The case for tariffs
Last night CBS "60 Minutes" interviewed Trump's former trade negotiator. It may have been the most important interview that CBS has done in decades. He explained the need for tariffs:
Robert Lighthizer : China to me is an existential threat to the United States. It is-- a very, very competent adversary. China views itself as number one in the world and wants to be that way. They view us as in the way. They have the biggest army in the world and they're growing it, the biggest navy in the world, and they're growing it. They're spying on us, they are taking our technology, they've been waging an economic war against the United States and winning that war for at least the last three decades.
Scott Pelley: So your tariff regime for China would be what?
Robert Lighthizer : I believe in strategic decoupling. I'm not saying no economic relationship with China. That's not my position at all. I think you want balanced trade. And how do you get balanced trade? You're gonna get balanced trade by having large tariffs on most of what they send to us.
Scott Pelley : What's large?
Scott Pelley : Wait a minute. You're talking about decoupling from China. What would that look like?
Robert Lighthizer : So, a strategic decoupling . So, we would still have trade. So, I would say, "We sell you $150 billion. We buy $150 billion from you. No more." We don't allow investments in China except in circumstances where we believe that's in the interest of the United States. We don't allow inbound investment, so we begin to disentangle. We disentangle our technology. You could ask yourself, "What is China's policy towards us?" It is exactly a mirror image of what I just said. So, what I'm suggesting we do to China is what they do to us.
Ronald Reagan gave the young trade lawyer his first White House job and 77-year-old Bob Lighthizer has been advising Republicans since. In Trump's first term, Lighthizer was in charge of negotiating trade agreements. In "Trump 2.0" he's an unofficial advisor—but a passionate one. We noticed when he apologized for chewing up time.
Robert Lighthizer : We've lost electronics. We've lost textiles. We've lost chemicals in a large way. We invented the semiconductor. Now we make 8% of semiconductors for the world. And none of the really high-tech ones. More than half of the cars sold in America are now imports.
Mexico, Canada and China are America's largest trading partners. But China, Bob Lighthizer says, has an enormous advantage because of the trade imbalance and Chinese espionage, stealing U.S. trade secrets.
Robert Lighthizer: You add it all up, you can get to around $1 trillion a year of wealth from the United States being transferred to a geopolitical adversary. It's insane. And it's working. And then you ask yourself as a national security issue, how do you fight a war if, God help us, we ever have a war with China when they're now four times more likely to be able to-- produce what is needed in a war?
Scott Pelley: But isn't trade one of the ways we avoid a hot war?
Robert Lighthizer: The way you prevent wars is by having the strongest, biggest, best army, biggest, best navy-- best economy in the world, best technology. You do those things, the allies come to you. They see you as the future.
Trump's former trade chief says China is a threat, tariffs are necessary - CBS News
It is time to give it a try.
In the news:
The Trump administration revoked temporary protected status for more than 300,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. The move puts them at risk of deportation in coming months.
The two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development were placed on immediate leave after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems.
Emergency crews have recovered most of the bodies from last week's DC crash. They plan to lift the wreckage of the jet involved out of the Potomac River today.
RFK Jr faces confirmation vote today.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has turned his attention to the civilian professors teaching at Military Academies (AKA leftwing extremists.)
The bloody war over minerals in the Congo rages on.
Asian and European markets fell.
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Panama ’s president, José Raúl Mulino, greets the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio , as he arrives at the presidential palace in Panama City on 2 February.
There was no need for an interpreter.
A win for the US.
Even as a boy going to school with other Cuban Americans, Marco spoke perfect Spanish.
The fact that his fellow students called him "Gringo" made me like him even more!
THIS JUST IN:
Panama's president vowed Sunday to end a key development deal with China after meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and after complaints from President Donald Trump that the Latin American country had ceded control over its critical shipping canal to Beijing.
José Raúl Mulino, Panama's president, said his nation's sovereignty over the 51-mile waterway, which connects the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, will remain unchanged. But he said he would not renew a 2017 memorandum of understanding to join China’s Belt and Road global development initiative and that Panama would instead look to work more closely with the U.S.
Panama agrees to end canal deal with China after Rubio visit | Fox News
"President Trump has made good on a campaign promise that if reelected he would get off to a fast start – signing dozens of executive orders alone on Jan, 20, his first day in office. Meanwhile, the number of lawsuits contesting them is close behind.
