Is President Donald Trump playing a game of 4D underwater, blindfolded, handcuffed, chess, backgammon, and chess when it comes to the trade file? That’s what many of his supporters think, and the way China is suddenly behaving in the last 24 hours, one could make an argument for that.
That said, if tariffs are still going to be implemented, they will only hurt Americans, says former Texas Republican Congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Speaking in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Dr. Paul warned that Trump’s tariffs will only impact working Americans, not so much on the country exporting the goods. He urged the president to cease “blaming a free market and capitalism” for the trade deficit, which is inching towards $600 billion.
Paul does concur that government-managed trade has been “mismanaged” for decades. However, attempting to rectify that with 19th-century mercantilist policies will only affect the American consumer.
“A tariff can’t fix this. A tariff is a tax and the tax is on the people who live in the country who raises it,” he said. “People that might be enjoying $25 tennis shoes will have to pay $100. That doesn’t help anybody.”
Paul gets it – like he gets so many other things.
But what’s even more remarkable is the comments section on Newsmax.com, which supposedly has a conservative audience.
Let’s go one by one:
“I will gladly pay more (and buy less) of Chinese products to protect our intellectual property and fair trading practices that have been grossly abused and taken advantage of for decades.”
First, intellectual property is something that corporations and businesses should be handling, not the government. Second, what exactly are “fair trading practices”? Americans have greatly benefited from trade, even with all of these ridiculous trade agreement provisions.
“So after all these years Ron Paul was ALL talk. Tens of thousands of US companies fired their employees and moved to 3rd world countries to hire slaves for pennies a day. US wages have been collapsing for many decades. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck with no savings. Tariffs are the ONLY remedy that global companies will understand. It is the only way to make them move back here and re hire Americans at a living wage. Ron Paul, we hardly knew ya.”
Is this Bernie Sanders? Dr. Paul has been slamming tariffs through most of his career, learning from the Austrian School of Economics. U.S. companies are mostly leaving the U.S. because of the horrible tax and regulatory environment. Even with these companies leaving, their products have become cheaper. U.S. wages have not been collapsing – many Americans are earning more than earning less. It is true that most Americans live paycheck to paycheck with zero savings, but that isn’t because of a lack of tariffs. A living wage? Again, is this Senator Sanders?
“Too many people nowadays talk as if they were experts about stuff they know nothing about.”
It’s safe to say that Dr. Paul is an expert on a subject he knows a lot about.
Unfortunately, if this is representative of the president’s base, then they are really no different from Sanders supporters. They want to use force to “bring back American jobs,” “offer a living wage,” and to “stop the outsourcing.”
Sad!
“People that might be enjoying $25 tennis shoes will have to pay $100. That doesn’t help anybody.”
Exaggeration that the cost of tennis shoes may or may not go up 200 % because of a TAX doesn’t help anybody.