.

@Steven D @Steven D
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAy4MVsDko width:400]

Fine by me. Though it always seems they regrow them in time for the next outrage over there

@dkmich In the full interview, Pelosi said that there is a regular power swap in election cycles. She thinks the next election democrats will win over gop bad behavior. But yup, if Trump goes populist with enough decisions, then the dems are sunk for a long time.

My guess is a big infrastructure spending bill before 2018 using whatever tax monies are generated from re-appropriating profits held off-shore.

What does all shows and which won't change: the democratic party abandoned working people long time ago and even the most feeble acts by the republicans will win them.

If Trump knows anything, it is how to throw his weight around. If he goes populist, the Democrats are dead for 30 years. Voters will not come running back to Pelosi wagging their tails behind them.

@dkmich and he also knows how to work an audience. He has a keen sense of how much he has to do for the average american in order to keep them on his side. He also knows how much he has to do for the oligarchs to keep them on his side. He's a showman, which was his reputation back in the 80's.

The people who are having a meltdown and melodramatically fearing the end of the world are the impotents- the Dem leadership, the media, ad the types who gravitate towards TOP with their warped immature view of the world. Krugman, for example, has apparently lost his mind, while pointing the finger at trump for losing his mind. I guess he didn't learn the lesson from Warren- if you debase yourself in challenging trump, you only make yourself look as bad as he.

If Trump knows anything, it is how to throw his weight around. If he goes populist, the Democrats are dead for 30 years. Voters will not come running back to Pelosi wagging their tails behind them.

@MrWebster if T doesn't follow through with the TPP then China is going to over take us on trade. Aren't we already importing most of the items from China already?
Dog food, expensive computers, phones, clothing, shoes etc.
And how many people are driving American made cars? Even those have parts made in foreign countries.
My last American made car was a Ford and it was a piece of junk.
My 16 year old Mazda is still running great with a few minor problems that any car this old would have.

To mix metaphors even more, Nader once said the choice between democrats and republicans is how fast you want to hit the wall--but hit the wall you will.

Just a small aside. I was reading local online newspaper, and several people were pushing a common pro-TPP talking point--TPP was the peaceful way of controlling China. Is the new emergent theme from democrats "make war with Russia, but peace with China?"

@detroitmechworks He's a bastard. But he's not the kind of bastard that commits violence with his own two hands, unless it's on some woman he's screwing. That's my considered opinion.

Course, the fact that he didn't immediately start shooting people from the White House Porch means that he's already exceeded my expectations.

@riverlover (which explain why so much of your candy is now made in Canada and Mexico), Canada has almost nothing to lose in a renegotiation of NAFTA. whatever the American worker lost in the original NAFTA, the Canadian worker lost more.

than to Canada, our major trading partner who now has tar sands for export and also have a weaker dollar than the US.

@Unabashed Liberal

From all that I've read, though, he's long been an isolationist on trade.

Then you know more than me! I don't know a thing about his prior thinking about trade. Let's hope you are right.

and Hoffa's meetings with DT, posted so others can read it.

(Sorry! Can't post the piece, because my browser crashed, and I can't find it. Here's the Reuters piece about today's meeting.)

POLITICS | Mon Jan 23, 2017 | 5:01pm EST
Trump meets with leaders of building, sheet metal unions

BTW, I wasn't referring to the United Steel workers--all of the unions mentioned were small 'lesser known' ones. I didn't recognize any of the names of the union leaders that he met with today.

I do remember seeing some union dude on CNN, when the news broke about some Carrier jobs being spared (from outsourcing). I commented at the time over at EB, that the guy didn't do himself any favors--his rhetoric was beyond the pale. Of course, it's hard to expect too much from anyone who would 'own up to' supporting FSC.

Agree with your earlier comments that we should closely watch DT's 'actions' (regarding NAFTA, etc.), and not be fooled by his words. From all that I've read, though, he's long been an isolationist on trade. So, I'm a tad hopeful that he is serious about renegotiating NAFTA (to the betterment of workers). OTOH, I'm sure as heck not ready to bet the family farm on it. Guess time will tell.

Mollie

---

"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."
____Author Unknown

@GusBecause

Laws about working conditions, pollution, any kind of standards to protect people, resources, or environment would have let foreign corporations sue us. Buy American or buy local would do the same - I think we already lost a WTO case on that.

Lets face it: most of the jobs that left the US over the last 20 + years aren't coming back. The TPP agreement allowed aggrieved multinational corporations to sue the US for "loss of potential profits" if the US asserted its right to regulate activities within its borders. Activities like mining, fracking, water conservation. And the case determining damages to said multinational corporation would be heard in a court made up of, who'd have thought it?, multinational corporations. Passing a trade agreement like the TTP, which thanks to that other Clinton, is a "treaty", not a "trade agreement", and which has the force of a constitutional amendment, would effectively deprive the US of sovereignty.

@coloradoblue

was asked about Fight for 15 her response was "How about $12.50."

She and the Dems don't have a fucking clue.

@Tony Wikrent

Superb post, Tony. Glad you're here commenting. This really caught my eye:

If Democrats are going to oppose Trump by defending the tenets of neoliberalism, then they are going to be useless in opposition.

Sadly, that seems to be exactly where they are headed, and at breakneck speed. I suspect it will take (more) massive losses in 2018 - or even 2020 - to flush the neoliberals from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Not so sure even that will do it; it may be a lost cause.

