Thread: Trump Is Right on Trade

Trump Is Right on Trade


By Patrick J. Buchanan

Republican hawks are aflutter today over China’s installation of anti-aircraft missiles on Woody Island in the South China Sea.

But do these Republicans, good free-traders all, realize their own indispensable role in converting an indigent China into the mighty and menacing power that seeks to push us out of Asia?

Last year, China ran up the largest trade surplus in history, at our expense, $365 billion. We exported $116 billion in goods to China. China exported $482 billion worth of goods to us.

Using Census Bureau statistics, Terry Jeffrey of CNSNEWS.com documents how Beijing has, over decades, looted and carted off the greatest manufacturing base the world had ever seen.

In 1985, China’s trade surplus with us was a paltry $6 million. By 1992, when some of us were being denounced as “protectionists” for raising the issue, the U.S. trade deficit with China had crossed the $10 billion mark.

In 2002, it crossed the $100 billion mark. In 2005, the $200 billion mark. In each of the last four years, Communist China has run an annual trade surplus at the expense of the United States in excess of $300 billion.

Total trade deficits with China in the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama era? $4 trillion. Total U.S. trade deficit in 2015 — $736 billion, 4 percent of our GDP.

To understand why Detroit look as it does, while the desolate Shanghai Richard Nixon visited in ’72 is the great and gleaming metropolis of 2016, look to our trade deficits.

They also help explain America’s 2 percent growth, her deindustrialization, her shrinking share of the world economy, and the stagnation of U.S. wages as manufacturing jobs are replaced by service jobs.

Those trade deficits also explain the rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Yet, with the exception of Trump, none of the GOP candidates seems willing to debate, defend or denounce the policies that eviscerated America — and empowered the People’s Republic.

Workers, however, know what our politicians refuse to discuss.

They are being sold out for the benefit of corporate elites who pay off those politicians with the big cash contributions that keep the parties flush.

Politicians who play ball with Wall Street and K Street know they will be taken care of, if they are defeated or when they retire from public office, so long as they have performed.

Free trade is not a zero-sum game. The losers are the workers whose jobs, factories and futures are shipped abroad, and the dead and dying towns left behind when the manufacturing plants shut down.

America is on a path of national decline because, while we have been looking out for what is best for the “global economy,” our rivals have been looking out for what is best for their own nations.

Consider OPEC, which is reeling from the oil price collapse. Russia is colluding with Saudi Arabia and Iraq to cut production to firm up the market and prevent prices from falling further.

This is pure price fixing, but we all understand self-interest.

What might a U.S. national-interest-based trade policy look like?

Controlling the largest market on earth, we might impose on foreign producers a cover charge, an admissions fee, a tariff, to get into our market.

Example: Impose a 20 percent tariff on foreign cars entering the USA. This might raise the cost of a Lexus or Mercedes produced and assembled abroad from $50,000 to $60,000.

However, if Lexus or Mercedes buys or makes all their parts in the USA and assembles all their cars here, no tariff. Their cars could still sell for $50,000. This would be a powerful incentive to shift production here. As an added incentive, all tariff revenue could be used to reduce or eliminate corporate taxes in the USA.

Between the Civil War and World War I, under Republicans, the U.S. became the world’s greatest industrial power and a wholly self-sufficient nation. How? We taxed foreign goods entering the United States, but did not tax the profits of U.S. companies or the incomes of U.S. workers.

The difference between economic patriots and globalists who inhabit corporate-funded think tanks and public policy institutes is that the latter think of what is best for their corporate benefactors and the global economy. The former put America and Americans first.

Academics revere Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Richard Cobden.

But none of them ever built a great nation. Patriots look to Alexander Hamilton and those post-Civil War Republicans who built the greatest national industrial powerhouse the world had ever seen.

Indeed, what great nation did free trade ever build?

As father of a united Germany, Chancellor Bismarck said, when he decided to build Germany on the American and not the British model, “I see that those countries which possess protection are prospering, and that those countries which possess free trade are decaying.”

