Author Topic: Why free traders and all Americans should back Trump on China policy  (Read 733 times)

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Offline Right_in_Virginia

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Why free traders and all Americans should back Trump on China policy
The Hill, May 12, 2019, Stephen Moore

I’m a free trader, and I hate tariffs — which are consumer taxes — but if ever there was a right time to impose punitive tariffs, it is now, and it is against China. President Trump is on the side of the angels on this one, and this is the right moment to shut down China’s abusive trade practices forever.

Start with the basic facts: The average tariff that we imposed on China when Trump entered the White House was about 4 percent. China’s tariffs on us were about 10 percent, and, even when including the 10 percent tariff that Trump first imposed on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports in 2018, our tariffs were still lower than theirs. So the playing field is not level and is especially tilted against us given that Beijing’s non-tariff barriers in China can make it prohibitively expensive to do business there. We have an open market competing against the world’s second-largest economy whose doors are slammed shut.

Doctrinaire free traders should understand that this status quo is economically and politically untenable going forward. Trade can’t be a one-way street, and something has to give here. That means immediate reforms in China’s mercantilist economic behavior — on tariffs, on other trade barriers, on theft of intellectual property and on cyber espionage against America. We aren’t dealing with a friendly power here but with an increasingly hostile one that has become an existential threat.

Trump’s strategy is to hit its vulnerable economy hard with tariffs and strong-arm Beijing into giving American companies and products greater access to Chinese markets. There is not one demand that Trump is making of China’s President Xi Jinping that is unreasonable. The free traders should recognize that if the Trump tariffs work — and this is a dangerous game, admittedly — we will have freer trade at the end of the day.


More:  https://thehill.com/opinion/international/443300-why-free-traders-and-all-americans-should-back-trump-on-china-policy

Offline Absalom

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Far more important are the values this "war" represents.
The Chinese are motivated by collectivism and communal
group think which suppresses individualism; hence they
resort to cheating, lying and stealing.
In contrast, we are motivated by individual creativity,
responsibility and self-discipline.
Principles matter as do their consequences.


Offline Free Vulcan

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The thing about free trade is that it has to be truly free and everyone play by the same rules before you can call it that.

What we have had with the rest of the world the last 30+ years is not anything resembling actual free trade.
The Republic is lost.

Offline libertybele

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The thing about free trade is that it has to be truly free and everyone play by the same rules before you can call it that.

What we have had with the rest of the world the last 30+ years is not anything resembling actual free trade.

True, same argument for FAIR trade vs. FREE trade.
Romans 12:16-21

Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly, do not claim to be wiser than you are.  Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all.  If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all…do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Offline Bigun

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The thing about free trade is that it has to be truly free and everyone play by the same rules before you can call it that.

What we have had with the rest of the world the last 30+ years is not anything resembling actual free trade.

Exactly right!  100%.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline EdJames

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Exactly right!  100%.

@Bigun

Exactly right!  100%

In the past this so called "free trade" has been designed to achieve two distinct purposes:

1. Enrich the multinationals and those that own and control them.
2. Erode the United States of America as a sovereign nation by dissolving our capabilities and capacities to benefit from an economy that enriches "Main Street" participants, and increase the percentage of the population that becomes reliant on government for their well being.

Offline Bigun

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@Bigun

Exactly right!  100%

In the past this so called "free trade" has been designed to achieve two distinct purposes:

1. Enrich the multinationals and those that own and control them.
2. Erode the United States of America as a sovereign nation by dissolving our capabilities and capacities to benefit from an economy that enriches "Main Street" participants, and increase the percentage of the population that becomes reliant on government for their well being.

@EdJames

Hell man! We have incorporated about 90% of the goals laid out by Marx and Engles in their Communist Manifesto into law in this country!
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline EdJames

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@EdJames

Hell man! We have incorporated about 90% of the goals laid out by Marx and Engles in their Communist Manifesto into law in this country!

Indeed we have!

 9999hair out0000