Calling it "Politically Motivated"

[Morley]

Trump's plan has nothing to do with auto parts, it is about leverage and fairness.

Sure, Trump's plan has to do with a lot of things. Importation Tariffs on auto parts is one of them. Trump says it himself.

Read the Whitehouse website. Or read here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly341xr45vo.

Tariffs are just what we see, in regards to the effects of “fair trade,” and deserves a thread of it’s own. But in the case of fentanyl and other trafficking coming across the border, it is about leverage. He is using it successfully so far, to make a far more secure border. He has implicated other things and policies like I have explained along with this, such as deporting the gangs members that deal drugs, designating the cartel as terrorists, and securing the border from our side.

Again, show us how this so-called leverage has dampened fentanyl use. You'll say, "Well, we can't see the results yet. Give it some time." Three months from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." Six months from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." One year from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." But it's not going to work. Ever.

In regard to fairness, tariffs are about creating equality with our partners, both friends and foes. The bigger picture is about making it equal so we can get back to being manufactures, instead of just distributors. In simple terms creating living wage jobs instead of jobs that just require warehouse work and delivery. So if we were to put tariffs on auto parts, and the cost is equal with parts that we here can manufacture, then it is a win for us.

A lot of verbiage changing the subject away from Trump's plan to end fentanyl by imposing tariffs.

You throwing out buzzwords or talking points like you did here, does not help the left in regard to giving confidence to folks that see past that approach.

Lemme see which buzzwords I'm throwing around.

• tariffs--nope, not my buzzword- that's Mr Trump's. Right now he either owns that word, or is paying exorbitant rent for its usage.

• auto parts--again, not on my list. I'm not the believer that thinks a 25% tax on auto parts, or anything else, will end fentanyl use. That's Trump's game. He writes about it on Whitehouse.gov.

• fentanyl--nah, this one's all your's. It didn't dawn on me that it was problem until you mentioned it here a couple thousand times, in a couple dozen threads.

I need to thank you for that new awareness.

[Chap]

Auto workers don’t earn less simply because of the ability to buy imports. Wages have fallen for a variety of reasons, one of which is that union-busting has reduced union membership to a third of what it was 40 years ago. Add to that, the better quality of imports having forced a shift away from domestics.

And many ‘imports’ are already built here (Honda and Toyota’s best sellers, as example).

Considering the quality issues that plagued American manufacturers several decades back, tariffs are a great way to protect bad quality by merely making competing imported car options - whether better quality or not - more expensive.

Ask yourself what other issues hollowed out the middle class. It wasn’t simply the availability of better-quality cars from Japan or flat-screen TVs. Imported goods just don’t pop up like mushrooms inexplicably after a hard rain. Think about who and what is driving that change. Think about companies like Walmart that actively pushed manufacturing offshore due to their purchasing policies and strategy. How does a company that is responsible for about 10% of all Chinese imports reaching these shores still manage to underpay their staff as to have over 14,000 of its employees receiving food stamp benefits, according to a GAO report from a few years back?

That puts it pretty clearly (my added bolding).

Things tend to happen in business because the very rich people who own businesses want to maximise their profits at all costs - indeed they may be thought to have a legal obligation to do so. Strong American labour unions ensured that people who worked in the boom years of the 20th century got a good share of the money that businesses made. So guess what? The people who owned the businesses decided to put a stop to that, and they have largely succeeded - in part by relentless propaganda suggesting that unions were somehow a bad thing for workers. Result: the effective robotisation of the workforce in places like Amazon warehouses where surveillance is constant and taking a toilet break is not advisable if you want to keep your job.

And the same goes for manufacturing offshore. China did not force Walmart to get its stuff made in China: the rich guys who own it rushed to China as soon as they realised they could fire expensive US workers and boost profits. But is Trump going after Walmart management for Making America Not Such a Great Place to Live and Work? Not so you would notice.

[Markk]

Trump's plan has nothing to do with auto parts, it is about leverage and fairness.

Sure, Trump's plan has to do with a lot of things. Importation Tariffs on auto parts is one of them. Trump says it himself.

