The Smell of Bannon lingers on in the West Wing.
@corbe 19th-century free trade did not work out well for BritainStarting in the 1980s and accelerating with NAFTA & GATT, the US set out to meld its economy with those of Europe and Japan and create a global economy. We decided to create the interdependent world envisioned by 19th-century dreamers.
That experiment did not work out well for the free-trade British in the nineteenth century, who were shouldered aside in the struggle for world primacy by America. But our generation would make it work for the world.
What happened was predictable and was, in fact, predicted. With the abolition of tariffs, and with US guarantees that goods made in foreign countries would enter American free of charge, manufacturers began to shut plants here and more production abroad to countries where US wage-and-hour laws and health & environmental regulations did not apply, countries where there were no unions and workers' wages were below the US minimum wage. Competitors who stayed in America were undercut and run out of business, or forced to join the stampede abroad.
Source: Suicide of a Superpower, by Pat Buchanan, p. 12-13 , Oct 18, 2011
Detroit was forge & furnace of WWII Arsenal of DemocracyThis is our reward for turning our backs on the economic nationalism of the men who made America, and embracing the free-trade ideology of economics and academics who never made anything.
In early 2010 it was reported that Detroit, forge and furnace of the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, was considering razing a fourth of the city and turning it into pastureland. Did that $1.2 trillion trade deficit we ran in autos and auto parts in the Bush 43 decade help to kill Detroit?
If our purpose in negotiating NAFTA was to assist Mexico, consider this: textile and apparel imports from China are now five times the dollar value of those same imports from Mexico and Canada combined.
Source: Suicide of a Superpower, by Pat Buchanan, p. 17 , Oct 18, 2011
Free trade is the Pied Piper to world governmentFor generations US and foreign elites have sought to diminish American sovereignty and dilute our national identity. The penultimate step to world government, a North American Union built on the model of the European Union--which would one day merge with it in a World Union of Nations and Peoples--is on the table.
This is where NAFTA was designed to lead us. As too few participants appreciate, free trade--with its lure of a cornucopia of consumer goods at the cheapest possible price--is the Pied Piper to world government. For any continental common market must call into existence institutions with the power to enforce its rules. These evolve into regimes. So history teaches.
The Mexican regime sees the EU as its model for North America. In a 2002 speech in Madrid, Vicente Fox underscored the essential element of the post-NAFTA agenda: Absolute freedom of movement for persons, as well as goods, between Mexico and the US.
Source: State of Emergency, by Pat Buchanan, p.121-3 , Oct 2, 2007
Stopped belief in free trade when US lost manufacturing jobsBuchanan said he ceased being a believer in the free trade, a traditional Republican position, after he looked at the loss of manufacturing jobs in the last 25 years--nearly 50% in Michigan and New York, for example. "Why do you think there's such rage and anger out there?" he asked, his hands cutting the air in tiny chops. "The median income of the average American worker has gone down 20%." The American worker was being forced to compete with $1-an-hour Mexican labor and 25-cent-an-hour Chinese labor.
Buchanan said that if something was not done, people would be thrown out of work more and more, be forced into lower-wage jobs. "You're risking social stability just so some of these corporations' profits can be dramatically increased, they can move factories anywhere.
"I think I can make that case out there," he declared; "economic nationalism's coming in Europe. It's going to come to the US. It is the future of this country."
Source: The Choice, by Bob Woodward, p.151-152 , Nov 1, 2005
America’s freedom is tied to her economic independenceAlexander Hamilton wrote: ‘Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation...ought to endeavor to posses within itself all the essentials of a national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habitation, clothing and defense. ‘ America’s political independence, Hamilton was saying, could not survive without economic independence. “
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.153 , Sep 1, 2004
America's Industrial Revolution took place with high tariffsFrom the ratification of the Constitution to WWI, this vision guided the nation: All Americans participated in that free market as their birthright, but British merchants, who had held life-and-death power over the colonies, would pay a price of admissio --a tariff.
From 1870 to 1913, the US economy grew more than 4% a year. Industrial production grew at 5%. The Protectionist Era was among the most productive in history. When it began, America was dependent on imports for 8% of its GNP. When it ended, America's dependency had fallen to 4%. The nation began the era with an economy half the size of Britain's & ended it with an economy more than twice as large as Britain's.
Tariffs alone cannot explain the economic success of the era. But high tariffs, nevertheless, went hand in hand with the rise of the most awesome industrial power the world had ever seen. And the Republican Party, which preached protectionism as the key to prosperity, controlled the White House for all but 8 of those years.
Source: Where The Right Went Wrong, by Pat Buchanan, p.154-156 , Aug 12, 2004
Reduce dependence on trade; support Monroe DoctrineFor Americans, Buchanan’s book says, only America should matter. Buchanan rages against the UN, the WTO, and a previously unknown animal, “the managerial elites of the New World Order.†Allies in South-East Asia and Europe must do their own fighting, and America must cut down its dependence on trade. The single pillar of American foreign policy should be the Monroe Doctrine; the country’s priorities are to guard against “hostile bastions in this hemisphere†and to try yo keep immigrants out.
Source: The Economist, p. 31 , Oct 2, 1999
Match 100% tariffs from Japan & ChinaToday, we let Japan and China to run up a combined annual trade surplus of $120 billion, blithely allowing them open access to our markets while we pay up to 100% tariffs for entry into theirs. By equalizing tariffs so that imported goods carry the same tax as American-made products, we can end the exploitation of US workers, and fund flatter taxes for families, fairer competition for business, and renewed economic liberty for all Americans.
Source:
www.GoPatGo.org/ “Issues†, Jun 5, 1999
Trade deficit is “tumor in intestines of US economyâ€Today Buchanan called the massive merchandise trade deficit-over $26 billion for February alone-a “malignant tumor in the intestines of the US economy. Unattended, it will one day kill this country’s tenure as the world’s mightiest industrial power,†Mr. Buchanan said. “A $300 billion annual deficit will strip America of our manufacturing and production base. Manic consumption is a mark of a republic that has passed its apogee, and begun its long descent.â€
Source:
www.GoPatGo.org/ “Press Release: Trade Deficit†, Apr 21, 1999
We will rue the day we passed NAFTARoss Perot and I stood up again against NAFTA. We stood up against GATT. We stood up against the World Trade Organization. We stood up against the $50 billion bailout of Mexico.
People ask, “Pat, why are you against NAFTA?†I said, “There are lots of reasons I’m against NAFTA. You do not force Americans making ten bucks an hour to compete with Mexicans who work for a dollar an hour.â€
One year later, Mexico devalued the peso. American trade surplus disappeared. We now have a $15 billion trade deficit with Mexico, which means 300,000 American jobs were lost this year. Illegal immigration is soaring.
We are required to pay $50 billion to the government of Mexico. For whose benefit was that? It was not for the benefit of working Americans. It was for the benefit of investment bankers on Wall Street.
