Tariff & Trade: Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump, "By the Book".

every so often you gotta ask yourself
hey I can't be the first one to have noticed this I can't be the only person to figure this out I had the observation when reading Bernie Sanders book this is a book which is obviously to some extent his set of campaign promises his platform for the upcoming elections and it's in some in some respect it's reflecting back on the elections before the elections he was basically shut out of by Hillary Clinton and the corrupt Democrat party machine it struck me as obvious and yet everywhere ignored that Bernie Sanders supports the same policy as Donald Trump on trade and tariffs now to disclose my bias here if I had a choice between voting for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump I would vote for Bernie Sanders it's somewhat hilarious to me that people presume I'm a conservative or either than I'm right-wing because I engage the critique of a pretty sectors guys you really need you really need incisive and productive critique within the left otherwise I mean things go off the rails real quick but anyway what I fear out of the left-wing right now for example from The Young Turks The Young Turks are one of the most influential left-of-centre or news organizations in the world The Young Turks are again and again attacking Donald Trump's tariff policy basically what we call protectionist policy irony of ironies all of a sudden a left-wing outlet like The Young Turks are Pro free trade are Pro neoliberal that's it's not you guys were like when Obama was in power it's not what you were like when you were looking at the TPP trans-pacific partnership trade agreement or NAFTA or anything else oh all of a sudden because it's convenient to oppose Donald Trump on the tariff issue there against tariffs well if you think this policy is bad and evil and wrong when Donald Trump does it you must believe it's still bad and evil and wrong when Bernie Sanders does it now the basic promise the basic Bernie Sanders has is to punish China and punish Mexico for the fact that during the last 20 years under conditions of globalized free trade more and more industry has left the United States of America to relocate to precisely China and Mexico those are the two biggest players in the game that the two they're the two that will make the biggest difference you know there are some others obviously Japan is also a major trading partner in the United States but it's no coincidence that it is mostly against China and Mexico that both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump speak they're both very elderly men they're both men who can remember what Detroit was Detroit Michigan used to be a huge center of cars there's a funny quip going around I don't know who coined this in the past they made cars in Flint Michigan and if you went to Mexico it wasn't safe to drink the tap water and today it's the other way around today they make cars in Mexico and if you go to places like Flint Michigan it's near Detroit the water isn't safe to drink so the deindustrialization of the United States of America is a major part of the artists II justjust for this whole generation for guys who are this age Bernie Sanders Donald Trump people like them for them it's still fundamentally odd and jarring that Americans are carrying around cellular phones that are manufactured in China that they're driving cars manufactured in Mexico again we could add Japan to this list of trade rivals and they see a lot of advantages and returning to a tariff regime that would protect American industry does the term protectionism now I remember just a couple of years ago looking into what Bernie Sanders policy was on immigration and illegal immigration so this was at the time when Bernie Sanders Donald Trump and what's her name again Hillary Clinton when they were all viably contesting you know who was who was gonna be president with that that race was still going on and of course it was interesting to see that Hillary Trump really conceded the point on the border wall dispute that at a time when Trump was really making his major campaign promise quote-unquote build the wall Hillary Clinton basically responded by saying that yes in the past she had voted for building a barrier of some kind at the border whether it be a fence or wall that she also we built the wall and it seemed to me Bernie Sanders was avoiding the point or that nobody really knew what Bernie Sanders position was and I remember clicking through several pages of his website to get to what his campaign promise really was what was Bernie Sanders position on this and again there was no significant difference between the sides Bernie Sanders he definitely had much more polite and reconciliatory and pleasant language and presented the idea but fundamentally Bernie Sanders was totally opposed to illegal immigration so again if you think that's a bad policy and a lot of people on the left wing do a lot of people in left wing today it's very popular for them to say that they want to live in a world without borders it's popular for them to say that they want to accept all immigrants and even that they won't accept all illegal immigrants with open arms that they want to allow unlimited numbers of people fleeing from Nicaragua and so on well out of those 3 politicians I've just mentioned there's actually no significant diversity in what their policy position is there's only a difference in rhetoric so on this same issue coming back to the issue of trade and in tariffs I had a not really even a debate at a conversation with someone who's more of a stereotypical left winger than myself