Read the Whitehouse website. Or read here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly341xr45vo.

Come on Morley, context please....when I wrote "plan" it was in context with Fentanyl. I was opining to what you wrote:

Morley wrote: Maybe you could discuss the details on how Trump's plan to end the fentanyl crisis, by imposing tariffs on Mexican and Canadian automotive parts, is going to work to end American drug addiction.

Again, show us how this so-called leverage has dampened fentanyl use. You'll say, "Well, we can't see the results yet. Give it some time." Three months from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." Six months from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." One year from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." But it's not going to work. Ever.

There is a war on drugs now, and if you think that it is going to be won in a few months you are naïve. You are just being a naysayer on this and trying to pretend that there are not many reasons, some larger, for tariff's.

The flow of Human Trafficking has slowed to levels not seen in years, and partly because of tariffs and Mexican troops on their side of the border. Is that a good thing. or a bad thing in your opinion?

A lot of verbiage changing the subject away from Trump's plan to end fentanyl by imposing tariffs.

LoL...who is changing the subject here, you brought up fentanyl into the my comments about buzz words and talking points by the left. LoL....It cracks me up that I get criticized for having threads about fentanyl and talking about it, when you guys keep bring it up. So please focus one more time...tariffs are just one tool to fight the war on the epidemic, adding again, tariffs have larger goals like balance trade with our trading partners and helping us creating better jobs through manufacturing.

Lemme see which buzzwords I'm throwing around.
tariffs--nope, not my buzzword- that's Mr Trump's. Right now he either owns that word, or is paying exorbitant rent for its usage.
auto parts--again, not on my list. I'm not the believer that thinks a 25% tax on auto parts, or anything else, will end fentanyl use. That's Trump's game. He writes about it on Whitehouse.gov.
fentanyl--nah, this one's all your's. It didn't dawn on me that it was problem until you mentioned it here a couple thousand times, in a couple dozen threads.

I need to thank you for that new awareness.

The buzzword or talking point is that tarffs are being implemented solely to stop fentanyl from coming across the border, which not remotely true. Trump has made it clear that it is about balancing trade with our partners and about bringing importing revenue, and not exporting it.

For the record, do you believe that NAFTA is a good thing, or a bad thing? It may have seemed like a good idea when Clinton and Bush championed it, but I believe we can see it was a very poor policy decision, can we agree on that?

Using US auto workers as a example, since Clinton signed NAFTA into law in 1993, their wages have been roughly cut in half. What the law did, was eliminate tariffs.

I have to admit in 93 I was busy try to put beans on the table and raising a family, and did not follow politics much other that what I heard here and there. I had no clue what eliminating tariffs would do....looking back, and seeing our suffering once proud and healthy neighborhoods deteriorate is sad, and I wish as a young man I would have known better. I almost voted for Clinton, and in a sense did by voting for RP, and I loved Bush...looking back I feel they sold American middle class workers, or those that felt middle class, out.

[Markk]

If you went down a few more links you would see much higher wages, like the one that has 80k a year for a pipe fitter.

Markk, that’s nice for pipe fitters, but as stated above, I don’t think that pipe fitters benefit from tariffs. Their work is done on-site regardless of where their materials source from.

Read this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... orker-pay/
In the early 1990s, rank-and-file employees in motor vehicle manufacturing averaged $43 an hour in today's dollars, more than any of their private-sector, nonmanagerial peers in 165 other industries for which we have data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Sep 22, 2023

It’s not the 1990’s any more.

If your numbers are correct, then it is even more reason to manufacture, and shows just how bad the middle class is being devastated. And in my opinion a common denominator is free trade brought in by Clinton and Bush.

Auto workers don’t earn less simply because of the ability to buy imports. Wages have fallen for a variety of reasons, one of which is that union-busting has reduced union membership to a third of what it was 40 years ago. Add to that, the better quality of imports having forced a shift away from domestics.

And many ‘imports’ are already built here (Honda and Toyota’s best sellers, as example).