As of Friday, Trump had signed a total of 43 executive orders, according to the Federal Register, while 24 opposing them were filed over roughly the same period, according to the litigation tracker by justsecurity.org .
(One of the suits – opposing the Biden administration's creation of the Customs and Border Patrol's One app, to enable asylum seekers to schedule appointments to request asylum, was essentially paused when Trump by executive order directed his Department of Homeland Security to ceasing using the app.)"
Number of Trump executive orders nearly matched by lawsuits as judges pause two major ones | Just The News
So, we know he's on the right track!
Was it worth it to try and defy Trump?
I think as our neighbor, historic and important ally Canada should be exempt from tariffs
Trudeau claims that he simply wants to know what Trump wants him to do.
Let us give him time to figure it out.
Yeah, but less than 1% of fentanyl in the US is pouring in across the Canadian border, so apparently we need to pretend like they are trying to destroy the US and need to be punished.
It was only TEMPORARY protection.
Evidently that word meant different things to different people. I'm sure if Joe Biden won, it would have meant another 4 years.
Democrats do love their illegals.
Replacement theory is real.
LMAO. Democrats replacing the slaves they fought so hard to keep with illegals.
Speaking of slaves, it is amazing what they did to Black Americans. First it was slavery and in the 21st century it was indoctrination.
I think Trump enlightened a lot of people.
I think they should tie benefits to unemployment, then we won't have a labor problem,
Unemployment/welfare: Farm X is hiring,
Lazy taker: I don't want to do that.
Unemployment/welfare: then you benefits stop today.
Lazy taker: where will i get money for cigarettes?
Unemployment/welfare: Farm X is hiring.
Hunger is a powerful motivator when you don't want to get off your ass and work.
We'd still have a labor problem. Especially a skilled labor problem.
But we have a visa type that we only give to people who already have an offer of permanent employment with a US company.
So the reasonably simple improvement we could make if we could find some happy medium between racist hard ass and bleeding heart dipshit is to increase the limits on those type of visas and open a permanent job center in Nuevo Laredo. Half a million shiny new legal taxpayers a year.
Can't speak for every state, but here in Arizona if you are drawing unemployment compensation then you do need to be actively looking for work.
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It's not really even hunger as the motivator. Many have misused SNAP funding and have become accustomed to a particular lifestyle. Cutting the funding (as you described) threatens that lifestyle.
Neither Canada nor Mexico has the strength or resources to prevail in an extended trade war.
This tariff kerfuffle is not likely to last long or have much impact on most Americans.
And that is the key. It will hurt them a lot more than it will hurt us.
Trump says he just got off the phone with Trudeau and will speak to him again around 3:00 p.m.
"The Army has identified the third soldier aboard the Black Hawk helicopter involved in Wednesday’s deadly midair collision near Reagan National Airport after it had been initially withheld.
Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, served as an aviation officer in the Army since July 2019 and had around 500 hours of flying time in the Black Hawk, the Army said in a release.
Lobach’s family had initially asked for her identity to be withheld because of unsubstantiated accusations that DEI was a factor in the crash.
The crew chief and Lobach’s other fellow pilot aboard the Black Hawk were identified Thursday as Staff Sgt. Ryan O'Hara and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves.
Their helicopter collided with an American Airlines regional jet landing at Reagan from Wichita, Kansas, Wednesday evening while the soldiers were on a training mission, killing all 64 aboard the plane and the three in the helicopter.
The cause is under investigation. "
Third soldier inside Black Hawk helicopter involved in DC mid-air collision identified | Fox News
That totally sucks. Anyone suggesting that without definitive proof about her should be ashamed of themselves. I am sure there are records for how she got in and her performance since she got in. Even if True now is not the time.
DEI may very well be an issue that needs addressing but making a political issue about her death is just disgusting.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “We had a good conversation with President Trump with great respect for our relationship and sovereignty; we reached a series of agreements:
1. Mexico will immediately reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, particularly fentanyl.
2. The United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.
3. Our teams will begin working today on two fronts: security and trade.
4. They are pausing tariffs for one month from now.
A win for trump.
Confirmed by Trump:
I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a “deal” between our two Countries.
Imagine that, the tariff threat was a negotiating tactic. Who could have thought that could be true? After all the hand ringing, we were being led to believe that tariffs were the devils work. Well damn...
I also read that Trump will be talking to representatives from Canada today.
The desired result is happening despite what many want others to think.