When will the GOP admit to themselves and their voters the truth about Donald Trump a

[Dill]

(08-26-2023, 01:41 PM)basballguy Wrote: Why is pulling out of the TPP bad?  If it was so necessary why hasn't Biden reapplied on behalf of the US? (I don't know how it works so i'm just guessing that's what would need to happen)

According to the below site, those tarrifs cost the average american an extra 12 dollars a month......are people really upset about this?  

People should be upset if they thought they were punishing China and ended up subsidizing the difference in the cost of Chinese goods on behalf of China. 

The TPP only seems "necessary" to someone who recognizes that China is a full spectrum adversary, seeking to replace the U.S. led liberal international system with its own. E.g., China is seeking to reorder the trade relations among countries of the Far East Pacific Rim to benefit its own power. Most of the TPP countries--originally Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, then Australia, Malaysia and Vietnam--view the U.S. as a counter balance to China. After 2008, another group of countries signaled interest, among them Cambodia, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea and the Philippines. With the addition of the U.S., the TPP would have knit those countries together as trading partners with a better chance of standing up to China and of resolving their own grievances against one another, and China, equitably. Further, Obama's initiative was to expand the TPP to include Canada and Central and South  American countries, like Mexico and Peru. This would have boosted trade and created jobs in the U.S. The signatories would set, among their goals, the phasing out of all tariffs between them, and strict environmental and human rights monitoring. 

But the international system abhors a vacuum. The US pull out of the TPP created one. China is filling it right now, extending its economic power to set norms for other countries, via the Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership, a 2020 ASEAN imitative which seems to have displaced the TPP residue, along with all pressure for human rights and environmental monitoring. So we haven't rejoined the TPP because it is gone. The CREP now includes most of the original TPP members, so what's their incentive to continue with the second iteration of the TPP?  And the US is not part of the "Region" so it can't join, as I understand it. Advantage China. 

My interest in the TPP was always more about national security, not Trade. Pulling out ceded a huge trunk of Pacific trade leverage to China. But AMERICA FIRST! right? 

(08-26-2023, 01:41 PM)basballguy Wrote: Interesting spin on the Afghan withdrawal.  

I can add that the Trump administration also held up applications for immigration to the U.S., which mostly would have gone to people who had helped the U.S,. in Afghanistan. The bottleneck would seem particularly acute after the gov. there collapsed and people where flooding airports to get out. "Why didn't Biden do more to get these people out!?!" 

(08-26-2023, 01:41 PM)basballguy Wrote: He passed tax cuts for everyone, not just the rich.  

I want to concentrate on the other questions, so I'll let Sawhill and Puliam answer this one
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-middle-class-needs-a-tax-cut-trump-didnt-give-it-to-them/