I think you already started to make the case for calling W's trade policy treasonous.

I don't take it lightly when the government starts attacking the American people, either.

I don't think so at all. I actually believe in the concept that by making the entire "world pie" bigger the US wins even as our relative share decreases. Our problem isn't that we're not making money on a much richer world. No, our problem is that these riches are not being shared well at all. Since I'm not a communist, I'm not sure how better to address that inequity. I think Bush II and Obama struggled with the same issue.

No solution was found

Trump's solution is to maximize our portion of the pie and be damned the size of it

The 'US wins' when the world pie gets bigger only if taken in the aggregate. Wealth inequality actually increases.

Our middle and lower class end up competing with third-worlders.

Who can always undercut them.

That's the challenge

You need to seriously rethink the problem if your premise is that growing the world's pie requires impoverishing the US.

The nation as a whole might get richer, but only the top 0.01% are actually getting that wealth. The tech billionaires.

How do we nurture a bigger world pie and still ensure the US gets more in terms of absolute if not relative value of it?

Agreed, Atkins

I don;t, devpav

We're not responsible for nurturing a bigger world pie.

It's not my responsibility to enrich Africans.

I think we nurture a bigger pie and ensure we get more in absolute terms if not proportionate terms

But if the whole world is richer they can buy more of our stuff. We all are enriched.

They don't buy our stuff. They buy China's stuff.

And China is not playing your stupid game.

They don't buy our stuff, they just produce it.

That has been the problem. Bush II let China into the WTO without any sense of what China would do

That has been the problem. Bush II let China into the WTO without any sense of what China would do

I don;t actually disagree with Trump that some agreements could have bene done better

Maybe we should start playing hardball with China then....

HMMMM

But Trump has shot himself in the foot on that

I'm sure W was aware what free trade with a third-world country of 1.6 billion people would do to us, but didn't care.

Maybe we should put an end to the free trade scam before it completely ruins us.

He's backed himself into a corner with NK and he outright rejected the TPP and so that just pushed nations into trading alliances led by China. At every turn, Trump just strengthens China's hand. The only saving grace we have is that China has overplayed their hand and other nations are starting to recognise them as the colonialists they've become.

The point is not to prevent China from trading at all, just to prevent China from trading with us on terms that screw us.

I don't disagree

I don't care if China trades with other countries on terms that we would refuse.

That's a rather short sighted view IMO

Short-sighted why, because it benefits us?

It doesn't benefit us. As China grows in power they can influence the world in ways we cannot counter. I kinda like a world with only one military superpower. It has a lot of benefits.

I am skeptical that China will ever rival the US in military power.

You all talk about us just bombing the hell out of people who support terror on our shores. Another superpower would make doing that difficult if not impossible. I actually remember the cold war.

It takes military power to maintain military supremacy. Trade policy doesn't decide that.

But an economically powerful China has the potential to be far more a threat that an economically weak Soviet Union ever was. Reagan ran the Soviets into the ground on economics. China won't go down that path.

China will have the resources to equal us whereas the Soviets bankrupted themselves trying