While Democrats and Progressive-Fascists continue to shriek at anything and everything Trump in their preparation for the up-coming election cycle, there is perhaps nothing more pathetic than the unlikely tag-team of Nancy Pelosi, Beto O’Rourke, and Bernie Sanders. Nevertheless, where Trump’s actions regarding Mexican tariffs are concerned, we are entertained by just that.
In response to President Trump’s successful, albeit tough, trade negotiations with the Mexican government, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (P-CA), US Sen. Bernie Sanders (S-VT), and Democrat candidate for President Beto O’Rourke have made it clear they don’t care for negotiating tactics that produce results beneficial to the American people and the security of our nation.
On Saturday, shortly after the Mexican government capitulated to unprecedented border security and immigration commitments sought by the Trump Administration, Pelosi said:
“President Trump undermined America’s preeminent leadership role in the world by recklessly threatening to impose tariffs on our close friend and neighbor to the south…Threats and temper tantrums are no way to negotiate foreign policy.”
In remarks made on ABC News’ This Week, O’Rourke, a political ladder climber who abandoned his constituents as a US Representative to fail at flipping the US Senate seat held by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), said:
“I think the President has completely overblown what he purports to have achieved. These are agreements that Mexico had already made and, in some cases, months ago…They might have accelerated the timetable, but by and large the President achieved nothing except to jeopardize the most important trading relationship that the United States of America has.”
To compliment Pelosi’s political opportunism and O’Rourke’s complete ignorance of the issues and the process, Bernie Sanders – a Socialist, who has amassed a great deal of wealth juxtaposed to his rhetoric, accused the President of crafting a “trade policy based on tweets”:
“I think what the world is tired of and what I am tired of is a president who consistently goes to war, verbal war with our allies, whether it is Mexico, whether it is Canada.”
Where to begin…
As tedious as it is to restate the obvious it is necessary in rebutting the ridiculousness of Mrs. Pelosi’s statement. Tariffs are tools leaders use to protect their country’s economies.
Many Presidents have used tariffs in conjunction with other policies to steer negotiations to a more beneficial outcome, these presidents include: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and now Donald Trump, among others. Some of these tariffs were protectionist in nature, but others – like President Trump’s – were proposed to affect pressure in a negotiation to achieve a goal wholly unrelated to protectionism; in this case, immediate action by the Mexican government on the issues of immigration and border security.
Historically, Mexico has promised a great many things when it comes to cooperation with immigration issues. Many of these promises were never enacted because the Mexican political class (now almost completely influenced by the several drug cartels in that nation, as well as the most influential drug cartels in Central and South America) understood that if they slow-walked the process they almost never had to execute the promises they made.
Those in the Mexican government – corrupt and not, understood full well that eventually, whether it was four years or eight, the Mexican government would necessarily face negotiations with a new American administration and nuanced and/or different visions for the southern border. If a hard-talking US president were to be elected to office, all the Mexican government needed to do was slow-walk any promise until they ran out the clock.
This political reality was also understood by other nations around the world and realized in their policies toward the United States. An examination of trade and border policies held by Canada exhibits the same thinking as the Mexican government’s, albeit in a much more muted fashion. The same, where trade is concerned, can be said for China, the nations of Europe, and the many active trade partners of South America.
In Mr. Trump’s proposal of a tariff – a negotiation tactic that put teeth to tough talk, he forced the Mexican government to take action on their promises lest they feel real economic pain at home; pain that would assuredly be facilitated not only by the electorate, but also by their drug cartel masters.
So, contrary to Mrs. Pelosi’s politically opportunistic statement, “America’s preeminent leadership role” was strengthened, not weakened, by President Trump’s actions; strengthened by achieving positive results; positive results benefiting the American people, our country, and, in the end, the Mexican people.
And when Mr. O’Rourke says, “These are agreements that Mexico had already made and, in some cases, months ago,” he shows his blatant ignorance of both the political realities and the process.
Negotiating an agreement with Mexico on immigration and border security that benefits the United States is something many thought impossible. Remittance to Mexico by migrants employed in the United States ranks as a significant contributor to their GDP – even more so than oil. Legal and illegal migrants sent $33.7 billion to Mexico in 2018. So, it benefits the Mexican economy (and, therefore, the Mexican government) to shake hands over a signed piece of paper that promises action in the future, rather than in the present. To achieve the immediate implementation of those promises exists as a significant victory for the American people. To flip an Obama phrase: Donald Trump did just that.
As for Mr. Sanders’ weariness of the President’s negotiating tactics in the arena of trade, anyone would be hard-pressed to expect anything less from a fake Socialist who has come to understand the nuances of Alinskyism where the manipulation of the people is concerned. His three houses (a $575,000 four-bedroom lake-front vacation home on Lake Champlain, his upper-middle class house in Burlington, Vermont, and his row house in Washington DC) – combined with his millionaire status – prove his hypocrisy to Socialism, although his sycophants hardly care.
What the United States received in return for not implementing a tariff is stunning; a testimony to how valuable foreign nations view access to the American consumer market. The Mexican government has agreed to:
- Take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration, to include the deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border;
- Take decisive action to dismantle human smuggling and trafficking organizations as well as their illicit financial and transportation networks;
- Accept those crossing into the US over the Southern Border seeking asylum as they are rapidly returned to Mexico. There they will await the adjudication of their asylum claims and offered jobs, healthcare, and education;
- Continue discussions on irregular migrant flows and asylum issues;
- Strengthen bilateral cooperation, including information sharing and coordinated actions to better protect and secure our common border;
- Buy “large quantities of agricultural product from our great patriot farmers.”
In return for engaging in this joint effort, President Trump has dispensed with efforts to impose the proposed progressive tariff. The Mexican government capitulates on every point and the United States stands firm, ceding nothing at the negotiating table. There was no bullying; no selling out of the American people to appease the globalist elite. President Trump simply leveraged access to one of the chief strengths of the United States: our consumer-driven economy.
I would ask why Pelosi, Sanders, and Beto – as well as their Progressive-Fascist sycophantic followers – can’t understand the brilliance of this event, but then all three are political opportunists who have taken a knee at the altar of Socialism.
Capitalism, and the benefits thereof, are foreign to them.