Before you dismiss such a question, you better read Tariffs For Survival Or Profits For Multinationals. The arguments used are even more valid after a year and a half. President George W Bush has proven he is a
bigger whimp than his father. The reversal on his effective relief for the steel industry is a decision made by a man who
capitulates to the real terrorists. Just savor the joy coming from the other side of the pond. "We in Europe, by standing
together, by using the World Trade Organization and saying 'we're going to uphold the rules of world trade,' we've played
our hand very, very effectively indeed." -- British Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt, on SKY TV News. "These sanctions ... were there as a tool for compliance. They've complied and the sanctions
will disappear." -- European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.
Before the short sighted whiners start their crying that the consumer has to bear the costs of higher prices
that tariffs impose, think deeply about the inevitable implications of the systematic de-industrialization of America. Since
the prize in international trade is unrestricted access to the biggest market in the world, no one should be shocked that
even countries that support the WTO see the United States as the cash cow. After you strip all the economic distortion away,
the cruel reality is that every country subsidizes favored industries in one way or another. Listening to the Free Trade propaganda,
you would think that the United States has an obligation to surrender the last vestiges of basic industry, as a condition
of having the privilege of access to cheap goods.
At what point will the structural imbalances that are woven into every trade agreement for the last half century
start to unravel the ability to pay for all those state sponsored and favorably protected foreign products? Well, that reality
occurred already, decades ago! The record trade deficit is the proof. The falling dollar is the direct result of the capital
outflow and the decisive conclusion will be an economy that no longer has the domestic ability to produce the essential basic
ingredients necessary for a modern society.
Steel is just the obvious industry, but it is much more than just a symbol. In the end the only question that
will matter is what will the country do when your source of international supply is curtailed or cut off? This is an issue
that is far more significant than just the rate of payment. The cost of begging for fundamental components won’t be
measured in money. The surrender of national sovereignty has always been the real price for accepting the lunacy of the designated
fraud called - Free Trade.
Don’t blame the foreign producers for "OPEC lifts oil price sights as dollar declines", America won’t defend her own domestic industries! Do you really
expect to get a “good deal” when all you have to offer is a declining value of your cash? The price of global
garrisons never seem to bring home the riches, do they?
Jobs, jobs and more jobs! Where are they all? Surely, they won’t be refining, extracting, forging or
making the backbones that will keep the country free from foreign dominance. Economic bondage is more subtle than locked jail
cell doors, but is much more effective to build. Forget the manufactured ‘good guy - bad guy’ party politics trickery.
All the ‘pols’ are eager to sell out America, one industry at a time. Their solutions are all based upon selling
you the inevitability that prosperity can only be achieved by dismantling an independent economy.
What you are supposed to ignore or dismiss is an inescapable fact of life. A trade war would hurt the importer
that wants to sell their goods into the United States more than the exporter who runs historic trade deficits. Common sense
is the component that has long been shipped overseas. Use your own brain. If foreigners want to arbitrarily exclude U.S. products
from their markets, let them. All we have to do is stop BUYING foreign and rebuild the DOMESTIC economy. It is as simple as
finding the will to restore a prosperous home-made wealth creation.
The internationalist know all too well what would happen to their cheap labor sweat shops if Americans would
not buy at Wal-Mart. Fair commerce and trade is desirable and should be actively encouraged. However, reciprocal benefit must
follow for us . . . The national interest demands independence in essential industries. We favor the “right to work”
and fault the naiveté of union utopian demands. The boss is still the man who owns the shop. Buckling under to the pressure
and threats from foreign socialists only turns the keys of our plants over to alien factory cartels. Corporate monopolists
want international compliance. They use the rhetoric of social equalitarianism in their marketing, while they shackle Americans
in unsustainable debt, unconscionable taxes, with lower paying effective wages. Employment in meaningless do nothing functions,
won’t build a strong nation.
Bring on a trade war, we can win that kind of conflict. The causalities would be the real enemy, the elites
who sold out America with their offshore strategy to destroy the autonomy of a free people. Bush should have fought that fight
if he was a real patriot. By reneging, he demonstrated that he is an internationalist tool. Not for actual free enterprise
but for state/capitalism.
SARTRE - December 7, 2003
