About the overall Trump vs. Clinton contest, I have nothing to say.
And I am well aware of Crazy Billionaire's drawbacks. (Enough people are writing about these, that I feel I don't need to here.)
But on the crucial issue of reforming America's disastrous international trade policy, an issue I've been studying, writing about, and lobbying on for 11 years now, it's obvious that Trump is the better choice.
America's trade deficit is a $500-billion-a-year wound in our economy. It costs us jobs, depletes our industrial base, forecloses our technological progress, sinks us into debt to foreigners, and sells off our country from underneath us. Our economy will never be truly healthy until it is fixed.
Trump, for all his gasbaggery and bluster, seems to understand this.
Most people, who only started paying him attention this political cycle, don't realize it, but he's been on this issue for quite a long time. I first wrote about his views on trade here. That was over five years ago.
Which is part of why I took him seriously early in the campaign, when the cognoscenti said he couldn't win the nomination.
Trump has consistently campaigned on a theme of doing something about our trade mess. It has, in fact, been his number two campaign theme, after anti-immigrationism. So I think he means it.
He has spelled out serious policy proposals for making real change on this issue. Listening to his speech on the subject in Monessen, PA on June 28th, 2016, it's clear he's worked through the issue with well-informed advisors, knows what the policy menu is, and isn't flinching from tough actions that will upset Beijing and its globalist buddies in Washington.
That's precisely what we need.
In a more-recent speech, he named the following major trade-specific actions he intends if elected:
- I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205.
- I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
- I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.
- I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately.
- [I will] establish tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.
This is the real deal, folks.
Hillary Clinton has responded by giving speeches attacking Trump for "protectionism," a boogeyman word for the globalist elite she represents. She has tactically feinted at repudiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership that she negotiated as Secretary of State, but she is simply not believable. (I have documented the evidence she's faking it here, here, here, here, and here.)
So electing Hillary Clinton will just give us more of existing policy. America can't afford that. It is the path to long-term decline.
Like a lot of people, I would have prefered someone other than The Donald were the alternative. As I wrote here, Bernie Sanders also had a rational trade policy. Even Hillary Clinton could have had one, though she made her decision not to a long time ago. But we have the choice we have.
Therefore on trade policy, and trade policy alone, I endorse Trump.