The big question then is can they remain profitable in the long run if they do things the US way, and if they can why couldn't the same plant be owned and operated by Americans?
You already know the answer to that. It's why they shipped the jobs overseas in the first place. In many cases, the workers even keep voting for the kinds of people that do it. I especially found it amusing that Trump was appealing as a capitalist to workers whose jobs were lost due to capitalism like this. Many of these areas are self-defeating. Not all but many.
I wouldn't be amused; it's a canary in a coal mine (no pun intended).
Clinton's policies would've left them just as jobless (by way of her supporting the TPP, finishing off those crippled by NAFTA, which was a project of Clinton's husband during his presidential stint). When in doubt, vote for the person who says they'll burn everything down, which appears to be on schedule.
"most districts vote out the honest, well-performing folks early."
Leave us to Trump or Hillary by the end of it. Russian roulette has better odds of success.
https://medium.com/theyoungturks/dnc-we-can-legally-choose-c...
We could have voluntarily decided that, ‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way,’” Bruce Spiva, lawyer for the DNC, said during a court hearing in Carol Wilding, et al. v. DNC Services Corp
In terms of actual consequences NAFTA has had almost no effect on the US economy, either positive or negative: a 2003 CBO report found that it had increased the US's GDP by only a few billion dollars[1].
Different sides have presented job loss and gain in different industries over the last 20 years as evidence of enormous failure or success, but the reality is that the 20+ million growth in overall employment since NAFTA has probably been normal economic growth.
The real benefits of agreements like NAFTA for the US are geopolitical stability and economic dominance - Mexico is asymmetrically dependent upon us for trade, and that dependency has been central to their willingness to cooperate in border migration and drug policing efforts (which are arguably terrible uses of power, but are good examples of the influence brought by trade). The TPP presents (or presented) similar opportunities in Asia.
I don't reject the claim that people feel disenfranchised by trade agreements, or that the industrial-service shift has harmed millions of previously middle-class Americans. However, trade agreements can't be blamed for either of those: the first is a political talking point, and the second is unavoidable in a developed country with a chronic aversion to new job training and safety nets for workers.
Compared to speculation as to what the economy would have been without NAFTA.
> The real benefits of agreements like NAFTA for the US are geopolitical stability and economic dominance
Which the US didn't have before? If anything, the US is far less dominant now.
> The TPP presents (or presented) similar opportunities in Asia.
Asia is eating the US's lunch without China even being competitive at the top of the value chain, which isn't too far away. When they achieve that, things will start to deteriorate even more rapidly.
Sure, but it's just that: speculation. The reality is that the economy and jobs market have both grown, with no aid or detriment from NAFTA.
> Which the US didn't have before? If anything, the US is far less dominant now.
In terms of our relationships with Mexico and Canada? We're 50% of Mexico's imports [1], and 54% of Canada's [2].
I can't really dispute the feeling that we're less dominant. All I can say is that agreements like NAFTA and TPP are designed and refined with US economic interests in mind. When we leave the negotiating table, we lose our primary chance at advantageous trade agreements.
> Asia is eating the US's lunch without China even being competitive at the top of the value chain, which isn't too far away. When they achieve that, things will start to deteriorate even more rapidly.
If this is true, then trade agreements are especially vital. Developing economies need investment, and they're going to get it one way or another.
No effect whatsoever, the outcome with or without NAFTA would have been identical, to the penny? How might you know this?
> If this is true, then trade agreements are especially vital.
Before China entered the WTO it was a 3rd world country, now it is challenging for #1 position economically and before too long technologically. They are eating everyone's lunch because of trade agreements. This isn't to say they don't deserve this position, in many ways they do (hard work), but they also got decades of free technology research gifted to them.
I'm saying that there's consensus that NAFTA's economic impact on the US has been minor. It might be the case that the US's GDP would have risen by 0.1% per year without NAFTA. However, at that scale, it's just a spending game. From a purely political perspective, what's more valuable: a 0.1% annual increase in GDP, or economic control over the only two countries that share your border?
Bingo. All other Latin American countries grew at a decent clip in the past 20 years (5-15% per annum) versus Mexico's 1-3% over the same period of time. Mexican wheat and corn industries have been decimated by American products so they've turned to high-price exports instead.
At least we get cheap Mexican avocados for our toast.
What 'kind' of person are you referring to? I think you might be over-generalizing. Trump has long been opposed to outsourcing American jobs, reportedly.
In any case, we should differentiate between the actions of individual business owners, and the policy that establishes the playing field. For example, current US corporate tax policy creates a strong incentive for many businesses to keep their cash overseas, and not repatriate it and pay the tax. You can criticize each individual company that operates in this way, such as Apple, but if you want to fix the problem, you need to look to policy solutions like changing the tax law.
A person can be in favor of changing policy even while they optimize within the current policy framework. For example: a wealthy person might be in favor of a tax on the wealthy even as they personally employ all available techniques to reduce their tax burden; there is no contradiction. No rational citizen will pay higher tax than the code obligates.
Criticizing individuals who optimize their actions within the current policy framework isn't productive. We should expect everyone to operate according to the current policies, laws, and incentives -- and if we don't like those, then we should change them through the political process.
So even if you consider Trump as somehow in the same category as company owners who ship jobs overseas, the point that you shouldn't overlook Trump's stated policy objective to create jobs in the US and remove the incentives to ship them overseas.
How many employees does he have overseas? And how much does he depend on overseas goods when generating his wealth or power despite local ones available? I have a guess on one aspect given he spends a lot of time on Twitter using a smartphone that isn't 100% American despite he and others here having ability to fund one. Decent reasons, too, if we're talking espionage.
> A person can be in favor of changing policy even while they optimize within the current policy framework. For example: a wealthy person might be in favor of a tax on the wealthy even as they personally employ all available techniques to reduce their tax burden; there is no contradiction. No rational citizen will pay higher tax than the code obligates.
If you manufacture in the US while all your competitors manufacture overseas, you will go bankrupt, and would largely lose the ability to advocate for returning manufacturing the the US. Whether Trump is being honest in his promises is beside the point.
Now, your argument can definitely apply to manufacturing. It's why I would disagree with Trump on something like that if cost is the main issue. It's not always as many U.S. manufacturing companies can attest. Even when needing cheap labor, there are countries other than China less likely to cause us trouble that we could invest in. Many U.S. companies do, too.
Sigh....if he buys all his materials/furniture/supplies in the US in operation of his real estate business. So yes it is hypocritical, but it is basically unavoidable at this stage of the game.