“I would tell China that you’re either going to shape up, or I’m going to tax you at 25% for all the products you send into this country. I’m all for free trade, but it’s got to be fair trade,” he said. “China has taken advantage of this country for a long time.” Trump said China stands to make $300 billion from trade with the U.S. this year.
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/04/06/n_trump_china_sob.cnnmoney/
What’s the deal with his focus on China? A friend commented that it’s never a good idea in foreign policy to antagonize someone to whom you owe a lot of money, and has a bigger army. I would tend to agree!
But I can’t get this out of my head. By golly, I think the Dude with the Toupe has hit it on the head. Everything.
We stood a better chance of funding LBJ’s Great Society if we had healthy American Business to pay for it. I’ve heard (repeatedly) that taxes are paid by the middle class and all those amazing small American-owned businesses. Yeah, the mom-and-pops. The ones who went out of business because they couldn’t price their goods to compete with the Chinese crap sold at Wal-Mart. Over half of them in bankruptcy court are there due to tax debt.
Nixon and Kissinger extended the olive branch and opened the gates and we got flooded with cheap Chinese crap. Substandard food, dangerous toys and furniture. It’s tough to find seafood in American grocery chains not “farmed” in Asia.
So Chinese imports ran ‘em out, resulting in no taxes collected from those American businesses. And no taxes on the Chinese company’s profit. And no jobs for the Americans at those belly-up companies, thus no personal taxes from them and the added burden of their welfare. The American economy just shrank from those less companies, less jobs, less GNP, less taxes. (I believe it was offset for a while off and on by other factors.)
This is the picture for the last 35 years. Protectionism…a dirty word for those wishing to hurry along that vision of a global economy. I used to like the idea of Germans making the beer and Japanese making the cars. After 35 years of kumbaya, I think we need to look at protecting our own interests. We’re the ones who got hurt in this deal, and to add insult to injury, China is now coming into America and buying up the struggling businesses and re-opening defunct businesses as “foreign investment.” Who gets the money in the end? And Americans are thrilled to get a bone thrown their way – they get to go back to their job at the factory, and we at least get their personal tax, tax on purchases, and them off welfare.
And our appetite for more and more Great Society benefits has grown out of control, forcing spineless politicians to spend money we/they don’t have. Who’s got money to lend so we can continue to operate – China.
The road doesn’t run both ways, you see. They won’t allow our exports in or foreign investment.
Lord, it’s a nasty place. My engineer husband dealt with Chinese factories a lot a few years back when his factory began buying all raw materials from China and assembling in Mexico. The U.S. locations were closed, except skeleton crews of engineers and salesmen.
What they’re doing to their people and environment is wild. Wanton. Hubby said it’s freezing and filthy in the factories, no heat, little light. We need to think of a new word for “sweat shop,” a cold Chinese version. They’re not going to pass labor laws and environmental protection laws unless they’re hurt in the pocketbook.
I glanced at a book at the library today that suggested “how China goes, the world goes,” meaning they are so huge and have such a large impact, we’re all screwed together. They’re beginning to amass wealth in a newly developing upper class, very into conspicuous consumption, and they’re hungry. I’ve referenced before their Industrial Age on Steroids. They are the largest contributor to global warming right now, and they want more cars.
Blaming China for our weak economy may seem simplistic. A case can just as well be made against labor unions who made it impossible to price products competitively. Maybe it was just a perfect storm, with the Democrats and their labor unions and the Republicans and their trade agreements. But, what if cheap Chinese crap had never been introduced into our market? And more recently, communication between Chinese and American businesses to escalate the purchase of their raw materials and components.
Every time someone buys something, an impact is felt somewhere.
And we’re continuing to do it. Oil. Gulf Coast. Brazil. My friends in Houston explain. Obama froze all new drilling permits after The Big Spill. He has since un-frozen the approval of new permits, visited Brazil, and the only permits he has approved are for Brazilian oil companies. He wants Brazil to get rich, not America. We need American companies to drill, if anybody’s going to drill, to make a FAT profit so we can tax it. I don’t know, maybe Brazil will loan us some money so we can continue to operate our welfare society. They seem nice…snivel, snivel.
It’s about jobs. And Obama just gave ‘em to a bunch of Brazilians.
I like the idea of a businessman as POTUS, for a change. Hell, I liked it 20 years ago when I voted for Perot. I understand what Trump means when he says China has been taking advantage of us for a long time, and if they don’t shape up, he’ll tax all Chinese imports 25%.
It’s the only way to fight our greatest enemy, who has brought us to our economic knees, without spending a dime or firing a shot. Just the public threat of a POTUS might make them open their market to us, instigate a few laws, quit playing with the exchange. The 25% tax would bring in a lot of revenue and create jobs here.
I can’t determine yet if he knows anything else, but he knows how to fix our economy.
"Obama, you're fired!"
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