"Free Trade" is a SCAM. It always has been.

[paleotn]

59. What the heck are you talking about?

You don't seem to have a clue how VAT works. It is a percentage paid on the increase in value of a product throughout the production, distribution and retail process. Thus Value Add Tax. A Volvo, made entirely in Sweden, has had VAT assessed to incremental increases in value until it reaches the dealer. A Prius, made in Japan, has no Swedish VAT assessed, until it reaches Sweden. At that point the entire market value of the product is subject to VAT tax, not just the incremental increase in value since the last VAT assessment, as is the case for the Volvo. Thus VAT is a backdoor tariff system.


Oh, data from Wiki? Really? The US trade deficit in 2014 was $731 BILLION, over 3 quarters of a TRILLION dollars. In 1995 it was only about $115 billion. I wonder how many US jobs are represented in that $600 BILLION deficit increase?

http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/usa/

I wonder what happened in the realm of international trade during that time period? Hmmmm? And what are all these empty US manufacturing facilities dotting the countryside? Could it be that trade with China, unfair trade that is, devastated the US furniture industry and completely destroyed US textile manufacturing? And don't you fucking tell me it didn't, because where I live, the wreckage is all around me. Industry after industry has been lost. Hell, the computer your reading this on was made overseas. I remember when PCs were made in the US.