Trump Actions

I would guess it would be a jurisdictional thing, but I don't know for sure. That's why I was asking.

Well, this one is a cool crossbreed between alternative facts, stupidity and aggression. OK, say he slaps 20 percent on Mexican goods. Think about it for 5 seconds. Who's gonna pay for 'the wall' you think? Mexico or the American customer?

Moves like this are designed to play off the pure and utter stupidity of those people who voted him in. Because they won't think for those 5 seconds. They'll just grunt in agreement and open up another beer. Then they blame Hillary for the price hike.

Additionally I find it rather disturbing how much stupid shit the prez can just sign without the approval of Congress. I know, I know, Executive Orders. They have all used them. However, the sheer amount and kind of decisions Trump signs day by day is staggering. You guys really need a movement to curb the use of EOs. This is dictatorial. This is one man signing away decades of hard work every day and all YOUR (!) representatives can do is watch.

AAAAAAANNNDDDD they're already backing away from the 20% figure:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-tax-mexican-imports-pay-for-border-wall-234239

This is so incredibly insane.

So now making Mexico pay for the wall means making American customers pay for the wall when they buy Mexican goods. So Americans pay for the wall -- unless they choose not to buy Mexican products. In that case, the wall doesn't get financed at all.

So, patriotic citizens of Trumpland: Buy Mexican goods! Don't buy American! Build the wall! Keep production jobs in Mexico!

Well, EOs were created to be more of a temporary solution when an issue required immediate action, and also needed to bypass Congress. Of course, their weakness is that they can be easily overturned by the next sitting President. They've been around since the Constitution was written, and each President has made use of them. Obama used them to effect because our congress has been gridlocked for nearly a decade. You couldn't approve a "let's not kill our neighbor, crack open their skull and feast on the goo inside" bill (H.R. 52-AAAAAAH! AAAAAAAAAH!) without a battle all the way up to the top.

As we're seeing, the downside is that a dangerous demagogue-that-should-have-been-stopped-by-the-electoral-college-but-gods-forbid-they-do-their-fucking-jobs President can also use them to force his will into law. It's a glaring flaw in the system, but it's not going to go away. EOs are beneficial to the country when wielded properly, as Obama proved many times. That isn't to say EOs can't be struck down by the Supreme Court, but I believe it's only happened a few times in the hundreds of years they've been used.

Tariff changes would require an act of Congress though treaties like NAFTA do have self abrogation clauses which can be invoked by the President legally without Congressional approval.
This is why I find the recent UK supreme Court's recent siding with remoaners is so stupid. The Parliament already passed the treaty and article 50 is part of the treaty (it is the abrogation clause) so following the treaty is just following what Parliament already agreed to.

A terrible court decisions.

You are not very good at this. It was always going to be a compromise with Congress and he was likely just starting high to give himself something to trade away. In the end a compromise with Congress will be reached.

Likely there will be some sort of fee put in place. The goal is to get those factory owners who moved their factories south for lower waged to change their minds. I believe a significant number will do that as 90% of their output does go to the US. Btw no one will end up paying 20% more in the long run so that is a red herring.

What I want to know is how many American made products are being sold in China and Mexico, because it seems to me we are getting the shit end of the deal.

Given that both have huge trade surplus not nearly as much as is being sold here. That is the leverage.

How many Make-America-Grate-Again caps were not made in China?
Speaking of the shit end of the deal.

Anyway, as the German foreign minister said when recently asked how the US could sell more cars in Germany, "Build better cars".

Alas, as a result of Globalization (so warmly embraced by the Republicans), to get back the manufacturing jobs, the US would have to accept the same standard of living for its working class as the Chinese .....

No, Trump's not good at this. If the aim is compromise and you've thus far painted yourself as a strongman, you don't play the "make my worst offer" game and then back down from it THE NEXT FUCKING DAY.

Why do you keep lying? We already proved the caps were made in the USA and the make better cars comment was retarded. We were talking about foreign companies moving to Mexico to make cars, not the quality of cars made outside of Mexico, do you fucked up the whole conversation and pretended it was about something totally different.

It is almost like you fuck up everything you post, man.

Do you have any idea about how laws are made? I ask because you don't seem to know. Making a proposal is not the same as getting Congress to pass a bill.

Some of it is needed simply for national defense. Also China is extremely aggressive at subsidizing state owned companies and then deliberately using them to dominate strategic industried (example REE and steel or ship building). This is deliberate and is not based upon market economics.

China then uses this dominance to strong arm others.

Yeah, that is a national security risk and big tariffs need to be put in place until such practices stop. This is vital because China is pretty much the biggest risk for a major war, just look at their building of artificial islands.

Oh I know that Trump THOUGHT he could get Congress to roll over for him. Now it seems they've chosen to explain to him why that ain't gonna happen, so he's backtracking.

What "deal" are you even talking about - how do you logically expect American made goods to be competitive in markets that are able to produce goods at a fraction of the cost?

I suppose you coming out on top of this "deal" would that you get paid a shitload more for a day of work compared to those countries and are able to buy these cheap goods.

That idea's a lot older than the 1950s. Exports are something we produced that someone else consumed. The idea that this makes the US wealthier is kind of absurd. Really, Adam Smith showed why it was wrong after all the major governments in Europe spent ~150 years trying to hoard gold instead of real wealth.

The big problem is everyone is not playing by the same rules so it is time to restrict those who refuse to play by the same rules. Actually give them a reason to raise standards.

I see three possibilities here:

1. He's incomprehensible and means to say that he wants a tariff on goods produced in Mexico by American companies.
2. He doesn't understand how tariffs work and thinks that Mexico pays the tariff to us.
3. He understands how tariffs work and is going for the strictly protectionist value of it, assumes that none of his supporters understand, but knows that it's a good sound bite.

I hope to hell the answer is 1, I suspect it's 3, but after reading the ABC interview transcript, I wouldn't be surprised if 2 was actually the case.

@shootER claimed this post was dumb so maybe he would care to explain why China should be allowed to have state owned companies which are heavily subsidized by the government, supported by a deliberately manipulated currency in order to boost Chinese production? Should everyone else's companies just shut down and take the job loses? Or should there be restrictions against unfair competition and this is before we get into minimum environmental and labor standards?

Now remember that China thinks strategically and has repeatedly cut off exports of strategic goods to punish other countries who defy Chinese dictates (see how China cut Japan off from rare earth's). Is it a good idea to keep the US dependent on strategic goods from China especially when China is being aggressively military expansionist? Or maybe we need to level the playing field and prevent such strategic dependencies.

I am still not sure why 1 makes sense when coupled with the wall. As a measure to move jobs to the US, it should not only target American companies. As a means for building the wall, it should not make the wall dependent on the sales of American producers abroad.

Nothing on the 90 day ban for citizens from seven Muslim countries? Now, they said they would be adding more but there are some glaring examples which are not on the list.

There's a map circulating that shows the nations that are exempt from the ban and surprise surprise they are also all the ones where Trump has business concerns.

The one in, two out rule to cut down on regulations costs worked well in British Columbia. It remains to be seen if the Trump administration will make it work as well but the B.C. government managed it nicely.

Then tonight Trump fired his acting Attorney General for refusing to defend his legally indefensible Muslim ban.

Nothing ominous about that.

EDIT: And the head of ICE! Busy night for purging.

He didn't ban muslims. And this is legal. The fact that an Obama holdover because the Senate is stalling Trump's cabinet got fired isn't ominous. It's her job to defend the US in court. If she doesn't agree with US policy she should have refused to hold the spot until the Senate gets off its ass and confirms Trumps picks.