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The French view of the DJT administration is that it is a rupture, an "historic rupture with immigration repression, aggressive trade policy, and undermining of federal and state institutions." This is far from the reality. In fact it is not a rupture, and far from that policy that DJT brought in the waning days of a tired cautious Obama administration that extended the war in Afghanistan long after it was clearly a failure from the Bush years. DJT called it common sense during his Inauguration speech waving his hands- so obvious, stay out of wars we have no purpose pursuing. Regain America's manufacturing base shipped out to China in the Clinton-Bush-Obama years 2000-2016 that helped the rise of China in phases of supply chain partner, competitor, adversary. French view Le Monde is that this is "aggressive trade policy," when in fact small towns across the US and France, and other industrialized EU nations, by losing their factory and industrial base to China have gone downhill losing jobs and standard of living. Tariffs and DJT policy was continued by Biden- there is no rupture. What French in Le Monde call "Immigration repression," is a policy of protecting border security including illegal drug and fentanyl flows and gang activity that was accepted by Biden and Biden-Republican Lankford legislation was agreed in 2024 to close the Border. There is no rupture from Biden on closing the Border.  With millions having crossed the Border illegally Republicans now have the support of Democratic Senators Gallego of Arizona and Fetterman of Pennsylvania in passing the Laken Riley Act in Congress to protect Americans and safeguard life in America.   ...

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The US needs good manufacturing jobs for the jobs and income that it brings into communities, and also because of the tax revenues from the companies making products in America that provide the basis for local governments to provide good public services in healthcare, education, and transportation. To say comparitive advantage that helped first Japanese and now Chinese manufacturers is real and how society gains is to deny some basic facts that are self evident from observation that contradict textbook ideas in economics. Comparitive Advantage is a textbook economics concept that says countries are proficient in what they make best and should specialize in that product. But it is a static concept that exists only in textbooks. If Japan in 1960, China in 1980 and India in 2000 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making steel and remained makers of lower end products such as footwear and textiles. If Japan in 1980, China in 2000, and India in 2020 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making semiconductors and remained makers of lower end products such as steel. A senior vice president of US Steel in the late 1960's even told this writer a graduate student at Northwestern in Chicago- as the US can make steel better than India or China let us keep making it for you. He and much of the business faculty at Northwestern also could not understand in 1970 why Airbus was being setup to compete with Boeing who by the concept of comparitive advantage should have had the whole market to itself for commercial aircraft . By this kind of thinking Airbus would not exist today because it did not have the lowest cost or the manufacturing technologies Boeing had through its vast manufacturing operation. America would be still the only one making aircraft in 2023 if textbook concepts ruled the day. By indirect methods such as hidden preferential arrangements, provision of inputs such as land, capital and labor, tax relief, the costs can be represented in a way that shows it is cheaper to manufacture overseas. The lack of a level playing field is what president Biden is correcting by doing what first Japan, then South Korea, then China and now India are doing since the 1960's. By 1974 in four years after its founding in 1970 Airbus came up with its first model the A-300 using advanced technologies. America will regain its leadership in the cost and manufacturing of many products through Biden policy and the efforts of American companies by 2030, and do this in a transformative way that will benefit the world as a whole.  It is an enormous error to say the US does not need good manufacturing jobs, that local governments do not need the tax revenues from manufacturing plants to build services for communities where manufacturing workers live, and the US does not need the manufacturing experience curve that leads to reduced costs. It is this loss of the manufacturing experience curve that is the most vital aspect for understanding the need for the US government to compete effectively with the governments of Asian countries to keep manufacturing healthy and strong at home. Economics experts ignorant of how important this science and engineering principle is fail to grasp this. Related to this is the idea of a virtuous cycle in manufacturing- whoever braves the hard years of moving up the learning and experience curve gets rewarded because once that country has mastered that skill it gets better an better as the technology advances- making it harder and harder to prevent a new monopoly in manufacturing by the country (Japan, China or Taiwan) that had the highest costs and the least advantage ten or 20 years earlier but just persevered through it all with the government's help to gain cost competitiveness. This part does not make it into the economics textbooks which are mostly theory and much of it outdated by the time they are written. Observation is the best teacher and guide as it is in science, to guide policy and action. Obsessive attachment to theory that ignores observation becomes the enemy of progress. Comparitive advantage is one concept that needs to be retired even from the textbooks. Overseas manufacturing then is a piece of the overall picture that fits into what is good for the US. Macroeconomic principles determine microeconomic outcomes as opposed to microeconomic principles with companies out on their own being forced to compete without a level playing field, or handing out technology for special status in a recipient country as some do putting the US at a macroeconomic disadvantage. This is also healthy for the recipient country overseas, as recrimination with loss of manufacturing jobs in the US inevitably leads to the kind of recrimination that does not serve either country well as in the case of China today, and worse still can lead to conflict, even war. After the egregious situation of loss of manufacturing communities across the US leading to destabilizing the social fabric, it is hard to see such thinking prevail about the US not needing manufacturing as a vital part of its social fabric and industrial strength. China, it can be said, would have developed, and developed well over the past two decades without overconcentration of US and EU manufacturing in China. Without aggravating the problems of climate change and contamination of air, land and water, and destabilizing the social fabric in the US hurting workers and communities across the US, if macroeconomic policy was made to manage this process in the US government without it being left entirely to individual companies to decide. Instead China faces today a difficult situation through events such as destabilizing the social fabric in the US (the Trump tariffs), advanced economies in G-7 resistance to sharing of technologies, the damage to its environment from microeconomic locally determined policy at individual companies, and the global effects of climate change from climate unsustainable levels of growth since 2000.  ...

