Tag Archives: NAFTA

business news, International news

Trudeau offers advice: Knock off the protectionism, U.S.

Protectionist trade policies make good politics at certain times, but they tend to stand directly in the way of allied nations and friendly neighbors.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made a rare appearance before the U.S. National Governors Association meeting and offered a stern bit of advice: Fix what you think is wrong with the North American Free Trade Agreement instead of throwing it over.

Donald J. Trump has vowed to toss NAFTA into the crapper. He threatened to do it immediately after becoming president, then backed off.

Trudeau doesn’t think tossing out NAFTA is a good idea. I agree with him.

The United States about 4,000 miles of common border with Canada, our leading trading partner.

Trudeau said this, in part, to the governors, according to BBC News: President Donald Trump has made “America First” his mantra, shaping his policies on trade and immigration.

But Mr. Trudeau, who is a fierce advocate of free trade, told the governors protectionist policies “kill growth.”

“And that hurts the very workers these measures are nominally intended to protect. Once we travel down that road, it can quickly become a cycle of tit-for-tat, a race to the bottom, where all sides lose,” Mr. Trudeau said.

Is that so hard to understand? The U.S. president donned the so-called populist cape and campaigned on pledges to get rid of NAFTA, to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership and to remove the United States from the Paris climate accord. He made good on the pledges regarding the latter two agreements.

NAFTA does have its critics. As with the Affordable Care Act — which Republicans want to scrap altogether — NAFTA can be repaired with improvements. Why not embrace the notion of free and fair trade with Canada and Mexico?

Prime Minister Trudeau has offered some sound counsel to U.S. governors. He wants to create what he called a “thinner border” between the two giant neighboring nations. Donald Trump is seeking to wall off the nation he governs from the rest of North America.

How is that going to benefit this great nation?

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Donald John Trump: Grifter?

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The term “grifter” isn’t one that I toss around as a matter of routine.

It’s a fairly new addition to the English lexicon. I found a definition that read: “Someone who swindles others.”

Grifter equals swindler. Got that? Good.

Well, I heard a contemporary political pundit the other day use the term to describe Donald John Trump, the nation’s 45th president of the United States. My first reaction was “ouch, man!”

The guy on TV didn’t articulate in precisely what context Trump is a “grifter.” I’ll make a bit of a leap right here. I am going to presume he means that the president has swindled Americans into believing the things he said he would do right away if he were elected to the very first office he ever sought.

He’d toss out the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something else; he’d negotiate a deal to secure peace in the Middle East; he would pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Act; he would act more “presidential” and stop using Twitter as much as he did while running for the presidency; he would stay on the job at the White House and forgo golfing outings at any of his many luxurious resorts.

By my count that would be zero for five — and just on those particular pledges he made! Were there others? Sure. Let’s just stick with those for a moment. They’re pretty major things.

I haven’t (yet) mentioned the Trump University matter in which he settled with some plaintiffs who said they were, um, swindled out of money they paid for Trump’s defunct school. How about the money he said he would donate to veterans’ causes, but still hasn’t done so?

I’m not yet certain that the term “grifter” is going to become a regular part of my vocabulary. I get what it means and what it implies about the president of the United States.

It does seem to fit this individual’s modus operandi — as a businessman, TV celebrity and now as our head of state and commander in chief.

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No, Mr. Trump, first 100 days not quite so good

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Dear Mr. President,

I read your tweets this morning in which you excoriated the “mainstream fake media” for its reporting of your first 100 days as president of the United States.

With all due respect, sir, you are wrong, the media are correct.

Your first 100 days haven’t been the greatest in the history of the presidency as you have stated.

The attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act failed; your effort to ban entry for those from Muslim-majority countries has been struck down twice by the federal courts; you haven’t touched the North American Free Trade Agreement, which you vowed to repeal on “day one” of your presidency.

Sure, you’ve signed a ton of executive orders. But you seem to have ignored the criticism you leveled at Barack H. Obama for governing at times via executive fiat. His doing it was wrong, but your doing it is right? Are we supposed to believe that, sir?

You’ve gotten into those snits with our allies in Australia, Germany, Mexico and Canada. You’ve decided to launch a trade war — for crying out loud! — with Canada over milk and lumber imports. That leads to success? I don’t think so.

Don’t get me wrong, Mr. President. Your dismal first 100 days doesn’t mean you’re doomed to a failed presidency. You can still have success going on from here. I hope you do succeed, sir, but success in my view depends on whether you’re going to work with Democrats in Congress.

I’ve tried to drive home the point in this blog, sir, that governing is a bipartisan team sport. It is far different than campaigning for high office. Sure, your base still loves you. I am not one of those who voted for you. I wanted Hillary to win.

Here’s the thing: You’re my president, too. I consider you to be duly elected. However, I expect you to take my concerns under consideration as you decide which policies to push.

You vowed to “unite the country.” You haven’t done it, Mr. President.

