And it’s a whole new ball game:
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Robert Lighthizer, an official in the Reagan administration and harsh critic of China’s trade practices, to be his chief trade negotiator, responsible for better deals aimed at reducing U.S. trade deficits.
Trump, who promised during his presidential campaign to renegotiate international trade deals like NAFTA and punish companies that ship work overseas, said in announcing his choice that Lighthizer would help “fight for good trade deals that put the American worker first.”Lighthizer is a former deputy U.S. trade representative under former Republican President Ronald Reagan who helped to stem the tide of imports from Japan in the 1980s with threats of quotas and punitive tariffs.
His return to the agency follows nearly three decades as a lawyer representing U.S. steelmakers and other companies in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases.
Here’s a discussion from 2007 on his views concerning the World Trade Organization.
Given the brain trust we have in Ottawa — or is it the Bahamas this week? — we’re probably doomed.
Related…
Please Dear God don’t let it leak out where Bouffant Boy is vacationing. It will only cause a hurricane of frenzied “journalism” by breathless “reporters” bombarding us of pictures of him with no shirt on.
how long before CDN sees the US based auto industry relocate production?
that $0.74 looking more like the peso….
I think many of these corporations are giving Donald Trump two or three years (at most), to get his tax cuts and regulation rollbacks underway. They will stay in the US as long as it is profitable, and the way to make them profitable is to cut their taxes, and more importantly cut the regulations and petty, unnecessary paperwork they are subject to.
A lot of states are going to have to follow suit to keep and expand businesses. Looking at you, California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.
If he succeeds, it will be a beautiful thing.
Is anybody else nervous about this new popularity for protectionism coming from the right? Free trade and free markets not important anymore? The US lost businesses and jobs overseas because they weren’t producing cost effective, quality goods…… Hopefully with Trump lowering taxes, and cutting regulations the US can compete that way and not have to resort to tariffs.
Of course he deserves to vacation wherever and whenever he pleases and can stay there as long as he likes. He’s put such an effective government in place that the budget will balance itself. (Uh-huh, and pigs will now require landing lights….)
It reminds me of an editorial cartoon I saw many years ago. Leonid Brezhnev had been launched into space and was on board one of the old Salyut space stations. He was shown celebrating his accomplishment while one cosmonaut whispers to another, “But who down there wants him back?”
I wonder how many people are thinking the same of Potato Head?
A huge trade irritant that doesn’t get discussed much is the fact that every nation of the world inlcuding Canuckistan, China, Japan etc is constantly devaluing their own currency to gain an advantage in order to export more to the US. Why is the loon a worthless $0.73? I liked it better when it was par.
“Given the brain trust we have in Ottawa — or is it the Bahamas this week? — we’re probably doomed.”
Hey, remember why we elected a brand new government: because it’s 2015!
Oh, wait, right, of course.
It’s 2017.
I think liddle Juthtin ith gonna get thpanked…
“Is anybody else nervous about this new popularity for protectionism coming from the right? Free trade and free markets not important anymore? The US lost businesses and jobs overseas because they weren’t producing cost effective, quality goods”
Protectionism, my ass. Trump wants a fair deal. The US and Canada have been screwed over in trade. Shiny Pony wants to expand trade with China which means sacrificing the little bit of manufacturing we have left.
The US lost jobs overseas to a lack of overseas unions and labour standards, health and safety standards, environmental regulations etc.
The US lost businesses and jobs overseas because they weren’t producing cost effective, quality goods…..
Incorrect. Jobs were lost because people wanted cheap disposable goods from factories in Asia spewing toxic pollution and using slave labor, instead of buying durable quality products Made in North America by their neighbors.
Perfect – Cheap – Quick ………. pick any two, you won’t get the other one
Dear Globe and Mail, let me fix that headline for you:
“Justin’s zero-sum economic and social policies spell trouble for the Canadian economy, both internally and for trade.”
The other objection I have to expanded trade with China is their unwillingness to control North Korea’s threatened nuclear aggression and taking joy in it. Also they are threatening their neighbors by trying to expand within other countries’ zones, a couple thousand km offshore. If they want favored nation status, earn it.
And you are happy with government making decisions for consumers as opposed to them being so “ill informed and unenlightened”? Trump appears to be following Canada’s lead where we “enjoy” paying almost double for our dairy and poultry products (than if we imported them from the “slave laborers” of the US agricultural community). Protectionism, it’s the new word for conservatism?
When NAFTA was first being negotiated, Ross Perot said it was terrible agreement for Canada. He was right,as we’ve seen most of our manufacturing go South or overseas. We lost the second tier of our robust economy.
Free trade has so far been beneficial to the Canadian Old Guard,who were allowed to move their money offshore to produce products cheap and sell ’em back to us with a substantial markup.
Canada’s trade deficit with China alone is about $20 billion a year,and every other agreement we have seems to be about the same, negotiated for the Canadian establishment, not for ordinary Canadians.
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c1220.html
Free trade with reciprocity is great, what we have are convoluted agreements that sure as hell don’t benefit us.
Well Don as a Westerner does it make any dif whether I am being screwed by a easterner, Chinaman or an American. No it doesn’t feel the same. At least I don’t have to tip the Chinaman or American!
And you are happy with government making decisions for consumers as opposed to them being so “ill informed and unenlightened”?
of course not, are you?
“The US lost jobs overseas to a lack of overseas unions and labour standards, health and safety standards, environmental regulations etc.”