So it is true today. Unfortunately, it is America, now wedded to the fatal dogma of free trade, that is decaying.



http://buchanan.org/blog/trump-is-right-on-trade-124822

Economists dump on Trump boast to bring jobs back from China



PAUL WISEMAN
August 5, 2015


FILE - In this June 16, 2015 file photo,

Donald Trump announces that he seek the Republican nomination for president, in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. Trump vows to bring back the millions of American jobs lost to China and other foreign competitors if voters put him in the White House. Economists say he wouldn’t stand a chance: Trump’s boundless self-confidence is no match for the global economic forces that took those jobs away. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)More

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump vows to bring back the millions of American jobs lost to China and other foreign competitors if voters put him in the White House.

Economists say he wouldn't stand a chance: Trump's boundless self-confidence is no match for the global economic forces that took those jobs away.

Since the beginning of 2000, the U.S. economy has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs. A study published last year by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that between 2 million and 2.4 million jobs were lost to competition from China from 1999 to 2011.

Announcing his presidential bid June 16, Trump declared: "I'll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I'll bring back our jobs, and I'll bring back our money."
Economists were unimpressed. "It's completely implausible," says former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder, a Princeton University economist who has studied the offshoring of American jobs.

Companies shifted low-skill jobs to China in the 2000s because American workers couldn't compete with Chinese workers earning around $1 an hour. Now China itself is losing low-wage manufacturing jobs to poorer countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam.

If America tried to block foreign-made products and make everything at home, prices would skyrocket and foreign countries would likely retaliate by blocking U.S. goods from their countries.

"You can't turn back the clock," Blinder says.

But there's an even bigger problem for those who want to restore U.S. manufacturing employment (now 12.3 million) to its 1979 peak of 19.6 million: Technology has taken many of those jobs for good. Today's high-tech factories employ a fraction of the workers they used to. General Motors, for example, employed 600,000 in the 1970s. It has 216,000 now — and sells more cars than ever.

"No matter who becomes president," says economist David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "I cannot foresee a scenario where 5 million additional manufacturing jobs ... reappear in the U.S. in the decades ahead."

That's especially true with U.S. unemployment at a seven-year low 5.3 percent, a rate close to what economists consider full employment.

"If you took all the jobs we outsourced and brought them back, you'd have negative unemployment," says Harold Sirkin, senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group and an expert on manufacturing competitiveness worldwide. "We'd have to bring in people from other countries to do the work."
Trump, author of "The Art of the Deal," says he could have protected American jobs by negotiating smarter trade agreements with U.S. competitors. "When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal?" Trump said in June. "They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time."
But economists say trade deals — for all the political heat they generate — play only a modest role in job creation. "Better trade deals are unlikely to be a panacea," says Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.

Prasad says U.S. policymakers should focus more on investing in things that will improve America's competitiveness over the long haul — schools, roads and airports, for example. And Blinder says the U.S. should do more to retrain American workers who lose their jobs to foreign competition.
Companies often decide where to locate factories and hire people on factors that can change: labor costs, energy bills, transportation expenses, proximity to customers.

Currently, several of those factors favor the United States over China. The fracking boom has cut energy costs for U.S.-based factories. Chinese wages have soared, while American wages have been flat. In parts of America, land is cheaper than in China.

So some American companies already are bringing jobs back, and some Chinese companies are investing in plants in America. Last year, for example, Chinese glassmaker Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co. announced plans to take over an abandoned GM plant in Moraine, Ohio, near Dayton, and create 800 jobs.

The Reshoring Initiative, which encourages companies to bring operations back to America, says the number of manufacturing jobs created in the United States by returning American companies and foreign investors exceeded those lost to offshoring last year by 10,000 — modest, to be sure, but a big change from the massive job outflows of the 1990s and 2000s.

Trump declared: "I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that."
But Daniel Rosen, partner at the New York economic research firm Rhodium Group, says: "Global direct investment — including from China, Mexico and Japan — is already flowing into the United States, not due to God's political leanings but because the U.S. economy is open both to those who would invest here and those who would decide to move abroad."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/economist...--finance.html

trade

by Heather Long @byHeatherLongNovember 5, 2015: 3:12 PM ET

Donald Trump likes to remind America that he's a master dealmaker.

"I'm going to make the greatest trade deals we've ever made in our country," he proclaims in his new radio ads.

But experts say Trump is talking a lot of nonsense on trade. It isn't backed up by the data.
"[Trump] wants to convey as a presidential candidate that any deal that he was not involved with... is by definition an inferior deal because he didn't play a role," says Bernard Baumohl, chief economist at the Economic Outlook Group.

rump has railed against U.S. trade deals. He's gone as far as suggesting America should slap huge fees -- up to 35% -- on goods coming from Mexico and China.

It's the kind of talk that would likely start a trade war that would likely hurt American jobs and exports, experts warn.

Related: Carl Icahn: "No way" I would be Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary

Trump claims U.S. losing with every country on trade

In his new book "Cripple America," Trump is again arguing that America gets hurt by trade.
But experts are poking holes in Trump's key claims:

1. "We're losing all over the world with trade deals. Every country. No matter what country you talk about, you can just pick a name out of a hat, they're beating us in trade," he said during a press conference launching his new book.

Reality check: The U.S. isn't the only major country to have a trade deficit -- France and the United Kingdom also do, for example.

Furthermore, the U.S. has been growing its exports. America now sells triple the goods and services abroad than it did in 1995. That has helped grow businesses and jobs at home.

"American companies are very entrepreneurial and competitive. They are very good at adjusting to circumstances," says Adolfo Laurenti, chief international economist at Mesirow Financial.

2. "We sit there while we're getting beaten in trade agreements," he says in his new book.
Reality check: The U.S. has done well with countries that it has Free Trade Agreements with -- nations such as Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Israel and Australia.

While the U.S. still has an overall trade deficit with these countries, most of that is because America still imports a lot of energy. That isn't covered in trade deals. It's simply a matter of American needing more oil.

Trade deals typically cover goods and services. America is one of the leaders in providing services. On top of that, the U.S. runs a trade surplus in manufactured goods with Free Trade Agreement countries.

"These agreements are leveling the playing field for American firms," says Robert Lawrence, an expert on international trade at the Harvard Kennedy School.

While it's always possible to say a deal could be better, U.S. exports of products such as cars and airplanes have been gaining in recent years with these deals in place.

Related: Donald Trump is wrong about Ford and Mexico

3. "Our trade deficit has been a dangerous drag on our economy," Trump says in the new book.
Reality check: The U.S. does run a trade deficit -- meaning America buys more from foreigners than it sells to them. But it has been that way since the 1970s. The U.S. has had many great years of prosperity and growth despite the trade imbalance.

For all the focus on America's trade deficit, imports aren't a bad thing, economists say. The U.S. is getting a lot of cheap goods. That keep costs down for the poor and middle class.

"A trade deficit is much more of an indication of our spending habits than our competitiveness," says Lawrence.

Trump likes to say on the campaign trail that it's "impossible to go on like this any longer" on trade.
But the U.S. economy is in a much stronger position than many of its global peers right now, and exports have held up better than expected despite all of the global headwinds.

"Donald Trump's comments on trade really tend to consist of just platitudes," says Baumohl of the Economic Outlook Group.


CNNMoney (New York)First published November 5, 2015: 3:12 PM ET

http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/05/news...rade-nonsense/

PEOPLE IN (immigration) + JOBS OUT (free trade treason) = BANKRUPT NATION

It's simple math and a Law of the Universe.

But there's an even bigger problem for those who want to restore U.S. manufacturing employment (now 12.3 million) to its 1979 peak of 19.6 million: Technology has taken many of those jobs for good. Today's high-tech factories employ a fraction of the workers they used to. General Motors, for example, employed 600,000 in the 1970s. It has 216,000 now — and sells more cars than ever.

"No matter who becomes president," says economist David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "I cannot foresee a scenario where 5 million additional manufacturing jobs ... reappear in the U.S. in the decades ahead."

That's especially true with U.S. unemployment at a seven-year low 5.3 percent, a rate close to what economists consider full employment.