So, please stop bragging via Twitter about your self-proclaimed fantastic success. You are imagining it, sir.

The reality out here is quite different. Many of us are frightened about what the immediate future might bring.

Listen to us as intently as you listen to those who continue to stand tall behind you.

Oh, and one more thing: Stop bragging about winning the 2016 election. We get it. True leaders look forward — to the future.

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President redefines ‘populism’

I would venture a guess that if one were to ask Donald J. Trump to define “populism” off the cuff that he would say something like: It’s the philosophy on which I campaigned successfully for the presidency of the United States.

Translation: He likely doesn’t understand a philosophy aimed at taking power away from big corporations and the rich folks who run them.

This billionaire real estate mogul and TV celebrity campaigned as a populist, declaring his intention to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and “work for you, the people.” He would surround himself with the “best people” to run the government and would “drain the swam” of the corporate corruption he said has infected American politics since the beginning of the Industrial Age.

He is governing, though, as anything but a populist.

The president did sign the executive order that took the United States out of TPP. NAFTA? Well, in the span of just a few days he said he would consider pulling out; then he said he wouldn’t after talking to the leaders of Mexico and Canada; then he said he would like to “renegotiate” the treaty. The “best people” surrounding him include a healthy cadre of executives from Goldman Sachs, the big-time investment outfit he criticized freely during the campaign. The “swamp”? It’s still full of muck.

I want to focus for a moment on NAFTA. Free trade is an example of orthodox Republican philosophy with which I agree. I dislike artificial barriers, such as import taxes and tariffs, that inhibit trade, particularly among bordering nations. NAFTA’s intent is to open markets throughout three major nations: the United States, Canada and Mexico. Is it perfect? No. Is it as flawed and “disastrous” as the president has contended? No to that, too.

It has fostered a freer flow of goods across the borders of all three nations and has been a significant net plus for their economies.

I am heartened to sense the president is beginning to understand that campaign rhetoric often must differ with the way one actually governs.

NAFTA is not the bogeyman that Trump called it while winning the presidency.

As for whether he can govern as the populist he portrayed himself as being, I only can point to the weekend lifestyle he still enjoys as he jets off to Mar-a-Lago, his glitzy, glamorous and posh resort in southern Florida.

His attachment to all the decadence associated with it suggests to me that the president is a populist in name only. Hey, maybe we can create a new acronym: PINO.

business news, International news

NAFTA on the ropes, now it’s back on its feet

This just in: Donald J. Trump has decided that the United States will not withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Well. How about that?

Word came out today that the president might pull out of NAFTA, an agreement he criticized throughout his campaign for the White House.

Then he got on the phone today with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. Both men talked to our president and apparently persuaded him to pull away from his threat to abandon NAFTA.

This is good news.

I have long supported NAFTA. I believe free trade among the North American nations has been good for all of them and it has helped strengthen the alliances among them. I hope this means Trump will cease his NAFTA-bashing and try to smooth the tension that has developed between the United States and the other two nations individually.

The president has proposed a 20 percent tariff on Canadian lumber shipped to the United States; and, of course, he and the Mexican government have been arguing over who’s going to pay for construction of a wall along our southern border.

The NAFTA pullout is now off the table. May it never return.

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Now it’s NAFTA in the crosshairs

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Let me try to figure this out.

Donald J. Trump gets elected president and then launches a war of words with Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto over whether Mexico will pay for construction of “the wall” between our two countries.

Then this week the president announces plan to impose a 20-percent import tariff on lumber coming from Canada, which shares an even longer border with the United States.

Oh, and today we get word that the Trump administration is considering a wholesale withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which would bust up one of the largest trade agreements in world history.

Yes, the president is trying to put “America first,” but at what cost?

NAFTA has been demonized wrongly as a job killer. It’s been no such thing. It has sought to open up trade lanes among these three giant North American neighbors, allowing a freer flow of goods in and out of the United States to two of our strongest allies.

NAFTA order being drafted

Automation has been the No 1 job killer in this country. No trade war, or blustering about putting America first, or any chest-thumping on the world stage is going to reverse the automation trend that has occurred in industrialized nations around the world.

For the life of me I cannot figure the president out.

He calls China a “currency manipulator” and then backs totally away from that assertion, looking for China’s help in stopping North Korea’s march toward becoming a nuclear power. Trump has yet to condemn Russia fully for meddling in our 2016 presidential election, although he has sounded a bit angrier about Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war. He scolds Australia’s prime minister over the phone and then hangs up on him. Trump declines to shake hands with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a White House photo op.

He’s now launching trade wars against two of our largest trading partners.

Someone … pass the Pepto. Please.

national news, political news

Trump now must get ready to attack other ‘top priorities’

If the Republican plan to overhaul health care fails, the president of the United States will have to face a serious quandary.

Which issue will become his top priority item?