on the internet the other day and he was laying into Donald Trump on on tariffs saying that somehow terrorists are evil since when was it left-wing and to think tariffs are evil since it became so thoughtful and I just paused him and said look you know I understand why you're saying this right now nobody likes Donald Trump he's very unpopular but are you aware that Bernie Sanders would fundamentally do the same thing Bernie Sanders is looking to create tariff barriers between China in the United States United States and Mexico to protect American industry to help as she said you know help quote unquote the working class help the middle class this sort of thing and the guys response was telling he said to me well yeah but if Bernie Sanders that you know he wouldn't be gross and crude and offensive and doing it it wouldn't be a bunch of a bunch of angry tweets on Twitter you know Bernie Sanders did it it would be kind of statesman like and respect now there there is some truth that but guys if this is a matter of principle then I think we have to have the maturity and detachment to say as a matter of principle either the policy is right or it's wrong whether it's Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton who is advancing a policy now on the question of whether or not tariffs are always bad or always evil are always economically disadvantages it's the other question there's a really interesting example in the news right now many economists are arguing and they're arguing persuasively that the sanctions the trade sanctions imposed on Russia have had more of a positive effect on the Russian economy than a negative effect so to be clear the argument of people who support neoliberalism and most people who support neoconservatism the argument of those people is that more free trade is always better that the whole economy will optimize it will benefit the country more so if you really believe in neoliberalism if you really believe in free trade then you look at the United States and say look on the whole it's better that American people have the freedom to buy cars imported from Mexico cars imported from China partly of course because those cars will be cheaper you should just allow free trade allow the free market to sort itself out and a protectionist would say no no no it's actually important and worthwhile to to set up barriers to force American people or to encourage American people to buy cars manufactured States because that's in the national interests blah blah blah it builds up and sustains industry and certain types of jobs employment within the United States etc so neither or theory will ever be entirely discredited I just hope empirically neither Theory can ever be entirely right nor entirely wrong and we will really address the example in the current sanctions on Russia so sanctions one of the main things that makes them different from from tariffs is that rush didn't choose to cut itself off from world trade Russia invaded the Ukraine Russia did a series of politically objectionable things including the invasion and occupation of territory that was legally part of us a different country of Ukraine and the whole world sat around and Ronettes Hansen well what are we gonna do how are we gonna punish Russia for this or what's going to be the response and the decision was rather than starting a war rather than kicking Russia out of the United Nations their various things they could have done rather than ceasing to recognize Russia the government of russia as illegitimate government country there are different diplomatic things you could close all your embassies bring them out you could say we don't recognize what amir putin as legitimate government they're different different ways you're smart is that okay the way they're gonna respond to this is by cutting off trade and it's interesting to note that this happened on a legislative level separately in several different places so for example that was a totally different debate in Japan Japan has a border with Russia a lot of people forget that trade between Japan and Russia is very important so Japan had one political response to it the European Union at another at the United States at another um I don't know I don't know about India for example that'd be interesting looking to how did India respond to this territorial sovereignty versus versus free trade so these these trade sanctions these limits to trade were imposed with everyone absolutely assuming they would have a devastating impact or a negative impact on Russia now inevitably of course they must have some negative impact if you cut off trade there must be some negative effect for example if you cut off trade with Mexico cars within the United States will become more expensive that's gonna impact some people's lives negatively if you cut off trade with Japan and China not just cars will be more expensive things like cellular phones kitchen appliances we buy so much stuff that's manufactured assembled and so on in China and Japan and also of course consumer choice becomes narrower so there were there are very obvious disadvantages but economists crunching the numbers and looking at how the Russian economy reacted we actually Russia is a huge internal market and as you can imagine when they cease to be able to import for example certain types of food their agricultural sector sprung to life and providing more competitive foodstuffs for within the Russian economy that apparently across the board and rush of various industries various productive segments of the economy have had new life and vitality breathe them no I said there must be some sectors of the economy that have suffered that have lost