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    David Cay Johnston explains how Trump’s trade tariffs are really a tax on his base

    David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory
    November 11, 2019

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    Trump supporters (Shutterstock)

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory

    Candidate Donald Trump railed against America’s chronic trade deficits, vowing to eliminate them if he became president.


    So, how’s Trump doing? Awful. Trade deficits are growing on his watch.

    The overall trade deficit in September was 21% larger than during his first full month in office.

    In 2016, under President Barak Obama, America imported $502.9 billion more in goods and services than it sold in exports.

    In 2018, under Trump, that ballooned to $627.7 billion, an increase of $124.7 billion, and the deficit is on pace to run even deeper in 2019. For the nine months ending in September, the overall trade deficit was $481.3 billion, up $24.8 billion for the same period of 2018.

    Trump’s tariffs are a tax on Americans, paid by companies who import goods and then either passed on to consumers or absorbed as reduced profits.

    Trump always rails about the trade in goods, ignoring services such as accounting, banking, and insurance.

    Our deficit in goods traded with China grew through last year. Indeed,  the 2018 deficit of $419.5 billion was the largest on record, up a whopping 21% over the $346.8 billion of Obama’s last calendar year as president. So far, 2019 looks like it will come in around $360 billion.

    The deficit with China is smaller not because Trump’s policies haven't so much altered the balance of trade as shrunk the volume of trade. That, in turn, means fewer jobs for Americans, close to 11 million of whom, the Commerce Department estimates, owe their jobs to trade with China.

    Mexico, Too

    And what of Mexico, another Trump trade bugaboo? In 2016, Obama’s last year, our trade deficit in goods was $63.3 billion. That rose to $80.7 billion in 2018. That’s a 27% increase under Trump.

    In just the first nine months of this year, our Mexico goods deficit was $76.1 billion, meaning this year will easily set a new record deficit.

    Trump’s disregard for trade in services is a most curious omission for a man who boasts, falsely, that he has an economics degree from Penn’s famous Wharton School of Finance. His degree, for which he mostly did independent studies while working for his father, is from a one-professor real estate department at Penn that was under Wharton, which is a graduate school.

    Equally troubling is Trump’s mistaken belief that China and Mexico pay the tariffs he has placed on their goods.

    Trump’s tariffs are not paid by China. Tariffs are a tax on Americans, paid by companies who import goods and then either passed on to consumers or absorbed as reduced profits. The Treasury Department, by the way, calls them “customs duties.”

    Americans Pay the Price

    Trump's tariffs cost Americans $71 billion in the first nine months of the calendar year.

    So far, Trump has spent $28 billion of your tax money in bailout money for soybean and other Midwest farmers whose major market he decimated with his anti-China trade policies. The damage may last years or decades because China switched to other countries for soybeans, promising to buy up to $50 billion a year from Brazil. Think of that as a Trump “Put Brazilian Farmers First” policy.

    During a Sept. 4 news conference on Hurricane Dorian, the one that he falsely said would hit Alabama, Trump veered off into China trade with assertions that were just as false:

    “We have a lot of—we’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars in tariffs from China.  Prices have not gone up, or they’ve gone up very little.  China has paid for most of that, and I say paid for all of it.  China has now had the worst year that they’ve had in 57 years.  This is the worst year they’ve had in 57 years.  And they want to make a deal; we’ll see what happens.”

    That was such nonsense that anyone who knows their Chinese history laughed. In 1962 China was a poor farm country with minimal industry. It was still under Mao, whose policies resulted in mass starvation that some historians estimate at 45 million people dying.

    What is fact is that the spectacular growth of the Chinese economy has slowed to its lowest level in the last three decades.

    Tariffs Wipe Out Income Tax Cuts

    The Trump tariffs pretty much wipe out the modest income tax savings that went to the bottom 90% of Americans under the Trump/Radical Republican tax cut law enacted in December 2017. Most of its savings went to corporations and the top 1%.

