BBC (2016) - Are Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders right about trade?

[TomCADem]

It is odd that free trade somehow became associated with conservatives and opposition to free trade being associated with progressives given that Herbert Hoover championed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover, and raised import duties on over 20,000 goods, aiming to protect American industries and farmers during the Great Depression. In contrast, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934, which allowed the President to negotiate lower tariffs with other countries, effectively undermining the protectionist policies of the Smoot-Hawley Act.

Yet, for the past few decades, opposition to free trade agreements was mostly pushed by folks like Bernie Sanders on the left, before being embraced by right wing populists by Trump.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35981784

Meanwhile, an article in Forbes magazine, external describes another non-mainstream figure still in the running for the White House, the Democrat Bernie Sanders, as not having the "first inkling of what [trade] is and why we do it".

Let's put aside the question of how likely it is that either will become the 45th president. The fact that both have raised the issue of trade in rather striking terms is still a sign of something wider going on in US politics.

Both have expressed profound concerns about the impact of international trade on the US economy and workers. As the quotes above show, both have caused alarm or scorn among enthusiasts for trade liberalisation.

Both would represent a marked departure from decades of US trade policy which has, with some diversions on the way, followed this path.

[Silent Type]

1. IMO, trade -- and Democrats who bashed Obama and Clinton over trade right up to Nov 2016 -- gave us trump 1.

Yeah, there was Comey, Hillary's emails, lies, and tons of other crud. But when you cut through all that, Clinton still would have won except for all the Democratic bashing over trade.

So here we are.

[quakerboy]

2. You apparently forgot Clinton committed the unforgivable.

Namely, she was a woman. Nothing else mattered to a significant portion of voters, best I can tell.

[Silent Type]

3. True. But Democrats turned on her over trade.

[cachukis]

4. At that time, Bernie was opposed to the

Trans Pacific Partnership because it allowed corporations outside the US to avoid the complications of following our laws. He is not against trade.

[SnoopDog]

5. Why is this 2016 hit piece important now?

trump is a hateful mentally ill degenerate.

Senator Sanders is an amazing American patriot who fights for all Americans every freaking day.

[TomCADem]

6. How is this a hit piece? What is factually inaccurate in the article?

Also, the article says nothing about patriotism. Rather, it is a well known fact that Bernie and Trump both cut their teeth in 2016 attacking free trade deals. Would you support Trump's tariff policy if it was Bernie?

[SnoopDog]

7. There are way more important things to discuss.

There is NOTHING important about the 2016 article except if you simply want to do a hit on Senator Sanders.

[TomCADem]

9. I Think a Lot of Folks Think The Impending Trade War is Fairly Important

Given that opposition to free trade is central to this issue, we should examine whether Democrats and progressives are supportive of less trade restrictions like FDR and Obama, or supportive of barriers like Hoover, Bernie Sanders and Trump. There was once a time that folks would be happy to argue in favor of tariffs and against less trade restrictions.

[SnoopDog]

12. It's really disgusting that you lump Senator Sanders in with Hoover and Trump.

Apparently you have some sort of agenda here and it has nothing to do with the real problems we are facing.

[TomCADem]

14. Are You Even Reading The Posts? Do You Have Any Substantive Distinction To Draw?

For example, your first response to the BBC article was "Bernie Sanders is a patriot" and to argue that it was a hit piece. However, the BBC article said nothing about whether Bernie or Trump were patriots. Rather, it was a comparison of their approaches to free trade, which you really have not distinguished over several posts.

[SnoopDog]

16. Posting from 2016 tells a lot about your agenda....

Oink…..

[Mountainguy]

18. Come on.

Don't you know if you don't worship Bernie with every post you are a right wing troll with an "agenda"???

[TomCADem]

20. Trying to give the person the benefit of the doubt...

…yet after several responses, still do not know whether the person supports tariffs and protectionism like Herbert Hoover, Pat Buchanan, and now Trump, or less protectionism like FDR, Clinton and Obama?

Heck, it would be great to hear a specific distinction between what Trump is doing now versus what Bernie has proposed. Indeed, there are some Michigan based Democrats who support Trump’s tariffs.

