<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trade-trump-obama-mistakes_n_5d0417c8e4b0985c419db313" class="">https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trade-trump-obama-mistakes_n_5d0417c8e4b0985c419db313</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0in 7.5pt 0.0001pt 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; letter-spacing: 0.4pt;" class="">Trump Is Repeating Obama’s Mistakes On Trade<o:p class=""></o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><i class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">President Trump is using different tactics to pursue similar, troubling goals.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></i></div><div style="margin: 0in 7.5pt 0.0001pt 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">By <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/author/zach-carter" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;" class="">Zach Carter</span></a><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class=""> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;" class="">6/22/2019</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class=""> </span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">For well over a year now, experts have been predicting disaster from President <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">Donald Trump</span></a>’s trade war with China. It would <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2018/09/18/catherine-rampell-trumps/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">wreck Christmas shopping</span></a>, <a href="https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/5/18652411/trump-china-tariff-board-games" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">ruin the board game industry</span></a> and drive up the price of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/business/media/tariffs-retail-clothes-everlane.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">fancy sweaters</span></a>. According to the august analysts at the <a href="https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2019/05/new-china-tariffs-increase-costs-to-us-households.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">New York Federal Reserve</span></a>, Trump’s tariffs cost an average of $414 per household last year and will cost another $831 over the coming year. The top Senate Democrat on trade, Ron Wyden of Oregon, recently warned that the tariffs could increase consumer prices by up to 25 percent by the time back to school shopping is through.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">This, we <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/10/economy/china-tariffs-goods-expensive/index.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">are</span></a> <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/here-s-how-tariffs-impact-a-common-household-item-59514949631" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; color: black; text-decoration: none;" class=""></span><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">told</span></a>, is just <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-tariff-a-chart-from-econ-101-shows-a-basic-problem-2018-3" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">Econ 101</span></a>. Tariffs raise prices on consumers and by doing so, limit economic growth. Trump’s tariffs, therefore, are a celebration of ignorance, a grotesquerie cribbed from medieval alchemists. Last year, The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell even argued that Trump’s trade program was quite literally <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-trade-policy-is-stuck-in-the-80s--the-1680s/2018/05/31/f8e2f7c2-6510-11e8-a69c-b944de66d9e7_story.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">a relic of the 1680s</span></a>. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Recent history has a way of painting the distant past in its own colors. It’s true that since the 1990s, both Democratic and Republican administrations have generally pursued tariff reductions, imposing import tariffs only as a last resort. And yet tariffs have always been a pretty routine element of U.S. economic policy. The second piece of legislation President George Washington signed into law was <a href="http://tpscongress.indiana.edu/enduring-issues/timeline/free-trade/1789-tariff-act-of-1789.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">a 5 percent tariff applied to most imports</span></a>. The latest official <a href="https://hts.usitc.gov/current" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">Harmonized Tariff Schedule</span></a> published by the U.S. International Trade Commission includes 22 sections and 99 chapters ― plus appendices for chemicals, dyes and pharmaceutical products ― coming to 3,888 pages of information. Very little of it is Trump’s handiwork.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Apocalypse Trade may yet come, but so far, its would-be Cassandras have been Chickens Little. Consumer spending <a href="https://www.housingwire.com/articles/48306-gdp-rises-26-in-fourth-quarter-exceeding-expectations" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">rose</span></a> last holiday season. Total U.S. manufacturing employment is <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">up very modestly</span></a> since Trump began his tariff campaign, while overall unemployment has continued its downward drift to levels unseen since the 1960s.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">If you didn’t notice losing $400 last year, you aren’t alone. The New York Fed’s analysis is a mess of theory and assumption that conflicts with basic inflation data. Consumer prices have essentially been flat since the tariffs were imposed.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">None of this means Trump’s trade war is a success. In fact, it’s much worse than the Econ 101 scolds let on. Behind all of his bluster and bravado, Trump is essentially pursuing the same international economic agenda as his recent predecessors ― an agenda that can only be described as an abject, bipartisan failure. And the stakes in this drama are much higher than a few dollars a month at Target or Amazon.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Behind all of his bluster and bravado, Trump is essentially pursuing the same international economic agenda as his recent predecessors.</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Trade between the United States and China is, like all international commerce, a political arrangement. There is no “natural” or “free” way for two nations with different laws and political systems to conduct their affairs together, and the relationship between the United States and China was strained long before Trump’s inauguration.