Paul Ryan: Republican Congress Won’t Raise Tariffs

Well, here we go:

“House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday that Congress would not be raising taxes on companies that ship jobs over the border and sell their products in the United States.

Ryan said congressional Republicans would not rubber stamp the president-elect’s trade agenda and raise tariffs, as he’s repeatedly promised.

‘No, we’re not going to be raising tariffs,’ Ryan told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. …

Trump has been threatening ‘big’ border taxes on companies that defy his orders to keep jobs in the U.S.

The president-elect has said on numerous occasions that companies ignoring his demands will pay a steep price – a 35 percent tariff.

‘The U.S. is going to substantialy reduce taxes and regulations on businesses, but any business that leaves our country for another country, fires its employees, builds a new factory or plant in the other country, and then thinks it will sell its product back into the U.S without retribution or consequence, is WRONG!

‘There will be a tax on our soon to be strong border of 35% for these companies,’ Trump said in a series of Dec. 4 tweets. …”

Allahpundit is expecting fireworks.

Paul Ryan is excited about pushing his agenda through Congress and having Trump sign off on it: repealing Obamacare, tax cuts, the REINS Act, deregulating Wall Street, condemning the UN for being too critical of Israel and working with John McCain and Lindsey Graham to pass new sanctions on Russia. Congressional Republicans have already plunged head first into healthcare which is their top legislative priority.

Remember all the talk during the campaign about rotten free trade deals, globalists who were destroying the working class and how tariffs which would stop offshoring? Paul Ryan plans … to do nothing about any of that. Instead, the solution is to pass a bunch of things which will make the US Chamber of Commerce very happy, which will do absolutely nothing to stop the flow of jobs to low-tax, low-wage, low-regulation Third World countries. There’s nothing the Paul Ryan Congress can do to reach parity with China or other Third World countries in a global race to the bottom in the labor market.

Trump’s choice of Robert Lighthizer suggests he is serious about his trade agenda:

“WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday named as his chief trade negotiator a Washington lawyer who has long advocated protectionist policies, the latest sign that Mr. Trump intends to fulfill his campaign promise to get tough with China, Mexico and other trading partners. …

But some Democrats are signaling a readiness to support Mr. Trump. Nine House Democrats held a news conference Tuesday with the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, Richard Trumka, to urge renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.

“We wanted him to know that we’ll work with him on doing that,” Mr. Trumka said. “I don’t think he has enough Republican support to do it, and rewriting the rules of trade is a necessary first step in righting the economy for working people.” …

“Those who say U.S.T.R. will be subordinated to other agencies are mistaken,” said Alan Wolff, another former senior American trade official who was the steel industry’s co-counsel on trade with Mr. Lighthizer for nearly 20 years, citing Mr. Lighthizer’s encyclopedic knowledge of trade law. “He’ll be a dominant figure on trade, in harmony with Wilbur Ross and Navarro.” …

Trade opponents on the left and the right, meanwhile, are hoping Mr. Trump means to break with several decades of pro-trade policy.

“There’s going to be a war within the Trump administration on where they go with trade, and we’re hoping to energize the worker base he had to make sure they go in the right direction to benefit the American worker,” Mr. Trumka said. …”

In 2008, Lighthizer wrote an article for The New York Times called “Grand Old Protectionists.” Some Democrats and the AFL-CIO could have Trump’s back on free trade in a looming fight with Paul Ryan. Getcha popcorn ready.

Vox.com has an article on the history of Republican support for free-trade vs. tariffs

“A couple of years ago, free trade was seen as a key principle of the Republican Party. Then Donald Trump became the Republican nominee for president, and things got more complicated. …

The Republican Party today is the party of business, just as it was 150 years ago. But what it means to be pro-business has done a complete 180 over that period. It used to mean favoring protectionism. Now it means favoring free trade.

So while it’s true that the GOP was once the party of protectionism, it’s not going to be easy for Trump to bring the party back to its roots. If he tries to do so, he’ll be opposed not only by free market ideologues in the conservative movement but also by well-funded and powerful business groups that have prospered under today’s network of free trade agreements.”

It is not a bad article.

If you want to learn more about this issue, a great resource is Alfred E. Eckes, Jr.’s Opening America’s Market: U.S. Foreign Trade Policy Since 1776. I’ve also written reviews on Occidental Dissent of Pat Buchanan’s The Great Betrayal, Lou Dobbs’ Exporting America, Clyde Prestowitz’s The Betrayal of American Prosperity, Ha-Joon Chang’s Kicking Away The Ladder and Bad Samartians.

About Hunter Wallace 12390 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

38 Comments

  1. Trump has been making statements to the contrary. We saw the tweet yesterday where he threatened GM with tariffs.

    One tweet shut down Ryan and the GOP yesterday over the ethics committee. Trump has been backing Assange over the CIA pissing everyone off. He complimented Putin the other day which angered almost all of the GOP establishment.

    I gotta admit, Trump seems to be on the right track. The cabinet might not be great but his statements and tweets are.

    There is no doubt that they are going to fight Trump tooth and nail on populism but who will win? Right now I am betting on Trump if he chooses to fight which he appears to be doing.

    • The cabinet is better than any other cabinet we may have gotten (save perhaps Bernie on Wall Street).
      Most of the TrueCons are in positions no one cares about where Trump generally agrees with Republican orthodoxy (Education, Energy). You have to compromise.