    So, while Trump has tricked millions of Americans into believing he cut their tax burdens, he has actually raised their total burden with his tariffs.

    Trump’s tariffs are also slowing economic growth and in time will mean 512,000 fewer jobs than if the tariffs had never been imposed, Tax Foundation has noted.

    Analysis by Trade Partnership, a consulting firm, asserted that the “biggest winners from tariffs on Chinese cell phones are other foreign producers. Manufacturers in Korea and Vietnam would see annual export revenues grow by about $1.8 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively. American consumers, on the other hand, would pay over $8.1 billion more for cell phones.”

    Prices of laptops, video games and toy drones are also expected to rise significantly, costing American consumers billions more for those who do buy. The study predicted a 35% drop in laptop purchases.

    Because there is virtually no laptop manufacturing in the United States, “American consumers would pay $785 in new out of pocket expenses for each $1 in new revenue for American manufacturers,” Trade Partnership estimated.

    Remember that as an example of Trump’s ignorance of trade benefits.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Enjoy good journalism?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

    We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

    Value Raw Story?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.


    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
    READ COMMENTS - JOIN THE DISCUSSION

    Survey: Will Melania leave Trump now that he's out of office ?

    Mark Meadows lands a new job -- and will start looking for the next Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz

    Travis Gettys
    January 27, 2021

    Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows won't have to end up working for the Trump Organization, after all.

    The former Republican lawmaker is joining the Conservative Partnership Institute, a "networking hub" for conservatives run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, according to sources who spoke to Axios.

    Meadows has been advising Trump on his upcoming impeachment trial, but will serve behind the scenes in his new role to cultivate new firebrand lawmakers like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Jim Jordan.

    DeMint started the CPT to help conservatives become more effective legislators once they were elected, and Meadows will start immediately to build grassroots support to oppose President Joe Biden's nominees in policies in his first 100 days in office.

    Tucker Carlson completely loses it over the idea that the FBI should target white nationalist terrorists

    Cody Fenwick, AlterNet
    January 27, 2021

    Fox News' Tucker Carlson unleashed a furious screed on Tuesday night in response to California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff's argument that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security focus their efforts on white nationalist terrorism.

    "Listen to America's new grand inquisitor," Carlson said on air, introducing a clip of Schiff speaking.

    In the clip, Schiff, who is Jewish, explained to CNN that the concern is not new.

    "We have been urging for some time that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security raise the priority to domestic terrorism, to white nationalism, as it threatens the country," he said. "And we're going to continue sounding the alarm, and make sure that they're devoting the time, the resources, the attention. Just as we did after 9/11 to the threat of international terrorism, we need to give the same priority and urgency to domestic terrorism."

    They weren't surprising remarks, coming just weeks after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a violent and deadly mob, filled with racists and white supremacists, trying to overthrow the constitutional order. As the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, it's Schiff's job to oversee the conduct of the agencies in question.

    But for Carlson, the remarks were completely outrageous. To convey that message to his audience, he had to completely distort what Schiff said. The way Carlson chose to misinterpret the remarks was quite telling.

    "Got that?" Carlson said after playing the Schiff clip. "Vote the wrong way, and you are a jihadi. You thought you were an American citizen with rights and just a different view. But no, you're a jihadi. And we're going to treat you like we treated those radicals after 9/11. Like we treated bin Laden. Get in line, pal. This is a war on terror. Keep in mind, as you listen to people talk like this — and Adam Schiff is far from the only one — they're talking about American citizens here. They're talking about you. But nobody seems to notice or care."

    It was a remarkable reaction. In the clip — the clip Carlson specifically chose because he thought it best illustrated his point — Schiff was explicitly talking about white nationalist domestic terrorists. This is indisputably a crime, not First Amendment-protected activity, and it's a threat that the Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned about as an increasing peril.