Donald Trump said his first order of business was to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. His effort is now gasping for air. A vote on Friday stands as a now-or-never effort. If it fails, which it appears will occur, he will move on to other matters.

What’s next? Let’s see. Building the wall along our southern border? Renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement? Bringing back all those jobs that have moved offshore to China?

He won’t deal with Russian aggression in Ukraine, Syria or its meddling with the U.S. presidential election. That’s pretty much a given.

Trump, though, will have to pivot rapidly from health care overhaul.

Heaven knows he’s got a full plate of top-drawer issues to handle.

He did refer to the U.S. economy as a “disaster.” Oh, wait! Then he got that great jobs report for February in which non-farm payrolls grew by 235,000 individuals; joblessness fell to 4.7 percent.

And, no-o-o-o, the numbers weren’t cooked.

I am watching all this flailing right along with the rest of the country. The president cannot get his footing. He has been unable to fill many top administrative posts. He must appoint more than 140 federal judges, which is a consequence of Republicans blocking Barack Obama’s efforts to fill those vacancies when he was president.

And then …

We’ve got all those questions about Russian connections with the Trump campaign, the president’s bogus assertion of wiretapping and whether Donald Trump has any idea of just how he intends to actually govern.

Think of it: We’re only at Day 63. My head is spinning.

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Where have the issues gone?

hillary-clinton-and-donald-trump

Is it just me or has anyone else out there noticed something about the presidential campaign’s home stretch?

It’s the absence of issues debate.

Republican nominee Donald J. Trump opened his campaign more than a year ago declaring his intention to “build a beautiful wall” across our southern border; he said he would make Mexico “pay for it,” to which Mexico said, in effect, “over our dead body.”

Then came the ban on Muslims entering the United States; Trump then pledged to “knock the hell” out of the Islamic State. Then came the pledge to invalidate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

We aren’t hearing anything about those or other issues from Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton opened her campaign vowing to work on behalf of women and children. She vowed to continue building international alliances. Clinton pledged to put her husband, Bill Clinton, in charge of crafting economic policy and to improve economic growth to “benefit all Americans.”

We’re talking now about temperament and fitness, about sexual behavior or misbehavior, a candidate’s “stamina.”

It’s personal, boys and girls — and it’s damn ugly.

It is so ugly I want it to end right now.

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Trade policy: the great unspoken at VP debate

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Is it me or did one of Donald J. Trump’s signature issues in this presidential campaign go unnoticed?

I refer to the issue of trade policy.

The Republican presidential nominee has declared ad nauseam that the North American Free Trade Agreement is one of the “worst trade deals in history.” He has opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He has vowed to renegotiate NAFTA immediately upon taking office next January.

Neither of the two men who are running for vice president, Mike Pence and Tim Kaine, talked about trade policy.

In fairness to the candidates, moderator Elaine Quijano of CBS News didn’t ask either of them about trade policy.

The question I would have wanted her to pose would have been to Pence. It would go something like this:

“Gov. Pence, you are a traditional Republican. You served in Congress as a traditional Republican lawmaker and your party has been a free-trade party. Why have you changed your mind on NAFTA and why do you oppose TPP?”

She could have asked Pence that question, but she didn’t.

Pence has a long career as a traditional Republican conservative as a lawmaker and as a governor. Trump has no public service career and he has sounded as populist on trade as, say, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

This debate between Kaine and Pence could have helped clear up some of the confusion on trade that Trump has created with his ferocious opposition to trade policy that many within his party have supported.

national news, political news

Trump talks about ‘Trump’ while introducing Gov. Pence

pence-and-trump1

I watched Donald J. Trump make his big announcement this morning.

He stood before a row of Old Glories to introduce Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his Republican Party vice-presidential running mate.

I sat there, in front of my TV. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I waited for Trump to stop talking about himself — often in the third person — and waited for him to say something good about the guy with whom he’ll run for the White House.

The presumptive GOP nominee prattled on and on for nearly 30 minutes, boasting about his primary victory over a huge field of candidates.

He railed against Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. He talked about how free trade is bad for America, about how NAFTA has siphoned jobs from the United States to Mexico.

Then he got around to introducing Pence, who then delivered a fairly straightforward pasting of Clinton and the Democrats. He also said a few nice words about Trump, who he called a “good man.”

Pence, by the way, voted in favor of NAFTA and CAFTA while he served in the House of Representatives. The two candidates are going to have to come to an understanding on trade policy, yes?

Mike Pence’s big day turned out to be, oh, Donald Trump’s big day.

Is that a surprise? Heavens no!

The commentators who opined about the Pence roll-out noted something quite interesting: Sen. John McCain of Arizona spoke for 7 minutes while introducing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in 2008; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spoke for about 10 minutes before unveiling Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin in 2012.

McCain and Romney spent their entire time talking about their running mates. That moment was about them, not the men at the top of their tickets.

Trump didn’t do it that way.

Naturally!