Comment by nickpsecurity
Comment by nickpsecurity 4 hours ago
"I don't see how the US comes back from removing the underpinnings of the post Bretton Woods world of mutual trust."
There never was any. Many countries were cheating us on corporate ownership, regulations, tariffs, I.P. theft, etc. Others taking our markets as elites offshored our jobs. Many doing serious, human, rights violations on top of it. All kinds of international corruption.
The U.S. itself always tried to coerce others into its empire with protection, aid, petrodollars, and so on. That we had a Five Eyes agreement with priority ovet other partnerships shows we don't trust most countries much at all.
Peace was a lie. It was more like a Cold War for politicians and corporations mixed with some military interventions in unstable (for them) areas. Then, U.S. wanted to re-balance the trade deals to favor us by doing to them a fraction of what they did to us. They're responding. It's heating up.
Who knows what will happen. I'm glad our trade deals might benefit our job market now even if it hurts for a while to reverse the past. Don't forget that we lost hundreds of thousands of jobs during prior trade deals. They hurt us for nothing but now we're hurting for maybe something.
I think you objectify a lot of "they" in this and a conversation about that will probably descend into ad hom rapidly. Suffice to say I agree with almost nothing you have said here, except it's true an awful lot of cheap production economies have shocking human rights abuses and low to no labour laws.
You appear quite bitter towards your own state as well as mine and everyone else's. There's a lot of "everybody lies" on the table. I do not think all bilateral trade is based on lies and I do not think there is only a zero sum winner and loser outcome on the table, Implicit in your response.