Strange Bedfellows
Please consider Democrat-led House seen backing Trump’s China trade war, scrutinizing talks with allies.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who made a pitch to return as speaker on Wednesday, has applauded Trump’s initial round of tariffs on China as a “leverage point” to negotiate fairer trade for U.S. products in the country.
Trump has signaled in the past week that he believes a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping is achievable. The two are due to meet on the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ summit at the end of November.
If things do not go well, he has threatened to impose tariffs on about $267 billion worth of remaining Chinese imports to the United States. Currently, 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of products are scheduled to rise to 25 percent on Jan. 1, 2019.
“House Democrats are the most protectionist group in Congress,” said Derek Scissors, a China scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. If Trump makes a deal that fails to achieve significant changes to China’s practices, “they’ll jump all over him,” he said.
Canada Upset Over Trade Agreement Changes
In other tariff news, Canada at Odds with U.S. Changes to Text of Trade Deal.
Canada is pushing back against U.S. attempts to change the text of a recently concluded trade pact and the issue may have to be referred to ministers to settle, a Canadian source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.
“Some of the stuff they (the Americans) have been putting forward is not at all what we agreed to. So some of it may have to come up to the ministerial level before it gets resolved,” said the source, who requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.
Real World
Meanwhile, in the real world, Soybeans Pile Up, So Do Worries of Bean Rot.
Also note the Tariff Scorecard: 57 Companies Bitch About Trump’s Tariffs, 7 Give Positive View
In the perverse way in which government “works”, when both sides agree, they are typically both wrong.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Nancy Pelosi should wake up and realize that if Democrats want to be really for environment instead of just talking about it China needs to be hit with huge environmental destruction tariffs for the pollution and actual toxins China puts into air, water and land.
Also since China emits more CO2 than USA and EU combined China needs to be hit with huge CO2 tariffs.
Also since China pays Chinese employees slave wages, overworks them at 12 hour days and 6 days a week and even has nets stopping suicides around the apartment buildings where workers live on in the factory grounds China needs to be hit with huge wage parity and worker protection tariffs.
When it comes to CO2 the Paris agreement on Climate Change must be the most incompetently negotiated bureaucratic boondoggle ever since it let’s China grow it’s CO2 emissions until 2030 without restrictions and since China’s “cut” of CO2 is promise not to increase CO2 emissions after 2030 the Paris agreement actually makes and encourages China to grow their CO2 emissions quickly and as high as possible before 2030.
In the first quarter of 2018 China’s CO2 emissions increased by 4% in one quarter in a situation where China already emits more than USA and EU combined.
All the Obama era bureaucrats that were incompetently negotiating the Paris Climate Change agreement should be named and shamed and given “incompetent bureaucrat of the century” awards.
“… the Paris agreement actually makes and encourages China to grow their CO2 emissions quickly and as high as possible before 2030.”
The Paris accord shows just how phony Global Warming alarmism really is.
Astonishing! Nancy Pelosi gets the point, despite all that botox in her system. The point of the tariffs is to get China to the negotiating table.
China has been waging a very successful trade war with the US for decades, with the cooperation of major chunks of the US Establishment. China is not going to negotiate on a mutual beneficial trade relationship until they believe the one-sided game which has been so successful for them for years is finally up.
excellent comments by JonSellers
Trump won the election with the backing of “Reagan Democrats”, patriotic working class Americans who were used to the idea of good pay, a decent pension, and their healthcare being paid for by their employer. Trump won the election by claiming to bring our victorious troops home, defending social security, investing in American infrastructure, and defending American jobs.
Those are all solidly Democratic Party positions from the pre-Bill Clinton era. Trump voters were probably democrats in their younger days, or children of democrats.
I don’t think she’s smart enough, but I think Pelosi would be brilliant to back a number of Trump’s initiatives. She could return a number of his voters back to the Democratic Party by backing Trump on issues that used to be democratic issues. Heck, I could see Trump running in 2020 as a conservative Democrat. It’s how I’ve always seen him. A conservative Democrat who has just become a little crazy by watching too much Fox News.
“In the perverse way in which government “works”, when both sides agree, they are typically both wrong.”
Oh yeah. Goes without saying.
JFK, probably the most popular democrat president in modern history, was a NRA life member, passed the largest tax cut in history at that time, sincerely hated communism and was a true war hero. His most favorite quote “ask not what your country can do for you…”
Today’s democrat party would run him out of town on a rail.
Today’s democrats are now the party of unlimited immigration (both illegal and legal) with open borders, men peeing in woman’s bathrooms, identity politics, bailout after bailout and of globalism.
Genuinely curious to hear what you think the R’s stand for. In their actions, not their words.
Its not just legal and illegal immigration, is the abuse of the asylum laws. No one talks about that. There are huge numbers of African migrants in the US that have come in through the asylum process.
I would love to see a spotlight shed on that whole “asylum” process.
-how much effort is put into verifying acceptable reasons for asylum?
-how do these asylum programs get funded?
-who are the groups (left wing NGO’s? religious organizations? etc..) spearheading these “asylum” “resettlement’s” all over the US? And do these groups have a political ideology?
-how many of these “asylum” folks are on welfare? How much taxpayer money is spent annually on this?
Obama brought a record amount of refugees to USA from Africa and Middle East to give them asylum and spread them around USA during Obama’s 8 years in power.
They were brought to USA from UN refugee camps so every refugee brought to USA was ALREADY SAFE and NOT being persecuted since they lived safely in UN refugee camp.
This system of bringing refugees from faraway lands to USA that were already in safety in UN refugee camps is insane.
Also there is the fact that Obama brought a lot of Somalis to USA from these UN refugee camps which was totally insane since:
1.
UN has decided that Somalia is SAFE enough so they return Somalis back to Somalia from UN refugee camps.
2.
European Court of Human Rights decided in 2013 in a decision K.A.B. vs Sweden that Somalia is mostly safe, that Somalis asylum applications can be REJECTED and that Somalis can be sent back to Somalia so the court agreed that Sweden was right in rejecting Somalis asylum claims and telling them to go back to Somalia.
3.
Many Somalis that have gotten a refugee status or subsidiary protection in EU countries regularly go on HOLIDAYS in Somalia or send their kids to go to school in Somalia if they think they are getting too westernized.
There is regular flights to Mogadishu by Turkish Airlines through Istanbul and many times when flying to Istanbul from European countries that have Somalis on Turkish Airlines from 10% up to half of passengers can be Somalis going on holiday in Somalia so they first fly to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines from European capitals and then take the Istanbul-Mogadishu flight by Turkish Airlines to go on a holiday.
Trump has cut the numbers of refugees USA takes from UN refugee camps but he should stop it completely.
Also Trump should send Somalis back to Somalia that have come during Obama since it is now SAFE.
JFK was a champion of immigration in all forms for people from all countries. He might not have been a far left candidate in 2018, but he would certainly recognize the Democratic party as his political home.
“JFK was a champion of immigration in all forms for people from all countries.” I don’t recall JFK championing illegal immigration.