The one issue on which I have to agree with Trump
Seattle, 19 years ago this week
One of the extremely few things that President Trump "gets" is that we made a bunch of bad trade deals.
While Trump's renegotiation of NAFTA was a failure because Trump's understanding of what was wrong with the trade agreement was simplistic (hint: you have to take class into account), it was also a success because Trump proved that any and all of our trade agreements are up for negotiations (proving the Democrats have lied for 20 years).
However, it wasn't NAFTA that killed the middle class. It was the WTO.
All those products made in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Brazil, etc. That's the WTO's doing.
Well today the Trump Administration took on the WTO.
The U.S. rejected the European Union’s proposal to reform the World Trade Organization, dealing a blow to international efforts to bolster the Geneva-based body, which has come under attack from President Donald Trump’s administration.At a WTO General Council meeting on Wednesday, the U.S. said it won’t support the EU’s plan to avert the paralysis of the organization’s appellate body, which mediates trade disputes that affect some of the world’s largest companies.
...
Over the past year, the U.S. has refused to consider any appellate body appointments because it says the forum’s members have strayed from their original mandate. Absent any reforms, a U.S. block on new appointments will paralyze the forum by the end of 2019 because it won’t have the three panelists required to sign off on rulings.
A WTO that can't mediate is a doomed trade organization, and that sounds very good to me.
The WTO Chief said global free trade is facing its "worst crisis" since 1947.
Trump is also attacking the WTO from a different direction.
One of President Trump's top economic advisers has suggested there could be a case for "evicting China" from the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
If you hate globalism, you must oppose the WTO.
Comments
Unfortunately
the deep state rules.
Trump has voiced many opinions that could be construed as beneficial to the masses. Yet he never follows through on his word. It's been proven time and again, that what a president says is only as good as what it does for the privileged or the depraved.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Yeah, but he just wants to replace it
with global American economic imperialism. Or the Trump Organization. WTO, TO. Lose/lose.
True
Trump rightly opposes these trade agreements for the wrong reasons.
Trump sees trade as a "team game" between nations, rather than a multinational contest against labor. That's why he keeps trying to shoehorn impossible results out of bad trade deals.
He's a very temporary, accidental frenemy.
But in a few things he's useful.
He's weakening, and hopefully will mortally wound the WTO. Maybe the same with NAFTA.
As long as capital and goods can move across borders cost-free, but labor can't, then FTAs are bad for the working class. Employers will always be in a position of moving jobs to a place the workers can't go. You can have FTAs or you can have a healthy middle class.
You can't have both.
Trump wants neither.
He wants to go back to import tariffs. I'm all for import tariffs if for the right reasons. If we tax nations that have slave labor, thus allowing our workers to work for a living wage while deincentivizing slave labor, it's a much better way of doing trade than FTA's. It gives American workers a level playing field.
FTA's were by design meant to gut the working class by that very means.
Let's see if that's what Trump actually does, however.
Trump is not 'accidental'
on this topic.
He has been talking about trade issues for years.
dfarrah
Trump is an accidental frenemy
because he arrived on the side of an issue that could be beneficial to the working class, eventhough he doesn't have the interests of the working class at heart.
Trump doesn't have a clue what life is like for working class people. He's literally never bought his own groceries.
Jobs and trade go hand
in hand.
Like I said, he has been talking about trade and jobs since at least the 2000's.
dfarrah
Heh. Mr. Trump has been talking about hundreds of subjects
for years, he's a professional talker dontcha know.
But he has accomplished jackshit on issues important to working people, and in his own businesses has been anti worker all across the board.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
All I can say is to educate
yourself about trade issues and the impact of the trade deficits on the US middle class and US manufacturing.
And Trump does talk a lot, but he is re-doing the trade agreements, something that Obama talked about, but never attempted because the dems were fine with hollowing out the middle class.
I had a professor around 1988-1989 who decried the loss of manufacturing at that time. Our politicians sold us out.
dfarrah
Drumpf is a Nationalist. Everyone Else of Note Other Than Ron
& Rand Paul are globalists.
"American Hegemony" will never happen in a nationalist world. It can't. It can only happen with a Globalist International Order that allows our shit because we've been Ground Zero of Globalism for 50 years, since the Powell Memo.
I'm no fan of Drumpf, but he is on the side of the Nationalists within the Deep State. Everyone else is a Globalist. That's why there is unanimous condemnation of Drumpf. It's his wild card flavor that the Establishment thought they could deal with.
I actually think he's a Player at this time. Not a moronotron. Super scary to contemplate.
I don't have a "side" in the current war between the Globalists and the Nationalists, as I think both are scary and way off-point; like civil war stuff with everybody being bad for humanity. I'm observing without judgement as best I can. I'm waiting for an historical moment and would like to be informed before getting pushed into one side or the other. Interesting perspective out here...
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Nope. Not even a nationalist
He's still a game show host. All he cares about is his personal ratings (ego, wealth). Psychopath without belief system. Hell, he has global holdings and built with Chinese steel. it's all a show.
And if there is a "Deep State", it's address is on Wall Street. Right next to Rump Tower.
I Don't Think That Wall St. is the Deep State. I Think Wall St
is the slush fund and beard for the Deep State.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Agree. n/t
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I certainly know nothing about trade, but
it seems to me if every country adopted a policy of you either make it where you sell it or pay a tax to bring it in, it would cover the issue of tariffs very nicely. The country would determine how much the company pays, and the company would determine where it is made or if they pay. Too simple?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon