President-elect Trump’s call for tariffs on outsourced U.S. manufacturing goods is a bridge too far for editorial boards, business journalists, pundits, and even new friends like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The House Speaker says that, rather than revamping faulty U.S trade policy, the solution for America’s manufacturing woes is simply to enact “comprehensive tax reform.”
Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine both recently supported the TPP before opposing it. But widespread voter concern on trade, articulated by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, has forced her to do an about-face on what she had previously called the “gold standard” of trade deals.
President Obama is overseas, making a big pitch for his “legacy trade deal,” the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The Commerce Department says first quarter U.S. GDP growth was an abysmal 0.5 percent, following a meager 1.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015. This is the weakest economic performance since the third and fourth quarters of 2012, when the U.S. economy grew at 0.3 percent rate.
Economists, reporters, and pundits have argued vigorously in favor of the free-trade status quo, opposing Donald Trump’s plans to renegotiate trade deals and perhaps impose tariffs. Although their approaches vary somewhat, all argue that deficits don’t matter and trade is working as advertised to benefit Americans. Thus Trump is largely wrong in highlighting trade deficits and unfair foreign practices, and we shouldn’t tamper with current trade arrangements.
Just prior to the Brussels terror attack, Donald Trump questioned the value of the NATO alliance and the cost of U.S. participation. In fact, NATO has foundered since the end of the Cold War, looking for a clear mission.
The Wall Street Journal is going after Donald Trump with both barrels right now. Let’s be honest: They loathe the often abrasive businessman — but primarily for his views on trade, which don’t square with their free-trade fairyland.
There may be a slew of new “gotcha” trade questions posed by the debate’s trio of free-trade favoring moderators, Maria Bartiromo, Neil Cavuto, and Gerard Baker. These free-trade proponents have never seen a so-called free-trade agreement that they weren’t predisposed to back. And they will likely be out to boost the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal announced last week with their lead-in statements and questions.
The text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement is finally public, after years of President Obama’s secret negotiations and a refusal to share the text openly with Congress and the American people.
Our elected officials in Washington continually fail to grasp the aggressive nature of China’s mercantilism and military expansionism. And so, as China’s President Xi arrives in Washington for two days of meetings with President Obama, I’d like to offer Capitol Hill an unvarnished perspective about the true intent of China’s ruling regime.
The disconnect between Obama-Republican TPP propaganda and Chinese economic policy was on full display this week as China, in a surprise move, devalued its currency roughly four percent against the U.S. dollar, sending stock markets around the world into panic selling. Beijing announced its rationale after-the-fact: It was instituting a “new system” in which its currency would float more freely than it had in the past.
The President’s claim is dangerous nonsense because it undermines our national security — by minimizing the challenge China presents on all fronts and by downplaying the necessary U.S. response. Trade in the form of the TPP, Mr. Obama apparently thinks, will conquer all. So do most House Republicans.
The exchange of favors is unseemly, because the president essentially validated Nike’s highly criticized and dubious corporate outsourcing model, and for a mere pittance.
President Obama’s strategy in pursuing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been altogether characteristic of his Administration’s attitude: “My way or the highway.”
