The trade "wrecking ball" residing in the WH has slammed US agriculture once again.
Does the 45 crowd ever stop to think things thru?
"Trump is taking the excellent economy that Obama left him and turning it into a recession one tariff at a time."
(-:
"White House officials did not immediately explain how driving up the cost of Mexican goods might stem the flow of migrants. If the tariffs damaged the Mexican economy, more of its citizens would try to cross the border to find work in the United States, experts said."
First off, I don't think that this was a wise move by Trump, especially not politically(but this shows that he's about results for the American people vs the political crapola) so let me explain what should be obvious about his intention to one side that is acting like they are ignorant and being disengenous on the other statements and have no idea why Trump would do this.
1. The border crisis was an American crisis months ago and is growing worse every day. Trump tried to get the democrats to help him but they wouldn't as they insisted that it was a made up crisis to distract people from the Russian investigation that they claimed would find him guilty of colluding.
2. So he shut down the government to draw attention to the crisis to try to get the democrats to help America to manage our crisis. He got the blame, the dems loved it and still insisted there was no crisis and would only authorize a fraction of the funding needed to manage this major crisis.
3. So he went over their heads to get money/resources by calling it an emergency to manage the serious American crisis and the democrats went to court to block him and his efforts.
4. A liberal judge ruled in favor of the democrats last week, so that construction of walls under way has to stop. Trump is appealing this decision but while this battle goes on, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring in, as well as massive illegal drugs and some are criminals.
5. So Trump has completely exhausted what he can do using American laws, trying to get Americans to work with him to manage the American border crisis.
6. Rather than stand by and let powerful Americans use a crisis for their own political gain at the expense of the American people and accept what everybody is telling him "sorry, Donald, that's just the way the American system/politics works, you'll just have to accept this horrible situation, too bad for you and America........one side wins, everybody else loses........that's the rules." ........he is taking it to a source of the problem.......Mexico in a very unconventional, risky and potentially backfiring strategy.......to get results that the very people we elected to act for Americans have intentionally sabotaged
7. It's unconventional because it's not really a trade deal but the use of a threat to enforce a penalty that negatively affects trade in order to get more cooperation on something that has nothing to do with trade.
8. Can this work? Of course it can work. Of course Mexico can do more. The question is how much of the flow can they impede? Right now, all these people know they can just cross Mexico and enter the southern border into the US...........so why wouldn't they keep doing it. If many of them were held back or if there were penalties, let's say in Mexico(since the US won't do it) then many others would stop coming. Guaranteed. This could easily reduce the flow by more than 50%. Up to this point, why would Mexico be motivated to help us? Use their own resources? They certainly don't want these people. They think its great for their drugs and criminals to go have a better life in the US.
9. Trump is now providing them with an incentive to help us. They stop benefiting at our expense and help us with a crisis that they enable and are very capable of helping us with or..............tariff time.
In the absence of this new strategy. What suggestions does anybody have regarding different actions(not used yet) by Trump that would be as effective in managing the crisis?
So now that you've had the situation accurately explained to you and Trump's reasoning behind it, you don't have to believe the MSM story telling and narratives that intentionally hide the real facts for why this is happening.
Contrary to the MSM's interpretation for us, Trump is not a madman that has lost complete control..................he's just trying to GET control............of the US border with Mexico using some extreme tactics in dealing with Mexico, where these people are coming from.
Might this hurt our relationship with Mexico?
You bet that could happen. Mexico is the happiest with the US if they don't have to lift a finger to help us with our immigration crisis and when the US helps them by allowing all these people to come into our country from their country. They will be less happy with any arrangements that Trump makes with them that requires their assistance/support/resources which helps us to stop the flow of these people.
Same with China. China is the happiest with the US when it can keep taking advantage of us with unfair trading policies and dynamics.
Tariffs on their stuff makes them very unhappy with us. I am not for tariffs but please tell us what plan B is to provide incentive to Mexico or China to stop taking advantage of us?
Guess what the most valuable metric is that the United States provides to these countries?
We buy more of their stuff than any other country in the world. There is no other realm that matters to them that has such tremendous value that we can use as leverage to create better deals than the raw/horrible deals that we have right now with China and with Mexico on immigration.
Will this hurt US consumers? Of course it can but one side only tells you about that potential. Why are we not being told about the reason for the tariffs, which is to try to reverse situations that have become a crisis in one case and on the verge of it in the other case?