[W_HAMILTON]

8. Trump signed into law one of the largest free trade agreements in decades (the USMCA AKA NAFTA 2.0).

Trump doesn't give a shit about free trade -- lol, as if... -- he only gives a shit about himself. He says what his MAGAts want to hear because he's a narcissist and needs their adoration, but he does whatever he wants -- regardless of what he previously said.

[TomCADem]

10. In 2016, Trump's was trying to take credit for Obama's economy

Obama supported NAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership. The big fear with Trump in 2016, as noted in the article, was that he would do then what he is actually doing now.

Trump basically took credit for the economic momentum generated under President Obama without implementing the tariffs or imposing the trade barriers in 2017 that he is now doing. He was largely ineffective legislatively terms of rolling back the ACA or other things he railed against.

This is why this time around, his agenda is mostly focused on side stepping Congress with his actions on tariffs and actions through executive orders.

Of course, would you have preferred that Trump start a trade war back in 2017 like he is doing now?

[W_HAMILTON]

15. I prefer for the fucker to have never existed and...

...for DUers not to bring up old articles claiming Trump is against free trade when he and his MAGAts spearheaded the largest free trade deal over the past few decades just a few years after this article was written.

[TomCADem]

19. Trump is Like Pat Buchanan Who Was Also An Isolationist

Likewise, you always had Republican Herbert Hoover, who signed the Smoot Hawley Act into law. Conversely, FDR, who is often seem as very progressive, rolled back the tariffs adopted under Hoover. There are American businesses that would like to have a captive audience to sell their goods to, which is why pro-business Hoover supported tariffs. Before Trump, there was Pat Buchanan who was a proponent of protectionist trade policies and anti-immigration.

Also, wouldn’t you agree that Trump’s trade deal was not really different from the one NAFTA deal supported by Clinton and Obama, but Trump just wanted to take credit for signing a new trade deal even though it wasn’t all that different from the one that preceded it.

This time around, Trump is actually side stepping Congress and trying to impose the isolationist policies that he supports. Isolationism is not new to Republicans. Back in the 1990s, ultra conservative Pat Buchanan was pushing protectionist and anti-immigration policies.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. It's a bait and switch

Conservative policies here have taken so much from working people. So instead of blaming those policies that prevented regular people from sharing in the gains of the economy the last 50 years, they’re going to blame trade.

Free trade didn’t take away pensions, greedy CEOs did. Free Trade didn’t take away affordable health care, greedy CEOs did. Free Trade didn’t stagnate real wages for 40 years while the economy grew to ten times its previous size, Republicans did that. Greed took it from the middle class. Free Trade brought more wealth into the country than ever dreamed, but the greedy rich bought our political system so they wouldn’t have to share it.

[TomCADem]

13. True.The Big Difference Between Bernie and Trump...

…is that while Bernie would use tariff revenue to fund progressive priorities, Trump wants to use tariff revenue to subsidize tax cuts to the rich. While tariffs under both would lead to a trade war and tariffs are very regressive, there are significant differences in how Bernie and Trump would want to use tariff revenue.

[LS0999]

17. There are rational ways to deal with the trade issue

What the Felon is doing is sabotage. What Elon has done to the federal government is what Trump is doing to the private sector. This summer is going to be hot, very hot..

[AZProgressive]

21. I think it is a little more complicated than that

As far as the personal side of things my mom had a good paying job with Motorola and she could have retired young but Bill Clinton signed PNTR in his last year of office and her job shipped to China.

Trump has made us more pro free trade because with tariffs they just pass on the costs to consumers like Anonymous said from the NYT Times article and his book. However, Obama was pushing TPP in his last year in office and it seemed like the deal was negotiated by mostly corporate lawyers rather than labor. I think that factor may have helped Trump win but his solution is total chaos.

I believe free trade helps us get along with other countries and that tariffs like Trump is proposing leads to more disagreements or war between countries so Trump has made me pro trade but it isn't like Democrats such as Bill Clinton or potentially with Barack Obama cost a lot of working class jobs that were later shipped overseas.

It seems like an attempt to compare Bernie Sanders with Donald Trump is a weak comparison. People claimed with PNTR with China it would lead to better labor conditions which later did not turn out to be accurate but all this is like closing the barn door after the horses escaped.