Donald Trump is keeping one promise
President Trump is true to his word in one case.
No, he isn't draining the swamp. Washington has never been more corrupt.
What I am talking about is rolling back those free trade agreements.
The Trump administration added another complication to already fractious talks with Canada and Mexico on Tuesday, suggesting that President Trump now wants to negotiate separate bilateral deals with those nations rather than continue three-country discussions to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement.Canada and Mexico have opposed the idea of separate treaties as cumbersome and an unnecessary complication of a pact that many North American businesses rely on for sales and production.
Mr. Kudlow insisted that the president was not planning to withdraw from Nafta. However, splitting the current trilateral deal into two separate bilateral agreements would likely require nullifying the 25-year-old agreement.
This is absolutely amazing. The Democrats have been telling their base for 25 years that renegotiating NAFTA was simply impossible. You may as well be asking to stop the rotation of the Earth.
Trump is proving that the Democratic Party establishment were liars, and workers in the Rust Belt are going to notice, and they will reward Trump.
Canada is getting prepared for a complete collapse of NAFTA.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said negotiations over a new North American Free Trade Agreement have potentially fallen apart after Vice President Mike Pence issued an ultimatum.According to Trudeau, Pence said President Donald Trump would only meet with Trudeau to discuss finalizing the deal as long as a five-year sunset clause was added to the agreement.
After hearing that precondition, Trudeau told reporters Thursday he scrapped a planned trip to Washington, D.C.
And that was only from the precondition. Trump slapping tariffs on Canada made things even worse for NAFTA.
Things are similar in Mexico, where Obrador, the likely next president of Mexico in a month, is preparing for an end to NAFTA as well.
No Nafta agreement is better than a bad one for Mexico’s presidential front-runner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who would insist on being part of the trade talks if elected, a top economic adviser said.AMLO, as the candidate is known, would push for Nafta talks to remain trilateral after U.S. President Donald Trump’s economic adviser said the White House is seriously considering seeking separate negotiations between Mexico and Canada, Gerardo Esquivel said in an interview on Bloomberg TV.
It's actually mind-blowing that NAFTA may be coming to an end and the media has largely not noticed.
It isn't just NAFTA. Trump pulled us out of TPP, a move that progressives wished the Dems had done.
Now earlier this year there was a lot of noise about trying to get back into TPP.
Trump looking to re-enter TPP, says Sens. Pat Roberts, Ben Sasse
Trump Says U.S. Re-Entering Pacific Trade Deal a ‘Possibility’
Mnuchin Says Trump ‘Willing’ to Negotiate U.S. Return to TPP
It sounded like Trump was going to flip-flop, but it turns out it was a lot of smoke but no fire.
While Japan and South Korea would like us to go back into TPP, I don’t like the deal for the United States. Too many contingencies and no way to get out if it doesn’t work. Bilateral deals are far more efficient, profitable and better for OUR workers. Look how bad WTO is to U.S.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018
To be fair, Trump is rolling back the FTA's in the most stupid way possible, and I doubt he has a plan for when his negotiations fail, but if you are a working class slob in a town devastated by factories closing, I doubt that this would matter to you.
Trump is destroying what has destroyed your life, and that will always be a good thing.
Comments
Indeed. Trump doesn't have to do anyone good to get re elected
He just has to do something bad to a few people responsible for thier pain.
That alone will get him re-elected simply because it's way more than any other president has done for them in decades..
"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me
How low are our standards?
And what will Democrats say if Trump defeats Biden in 2020?
Will it be Putin's fault again? Or Stein's fault?
Biden?? (shudder)
Ye Gods!
The Duopoly wins... game, set and match.
Again.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Well yeah ok but...
He's actually screwing the shit out of his working class base. They just aren't smart enuff to figure it out. Trump keeps bragging about removing regulations by the boatload -- to thunderous cheers. What his base can't seem to grasp is regulations on business are also protections for consumers. In the name of corporate profits he's acceleratng the poisoning of the environment, removing consumer rights, eliminating union rights to bargaining and the list goes on. 85% of the tax cuts went to the rich and corproations and right after the mid-terms, I suspect they will start in ernest to dismantle SocSec and Medicare b/c 'now we can't afford them' due the tax cuts.
My hunch is that he has blocked TPP and NAFTA so that he can cram in some terms to advantage his real estate businesses. Time will tell.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
Trump and his lackeys want war - with Europe -
and he will get his wishes fulfilled.
no, no, no
that is not within the future history which the past transgressions display in our somewhat present installment in the continuing saga of "Daze of Our Lives". But if you have some kinda insights as to the ending of this series, please share!
my insights are as shitty as the stuff that sits in my guts
...but my guts tell me that, if there is too much shit around, the 99 percent
are going to suffocate in it. At that point they start gasping for their last breaths of fresh air and try to dig themselves out of the shit. Then it will come down to military and economic war fare on a scale, that is just that: total war.