Few can appreciate the massive scope of this growing crisis
The group of 1,036 is the largest ever encountered by the Border Patrol; the previous record of 424 was set last month.
"Customs and Border Protection has noticed a trend in the number of large groups crossing the border together. In fiscal year 2018, border agents encountered 13 groups of more than 100 immigrants. Now, they have seen that same number in a single day, according to Brian Hastings, the chief law enforcement operations directorate for the U.S. Border Patrol.
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that he will make his "biggest statement on the border" later in the day or on Friday."
Tell us now, what is YOUR (not just cliff but anybody) solution to this, now historic and worsening crisis which Trump has effectively been blocked from managing by fellow Americans from the party that opposes him even though they know everything that he does about it ???
After reading this last article and thinking about this more while writing my epistles(as Alex called them), I've changed my mind about this being a bad idea for Trump to use this extreme tactic on Mexico. Something has to be done ASAP and the dems are making it much worse by flaunting to these people how they can block our president from stopping them from entering our country illegally.
One surefire way to spur people to keep coming is to tell them they won't be able to after the door is closed. Trump has (intentionally?) made the situation worse as a diversion from all his other scandals.
"One surefire way to spur people to keep coming is to tell them they won't be able to after the door is closed. Trump has (intentionally?) made the situation worse as a diversion from all his other scandals."
I can't say I blame you for avoiding MM's direct question and instead replying with one of my favorite spins. It's Trump's fault for trying to stop them. Perish the thought that the people spending all that time thwarting his every attempt bear any responsibility. It's not a crisis, it's a diversion, right?
Mental gymnastics has truly become a team sport.
“6. Rather than stand by and let powerful Americans use a crisis for their own political gain at the expense of the American people and accept what everybody is telling him "sorry, Donald, that's just the way the American system/politics works”
But also let’s not forget that trumps new immigration policy left anything out about the “dreamers” which would make it a non-starter for the Democrats.
We need to see one side doesn’t have a monopoly on political gamesmanship.
"But also let’s not forget that trumps new immigration policy left anything out about the “dreamers” which would make it a non-starter for the Democrats.
We need to see one side doesn’t have a monopoly on political gamesmanship"
This is an outstanding point mcfarmer! Am thinking that Trump knows any plan lacking this is dead on arrival. Possibly, he wants to have this serve as the starting point, then negotiate that in to get the dems to agree, though they rejected his dreamers plan earlier this year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/us/politics/trump-immigration-plan.html
Earlier this year, when he offered 3 years protection for the dreamers, the democrats immediately rejected it for some odd reason.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/19/us/politics/trump-proposal-daca-wall.html
WASHINGTON — President Trump, facing a growing public backlash over the partial government shutdown, shifted course on Saturday and offered Democrats a deal: temporary protections for roughly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants in exchange for $5.7 billion in funding for a wall along the southern border.
But the proposal, which Mr. Trump unveiled in a 13-minute address from the White House, appeared dead on arrival in the Capitol. Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected it even before Mr. Trump spoke, and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, denounced the offer as “not a compromise but more hostage taking.”
metmike: I thought this was a pretty fair offer. It basically says, that if the democrats win the presidency in 2020, and maintain or gain more control in Congress, the dreamers will have permanent citizenship then. I think that most people are for this now and Trump should agree to it now and maybe he will.
I can guess that these dreamers represent a boat load of democratic votes to our politicians who continue to give too much weighting to politics vs what makes best sense for our country.
"Trump has (intentionally?) made the situation worse as a diversion from all his other scandals."
The position on Trump and the wall has had 2 phases in the last 6 months.
Phase 1: Trump is inventing a crisis to divert the attention away from the news about the Russian Collusion scandal which will soon hit the fan and end his presidency.
David Smith in Washington
"Donald Trump has used the first Oval Office address of his presidency to stoke fears of illegal immigration, repeat dubious claims about his border wall, and offer no new solutions to the partial government shutdown.
In the type of made-for-TV-moment he relishes, Trump blamed criminal gangs and “vast quantities of illegal drugs” for “thousands of deaths” and faulted Democrats for failing to end the shutdown, now in its 19th day.
Top congressional Democrats accused him of fearmongering, and using rhetoric “full of misinformation and even malice”.
“This is a humanitarian crisis – a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul,” Trump told primetime viewers on Tuesday night, describing the situation at the border. He argued that the current immigration system allows “vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs” to prey on immigrants, especially women and children."
