Trade Agreements – Why Trump is Right
Unfortunately, the fearmongering media, at the behest of the international corporations, foreign nations, and globalist ideologues, has the majority of Americans focused on transgender bathrooms, islamophobia, sexist, racist and any other social justice issue they can think of.
Haven’t you heard, Trump is the next Mussolini and his cabinet selections are all White Supremacists intent on reversing the country two hundred years!
Get used to hearing it, because the swamp Trump wants to drain is determined to pull him down into its depths, and do away with him, and all those who work beside him in his Administration.
But its time, again, to try and inject a little truth (and some very serious facts) into the matter. Trump’s campaign was not about racism, sexism, or antisemitism… Trump had a populist message that tore into both parties’ traditional free-trade positions and their comfortable relationships with globalization and big business.
His rants about building a new wall, spoke more to people who have lost jobs because of NAFTA and the Federal government’s non-enforcement of laws which prevent companies within America from hiring illegal aliens, tens of thousands of good construction jobs do not go to American workers, they go to illegals, thousands of American truckers no longer have jobs, because in 2011 the Obama Administration kicked in the final parts of NAFTA, one part of which, allows Mexican drivers to take their loads to any destination in the U.S. of A. rather than transferring them at the border to an American driver.
The amount of jobs lost because of NAFTA over the past quarter century is in the millions, and the amount of jobs being filled by illegal aliens for companies like the Toll Bros. and Tyson rather than American workers, is in the hundreds of thousands.
More importantly China’s favored nation status, and trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA were meant to help these ‘under developed’ countries. No politician was going to come out and say that it was at the expense of the American worker and the middle class; no one wanted to admit that it wasn’t so much those foreign countries, as much as the international corporations, that would reap the majority of the benefits from such agreements… but a quarter century later it is evident that this was indeed the case.
Just over 15 years ago, the U.S. produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese (Dow Jones’ MarketWatch report ~ 2014). Today the U.S. is no longer the largest economy in the world, China has become number one, (International Monetary Fund ~ 2014) with China now producing well over $18 trillion in goods and services, and America producing less than $17 trillion.
And just the other day, it was reported that China for the first time became Germany’s most important trading partner in 2016, overtaking the US, which fell back to third place behind France. Just one of many such reports over the last two years, where China moved ahead of America in terms of trade.
Just over 25 years ago, we were the richest nation in the world, with no competitor close to our nation’s economic or industrial might. We could afford to absorb trade agreements that favored more disadvantaged nations, we could afford to let some businesses leave to foreign lands.
Back then the nation was fretting over the fact that it was juggling a trillion dollar national debt, we were beginning to be concerned that we would be nearing the end of global oil production and urgently needed to begin developing alternate sources of power.
The world has changed substantially today. The Nation’s debt has surpassed 20 trillion dollars, China is no longer a weak developing nation, it is now the powerhouse economy that has supplanted America as the engine that makes the world go around.
The days when we can afford to be magnanimous and allow trade agreements to favor foreign nations and international corporations over American worker’s interests are long gone. The days when we can turn a blind eye to multi-billion dollar companies hiring tens of thousands of illegals in America rather than hiring American workers, paying them decent wages and providing them benefits, are gone.
There are 116 million Americans who have ‘fulltime’ jobs in America today… but there are 104 million Americans who collect some form of welfare (means tested, not including SS or SSI) who are of working age. So there are more than a few Americans to fill any and every job in America… but not at 7 dollars an hour (or less).
Whether or not you like the man, Trump is 100% correct when he says our Trade agreements are killing America’s economy today… or more pointedly, killing the middle/working class of America.
Our Trade agreements are in desperate need of major overhaul. Our tax system, the Affordable Care Act, our school systems, so much needs to be addressed. We need to look past the media driven divisiveness, the breaking up of Americans into colors and religions… we need to be more aware and less influenced by the corporate propaganda that Trump labels ‘fake news’.
Trump may not be the most articulate, he may not be the most respectful, he may be full of bluster and bravado… but when it comes to the economy, and the afflictions attacking jobs, wages, and opportunity in America, he is right. We need to accept this, prioritize this, and not be sucked in by divisive ‘news’ reports intent on destroying him.
Or the America our children inherit tomorrow will be just some second-rate country beholden to the whims of China, or any other country with the economic means to enforce their will upon us.