Japan and Germany have all of the above. Yet the US auto industry can’t compete with them.
Maybe producing a better car at a lower price would help.
Yep. I got me an electric water tank made in 1972 in (drum roll, please)….you guessed it, Vancouver! Still works like a hot damn. Hard to imagine: once we made things here. Useful things that lasted a while. Without using slave labour. Ah well, guess mah honeys need dey sh*t!
I am so sick of the crappy, cheap junk that is all that is available for sale, e.g. coffee makers, toasters, refrigerators, dishwashers, washers, dryers, etc. I would gladly pay more for a product that would stand up to the normal two decades (at least) wear and tear of family use that used to be the norm in the appliances that we bought.
I’m sick of having to throw things out and replace after a few years of use. It’s wasteful and even more annoying is the fact that our local garbage collectors won’t take anything with electronic components, at any time. So not only are we charged a disposal fee on purchase, we have to arrange for said disposal that also often generates an additional fee.
Why can’t we just go back to making better stuff.
Princess Juthtin like all actors, even terrible soap opera type actors like dumb Juthtin need a break from the breathless daily script readings and the all night sessions trying to memorize the lines written by the script writers and supervisors. Its not easy breathlessly blathering the same talking points day after day year after year to the same adoring yet lazy and indifferent Media fans fluffers and fart catchers. Dumb Juthtin is not really on “vacation” in the Bahamas as much as he is on hiatus from his well paying acting gig. This hiatus will help Dumb Juthtin and the hamster that lives in his head rejuvenate, refresh, and get ready to impose more Trudeau taxes on the “middle class and those that are trying hard to join the middle class”. What better way to “help the middle class and those trying hard to join the middle class” than lounging on a private beach in the Bahamas with your entourage.
Has he been to a “Bank Reporting” country yet?
RIZZY you A$$hole, being a typical leftard, you post about that which you know nothing. Yup J A Pan and the squareheads have unions. But that we call them unions is about the only thing they have in common with NA unions. Hell, back in the seventies we used those 2 as examples of how unions should be, verses how our corrupt operated. You should learn to STFU when you are ignorant of facts
I am so sick of the crappy, cheap junk that is all that is available for sale, e.g. coffee makers, toasters, refrigerators, dishwashers, washers, dryers, etc. I would gladly pay more for a product that would stand up to the normal two decades (at least) wear and tear of family use that used to be the norm in the appliances that we bought.
I’m sick of having to throw things out and replace after a few years of use. It’s wasteful and even more annoying is the fact that our local garbage collectors won’t take anything with electronic components, at any time. So not only are we charged a disposal fee on purchase, we have to arrange for said disposal that also often generates an additional fee.
Why can’t we just go back to making better stuff.
Everyone has a 50 year old fridge, deepfreeze etc, still on the go. GOOD LUCK BUYING ANY APPLIANCE THESE DAYS THAT WILL LAST THAT LONG
WHERE ARE ALL THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS ON THIS ISSUE? THE CARBON FOOT PRINT?
Meeting Mo Strong’s Chinese connection???
The media is not reporting it because they’re covering something for him.
We know the dril.
Exactly my point as well. The asswholes who want the cheapest crap possible from MalWart give the jobs to the Asians. Almost all of my appliances are Made in North America… yes, they’re that old. But they’re still running dependably and can be repaired if needed, it’s all electro-mechanical, no computerized wundershit that craps-out and goes stupid in a few years. One can’t get a non-digital microwave anymore and the new ones last a few years at best.
The standard Chinese business practice has always been to get the deal with best quality prototypes then cheapen the quality to get the most profit as quickly as possible, until the quality deteriorates to the point where nobody buys it. At that point a new-improved version is available, the old crap is discarded, and the cycle begins again.
Agreed. And btw I’ve needed 3 microwaves in 6 years. All CCS (you figure out the acronym; rhymes w deep dink mitt).
Finally, y’all come to realize that while multinational corporations may be “people”, they aren’t your friends.
Better late than never. Maybe in time you’ll also figure out the real underlying reasons why manufacturing jobs went overseas and the quality of consumer goods has steadily gone south.
are there any free people who are conservative left in this socialist paradise?
I can add to the litany of cheap electronic junk produced in China. Recently a coffee maker and a high end TV purchased new were broken right out of the box. Sales people don’t bat an eye, simply hand you another one; this is disposable manufacturing philosophy, cheap but with no useful quality life whatever. I would gladly pay extra for a Made in USA stamp, but these are rarely seen anymore.
The breathtaking part is that Trudeau Liberals want Canada to sign a preferential trade pact with these people so we can import more of their junk at reduced tariffs. Putting aside the question why we would want to give advantage to a communist, autocratic dictatorship, what possible advantage is there for Canada?
None I can see, but rely on Jr and Butts to pursue it relentlessly, part of their love affair with totalitarian operators.
“Incorrect. Jobs were lost because people wanted cheap disposable goods from factories in Asia spewing toxic pollution and using slave labor, instead of buying durable quality products Made in North America by their neighbors.”
American cars are quality? Why does everybody buy Japanese and German cars? To repeat, people want cost effective and quality products. If they US could provide that, I’m sure people would buy them and there would be no need for imports. So, they’re going to cheat and try to bring in tariffs.
I only buy N American trucks…..?
when you can’t produce the things you need on a daily basis for survival, you are dependent on others for your well being.