Trump Right on Trade Predators

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Chronicles :

Trump Right on Trade Predators

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By:Pat Buchanan | September 30, 2016

 

Is America still a serious nation?

 

Consider. While U.S. elites were denouncing Donald Trump as unfit to serve for having compared Miss Universe 1996 to "Miss Piggy" of "The Muppets," the World Trade Organization was validating the principal plank of his platform.

 

America's allies are cheating and robbing her blind on trade.

 

According to the WTO, Britain, France, Spain, Germany and the EU pumped $22 billion in illegal subsidies into Airbus to swindle Boeing out of the sale of 375 commercial jets.

 

Subsidies to the A320 caused lost sales of 271 Boeing 737s, writes journalist Alan Boyle. Subsidies for planes in the twin-aisle market cost the sale of 50 Boeing 767s, 777s and 787s. And subsidies to the A380 cost Boeing the sale of 54 747s. These represent crippling losses for Boeing, a crown jewel of U.S. manufacturing and a critical component of our national defense.

 

Earlier, writes Boyle, the WTO ruled that, "without the subsidies, Airbus would not have existed ... and there would be no Airbus aircraft on the market."

 

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States of Autarky

Greg Kaza - MAY 01, 2008

 

The Benefits of Self-Sufficiency

 

A great many economists and politicians contend that the absence of trade inevitably leads to armed conflict. Thus, in the interests of national security, they insist on virtually unlimited trade and castigate those who favor its restriction as proponents of autarky—a term that few understand yet most agree to be negative, isolationist, and perhaps even extremist.

 

Economist.com, for example, defines autarky as the idea that a nation-state should be “self-sufficient and not take part in international trade.” They warn us that

 

The experience of countries that have pursued this Utopian ideal by substituting domestic production for imports is an unhappy one. No country has been able to produce the full range of goods demanded by its population at competitive prices. Indeed, those that have tried to do so have condemned themselves to inefficiency and comparative poverty, compared with countries that engage in international trade.

 

This theme is common in college textbooks, which describe autarky in absolutist terms as the absence of trade or isolation. In his book International Economics, Dominick Salvatore describes autarky in absolute terms as the “absence of trade, or isolation.”

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2008/June/32/6/magazine/article/13883/

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A New Trade Consensus
by Edward Conard December 5, 2016, Issue

Reduce deficits and don’t forget about the workers

 

President-elect Donald Trump has shown Republicans how to forge a new electoral college majority by energizing blue-collar voters. His victory, with its demands to restrict trade and immigration, also marks the end of free-market advocates’ control over the Republican party. But there is a way that these advocates might find common ground with blue-collar Republicans to accelerate wage growth, better fund looming pension benefits without tax increases, and defeat the next iteration of liberalism.

 

Republicans have always been a coalition of voting minorities, and their share of the vote has been slowly shrinking as the country’s demographics have shifted. Trump’s blue-collar voters offer the GOP a way to enlarge its base. It won’t be easy, however, to find common ground between Trump supporters and traditional free-market Republicans.

 

As growth has slowed and government spending has reached historic highs, it’s no surprise that the beneficiaries of government policies — workers, retirees, newly arriving immigrants, and the poor — have started competing with one another for benefits. Tea-party Republicans want spending cuts to ensure the solvency of their pensions. Blue-collar Trump voters want restrictions on trade and immigration to raise their wages. Both factions fear that government spending slows growth. https://www.nationalreview.com/node/442258