    "Within the domestic terrorism bucket, the category as a whole, racially motivated violent extremism is, I think, the biggest bucket within that larger group. And within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people subscribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that," Wray said last September. "Lately we've been having about 1,000 domestic terrorism cases each year. It is higher this year."

    The attack on the Capitol only highlighted this danger. It's fair to worry that the new administration might overreact to this threat and that civil liberties might be at risk, as they were after 9/11. Those are concerns worth taking seriously.

    But that's not what Carlson said. Instead, he told his audience that Schiff is arguing that people should be treated like terrorists if they "vote the wrong way." In fact, he even said that "you" will be treated like Osama bin Laden — that is, hunted down and killed — because of who "you" vote for. That's not within the same ballpark of what Schiff or anyone else has said. This a QAnon-level conspiracy theory that Carlson is spouting on primetime cable news.

    Carlson also showed his own prejudice and bigotry, directly implying that "jihadis" couldn't be American citizens with all the rights that entitles them to. That's false, of course — some terrorists who commit jihadist-inspired acts of terrorism are Americans. Even foreign jihadi terrorists have many rights that ought to be recognized. But it's been people like Carlson and his allies who have consistently argued against the rights of terrorists when they happen to be Muslim. Despite his posturing now against the war on terror, he previously supported it. In fact, Carlson one called Iraqis "semiliterate primitive monkeys" who should "just shut the fuck up and obey."

    So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that while overreacting to the idea that white nationalist terrorism should be targeted by law enforcement, Carlson also made clear that he thinks terrorists who are Muslim should not have any rights. He's being perfectly clear about who he stands with and who he stands against.

    Napoleon's account of legendary Battle of Austerlitz goes on sale

    Agence France-Presse
    January 27, 2021

    Napoleon Bonaparte's account of his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, dictated during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, went on sale Wednesday in Paris for one million euros ($1.2 million).

    The account of the 1805 "three-emperors clash" with Russo-Austrian forces, which is considered Napoleon's greatest military victory, takes readers through preparations for battle, the fighting itself and is completed by a battle plan drawn by his loyal aide-de-camp General Henri-Gatien on tracing paper.

    The densely packed 74-page manuscript, dictated to Bertrand, contains several corrections by the exiled emperor, who crossed out words and added remarks in the margins in tiny writing.

    Napoleon does not refer to himself in the first person, instead prefacing his remarks with "the emperor says".

    The sale comes at the start of a year marking the bicentenary of Napoleon's death.

    Gallery owner Jean-Emmanuel Raux, a collector of French imperial memorabilia, found the manuscript in a trove of documents belonging to Bertrand's heirs.

    "It's the most fabulous document about French history that you could find in a private collection," he told AFP.

    His daughter Alizee, who studied the manuscript in detail, said it was an "embellished account of the battle".

    Within around nine hours on December 2, 1805, some 75,000 soldiers of Napoleon's "Grande Armee" outmanoeuvred a larger Russian-Austrian force at Austerlitz, in what was then the Austrian empire.

    It helped to end the coalition between Francois I of Austria and Tsar Alexander I of Russia that had been financed by Britain -- and is a battle studied in French military schools to this day.

    Napoleon details all the tactics he deployed to dupe his opponents into believing that French forces were weak -- including earlier retreats and negotiations that disguised the fact he had already chosen the site of the battle.

    His exalted account trumpets the heroism of the French, from trooper to officer, and claims even wounded soldiers hailed the emperor.

    "I will lose a good number of brave men," he said on the eve of the battle. "I feel bad that they really feel like my children, and, in truth, I reproach myself sometimes over this sentiment since I fear that it will leave me unqualified for war."

    The manuscript will be exhibited until the end of the month at the Paris gallery Arts et Autographes, as well as online for potential foreign buyers.

    The sale is part of the "BRAFA in the Galleries" art fair taking place in 126 galleries in 13 countries from January 27 to 31.

    Collectors can arrange to view the manuscript in person or over the internet.

    © 2021 AFP

     
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