I would hope they realize they are no better than him providing “Alternative Facts” When they do things like that…but the count on us to accept it as true…I actually have the book sitting on my book shelf at home. My wife has never read it, but she is interested now of course.
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If he is going to get Mexico to “reimburse” us for the Wall…what do you forsee? Tariffs which result in “counter-tariffs?” Obviously he would have to re-negotiate NAFTA for this.
Fences work
I’m more concerned with the severity of the accusations. I’m starting to miss the good old days when we just ranted about marital infidelity. When ideologues start accusing the POTUS of high treason/being a Manchurian Candidate, the joke stops being funny.
I will say that I’ve had several scenarios running through my head about this, and none of them bode well for the future. Completely incompetent investigations? Ideologically driven intelligence community? Treasonous POTUS? Press who will stop at nothing? A Russian game of playing one political party off the other in an effort to undermine the country?
I don’t see a good scenario there.
I don’t know, man, this suggests otherwise.
Yeah, the Presidents National Security Advisor can’t sit next to Putin on a Russian propaganda gala dinner while being paid by the Kremlin through his private consulting company without the leftists getting all worked up over nothing!
And you can’t even receive the highest Russian decoration from Putin personally without the whiny liberals freaking out! What’s this - Russia? Oh wait…
And you cannot even hang out in Moscow with Putin’s closest confidant whom you begged for funds to build a Trump Tower in Moscow without the liberals going crazy!
Serious question - what would Ronald Reagan say about all this?
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Easy! Don’t trust MSM. It’s all partisan politics. Unequivocally trust in your leader, for the alternative was far worse.
“The cold war is over you pansies it’s 2017”
That’s what I think Trump is doing. The problem is that the American public is ideologically divided, and the left seems more concerned about the utopia they envision than the reality in which many of us live. Our greatness (for want of a better word) always has, and always will be dependent upon, our economic strength. If we continue to lose that then our military strength and ability to project our democratic ideals will also go.
Serious question guys what would George Washington say about Trump’s friendliness with the British?
To quote Vladimir Putin at last year’s press conference: “The Cold War is not over”
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“Russia, who solely cares about re-establishing cold war era levels of influence, while exterminating Western influence, is your friend!”
I agree with the spirit of your post (for the most part). A certain percentage of American’s feel and/or have been marginalized (real or perceived). They’ve been left without a seat at the table if you will. GDP growth has underperformed for a while now. Median pay has stagnated (for numerous reasons and that’s arguably not a bad thing). So, I truly do get the sentiment that something needs to be done.
However, IMO, using NAFTA as the fall guy is not what we need. Certainly not right now.
I have said this a few time and I’m just going to keep saying it, we haven’t been a manufacturing export drive economy for quite some time and we aren’t ever going to be again.
We simply can’t:
- Produce goods at the prices consumers want while,
- Paying low-skilled workers “living wages”*, and
- Providing the safety net that we do (government programs).
It’s simply not feasible for a US based manufacturing company to pay a US citizen, IDK, $30K/year to work an assembly line (The true cost of which is more like $44K). It’s not out of some evil capitalist greed either. It’s just simple math.
So, what have company’s done? They’ve outsourced and offshored because it makes economic sense. Most people benefit from this in the form of lower prices. I have yet to read an argument against NAFTA (from a reputable source anyway) that doesn’t at least note that the US does benefit from the agreement.
And, let’s say that Trump is successful at bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US through a renegotiation of trade deals or a trade war with Mexico, China, half of Asia, whatever. How long before company’s simply automate? There will come a point in the not too distant future where paying multiple people (that take breaks, get sick, have kids, go on vacation, etc…) will make less economic sense than spending $100k on a robot or whatever. We already see this sort of thing happening in the fast food industry with self-service kiosks.
I think we would be doing a disservice to the American Working Class and Middle Class to drive prices up on the goods and services we need and want for a temporary manufacturing job boon. There’s no foresight. 10 maybe 20 years from now these same people are again out of work.
IMO, One of the biggest disservices we can provide this generation and future generations is trying to revert backward in time as a temporary solution to our economic problems. We’re a service driven consumption economy. We lead the world, by far, in the export of services. We’re the technological and financial center of the world. This is where our focus should be. We should be helping low-skilled workers gain skills they can use in the reality of this economy (note: not necessarily in the former of college). It isn’t an easy fix, but blaming NAFTA or Mexico or whatever doesn’t fix anything either.
*Whatever that means
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Honestly, who cares?
We have a wealthy businessman in the White House. He knows Putin and is familiar with his thinking. We don’t bash professional diplomats for knowing our enemies, dealing with them, dining with them, etc. The innuendo gets exhausting and it’s beneath educated people.
Let’s be real here.
President Peña Nieto can’t agree to pay for the fucking wall. It’s a career-ending insult to foot that bill. But he also realizes that Mexico would be screwed if the U.S. goes off the reservation wrt their current economic arrangement, so he can’t let that happen, either. To save face (and his job), he’ll end up being more receptive to unfavorable, but not egregious, alterations in trade dynamics proposed by Trump… on the condition that the U.S. ceases all requests / threats over Mexico paying for the wall. Publicly, his successful defense of his country’s honor over the American buffoon will outshine whatever fine print gets inserted into the contracts.
The next day, Trump cancels the wall, tweeting something about Democratic pussies, but also pledging to clamp down on immigration by other means. The con - an ignorantly aggressive bluff that helped him win both the election and better trade conditions - gets spun into a new reality series about life-changing lies set to air sometime in 2020.
Those guys share similar values and interests as you? Good choice in an ally.
That the West won. Rather handily.
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No - Niento will absolutely destroy his country’s economy if tariffs are put on mexican goods to the US.
My guess: Mexico pays for a major portion and Trump frames Niento in positive terms saying he’s a “tough negotiator” who fought for the Mexican people.
Trump’s supporters will turn on him the second prices start ticking up.
So you’re for the status quo, i.e., an acceptance of trade deals as is and a continuation of decades of trade deficits for years to come? Are we that afraid of Mexico? And what about China? They will overtake us. Over one billion people are there working under a government hell bent on growth and on keeping a totalitarian level of control. The question is simply when. We need to be fighting that tooth and nail.
Instead, we have been wholeheartedly investing in them and allowing them to steal our technology. We have winked at the One China policy and allow them to militarize the South China Sea. Now, I hear that pulling out (we never were really in) TPP is going to allow China to gain power?
We are less than a week into the process and people are already shaking in the knees. We haven’t even sat down at the negotiating table yet.