General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Free Trade- just what can we live without? [View all]pampango
(24,692 posts)AND THEN too much trade ('free', 'fair' or any other kind) harms our middle/working class, I will be the first in line (well, second after you) to push to cut back on trade severely.
UNTIL THEN I have no reason to believe that our paltry amount of trade (1/2 of Sweden's, 1/3 of Germany's) is the cause of the economic problems of our 99%. I will stick with my belief which, IMHO was shared by FDR and is shared by Sweden, that these problems are caused by our abandonment of FDR's principles on labor rights (now we have 'right-to-work'), taxation (was high and progressive, now low and 'trickle-down'), regulation (FDR regulated, we deregulate) and the safety net (stronger to shredded).
I will not advocate cutting trade now as an alternative to fighting for what FDR believed in and accomplished, just because it sounds good and seems popular if history shows that it will not work.
FDR did not worry as much about the Mexicans and the Chinese - or any other foreigners - as much as he did about the American 1%. Sweden does not worry as much about the Chinese and whichever poor country takes the place of Mexico on their right wing's list of poor boogeymen than they do about controlling the Swedish 1%.
Agreed. And it is never too late to do the right thing.
The TPP excludes them for 2 reasons. 1 - They don't want to be in it because it has labor and environmental standards (though they have turned out to be fairly weak) that they have repeatedly said work against their competitive advantage. 2 - Obama has repeatedly said that he does not want Chinese standards to dominate international trade and that China can only join in the future if it adopts these better standards. China is not willing to do this, at least for now.
China holds 8% of our debt. Japan has 6%, the UK 2%, Brazil and Taiwan about 1% each. Americans hold about 70% of the debt.