GM sells imported cars. GM plants that used to employ 5,000 with great jobs and benefits in a plant that created another 9 good jobs throughout the economy by the purchase goods and services to supply the plant all benefited the US economy and US workers. A dealership that sells imported GM cars employs 30 people at low wages with few to no benefits. Ask their mechanics if you don't already know the difference between a GM manufacturing job and mechanics jobs at a dealership.

When GM manufactured here, they never went bankrupt and never needed a taxpayer bail-out.

Those articles posted came from CNN and AP. CNN and AP are notoriously in the tank for liberals and the globalists, so whatever they print should be taken with a shaker full of salt.

Not to mention their argument isn't very good. For example, they say,

But experts are poking holes in Trump's key claims:

1. "We're losing all over the world with trade deals. Every country. No matter what country you talk about, you can just pick a name out of a hat, they're beating us in trade," he said during a press conference launching his new book.

Reality check: The U.S. isn't the only major country to have a trade deficit -- France and the United Kingdom also do, for example.

Even if Trump meant because we have a trade deficit we are losing, which I'm not sure he means anyway, just because France and Once-Great Britain have a trade deficit, it means we aren't getting beat? So if someone else is losing too, you're not losing. Oh, okay that makes sense. That just means we're not the only ones losing. Who cares? We're still losing.

Furthermore, the U.S. has been growing its exports. America now sells triple the goods and services abroad than it did in 1995. That has helped grow businesses and jobs at home.

"American companies are very entrepreneurial and competitive. They are very good at adjusting to circumstances," says Adolfo Laurenti, chief international economist at Mesirow Financial.

This may or may not be true, but it is also irrelevant. Stating that we sell more goods and services now does nothing to prove Trump wrong, that we are losing to our competition, because our competition likely sells more now than they did in 1995 too. Many nations likely do. This is just cherry picking the data.

This article is just more establishment, elitist, globalist drivel trying to discredit Trump. If they're poking holes in Trump's key claims, they're awfully small holes.

The figures they provide are false. They're showing positive balances for example with NAFTA countries, Canada and Mexico. Our trade deficit with Mexico is $58 billion in 2015 and $15 billion with Canada (about half what it was because of lower oil prices) for a total deficit of $73 billion in trade losses that year.

The total loss in trade deficits world-wide for 2015 was $531 billion in 2015.

Here's a link where people can look them up by country:

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/index.html

Here's a link where you can look up the historical series by year back to 1960:

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade...ical/gands.prn

There are no holes in Trump's claims. Think about the 60's and 70's when everyone had a job they could live on, with the solid prospect of earning more as you worked and produced. Then study the historical series and watch how our country declined as trade deficits grew. Look at those whopper's during the Bush Two administration.

A trade deficit means for example in 2015, over one half trillion dollars of our US money supply left the country. That's not just in jobs, wages, benefits, plant and equipment, technical and support services, engineering, management, technology, patents, proprietary information, innovation, and taxes, it's money supply. These trade deficits are the reason the Federal Reserve has to keep printing money to replace the dollars that flew out every year. Add up the trade deficits and compare that figure to the national debt. When you gave your money away to foreign countries through trade deficits, you no longer have it, so you have to print more to replace it, not just for government spending but for banks themselves which is our own form of currency manipulation, not against our competitors but against ourselves.

These policies are the most harmful, most dangerous, most nonsensical policies in the history of the world. They're deliberately suicidal and self-destructive.

60,000 closed factories, 30 million jobs lost and $21 trillion in national debt is not winning, it's losing everything that Americans have spent their lives creating for generations. These are crimes. It's why for the past 11 years, I've called these trade deals Free Trade Treason, because that's what they are. They are a deliberate sell-out sell-off of the United States and the American People through lies, deceptions, dishonesty and a wanton disregard for our country and citizens by our own government.

And I see there is still no shortage of persons still willing to disseminate globalist propaganda for political purposes to perpetuate the lies. But things are different now and this type of propaganda is nothing more or less than an insult to the intelligence of the Americans who are no longer a Silent Majority rolling their eyes, we're taking our country back to stop this crap.

Amen, Judy!!