Last edited Thu Feb 23, 2017, 05:14 PM - Edit history (1)
My disagreement with you is not confusion on my part.
Antagonizing China and Mexico is not going to reduce what you have described. You're sounding like a defender of Trump's ridiculous approach with our trade partners.
The EU has moved from a trade deficit to a surplus and is still losing manufacturing jobs.
China has a massive trade surplus and losing manufacturing jobs.
And I've said this before: Since our manufacturing output is high, and job availability in the manufacturing sector is shrinking, the trade deficit has very little to do with it - yes we have experienced outsourcing but manufacturing jobs world wide- regardless of the presence of a deficit or surplus - are shrinking. The shrinkage is at a lesser pace in places where Unions are strong -. Lost in the debate is that we actually have a large service trade surplus - in excess of 200 billion a year - but we only talk about our trade deficit re goods which skews the debate and is misleading.
And why did I mention jobs? because trade deficits are usually mentioned in connection with them - similarly, to be anti-FTA is to be protectionist and isolationist, the arguments go hand in hand. If you want added provisions which include environment and wage standards, that's fine, it doesn't make you anti-fta necessarily. Smarter negotiating is a good thing, and Mexico failed in some respects w.r.t corn at the start of the agreement.
But unless you are fine with Trump bullying Mexico and making threats to a trade partner, you should be very worried about Mexico punishing the U.S or leaving Nafta.
EDIT* And it just occurred to me why discussions like this are frustrating - the purpose of socialist* democratic principles is to improve on what is there, to make it fairer or work better where possible. What we DON"T do is ruin or damage what already exists but improve on it.
If Trump wanted to update NAFTA, that would be fine with me but that is not what he is doing. He listens to Steve Bannon who believes in a destructive form of economic nationalism which will wreck us and leave us isolated.
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