Neighborhood Ministries

https://www.udemy.com/course/economics-102/?referralCode=A64E23B9A6657623E1D8

Many people see the price increases resulting from the new tariffs, and don’t bother to understand the reasons behind them.  The United States prospered after World War II because the manufacturing plants in Europe were destroyed and the United States was supplying the manufacturing products to the world with no competition. In addition, many of the homes and businesses were destroyed so they needed a lot to rebuild. Our manufacturing was not destroyed in the  war and had greatly expanded to produce a lot of the war materials for the Allies. They were quickly converted to peacetime production. Without competition, unions forced pay increases which greatly increased the cost of goods and companies did not bother to modernize equipment to cut production costs. With the newfound prosperity, Americans could afford to pay the higher prices. When Europe began to rebuild its manufacturing, they built the most modern facilities.  Their  wages were far lower and with new cost saving equipment, they were able to sell far below our cost. In addition, Europe imposed tariffs on goods from the United States to protect their manufacturers from American competition, but the United States did not impose tariffs in return. As a result, we lost the overseas sales and our retailers began importing goods from overseas because they were cheaper than American made goods. It destroyed our manufacturing and forced many manufacturers to move their plants overseas where they could produce goods cheaper.  It not only cost us jobs, it also reduced the money received from taxes on the goods produced. In addition, it made us dependent on foreign manufacturers which was evident after 9-11 and after Covid when our borders were sealed cutting off goods from other countries, because our manufacturers were not ready to produce what we needed. By President Trump imposing tariffs on other countries, he increased the cost of goods from overseas so our manufactures could compete.  It also forced other countries to reduce their tariffs on our goods. More important, it encouraged manufacturers to move their plants back to the U.S bringing the jobs and the money from taxes with them. It will raise prices some because we will no longer have low cost foreign goods available but that should have been done a long time ago before we became addicted to low cost foreign goods. It boils down to which you want more, a job, or low cost foreign goods you can’t afford.

Critics accuse President Trump of causing price increases by instituting tariffs. They forget  some critical things. President Biden raided the treasury in the last three months of his term to give out trillions of dollars, which were not in the budget. A lot of those funds were untraceable. The huge government spending further fueled the inflation beyond that from his previous spending.  In addition, it added a tremendous amount to the national debt. It was designed to break the bank and force the country into a depression which they would blame on President Trump. He also added a large number of new workers which vastly increased the cost of government. Many of those workers were assigned to  spy on and harass those who opposed their socialist policies. We have no record of any previous President going so far to ensure that his successor failed.  To avoid a financial meltdown, President Trump had no choice but to make drastic cuts in spending to offset the trillions of dollars that President Biden spent. In addition, he had to lay off many of the workers that President Biden hired since they served the Democrat party and not the country.

It is apparent that the Democrat politicians are following a pattern they have followed since President Trump first took office. It you want to prevent people from investigating your crimes, you blame your opponent of committing them. When suspicions began to leak of Clinton’s dealings with the Russians, she set up the fake reports to implement Trump and they pushed an investigation of him based on the fake report. The media picked up the accusations and worked to turn voters against Trump to insure a Democrat victory, however, it failed. The Democrats in Congress then pushed the impeachment trial and continued it despite the lack of any supporting evidence. They abruptly ended the investigation when it revealed that Clinton had created the documents to prevent investigation into her dealings with the Russians. They then pushed another impeachment trial blaming Trump for Jan 6 and suppressed evidence showing Trump tried to prevent it by calling for National Guard troops to protect the capital but Nancy Pelosi rejected the request, leaving the capital unprotected. They continued to claim Trump was illegally nullifying the executive orders that Obama created when Obama had no  authority to make them and Trump was just removing them from the books. In fact many of Obama’s executive orders openly violated federal law. He sent a lot of money to Planned Parenthood to spread abortions here and overseas in spite of federal laws which prohibited federal funds from supporting abortion both here and abroad. In addition, they now cry that Trump is planning to destroy Medicare and Social Security in spite of the fact that Biden made severe cuts to Medicaid payments shortly before leaving office that were not set to take effect until after Trump took office so they could blame the cuts on him. As a result, many doctors have dropped Medicare and no longer accept it, leaving many Seniors to pay out of pocket. Biden also removed barriers to those eligible for both federal pension and Social Security allowing a small number to double dip into both funds further threatening future payments to all recipients. It is time that the real criminals are held accountable.

President Trump is not just throwing his weight around, he knows the power of money in diplomacy. When he threatens a country with a 25% tariff on their goods, it is not an idle threat.  Only 2% or less of our economy depends on goods from either Canada or Mexico but 25% of the economies of both Canada and Mexico depend on goods from the United States. While it will cause a rise in prices of some goods in the United States, it could wreck the economies of Canada and Mexico. That was evident when Mexico immediately sent soldiers to their borders to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States when President Trump ordered them to do so or face high tariffs. The Presidents of both Canada and Mexico immediately flew to Washington to promise lowering their own tariffs if President Trump did not impose the tariffs. Countries in Europe have been just as quick to try to negotiate lower tariffs on US goods. China has already declared an economic emergency as their economy crashed due to the tariffs, which cut off the flow of cheap goods to the US. Some countries have tariffs on American goods of 50% or higher, so 25% is not unreasonable. In addition, American manufacturers have begun moving plants back to the United States to avoid the tariffs bringing jobs back to the US and reducing the outflow of cash to other countries. By threatening to place tariffs on imports, President Trump is forcing those countries to cut tariffs they are imposing on our goods. He is leveling the playing field so we can compete on the world market.

Many people think that President Trump is recklessly using tariffs to protect American jobs but do not realize that money talks. After World War II, America dominated the manufacturing market. Factories throughout Europe, in both Allied and Axis countries were devastated by the war but factories in America were untouched. America had produced most of the war materials for the Allies and quickly switched to producing domestic goods. Money flowed into the US to purchase goods not available in Europe and Americans prospered. As Europe recovered, they imposed high tariffs on American goods to protect their own manufacturers and demand for American goods dropped. For many years the United States has been very lenient in international trade. We have opened our borders to cheap foreign goods by keeping tariffs very low or non-existent. Yet other countries have imposed high tariffs which have discouraged their citizens from purchasing American goods. As a result,  it resulted in the decline of American manufacturing which could not compete with the cheaper foreign goods, resulting in money and jobs flowing out of America. In addition, our manufacturers moved plants and jobs to Mexico where they could produce products cheaper and ship the products back to the US to sell. Personal and national debt has mounted as we have shifted from high paying manufacturing jobs to low paying service jobs. It also poses a threat in an emergency. We saw how dangerous that was when the planes hit the twin towers and later when Covid hit and we closed our borders. We were heavily dependent on foreign goods and suddenly they weren’t available. After Covid, we could not get medicine and medical equipment which we had depended on China to supply, since it was no longer produced here.