jobs that have closed but there were serious discussions that overall this was in that bed net benefit now I think the main argument in favor of the neoliberal trade regime neoliberal world order is basically an argument about the limits of human intelligence and boy Donald Trump is an example of that you know Donald Trump tried previously to set up tariffs that would optimize the aluminum industry the steel industry trying to make barriers to the movement of these specific metals and it was very debatable is Donald Trump himself capable of making the decision about what is really in America's best interest in steel and aluminum a very technical it's very difficult to do and then when you go through all the other sectors the economy is it really in America's interest to cut off trade in oranges and then when you scale it up and look at trade as a world-spanning system if each and every country is engaging in these kinds of protectionist decisions one of the famous examples was Japan blocking the import of hockey sticks and sports equipment from Canada Canadian government was disputing this as you can imagine another example is you know the bizarre legal machination surrounding New Zealand's dairy industry well hold on the story New Zealand wanting to export their dairy products to the whole world and this kind of thing and a lot of countries saying no they want to protect their own dairy market it's ridiculous ok anyway you know if every country is trying to make ad hoc strategic decisions in their own best interests for one thing some of those decisions won't really be able to be in their best interest like oh well we thought we'd improve things by cutting off the trade in steel so we produce more steel of our own but the actual knot on effects turned out to be this this and this that were unforeseen effects for various industries or it ends up cutting you off from certain exports you wanted to make yeah it really is a kind of the argument for unlimited free trade is basically keep it simple stupid if Canada and Japan come to an agreement and say look look Japan we're gonna you know we're gonna let you export all of your special Goods the special goods you create that are uniquely Japanese to Canada and the Canadian people can buy your stuff and you have to let us export the few things were really good at we make better hockey sticks than you and Japan and there are enough people playing ice hockey in Japan but these things you could and let things sort themselves out however this is now the year 2019 that argument sounded a lot more persuasive before we all saw exactly what unfolded in Detroit Michigan it's for exactly people this generation you know Bernie Sanders generation who can who can see what happened to the whole American economy you know in a perfect world could there have been a strategy for the United States making a better transition to a post industrialized the industrialized Society and would that strategy actually also entail much more of a hard anti-immigration anti-illegal immigration stance because if fundamentally there are fewer jobs and fewer high-quality jobs in your economy due to the industrialization how can you possibly match that with ever-increasing numbers of immigrants both legal and illegal immigrants a lot of things there don't make sense especially if your fundamental objective is to have higher wages a better quality of life for both poor people and no class people which is his agenda so it seems to me that right now we're in a position where a lot of the assumptions that were unquestioned about neoliberalism on both the left and the right are finally falling apart but nobody is really putting forward any coherent program for set of a set of answers on the contrary a lot of what you're getting are the same policies presented in left-wing rhetoric and right-wing rhetoric and I just heard a lecture from London School of Economics pointed this is actually a measure of phenomenon in Europe and in North America in the whole Western world the problem that the meaningful difference in your choice between left and right has gotten smaller and smaller in recent decades everyone was hoping we'd have a sudden break we'd have new and meaningful difference after the 2008 financial crisis that definitely has not yet happened okay so summing it up if you think about a kind of four part logical diagram you've got people who are Pro tariffs and people who are anti tariffs you've got people who are Pro sanctions and people who are anti sanctions and let me tell you right now within the left wing these are hot hot issues and I think you did a poll the mainstream left groups like The Young Turks the mainstream left-wing position is that any good left-wing person is anti tariffs and also 80 sanctions so for example they don't want sanctions against North Korea they don't want sanctions against Iran they don't want sanctions go against Russia which is a little strange they're different kind of historical and ethical reasons whether it says but they don't want sanctions against Cuba there's an example that tugs at left-wing horns so bizarrely at a time when the left-wing is saying that the people they want to support most are the working-class our manufacturing jobs etc the ethical positions they're committed to are 100% disadvantageous to the industrial working class and I think it's kind of hidden in plain sight as I say I'm not the only one who mentioned that Bernie Sanders so-called populist so-called working-class platform some people in the press have noticed this it is in fact contrary to that left-wing commitment and it's instead quite compatible with the policies now pursued by Donald J Trump