Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
My take is that T will talk the talk that sells his brand but his actions will advance commerce and create wealth.Philip Levy
January 24, 2017
For several decades it has been reasonably easy to predict the direction of U.S. trade policy, even across changes of presidential administration. One could always expect more of the same. There were hiccups -- Bill Clinton raised questions about the North American Free Trade Agreement, and Barack Obama initially tabled the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- but ultimately successors followed the lead of predecessors...
...two broad explanations available for the remarkable constancy in U.S. trade policy. One, presumably favored by trade critics, is that Democratic and Republican administrations have both been captured by a blind ideological devotion to free trade...
...Bill Clinton questioned the recently negotiated NAFTA in 1992, but he decided it could be fixed with the addition of labor and environmental side agreements. Barack Obama campaigned against NAFTA in 2008, but ended up staking his trade legacy on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP...
...Trade facts. The real world of trade agreements often bears little resemblance to campaign trail depictions. One can rev up a crowd by calling for cars to be made in Michigan rather than Mexico, but the reality is that any given car is likely to have been made in multiple places...
...Trump is likely to face all of these pressures. How much he will care is an open question. Will he feel the need to deliver for his agricultural supporters? Will he worry about the damage done to American business if supply chains are disrupted and access to foreign markets disappears..
...Trump, upon taking office, can modify, stall, or reject these agreements. Clinton modified NAFTA with side agreements. Obama stalled by tabling the TPP. Trump’s outright rejection is something new...
...the trade apparatus proposed by the Trump team merely clouds the situation further. There will be real pressures to stay the course on trade policy, but the odds of a sharp and economically damaging break appear higher than they have been for many decades.
Trump was the best of four unusually bad choices on the ballot. If the LP candidate had an unstoned moment on the campaign trail I missed it, Clinton is as a matter of public record (you can get at least three exposes on Amazon but the battery died on my kindle) a pay for play political prostitute and Stein was just plain nuts. So, like anyone with a brain I held my nose and voted for Trump.
I am expecting a swing back to protectionism instead.My take is that T will talk the talk that sells his brand but his actions will advance commerce and create wealth.
Hey, it's what he does.
I am expecting a swing back to protectionism instead.
.
