Ronald Reagan on trade wars against trading partners. ..

Discussion in 'Economics' started by Q.E.D., Feb 4, 2025.

  1. Q.E.D.

    Q.E.D.

    ...
    Our peaceful trading partners are not our enemies; they are our allies. We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends -- weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world -- all while cynically waving the American flag.
    ...

    https://crooksandliars.com/2025/01/ronald-reagan-speaks-grave-warn-us-about
     
  2. S2007S

    S2007S

    Don't worry ...they are paused and I'm sure in the next 30 days they will come to an agreement that there will be no tariffs because like I said politics is all talk and zero action.
     
  3. maxinger

    maxinger

    Let the politicians decide what they want to do in this complex world.
    It is their jobs.

    Putin used to be able to turn on and off the Natural Gas to Europe.
    Trump can implement / change / remove the tariff anytime.
    It could be fun/stressful for them to stress the enemies.

    But we better focus on our simpler job which is
    buy low sell high and
    sell high buy low.
     
    VicBee and Slow Learning Elf like this.
  4. mervyn

    mervyn

    na, china already place tariffs on us from next week, and place export controls for metal that us buys, and investigating google. yes, contrary to what you hear, google has business in china, just the search engine business wasn’t there.
     
  5. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    Trump will not come to an agreement. He needs to stop the less than 1% illegal immigration from Canada while not stopping the 6% illegal immigration to Canada along with the surging smuggling of guns from America into Canada. :D

    wrbtrader
     
    Picaso likes this.
  6. TheDawn

    TheDawn

    That's fine and dandy but now the trade situation has changed. With the implementation of the free trade as envisioned by Ronald Reagan, both USA and the trading partners have both benefitted from international trading due to comparative advantage on producing the traded goods between USA and the trading partners but now it's changed. Some countries that use overt currency manipulations, government subsidies that artificially lower the price of their exports and at the same time impose punitive tariffs on foreign imports and forced and/or stolen technology transfer have violated the economic model for international trade and have turned comparative advantage to absolute advantage leaving USA with no benefits and have seriously damaged USA's economy. And this is the problem.

    In Reagan's address, he talked about USA working hard to establish free trade by "dismantling trade barriers". That is true but now some countries (and we all know what we are talking about) who are trading partners with the USA have on purpose established trade barriers such as government subsidies that artificially lower the price of their exports and at the same time impose punitive tariffs on foreign imports and forced and/or stolen technology transfer have seriously eroded the vision of the free trade that USA had and tried to establish since WWII that is mentioned in Ronald Reagan's speech. And it's these disturbing new developments, new barriers to trade that leaves USA no choice but to react that leaves leaders like Trump no choice but to do something to balance the trade in order that USA would enjoy some of the benefits. Free trade needs the co-operation of both trading partners. It doesn't work when one trading partner dismantle the trade barriers and the other partner actively puts them up.

    The only thing I would say is Trump should be focusing more on the trading partners such as China that actually put up trade barriers and overtly violate free trade agreements in order to reap all of the economic benefits at the expense of USA's economy instead of swing a wide bat at all of the trading partners who are indeed our allies in many ways just based on trade volume and $$ amount. I mean to be true to Reagan's vision of establishing free trade with allies, Trump should not have imposed any tariffs on Canada, Mexico or any of the European countries and instead should just focus on imposing 25% or even 50% tariffs on China, the biggest violator of free trade agreements set out by WTO. Why just impose 10% which is the lightest of all tariff rates? And furthermore, just by looking at China's retaliatory measure of imposing 15% tariff on all US exports, 5% more than the lightest tariff rates that Trump has set among all the trading partners while all the other countries affected by even more punishing tariff rates by Trump just chose to retaliate with the same tariff percentages just shows China is not an ally of USA; it's not on the same side as USA. China is not set out to co-operate with USA; it's set out to destroy USA. Ronald Reagan's vision about international trade is for USA to trade with its allies, not with somebody who's set out to destroy the USA.

    So in conclusion, Ronald Reagan's speech does not apply today anymore. So we must do what fits in today's situation.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2025
    Cam12 and TraDaToR like this.
  7. TheDawn

    TheDawn

    I think Trump should prioritize on stopping the influx of fentanyl first. Far more people die under fentanyl than under guns.
     
  8. TheDawn

    TheDawn

    Hopefully so because action is not what the market can take even though Trump's got the right idea but the wrong target.
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2025
  9. Pekelo

    Pekelo

    MAGA: Reagan was a commie!
     
  10. Sprout

    Sprout

    IMG_5224.jpeg

    There’s controversy over whether he dis say this. However it speaks to the zeitgeist.
     
    #10     Feb 4, 2025
    newwurldmn likes this.