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">It is not a secret that American corporations have outsourced much of their manufacturing activity to China over the past two decades. Economists dispute exactly how much of the domestic job loss is attributable to trade, but <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w21906" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">leading scholars</span></a> believe the U.S. lost roughly 1 million manufacturing jobs to China during the first decade of the 21st century, and there is reason to suspect the outflow <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/when-did-china-shock-end" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">continues today</span></a> in some sectors.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">China does not have some innate aptitude for manufacturing. The climate in Shenzen is not better suited for cranking out electronics than that of San Francisco or Des Moines. The reason so much of the world’s manufacturing moved to China in the early years of this century is that the Chinese and American governments implemented policies designed to make it happen.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">The signature elements of this program are low wages for workers in China, loose regulations for companies operating in China, and systematic under-valuation of China’s currency, the yuan. Low wages and hands-off regulatory policies cut corporate costs, enabling made-in-China products to secure higher profits. These efforts are strongly reinforced by the Chinese government’s policy of maintaining a “weak” yuan. By keeping the international value of China’s currency low, Chinese goods can sell for less in American markets, undercutting made-in-America producers.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Workers in China earn an average wage of about $3.40 an hour, <a href="https://blog.euromonitor.com/china-still-lucrative-businesses-despite-rising-wage-rates/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">according to the research firm Euromonitor</span></a>, which compares to an <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t19.htm" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">average wage</span></a> in the U.S. of about $27.83. This differential is enabled by lower costs of living in China, but also through simple worker repression. It’s illegal, for instance, to form a labor union in China independent of the ruling Communist Party. On the currency front, China hasn’t directly intervened in currency markets to devalue for several years now, but by holding on to about <a href="http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/elizabeth-warren-is-right-on-currency-values" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">$4 trillion</span></a> in dollar-denominated assets as reserves, China elevates the value of the dollar against the yuan.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">So the U.S. simultaneously exported manufacturing jobs and much of its <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/datablog/2011/apr/28/carbon-emissions-imports-exports-trade" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">dirtier</span></a>,<a href="https://qz.com/1149260/rich-countries-are-reducing-their-emissions-by-exporting-them-to-china/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class=""> carbon-intensive</span></a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/18/15331040/emissions-outsourcing-carbon-leakage" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">production</span></a> to China in exchange for cheaper consumer goods and higher corporate profits. This is, in a nutshell, the central idea behind what was once optimistically labeled “free trade” or “globalization,” but which increasingly goes by the more ominous term “<a href="http://bostonreview.net/forum/suresh-naidu-dani-rodrik-gabriel-zucman-economics-after-neoliberalism" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">neoliberalism</span></a>.” <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Bill Clinton implemented this framework over the course of his presidency, relying on the ideas of George H.W. Bush and a few <a href="http://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/UChicagoPress.Ebook.Pack-2016-PHC/9780226264219.UChicago%20Press.Capitalism%20and%20Freedom.Milton%20Friedman.Nov%2C2002.pdf" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">thinkers</span></a> celebrated by the American conservative movement. He added moral heft to the arrangement by dressing it up in the language of human rights and international goodwill.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">“Bringing China into the [World Trade Organization] doesn’t guarantee that it will choose political reform,” <a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/030900clinton-china-text.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">Clinton said in 2000</span></a>. “But accelerating the process of economic change will force China to confront that choice sooner, and it will make the imperative for the right choice stronger.” Free trade with China, he argued, “is likely to have a profound impact on human rights and political liberty.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">By 2009, most world leaders recognized things were not going according to Clinton’s script. The “political reform” Clinton had hoped for had not materialized in China, while the United States had invaded Iraq on false pretenses and implemented a ghastly torture program. Whatever the virtues of cheap labor in China, it did not seem to have much to do with global harmony. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">An economically stronger China, meanwhile, began asserting itself more forcefully on the international stage ― sometimes confronting American allies in ways that demanded U.S. attention. Things got particularly heated in 2010 and 2011 when China claimed rights to shipping, mining and drilling rights in the South China Sea ― a dispute that involved Japan, India and several other nations. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">The reason so much of the world’s manufacturing moved to China in the early years of this century is that the Chinese and U.S. governments implemented policies to accomplish exactly this outcome.</span></b><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">This wasn’t just a problem for American allies. The United States itself was becoming increasingly <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/01/mining-the-future-china-critical-minerals-metals/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">dependent</span></a> on China for an array of products that were no longer produced domestically ― from consumer electronics to specialty high-tech metal alloys. This, in turn, had given China new economic leverage over U.S. diplomatic decisions. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">So in the fall of 2011, President Barack Obama <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/world/asia/obama-and-gillard-expand-us-australia-military-ties.html" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">announced</span></a> plans to station 2,500 marines in Australia, saying his administration had made “a deliberate and strategic decision,” that “as a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future.” <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">The troops were mostly for show. The real action involved in what became known as “<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/11/americas-pacific-century/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">the pivot to Asia</span></a>” was a massive trade deal with essentially every Pacific nation the Obama administration could convince to sign on ― other than China. By strengthening U.S. economic ties with everyone else in the region, the Obama administration hoped to obtain greater leverage over China to deter geopolitical choices the United States frowned upon.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">This was the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the core function of which ― <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obama-worker-rights_n_6615974" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">despite much window-dressing to the contrary</span></a> ― was not to reduce carbon emissions or advance human rights, but to diversify the abusive regimes on which the United States relied for cheap consumer goods (particularly the governments of Vietnam and Malaysia). The Obama administration eventually became so desperate to pass the deal that it <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/malaysia-human-trafficking_n_7771652" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">upgraded</span></a> Malaysia’s official<a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/malaysia-human-trafficking-tpp_n_55b66521e4b0224d8832fe28" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">human rights rating</span></a> shortly <i class="">after</i> the discovery of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obama-malaysia-trade_n_7758592" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">mass human trafficking graves</span></a> on the Malaysian side of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/malaysia-migrant-mass-graves-police-reveal-139-sites-some-with-multiple-corpses" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">border</span></a> with Thailand. <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trans-pacific-partnership-sierra-club_n_565dcf05e4b08e945fec9f67" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">As many environmental advocacy groups noted</span></a> during TPP negotiations, the trade pact was <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obama-trade-powers_n_6516234" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">inconsistent</span></a> with the goals Obama pursued under the Paris climate accord.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">TPP, famously, did not pass. Which brings us to Trump. <a href="https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement/301Investigations/301%20Report%20Update.pdf" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">Look under the hood</span></a> of his economic demands against China, and they are very similar to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/technology/6-chinese-men-indicted-in-theft-of-code-from-us-tech-companies.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">those </span></a>the Obama administration once made ― mostly calls to respect the intellectual property claims of U.S. corporations that move their operations to China and end China-backed hacking of U.S. companies. Trump is applying tariffs against hundreds of billions of dollars worth of made-in-China products in an effort to coerce China into making it easier and more profitable for American firms to move their operations to China.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">In a sense, Trump is getting results. China hasn’t budged on IP, but many firms that sell to American consumers have in fact rearranged their supply chains to avoid Trump’s tariffs. The results roughly align with the aims once pursued by the Obama administration. As the U.S. trade deficit with China has declined in recent months, the trade deficit with Vietnam has increased, <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/vietnam-looks-be-winning-trumps-trade-war" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">as noted by Brad Setser at the Council on Foreign Relations</span></a>. This is one reason prices for American households haven’t really increased. Trump’s tariffs aren’t bringing manufacturing back to America; they’re shifting it from China to other low-wage countries.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">And like Obama, Trump has done nothing substantive to address the national security implications of China’s effective monopoly over various critical resources. The U.S., for instance, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/11/how-china-could-shut-down-americas-defenses-rare-earth/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class=""><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none;" class="">remains entirely dependent</span></a> on China for rare earth minerals ― a key ingredient in everything from light bulbs to smartphones to military weapons.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Trump, in short, is using the unilateral blunt force of a tariff program to implement many of the international goals that Obama tried and failed to secure through coordinated, multilateral negotiation. The different tactics of the two administrations have obscured their essentially common agenda.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">The repugnance of this agenda in the face of domestic inequality, international political repression and accelerating global climate change renders the tariff question almost a distraction. Movements in retail prices are simply not very important when considered against the linked crises facing great power diplomacy in the 21st century. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 15pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;" class="">Such complications, alas, are beyond the scope of Econ 101.</span></p><div class="">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; " class=""><div class="">Arthur Stamoulis</div><div class="">Citizens Trade Campaign</div><div class="">(202) 494-8826</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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