(12-11-2016, 02:57 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:That's just a talking point. I interpret Trump's "bad deals" to mean "free trade with Mexico/China that has been bad for the US". What MAKEs those deals bad is they don't protect American jobs from unfair competition. The solution is protectionism, and that means tariffs. People get all itchy about the word tariff (example, YOU) so Trump used other language, but if he actually wants to get serious about free trade, then yeah he means tariffs.(12-10-2016, 04:15 PM)Mikebert Wrote:Quote:He's talked about lots of things that were not promises. Tariffs were one of them.
He presented himself as opposed to free trade. That means tariffs. Otherwise it’s all talk. This country was built on tariffs. American became great on the strength of those tariffs. Since they were withdrawn America has become progressively weaker and weaker.
He had said the problem is not that the trade deals exist; it's that they are bad deals. He wants to renegotiate them, not get rid of them. Reducing China's tariffs on us to the level of our tariffs on China, for example, would substantially expand a huge market for US exports.
Quote:The country was virtually destroyed by tariffs in the Great Depression.
That is a line of horseshit that has been bandied about by the pro-trade folks (i.e. Republican Chamber of Commerce types and Democratic neoliberals) as justification for their trade policy. Trump believes it less than I do and I don't believe it all. Look I felt the way you do in the 1990's and only saw through the BS about 15 years ago. Trump was seeing things the way I do now thirty years ago. He never bought the horseshit in the first place.