And you know that it is in the German genes (supposedly) to want total war, no?
All I can tell you is that my impressions of what is going on in my country of birth and what is going on on the "eastern front', makes me want to 'dig myself a hole and put myself there up to the neck's...
May be because I see too many historical documentaries and discussions on German TV channels (something I didn't have available for the last 30 years and know now how bad that was for my 'insights'), that I just can't look through my personal eye glasses without wishing all the brown shit from the eyeglass lenses. It's so much it's really sticking to them and dried up there, so the lenses need some scrubbing and that cleaning procedure is a pain in the behind.
I need some self-cleaning eye glasses. A technological invention worth investing it...
Doesn't the German history teach us that those 'system changes' come fast and furious and no one wants to believe it and admit how that happened? Basically nobody knew how that happened, nobody sees his own role in it and on top of it, nobody would ever admit it, if they did understand it.
I guess I watch too many German TV documentaries these days and too many talking head discussions of German politicians and 'journalist experts' and talking head hosts on some shows..They are not bad, just somehow won't change anything either. Talk, talk, talk, tic, tac, toe. Next puzzle to come next show.
You talk a lot about Trump, it's time to talk about those who advise him and have power of manipulation over him. Those people are not known through coverage in the German press to more than a couple of junkies, who can't help themselves to dig up the news from the US. Trump himself is a 'nothing burger' imo. Not worth eating.
But the whole menu in his joint (aka known as WH restaurant and Congressional kitchen area) is one toxic brew and nobody should eat there anymore. If you watch facial expressions, talking style, body language carefully, you realize they are pretty much the same among those conwerva-manipulators' victims. There is a method to the way they gat "trained to be hard-nosed shitheads conservative missionaries sent out to save the world from the evil people (whichthey are themselves as well) and at the same time save their own butts and careers. So they are convinced they can do whatever they want, whereever they want, whenever they want.
They are all very toxic, very dangerous and it's necessary to fight them. So, I expect war. That's all.
Whoa Mimi
Self cleaning glasses is a great idea. I'm going out to my workshop next to start experimenting. Have German in-laws, know what you mean about total war as being the solution to unredeemable guilt or whatever. Sorta sad state of affairs there.
I think the changes you speak of are happening now in subtle ways. Won't see it on the telly. It's vehemently being denied on the inter tubes (sometimes even here). I feel it as an internal struggle, gaining momentum with mass realization. You are on the cutting edge, therefore feeling the pain of changes which are larger than you and me.
Keep it up sister. We are going to need forward thinkers in this (r) evolution.
o lordy, that deserves a
Remember the 2016 Republican primary?
One pathetic, unelectable candidate after another, with El Trumpo finally pulling into the lead, then a desperate "Anybody but Trump" movement that crashed and burned.
Now think about the Democrats in 2020. Clinton and Biden, unelectable darlings of big money contributors, party insiders, and zero voters.
I think it's wide open. Anybody else will have to run against the party establishment (again), and rely on small donations.
All they have to do is say "nationalize the banks" and they'll be unstoppable.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
another fund raiser
give US the money or else...
The problem is not that he is repealing NAFTA...
...it's that he has no clue how to get trade going again. "Why would you go to Canada and Mexico and say, screw this deal, we are unilaterally pulling out. Oh and btw, here's some tariffs I'm gonna shove down your throat." I guess suggesting renegotiating at the outset was never an option ? It's just like Obamacare, yeah sure it sucks but get a replacement set up before dismantling it.
So now, we have no trade and our allies are pissed as hell. A stroke of brilliance by Mr. Art of the deal. MX and CA didn't write NAFTA, the US Chamber of Commerce did.
how to get trade going
first pass, thought you wrote: how to get the parade going. Silly me, pomp and circumcision is about all that clown presents.
He cut taxes and rolled back regulations too
and the racist wall of shame is up, despite everything. The homeless are still hungry but at least we don't have famine in California, yet. Carson has a plan to make HUD renters pay more, or gtfo. It's mad maxx time granny! The non-resistance is here to save you, the army of NOBODY. Just eat your ballot, that's where the values are.
The President is doing everything he said he would do in his campaign, I don't think I've seen anything like it since Reagan. The plutocracy is kicking all of our asses to the ditch, then they'll start another big shooting war for Trump (or Pence) to be re-elected in 2020, that's what I think.
good luck
Smart Move
Whether Trump is smart or not is debatable, but separating Mexico and Canada on trade deals is smart. Under NAFTA, we run a $71 billion trade deficit with Mexico and "only" $18 billion with Canada. Achieving trade balance is easier one-on-one.
I look at it from an entirely different point of view
You are probably right about what you say, but my perspective is from the worker's viewpoint.
The worker sees FTA's as something that employers hold over the heads of workers (i.e. "Give us your wages or your jobs will vanish overseas").
As long as capital moves costless across borders, but workers can't, FTA's are poison.
Even a small tariff would change this.