President Trump is the most masterful negotiating presence in the White House of not just the modern era, but in American history.
You free-trade establishment types need to pipe down, listen up, and learn a thing or two.
In the president’s brief statement Thursday in the signing of the tariff declaration, Trump let slip a few things that not only the media immediately began to ignore, but simultaneously demonstrated his mastery of the issues in far greater depth than many of the wall street wonks who spent the last two weeks denouncing his tariff policy (which until today had not been fully revealed).
Talk show hosts on the right, some of whom work for my parent broadcaster, libertarian pundits, economists, opinion editorialists, and plenty of millennials on Twitter and elsewhere sounded off with absolute certainty that Trump’s tariffs were a pox on the economic successes of his early days. They went on to predict the future doom of his legacy as a historic failure. And these were merely criticisms of the political right.
They should learn a little something about how our president operates.
One of the critical voices I interviewed said she believed the tariffs would be the beginning of the “Trump job loss†season.
Yet in the president’s own voice, flanked by his commerce, treasury, and trade secretaries to his left, and a sample of America’s finest production labor to his right, the president revealed a number of items that the press should have touted in response. Sadly they have yet to do so.
1. NOT A SINGLE COUNTRY WILL BE FORCED TO PAY THEM - IF THEY SO CHOOSE: Did you see this reported anywhere? It was buried pretty deeply on his own list of reasons for implementing the tariff policy, and with the press's tendency of having the attention span of a gnat understood, some of them may have flat out missed this. Yet he stated it. The implementation of the tariffs will also include the ability for countries to be added to or taken off the list (which doesn’t kick in for another 15 days) based on one simple criterion: improve whatever current standing you have with America by making it more fair. It’s simple, it’s straightforward, and massively doable. If your country charges a higher tax of any sort on our items coming into your country, eliminate that tax, or make it mirror the ones we charge you for your products headed into our markets. There is no reason why American cars should be required to pay a tax of 25% on our cars going into China, when they pay only 2.5% to get to bring theirs into the US. This is idiotic. Such concessions were negotiated by both Republican and Democrat administrations who seem to have negotiated from apparent weakness. And note that the president didn’t argue that you had to give us a favorable advantage—merely equal treatment—an old fashioned idea rooted in our nation’s founding. Theoretically no nation on earth will be required to pay the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports if they simply, quickly, and efficiently work to create a level playing field to the relationship we have with them. It is a brilliant move from this perspective as well—the decision to pay the tariffs is dependent solely on the decision of the other nation. By choosing to not create reciprocity in our relationship, they choose to take a posture that continues to cheat American workers, markets, and jobs. Tariffs are a more than fair response in return.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2018/03/09/jediminding-on-tariffs-n2459096
