With such a significant slash of tariffs, how could this be possible?
First, the author, Joseph Stiglitz, Senior Fellow and Chief Economist states, “tropical, impoverished Vietnam will eliminate tariffs on skis, snowplows, and caviar,” while Brunei and Malaysia, countries that consist mostly of a Muslim population, would do away with tariffs on pork.11
Moreover, Stiglitz found that the United States did not provide any exports to TPP countries in 2015 in over half of the categories covered under the 18,000 tariff cuts. As for the other 7,500 categories, the United States only sent small amounts of products to other TPP countries during 2015.
This analysis shows how useless the deal was to America. In fact, citing a study conducted by the Economic Research Service, Stiglitz writes the “TPP would have zero effect on U.S. GDP.”12 He points to a different study by Tufts University that utilized a different model to conduct its research, which found the United States would actually suffer a net gross domestic product (GDP) loss.
Much of the pushback that resulted from President Trump’s decision was centered around the idea that U.S. withdrawal from this deal would ultimately result in the United States losing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. The anti-Trump coalition argued this would then in effect lead to China stepping up to fill the great economic power void in the region—a consequence counter to U.S. interests.
But take a look at the root of this argument. By arguing that TPP is required to contain and balance Chinese influence, no matter what the impact is on the American economy, it puts American workers second to geopolitical theory.
Or as Derek Scissors, a China policy specialist from the American Enterprise Institute, said in an article published by NBC, “This is all diplomacy. There is no benefit,” adding that “the idea was diplomatic rather than economic.”13
This is exactly the type of process before results thinking which defines the orderly institutionalists that Donald Trump’s America first foreign policy seeks to end.
Promoting a trade deal that had no economic benefit for America, all in a flimsy diplomatic attempt to contain China and at the cost of American prosperity is indisputably irrational and shortsighted. The United States instead should work to remain the largest market in the world and encourage foreign investors and businesses to come do business on our home field. A dominant American economy will check China better than the TPP ever could.
President Trump’s aim is to encourage foreign countries to want to come negotiate with us and to have the incentive to want to become a part of the American market—which won’t happen if we have a weak economy, no jobs, and a country filled with workers who are struggling to make ends meet.
Trump’s executive order withdrawing from the TPP, issued within the first 72 hours of his presidency, set a definitive precedent for the future of his administration. As president, Donald Trump has attached action to rhetoric, while unfailingly and unapologetically delivering on his promise to put the interests of the American people first, both at home and abroad.
He saw withdrawing from the TPP agreement as one of his first acts as commander in chief to be an easy way to communicate just how different a leader he was going to be for our country. He defiantly broke out of the old globalist mold by refusing to continue with the TPP and, in effect, shook up the status quo on a global scale.
This decision was a great shock to members of the orderly institutionalist wing of the anti-Trump coalition, who were comfortable continuing on in the new world order global establishment at the expense of American success.
This clear shift away from the global bureaucracy affirmed that the America first policy was not simply empty campaign jargon and it effectively assured the American people that this would be a core philosophy for President Trump’s administration going forward.
THE PARIS AGREEMENT
The Paris Agreement—a bad deal which would provide framework for and implement measures to eliminate problems with climate change while providing financial assistance to underdeveloped countries—was heavily supported by the Obama administration and was a perfect example of the orderly institutionalist wing of the anti-Trump coalition’s pattern of structuring foreign policy around fantasies.
A perfect example can be found in former secretary of state John Kerry’s hyperbolic 2014 declaration that “climate change can now be considered the world’s largest weapon of mass destruction, perhaps even the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.”14
How can the American people trust leaders such as these to correctly manage global threats and ensure our national security if they are this out of touch with reality? How can leaders justify indulging in these distant fantasies when there are real, present dangers right in front of them that put the lives of Americans and our foreign allies at risk?
Let’s be clear: A rogue nation or terrorist organization’s possession of a nuclear weapon is an immediate weapon of mass destruction and, in the short run, vastly more dangerous than global warming. The Left hides from real, immediate weapons of mass destruction by focusing on distant potential problems, which suddenly become today’s focus of energy and excitement.
When President Trump took office, as a principled realist, he immediately recognized that the Paris Agreement was an ineffective initiative and a bad deal for Americans.
A study conducted by NERA Consulting found that in order to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement as outlined under the Obama administration, over the next several decades, the U.S. economy would incur costs amounting to $3 trillion dollars.15
As negotiated under President Obama, the Paris Agreement would destroy our coal industry16 and would force the United States to meet unrealistic carbon emission reduction goals.17 And while the international community has incredibly high expectations for the United States, the Paris Agreement would give what President Trump accurately called a “free pass” to other countries for years.18
Furthermore, if implemented, the Paris Agreement would have cost the United States 6.5 million industrial sector jobs—including 3.1 million manufacturing jobs—by 2040.19
As if all the terrible economic figures were not enough, the Paris Agreement wouldn’t have even stopped climate change.
