How did we get into this trade mess to start with?

That's a big arse onion with a ton of layers Darth. Really it's alot of things. Incompetence, weak leadership, corruption, etc. etc.


We've just had a lot of poor leaders in DC and globalists traitors who have been willing to sell out the American people.



In short, tSwamp happened.

It started with Nixon opening trade with China in the 70s. Since then, US manufacturing has steadily declined and we've become a service based economy.

Who paid us back for rebuilding Europe?

Milton Friedman not considering infinite slave labor in China.

It eventually got set to the standard. Nobody had the gonads to fix it. Also a lot of under the table deals. Kinda of like when the Democrats went bat shite over the USAID deal.

Can boil your question down to an even harder to answer question:

Of all those bad deals, how many resulted from corruption and how many resulted from ineptitude (including achieving short-term rewards without any thought towards long-term effects)?

But, to answer your question... or begin to... I think it should be cut into two time periods with the creation of the WTO being the dividing line.

I think there were some bad deals in the Marshall Plan with the idea of turning enemy markets into friendly ones.

With the WTO everything changed, especially with China. Globalists had a vehicle/mechanism outside of the US Congress. China became a "developing country" AND most favored trade nation status. Other "developing" countries also got sweetheart deals, protection globally, AND IBRD capital.

Wasn’t it Bill Clinton that allowed China into the WTO as a developing nation?

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There is no trade mess. Trade deficits are are irrelevant. We have the biggest economy. We have the most money. Of course we will spend more on goods from other countries than they will spend on ours. Tariffs and restrictive trade measures have been proven to hurt more than they help. That is why we have the largest economy in the world without them, and countries that use them have inferior economies to ours. Trump has been hung up on trade deficits and tariffs for decades. This entire exercise is ridiculous.

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I’m sorry but this is idiotic. Just travel though any state and you’ll find the dying corpse of small town after small town that use to be thriving but are now dead.

I grew up a few miles outside of one such small town in northern Alabama. It’s called Altoona. Back in the 70s and 80s, it was thriving. Had a variety stores, doctor offices, restaurants, etc. but then in the early 1990s Liberty plant that made overalls and other Liberty brand clothes closed and production of those items was moved to China. When the Liberty plant closed, it killed Altoona. Now there’s empty building after empty building. All that’s left is a bank and a gas station.

And Altoona is just one of thousands of sad examples of the devastation wrought on small towns all across the nation. To claim all this is an exercise in ridiculousness is laughably absurd and only shows your own abject stupidity.

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SneezyBeltranIsHere

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You certainly don't lack for confidence. What have you accomplished in your life?

We let it happen because of feelings and guilt. When you think you are better than a group, you tend to allow bad behavior and actions by overlooking them. We allowed these countries their small victories because we think the United states is bigger, stronger and better than them and don’t want to hurt them.

Hence the shite we take in trade, the UN, NATO.

You and I both know that the EU, China, Russia, Middle Eastern countries, England, Japan, would shank us if given the chance.