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'FART' Bill Indicates Trump's Intention to Dump WTO

posted by martyb on Tuesday July 03 2018, @06:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the He-Who-Smelt-It dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Trump administration has crafted a draft bill — ordered by the president — that would declare America's abandonment of World Trade Organization rules, according to Axios. The bill essentially provides President Donald Trump — who has argued for a better position for the U.S. in big trade pacts — a license to raise U.S. tariffs at will, without congressional consent and largely outside of the international rules governed by the WTO. The bill, titled the "United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act," would give Trump unilateral power to ignore the two most basic principles of the WTO and negotiate one-on-one with any country.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @12:24PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @12:24PM (#701858)

    He is being naive just like normal American citizens. Or shall I call him dumb just as Americans are called outside of USA. For decades and decades USA through heavy funding of UN (~50%) and by direct interference forced countries to open their markets so USA could sell its shit - countries where it became impossible to compete with Made in USA because they didn't have the technology because it was funded by DARPA and trivial things like VCR were apparently of important to national security, and couldn't say NO because they would suffer trade embargoes. If you wanted to survive you became part of NATO and let USA run your country as it wished. Mostly it worked out well as long as your country didn't held any strategic importance, such as Japan and Germany (remember Made in Japan of 80s?), otherwise you became Pakistan.

    Remember USA was called global police? Were its rulers really so naive that they worried about well being of women and children in oil-rich countries? No, right? They sold it back at home as such.

    Some can argue that 9/11 might have caused this, some may say Iraq war did it. I don't know, but Trump obviously doesn't understand that the whole system of "allies" and "open market" was devised by Americans themselves. The only problem is that Made in USA isn't a big thing anymore because the industry has moved into software and software is not that difficult to compete with (so far). Manufacturing has moved to China, and open market isn't bringing much benefits to it anymore. I dare to wonder what the world is going to look like...

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:27PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:27PM (#701906)

    Trump obviously doesn't understand that the whole system of "allies" and "open market" was devised by Americans themselves

    This fits well with my other post here about how there seems to be a group of people who are constantly confused by Trump. I'm pretty sure he does understand that, he just thinks the americans who devised it were incompetent/etc:

    Today, we import nearly $800 billion more in goods than we export. We can’t continue to do that. This is not some natural disaster, it’s a political and politician-made disaster. Very simple.

    [...]
    I’ll do it. No doubt about it. Not even a little doubt. It also means reversing two of the worst legacies of the Clinton years. America has lost nearly 1/3 of its manufacturing jobs since 1997. Even as the country has increased its population, think of this, by 50 million people. At the center of this catastrophe are two trade deals pushed by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

    First, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or the disaster called NAFTA. Second, China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. NAFTA was the worst trade deal in the history – it’s like – the history of this country. And China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization has enabled the greatest job theft in the history of our country.

    It was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA. People don’t remember. In 1993. And Hillary Clinton who supported it. And the havoc that it wreaked after he left office was unbelievable. It was also Bill Clinton who lobbied for China’s disastrous entry into the World Trade Organization, and Hillary Clinton who backed that terrible, terrible agreement.

    http://time.com/4386335/donald-trump-trade-speech-transcript/ [time.com]

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:51PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:51PM (#701966) Journal

      For 99% of issues you can find quotes of Trump directly contradicting himself and taking both sides of the issue.

      On this one issue, to be fair, that is not the case.

      And on this one issue, we're not confused by Trump at all. We're confused by Republicans.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @04:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @04:33AM (#702377)

      I'm pretty sure he does understand that, he just thinks the americans who devised it were incompetent

      Also called Dunning–Kruger effect [wikipedia.org] which is why he is naive/dumb.

      You think North Korea is bad having a nuclear bomb? Think USA being north korea. You know it is going to happen - bringing manufacturing back involves doing everything the republican "economists" don't want to do. It worked out well for Mr. Kim, it will work out well for Trump too.