A statement from the Trump administration, citing researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), stated that even with all member nations fulfilling their obligations under the Paris Agreement, “By the year 2100, the impact on the climate would be negligible.”20
In fact, these MIT researchers found that the “impacts have been estimated to be likely to reduce global temperature rise by 0.2 degrees Celsius in 2100.”21 That is a lot of lost jobs for a tiny change.
This is far short of the Paris Agreement’s goal and requirement that the average global temperature must be kept to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.”
Amazingly, the crafters of the agreement even acknowledge that the multinational accord wouldn’t make a dent in climate change.22
The United Nation’s proposal notes that even with all member countries contributing and meeting the requirements outlined in the agreement “much greater emission reduction efforts will be required than those associated with the intended nationally determined contributions in order to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.”
So, the Paris Agreement would cost America $3 trillion and not solve the problem. Yet, when President Trump withdrew the United States from this inarguably harmful and feckless deal, the anti-Trump coalition reacted with apoplectic rage.
Here are some of the most over-the-top reactions, as compiled by the Federalist:
• Tom Steyer, a left-wing billionaire who funds radical environmentalist causes, called the withdrawal “a traitorous act of war.”
• The Huffington Post ran the headline “Trump to Planet: Drop Dead.”
• The American Civil Liberties Union somehow managed to bring race into the issue, calling
the withdrawal “a massive step back for racial justice, and an assault on communities of color across the United States.”23
It is important to note that in issuing the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, President Trump is not in any way opposed to continue working toward initiatives that aim to preserve our planet’s environment.
In a statement made on June 1, 2017, President Trump said, “I’m willing to immediately work with Democratic leaders to either negotiate our way back into Paris, under the terms that are fair to the United States and its workers, or to negotiate a new deal that protects our country and its taxpayers.”24
Trump’s decision therefore sent a message to the global community that this particular agreement wasn’t good enough, and member nations must return to the negotiating table. He wasn’t going to put the global bureaucracy before the American people.
THE NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), negotiated under President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and implemented under President Bill Clinton, was a free trade agreement designed to ease trade barriers that would, in effect, lead to increased trade and spur economic growth between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
When President Clinton presented the agreement to Congress in 1993, many Republicans—myself included—supported the NAFTA proposal. As the Republican whip at the time of the Congressional NAFTA vote, I helped deliver more Republican votes in favor of the agreement than the Democrats.
Unfortunately, we were trapped in a new world order mentality and failed to see how lopsided the deal was in favor of Mexico.
NAFTA was implemented in 1994, and according to the World Bank, for that year, the United States had a per capita GDP of $27,77725 and, comparatively, Canada’s per capita GDP was $19,859.26 However, in 1994, Mexico’s per capita GDP was much lower, at $5,710.
This disparity resulted in Mexico benefiting from the NAFTA agreement in a much greater capacity than the United States. The removal of tariffs under the implementation of this agreement had a heavy impact on multiple U.S. industries, particularly in the fields of auto manufacturing, textiles, agriculture, apparel, and others.27
Manufacturing jobs in the United States dropped from 16.8 million in 199328 to 12.5 in 2017.29 Moreover, U.S. jobs in the automotive manufacturing industry are down from 1.1 million to approximately 940,000 in 2017.30 Some of this job loss can be attributed to automation and technological advancements, however, NAFTA undoubtedly exacerbated the job loss.
A study published in 2016 by two economists from the University of Virginia (UVA) that compared census data from 1990 and 2000 described the profile of the workers and industries where the negative impacts of NAFTA were most likely to be experienced.31
One of the co-authors, UVA economics professor John McLaren, when asked during an interview to describe how NAFTA affected U.S. wages, said, “For the average worker, there is not much of an impact, but for certain important pockets of workers, the lowered import barriers resulting from NAFTA do seem to have lowered wage growth well below what it would have been. This is particularly true for blue-collar workers.”32
The study found that workers who were most negatively affected by NAFTA were high school dropouts who were employed in particular industries that could no longer rely on various tariff protections as a consequence of the agreement. Comparing the wages of these affected workers with workers in unaffected industries, the former saw a wage growth drop of up to 17 percent compared to the wage growth of the latter.
“If you are a blue-collar worker at the end of the ’90s and your wages are 17 percent lower than they could have been, that could be a disaster for your family,” McLaren said.
The study also showed that NAFTA had indirect negative impacts on American workers who weren’t involved in the industries that were covered by the agreement. This is where geography comes into play.
For example, he suggested that a waitress working “in a town that depends heavily on apparel manufacturing might miss out on wage growth even though she does not work in an industry directly affected by trade.”