      When it comes to guys like Puzder, Cohn, McMahon, Ross, Tillerson…He always said he was going to hire from the private sector. He’s done that. Now it just boils down to whether or not they are going to be following a Bannon/Miller agenda or a Ryan agenda. My money is on the former if they want to keep their positions.

      Kelly isn’t Kobach, but it sounds like Kobach might be getting his own special spot that doesn’t require congressional approval. And Kelly doesn’t sound all bad on immigration.

      The doom and gloom over the Cabinet has been overblown.

      • The tariff is a key issue for the American worker and securing higher wages and the business round table know it. That’s why they have their butt boy Ryan out there contradicting Trump.

        They just want Trump lowering corporate taxes and leaving it at that.

  2. Couple things:

    1. Where do Dems usually stand on tariffs? I would imagine that some would have to be for them right?

    2. We need to start compiling a list of who to vote for in 2018 to weaken Ryan’s agenda and strengthen Trump’s.

    • 1. Dems have traditionally been more divided. The Obamas and Clintons have been strong supporters of free trade, but until very recently opposition to globalization and free trade was more typically found on the Left. I want to say most Dems voted against TPA.

      2. That can be done. It would be a good project.

    • Lew, Trump always has his lash ready for those who stand in his way.

      That’s why we supported him ; he’s Old Hickory come back to life…

  3. I’m repeating myself ad naseum at this point, but I’m going to say again. Paul Ryan really is the most evil, despicable bastard up there by a mile, in a place with a lot of outright evil people.

  4. Don’t you think ideologies that explicitly aggravate class divisions would cause problems? Obviously some neutrality on race is needed to push this strategy, but it doesn’t mean you have to support Franz Boas.

    In fact if you explicitly brought class struggle into your ideology more, you’d have a counterbalance on the type of leftists who write about exterminating the White race.

  5. They fear the Trump tweet. Can you imagine the kind of shit storm a Trump tweet and his 18 million followers can create??

  6. Ryan needs to have an accident. Didn’t Trump have to work with the Mob, in order to get things done to build, in NY and NJ? Hhhmmmm…..

    • Unfortunately, Miss Denise, Ryan could go, and he would only be replacet by more of the same – just like Boehner before him.

      No, M’am – what Trump is going to have to do is a wage a fully publick political war against Free-Trade ideas, and, in particular, those who hold them.

      In this war, he will find a willing ally in the supporters of Bernie Sanders, and that, combined with the new Trump constituency, will win the day.

      That said, I wonder how to set my timer for how long it is that Speaker Ryan and President Trump cannot stand the sight of each other.

      Let’s see : how about 3 months?

  7. Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain blocked President-elect Donald J. Trump’s first pick for Secretary of Homeland Security Kris Kobach over Kobach’s opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens, according to a highly-placed source familiar with the transition process.

    The source told GotNews that anti-immigration Kansas Secretary of State Kris
    Looks like Trump will face his toughest challenges from the same bunch of rats.

    Hunter Wallace Retweeted
    Ulfric ?@Ulfric74
    @occdissent

    BREAKING: @SenJohnMcCain & @LindseyGrahamSC BLOCKED @realDonaldTrump’s 1st DHS Pick @KrisKobach1787 Over Amnesty

    http://gotnews.com/breaking-senjohnmccain-lindseygrahamsc-blocked-realdonaldtrumps-1st-dhs-pick-kriskobach1787-amnesty/

    Kobach was Trump’s first pick for the head of the Department of Homeland Security, but that he eventually had to go with General John Kelly for the position because Graham and McCain swore to block Kobach’s confirmation in the Senate.

    Graham and McCain reportedly blocked Kobach over his strict opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens.

    Kobach’s hardcore plans were previously leaked and reported here on GotNews as including building a wall “rapid[ly]”, deporting a “record number” of illegal aliens, and ending election fraud.

    President-elect Donald J. Trump has also privately said that endorsing John McCain for re-election in the Senate was his “biggest regret”, as GotNews exclusively reported earlier today. It’s unclear if McCain’s efforts to block Kobach factored into Trump’s assessment.

    Although Kobach may not head the DHS, reports say he may yet join the Trump administration as President Trump’s “immigration czar.”

  8. Sorry Paul, but we will have to remove your lips from the asses of Le Happy Merchant globalists that are screwing our country. If it’s not the Jews directly than it is subversive shills like Ryan. He must be forgetting that 4 letter word Trump can use: VETO!

    All white nationalist groups show get together and make sure Ryan, Graham and McCain are “Never again” elected to ANY office.

  9. President Trump needs to end his lovefest and somehow rid us of Paul Ryan, Mc Connell, Mccain, grahamn and other obstructionists. And if he hopes to get the credibility back for the USA clinton needs to go on trial and face prison time and obama needs to stand for treason and face punishment

  10. The Cuckservative Liberals are great for creating jobs in Communist China and Mexico. The establishment goons have destroyed the American economy. Good seeing the American people voting in a economic populist direction. WPWW !

  11. All these companies suddenly looking to manufacture in the USA is very concerning to Ryan and must be stopped.

  12. Donald J. Trump ?@realDonaldTrump
    Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax.

  13. Cuck Ryan strikes again. Who votes for this guy, anyway? Though I suppose if you have $10 million to spend on a House primary, you can do a lot…

  14. Ryan isn’t to be trusted. He is two faced and is a cuck. He’ll try to undermine Trump at every chance he gets.

Comments are closed.