Considering the quality issues that plagued American manufacturers several decades back, tariffs are a great way to protect bad quality by merely making competing imported car options - whether better quality or not - more expensive.

Ask yourself what other issues hollowed out the middle class. It wasn’t simply the availability of better-quality cars from Japan or flat-screen TVs. Imported goods just don’t pop up like mushrooms inexplicably after a hard rain. Think about who and what is driving that change. Think about companies like Walmart that actively pushed manufacturing offshore due to their purchasing policies and strategy. How does a company that is responsible for about 10% of all Chinese imports reaching these shores still manage to underpay their staff as to have over 14,000 of its employees receiving food stamp benefits, according to a GAO report from a few years back?

Do you agree with free trade (nafta and WTO)? Do you believe we should have balanced trade with our trade partners?

I place more faith in ‘free trade’ than the alternatives. It is not a perfect system but has obvious efficiencies.

‘Fair trade’ has merit when the concept addresses dumping or subsidized manufacturing from foreign sources, but those practices are difficult to counter regardless.

‘Balanced trade’ seems like a relatively meaningless term (or buzzword) used to describe some sort of mythical environment where a perfect dollar balance is somehow maintained between countries producing disparate items such as unicorns, lucky charms, and unobtanium.

Gotta run to work, but quickly pipefitters build, expand, and maintain factories. period. It is what they mainly do, not to confuse them with a plumber. Distribution centers do not generally use pipefitters, they use open warehouse space, and maintenance is minimum compared to manufacturing.

Thanks

I'll read and follow up with the rest of your post after work.

[Morley]

Sure, Trump's plan has to do with a lot of things. Importation Tariffs on auto parts is one of them. Trump says it himself.

Read the Whitehouse website. Or read here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly341xr45vo.

Come on Morley, context please....when I wrote "plan" it was in context with Fentanyl. I was opining to what you wrote:

Morley wrote: Maybe you could discuss the details on how Trump's plan to end the fentanyl crisis, by imposing tariffs on Mexican and Canadian automotive parts, is going to work to end American drug addiction.

Again, show us how this so-called leverage has dampened fentanyl use. You'll say, "Well, we can't see the results yet. Give it some time." Three months from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." Six months from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." One year from now you're going to be saying, "Just wait. You'll see the results soon." But it's not going to work. Ever.

There is a war on drugs now, and if you think that it is going to be won in a few months you are naïve. You are just being a naysayer on this and trying to pretend that there are not many reasons, some larger, for tariff's.

The flow of Human Trafficking has slowed to levels not seen in years, and partly because of tariffs and Mexican troops on their side of the border. Is that a good thing. or a bad thing in your opinion?

A lot of verbiage changing the subject away from Trump's plan to end fentanyl by imposing tariffs.

LoL...who is changing the subject here, you brought up fentanyl into the my comments about buzz words and talking points by the left. LoL....It cracks me up that I get criticized for having threads about fentanyl and talking about it, when you guys keep bring it up. So please focus one more time...tariffs are just one tool to fight the war on the epidemic, adding again, tariffs have larger goals like balance trade with our trading partners and helping us creating better jobs through manufacturing.

Lemme see which buzzwords I'm throwing around.
tariffs--nope, not my buzzword- that's Mr Trump's. Right now he either owns that word, or is paying exorbitant rent for its usage.
auto parts--again, not on my list. I'm not the believer that thinks a 25% tax on auto parts, or anything else, will end fentanyl use. That's Trump's game. He writes about it on Whitehouse.gov.
fentanyl--nah, this one's all your's. It didn't dawn on me that it was problem until you mentioned it here a couple thousand times, in a couple dozen threads.

I need to thank you for that new awareness.

The buzzword or talking point is that tarffs are being implemented solely to stop fentanyl from coming across the border, which not remotely true. Trump has made it clear that it is about balancing trade with our partners and about bringing importing revenue, and not exporting it.

For the record, do you believe that NAFTA is a good thing, or a bad thing? It may have seemed like a good idea when Clinton and Bush championed it, but I believe we can see it was a very poor policy decision, can we agree on that?