"On an extraordinary night for US politics, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, delivered a live rebuttal from the House speaker’s balcony hallway. Both adamantly oppose the construction of a wall and have urged Trump to reopen the government while talks continue.
“Sadly, much of what we have heard from President Trump throughout this senseless shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice,” Pelosi said. “President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must reopen the government.”
Schumer added: “We don’t govern by temper-tantrum. No president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down, hurting millions of Americans who are treated as leverage.
“Tonight – and throughout this debate and his presidency – President Trump has appealed to fear, not facts. Division, not unity.”
The New York senator said: “Most presidents have used Oval Office addresses for noble purposes. This president just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear, and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration
Phase 2: After it became obvious that this is not just a crisis but an extreme crisis by any objective standard, they couldn't keep telling us that Trump made it up. Now, the crisis is actually Trumps fault and the same solutions he proposed before to fix it.................have been twisted to supposedly make it even worse and again divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/05/border-crisis-donald-trump-226573
Phase 3---to infinity: Blame every bad situation as being Trump's fault. Terrorist attacks on muslims in other countries, gun violence, hate crimes in the US, white supremacist activity, border crisis, attacks on our justice department saints, Russian interference..........even major hurricanes. Recognize zero positives(like the record Obama/Biden economy we are experiencing)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/
To say that this president has the worst character flaws in history is putting it mildly/an understatement.
He constantly embellishes and makes statements that are exaggerated and sometimes just flat out wrong. He can be mean and is extraordinarily divisive.
But there are several issues that he is right about and at the very least, has the best interest of Americans in mind(whether you agree with his methods or not, nobody can deny that)
However, the other side, in trying to destroy Trump, does the very things that define the worst in Trump..........with zero positives to offer the American people.
The MSM and democrats are very hateful and divisive. They spin the facts and manufacture fake news that is more far fetched than Trumps claims..... to maximize the damage to Trump. They attack him for 2.5 years as a traitor for colluding with Russia(while his responses are only to defend his innocence).
But at the end of the day, we should look at what the MAIN objective is for each side.
1. Make America Great Again
2. Destroy the other side and their agenda
There is no getting past this. Trump was not on a mission to destroy the dems and MSM. Most of his attacks on them are DEFENSIVE responses to attacks on him by those entities.
"look at what the MAIN objective is for each side.
1. Make America Great Again
2. Destroy the other side and their agenda"
It see, only two sides then ? Nice. Rather untypical.
Not sure what you mean mcfarmer but we have 2 political parties and each can only have 1 MAIN objective.
The MSN is clearly on the side of the democrats and Fox on the side of the republicans but this still is 2 sides.
Of course there are objective people in the middle. I consider many of your comments here to be in that category as well as others(including me, even though I spend a massive amount of time criticizing-with facts-one side).
Actually, I really enjoy your comments and open mindedness and hope that comment was not interpreted to lump you into the destroy Trump as top priority because you clearly are NOT that way, even though you are a Dem.
In fact, you recognized here a couple of times that the investigation cleared Trump of colluding with Russia and that made it worth it for you...................which caused me to rethink my position on the value of the investigation.
Yeah, I don't think I would classify myself as a "dem".
But, I imagine everyone here bleated just as loudly when Mitch declared he "would do everything possible to make sure he's a one term president".
Boy, way to put the country first, huh.
Oh, and it seems ol' Mitch doesn't see anything wrong with confirming a justice in 2020.
Yeah, he works for the good of the democratic system.
Thanks much. You have made numerous comments that tuned me into stuff in a way that I didn't before.
I was unaware of that comment (actually, before becoming moderator here, I didn't follow this stuff all that close) until you mentioned it and played it from 2010. Here's his response to the attacks about that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2r0lxndnsE
So, my question is, did McConnell and the republicans do investigation after investigation(after the 35 million, 2.5 investigation cleared Trump of colluding with Russia) in order to take down Obama?
However, this was in fact a very divisive remark ........vs him saying "we will try to work with the president and try to move forward.
BTW, I'm not a republican nor do I feel a need to defend republicans, who are very political too.
I consider myself a libertarian or independant but just can't relate to so much that defines the positions of both parties.
It might surprise you that I actually see some of the positives of socialism.
Re: Tariffs
Success does not consist in not making mistakes but in not making the same one a second time.
George Bernard Shaw