The only sane perspective on how Trump's economic policies are likely to affect the Democrats I have found at Naked Capitalism, and especially at Ian Welsh. First of all, Trump and his team are NOT stupid and incompetent. Bigoted and narcissistic, yes, but not stupid and incompetent. You don't amass a personal fortune measured in billions of dollars, defeat the core of the Republican establishment, and get elected President of USA by being stupid and incompetent.

What Trump is: sly, ruthless, and dangerous. Do not ever fall into the comfortable delusion of ever thinking otherwise.

All that being said, Welsh has been very lucid in explaining that what we are likely to get under Trump are things we want done, but done by the wrong person. We want to get rid of TPP. We want to get rid of NAFTA. We want massive investments in infrastructure. It would be much, much better if these things were done by Democrats, but the simple fact is, Democrats did NOT do them. Democrats could have done these things, and chose not to. I think this was part of the reason Democrats were smashed electorally. So now we are going to get some things done we want done, by someone who also wants to do many things we do not, such as stoking bigotry and fear of the other, dismantling Obamacare rather than pushing it toward single payer, gutting environmental regulations, defunding climate science, and the whole list of horrors Trump brings with him into power.

On TPP and economics generally, if Trump actually manages to force companies to return production to USA, the Democratic Party is dead meat. I’ve already seen the people at DailyKos regurgitate some “free trade” drivel from the Koch-funded, market fundamentalist American Enterprise Institute. If Democrats are going to oppose Trump by defending the tenets of neoliberalism, then they are going to be useless in opposition. The only way Democrats can successfully oppose Trump is from the left: by pushing single payer health care; a tax on Wall Street speculation; and a massive $100 trillion world-wide program to stop climate change by building new energy, transportation, and industrial systems that do not use fossil fuels. I do not see that happening. Certainly not with the old guard of Pelosi and Schumer still in control.

Looked at in this way, the election of Trump WAS the American people voting in their economic interests: rejecting free trade, globalization, financialization, and all the rest. The great irony is that American industrialization in the 19th and early 20th centuries (and Germany’s, and Japan’s and South Korea’s and Malyasia’s and other Asian tigers) took place behind a system of protectionist tariffs, but very, very few people know this history. I see no indication that Trump or Bannon know this history, either: they appear to be stumbling toward a poor, faulty re-invention of what used to be called the American System of political economy.

Will they eventually realize they cannot succeed in bring back production without imposing some forms of capital controls? And will they realize this requires a titanic struggle with the financial markets and the MOTU? The interesting point here is that Trump hates Wall Street. He is not a financier. He has had to deal with them, and he knows their tricks and their modus operandi. Almost all the problems he has had in his “deals” can be traced back to some imposition or other by the financiers and bankers he had to work with. So, he generally despises them. This is one major reason why Wall Street and the financial industry was so solidly for Clinton. Note that the people Trump has selected who have ties to large Wall Street firms, in most cases, those ties are from ten or twenty years ago. At least that’s the case with Bannon, Mnuchin, and Ross. They may still have been involved in finance until recently, but they have not been insiders at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup or wherever for a very long time. I am reminded of what FDR reportedly said about making Joe Kennedy the first head of the SEC: the best way to guard the henhouse was putting a fox in charge of watching the foxes.

The Democrats can wreak havoc on the Republicans by repeatedly introducing a tax on Wall Street, and either force Trump and Wall Street into each other’s arms, or driving Trump and Wall Street further apart. If the former, the Tea Party base of the Republicans will simmer in revolt; if the latter, he will be making some very powerful enemies.

The one vulnerability Trump has is that he has come to power by appealing to the very worst aspects of the American people. I believe he has done this with cold calculation and ruthlessness, but I do not believe he is able to foresee the monsters he has unleashed as a result. The bigots of America now feel they are free to openly express their hatreds, and act on them. This is going to result in thousands of individual incidents that will over time form a swelling national torrent of public unrest, violence, and increasing lawlessness. If Trump can pull off his economic “Make America Great Again,” it is this national torrent of racist attacks and counterattacks that will become the most dangerous obstacle to his success as a President. If he does as his supporters will want–clamp down by imposing a police state step by step–he will be increasingly unpopular and will probably fail.

@Bring Back Civics For me, it's more about being once burned, twice shy. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. (I'm trying to come up with another cliche to end this comment with, but not coming up with one...)

Fact is, it's been more than 20 years since any legislation got passed in this country that constituted a real, measurable economic policy gain for the 99%. Before I believe wholeheartedly that another extremely wealthy man has decided to act against his class' interests, I'm going to wait and watch a little, and see if there's some way this could be twisted or spun into something that hurts us.

Regardless of what shoes could be out there waiting to drop, what Trump has done in pulling the plug on the TPP is more than any President has done for working people in the past 35-50 years.

I am very disappointed with the comments in this thread. I was (am) a big Bernie supporter and was a delegate in our caucus. Along with Bernie, I regarded the TPP as one of the gravest threats to our working class, our environment, and our sovereignty -- both national and local. Trump campaigned on his opposition to the TPP and other "trade agreements" like NAFTA. Just three days into his term, Trump publicly and emphatically pulled the plug on the TPP and perhaps started the process of renegotiating NAFTA. He was praised by both Bernie and Trumpka. Yet what I read here is mostly negativity, denial and changing the subject to other "bad things" about Trump. I thought this place was better than this.