McLaren asserted in the interview that this geographic component was in fact, “one of our most striking findings.”
So, President Trump is not opposed to trade agreements, but such agreements must be beneficial to U.S. workers overall. NAFTA fails that test.
As such, at the time of this writing, the Trump administration continues to engage in negotiations with Mexico and Canada to try to reach a new trade agreement that is fair to American workers and their families. Because President Trump has already shown the global swamp that he will not agree to a deal that jeopardizes the national security and prosperity of the United States, the American people can remain steadfastly confident that their interests will be prioritized throughout the negotiating process.
A DANGEROUS DEAL FOR AMERICA: THE IRAN DEAL
Multilateral trade agreements are not the only deals President Trump has scrutinized.
He is also reassessing President Obama’s Iran deal—or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as it is officially known. This deal was billed as a way to keep Iran from building or obtaining nuclear weapons.
In practice, however, it has done little to achieve this goal—and provided the dangerous Iranian regime with an enormous infusion of cash.
The Iran deal is a perfect example of how naive and weak the Obama administration was in handling the unpredictable Iranian dictatorship—which has consistently threatened American security, interests, and lives for decades. It also illustrates how eager President Obama was to appease the global bureaucracy and leave some type of global legacy—even if it meant putting the interests and security of Americans at risk. The Obama legacy was clearly more important to him than the American legacy or the safety of the American people.
In the terms laid out by the current agreement, Iran can keep its military installations secret. International inspectors are not permitted to search for violations on military facilities. This nullifies our ability to effectively verify Iran’s compliance with the agreement’s terms.
To add to this, the same day this catastrophic deal was implemented, the Obama administration secretly flew in $400 million of Swiss francs, euros, and other currencies on wooden pallets to Iran.33 Four U.S. hostages were released on this day as well. Over the course of just a few weeks in early 2016, two more airline shipments containing $1.3 billion in cash were sent by the Obama administration to Iran—totaling $1.7 billion.34
This cash exchange not only violated the United States’ policy to not pay ransom for hostages—or appear to do so—and negotiate with terrorists (Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism), but it jeopardized the safety and security of American lives.
And instead of this cash being used by the Tehran regime to build up its own country, the Iranian dictatorship allocated these funds toward supporting violent campaigns and increasing the power of the regime, while simultaneously keeping the Iranian people in a state of continued repression.
Under the nuclear deal, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial released in early 2018, $100 billion in Iranian assets became unfrozen through the lifting of international sanctions.35
The editorial reflected on the “illusions about Iran” the Obama administration held to be true when the deal was made. The article quoted Vice President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, Colin Kahl, who absurdly said the Iranians “are not going to spend the vast majority of the money on guns, most of it will go to butter.”
However, the piece points out that, “instead of using the money to improve the lives of Iranians, Tehran has used its windfall to back clients making trouble throughout the region. The mullahs have spent billions propping up Syria’s Bashar Assad with troops, weapons and energy shipments. Iran funds Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah terrorists in Syria and Lebanon, and Houthi fighters in Yemen.”
A February 2018 Washington Times article further repor
ted that “The U.S. government has traced some of the $1.7 billion released to Iran by the Obama administration to Iranian-backed terrorists in the two years since the cash was transferred.” This list also included Hezbollah.36
Evidently, not a lot of these funds were allocated toward “butter” as predicted.
President Obama clearly did not understand his opponent in Tehran. He did not recognize how dangerous Iran’s dictatorial regime was (and still is). He also didn’t understand that rogue dictatorships don’t often play by the rules.
It is also worth noting that President Obama was not only naive about the nature of the Iranian regime, he was also remarkably dishonest with Congress and the American people.
In a May 2016 article in New York Times Magazine, Obama National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes was remarkably frank about the lengths to which they went to sell a false bill of goods about the Iran deal. In the article, Rhodes bragged about controlling the “narrative” of the Iran deal story, since most reporters “literally know nothing” and creating an “echo chamber” in the press by lining up a steady stream of arms control experts to parrot their talking points.37 The article also makes clear that many of the Obama administration talking points about the deal were false. For instance, the Rhodes-constructed narrative said that negotiations began when the (relatively) moderate Hassan Rouhani was elected president. In reality, they began when the ultraradical Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was still in office.
In addition, Politico reported in December 2017 that the Obama administration was so desperate for a deal with Iran that they derailed an eight-year effort to map Hezbollah’s billion-dollar criminal enterprise in the United States, which includes the smuggling of cocaine.38 The problem was that the investigation had traced the criminal terrorist network’s activities back to its state sponsors in Iran. As the Obama administration feverishly worked toward a deal, Politico reports, they erected bigger and more cumbersome roadblocks in front of the investigative team, such as denying requests for prosecutions and arrests of high profile Iranian and Hezbollah leaders.
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