Using US auto workers as a example, since Clinton signed NAFTA into law in 1993, their wages have been roughly cut in half. What the law did, was eliminate tariffs.

I have to admit in 93 I was busy try to put beans on the table and raising a family, and did not follow politics much other that what I heard here and there. I had no clue what eliminating tariffs would do....looking back, and seeing our suffering once proud and healthy neighborhoods deteriorate is sad, and I wish as a young man I would have known better. I almost voted for Clinton, and in a sense did by voting for RP, and I loved Bush...looking back I feel they sold American middle class workers, or those that felt middle class, out.

Markk, I'm not debating NAFTA, or manufacturing, or even illegal immigration. I'm not debating buzzwords. (That doesn't mean that I don't think these things might be important--it only means that it does no good to throw everything out there at once.) Here I'm talking about one topic: the ridiculous notion of using tariffs to stop fentanyl.

I've said nowhere that tariffs are solely to stop fentanyl. I have said that Trump thinks that tariffs will stop fentanyl. At least he claims to believe that, and you seem to agree with him.

ADDRESSING AN EMERGENCY SITUATION: The extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, constitutes a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Until the crisis is alleviated, President Donald J. Trump is implementing a 25% additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% additional tariff on imports from China. Energy resources from Canada will have a lower 10% tariff.

President Trump is taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/ ... and-china/


I'm also saying that there's no evidence that tariffs are ending American fentanyl addiction. Or that tariffs will stop the flow or manufacture of fentanyl. Or that using tariffs is going to leverage Mexico get control over organized crime and fentanyl. This has never happened historically, and it's not going to happen now. The evidence that this is happening will never come--not today, not tomorrow, not next year. Impoverishing Mexico through tariffs will not give it more policemen or control over its lawless elements. The relatively rich America couldn't stop organized crime during Prohibition. Mexico can't do it now, no matter how much it wants to.

Stop telling folks to focus, especially when you're all over the place. It's condescending.

[canpakes]

Gotta run to work, but quickly pipefitters build, expand, and maintain factories. period. It is what they mainly do, not to confuse them with a plumber. Distribution centers do not generally use pipefitters, they use open warehouse space, and maintenance is minimum compared to manufacturing.

Understood, but I’m not seeing a huge surge in the number of pipe fitters coming about from tariffs. You’d want to make a case for that.

[Gadianton]

What I'm fascinated by is the short term tariff's that are meant to incentivize businesses to rush back and rebuild manufacturing, thereby affording factory workers long-term high wages. wow. what a plan!

[Gadianton]

I've said nowhere that tariffs are solely to stop fentanyl.

ha. Indeed you haven't. What isn't realized by the religious right is that it doesn't matter if tariffs are partially to punish for fentanyl and partially to protect American workers, the problem is that they can't be for two contradictory things at once. If I'm a business looking to spend billions building a manufacturing plant in the US, I have to be darn sure that the tariffs are steep as hell, won't be sweated out if the economy tanks no matter how low Trump's stock, crypto, and real estate goes, and won't be lowered if the Fentanyl problem is solved. If I'm a leader in Mexico I have to be darn sure before I spend billions fighting the cartel that the Tariff is only temporary, and will be removed once the Fentanyl objectives are reached, and has nothing to do with Trump wanting to protect American workers long term.

I think the distance between the north oriented left eye and the south oriented right eye is maxing out.

[Chap]

What I'm fascinated by is the short term tariff's that are meant to incentivize businesses to rush back and rebuild manufacturing, thereby affording factory workers long-term high wages. wow. what a plan!

Er, yes!

[Kishkumen]

What I'm fascinated by is the short term tariff's that are meant to incentivize businesses to rush back and rebuild manufacturing, thereby affording factory workers long-term high wages. wow. what a plan!

Yeah, Trump is an idiot. He is good at one thing: branding. He will use his branding strategy in the service of the psychological ticks and prejudices he has always had, with the aim of obtaining power, fame, and wealth for himself. He really doesn't care about anything else. Beyond his own self-interest, Trump has no effective goals.