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Mike Pence on DJT and the Republican Party in 2025. Mike Pence puts a score on the First 100 Days of the DJT administration. The WINS- The Border- Mike Pence says border crossings are down. Crossings were 140,000 in March 2024 under Biden, a year later they were 4000 or 3% of the previous crossings. A video of gangs was shown at the DJT rally in Warren, Michigan, the Linken Riley Act and other efforts to put spotlight on victims of crime- this is doing what even legislation would take time to produce results, putting into effect a democratic mandate and the rule of law, this is not arbitrary or by force. US military capabilities- Mike Pence points to the attention to defense, yet makes no mention of the US Navy. How can the US build when it has stopped building ships to the point that it takes 6-7 years to build simple frigates in the US by European companies, when 55% of shipbuilding is done in China with ships built in 1-2 years. How is the US without restoring its industrial base going to build its Navy? This is a question Mike Pence, the Conservatives in the Republican Party have to answer. Or if they do not take on this question are they using a playbook that is obsolete, was obsolete for a decade, and is now dangerous as if this opportunity to rebuild is not taken USA may lose its leadership in the world. Foreign Investment coupled with US and US Government investment- Mike Pence and Conservatives in the Republican Party, Wall Street interests say the US is losing foreign investment through its tariffs program, and faults it for targeting Europe, Canada, India, America's allies. DJT includes these countries because it makes it easier to come to an agreement with China that offers to abide by the original rules of fair trade when it is not singled out. It is to convey beyond a doubt to China that the US intends to play fair and expects the same from China as one of China's friends throughout its struggle with British and Japanese imperialism and colonialism. In this Wall Street fails to understand what happened to China, the history of Gen. Joe Stilwell in China in fighting the Japanese in China 1920-1945 A fact check shows Mike Pence and Wall Street are not right, foreign investment as shown on the White House site is about $5 trillion in commitments, it includes a commitment by Korean, Japanese and European, America's own companies to invest in American manpower and jobs, in American communities across 51 states.   ...

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On major issues- her pledge to sign into law the Lankford Biden bipartisan Immigration and Border Bill after Trump blocked it in Congress for electoral advantage,  Cost of Living going up under Trump with his tariff plan, on abortion restrictions, the BBC says what Harris says is True.  Lyrarc has done its own fact check with effort for broad understanding of how her vision differs from Trump's- "As a prosecutor, when I had a case, I charged it not in the name of the victim. But in the name of. “The People.” For a simple reason. In our system of justice, a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us." Every day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and said five words: “Kamala Harris, for the People.” And to be clear: My entire career, I have only had one client. The People This is True. It is also most revealing about this candidate regardless of sex, creed, color or race. It tells so much about this person and the influence that Gandhi and the struggles of India for independence have influenced her views on life through the influence of her mother and her grandfather who had great influence on her life and work- mother Shyamala Gopalan and P.V. Gopalan Shyamala's father a senior Indian Civil Service head for India's Department of Labor 1954 who lived and worked with the ideas an ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. On Immigration she makes a pledge to sign the Lankford Biden immigration law the first in four decades that closes the Border with Mexico and fixes asylum policy. "But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign. So he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security. Here is my pledge to you: As President, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed. And I will sign it into law." Trump blocked it for personal advantage at the elections to use this as an issue which has blocked a permanent solution. Confirming this is a month old interview in NYT by Republican Senator Lankford saying the legislation he drafted would have passed Congress in December 2023 and signed into law by Biden. It came up in Congress in February by this time Trump was made nominee of the party and he blocked it so that he could use the issue in an election. This says a lot about character and more than mere fact checks shifts focus on the characters of the two people running. Steve Kerr coach of the men's basketball Olympic team says decency humility, values and character, a clear authenticity are essential in a leader. People ask yourselves what you would have done in this situation, and what would Kamala have done, would she have blocked a bill that would permanently fix the Border and change US asylum policy?  Biden went on to do this by executive action bringing migrant flow numbers down to where they were under Trump and Obama, and more than that put together a bipartisan bill with Republican Senator Lankford that Kamala can now sign into law.    ...

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  “And 5 million manufacturing jobs were lost while racking up trade deficits of $19 trillion." The Washington Post does not deny this as false, and this is the crux of the point DJT has made what everyone with eyes to see has seen for 40 years. DJT sometimes exaggerates to make his point. False should mean the meaning is false not that a particular number 70% vs 50% for India's tariff on Harley Davidson motorcycles. It should also consider PM Modi's stand for India- to support the US position when it comes to American factories closing by the thousands and destroying not just it's manufacturing but also it's middle class, just as Gandhi would have done. That close is India's sentiment for the American people and the Republic, and the defense of its recovery as a manufacturing nation for its workers and families. DJT did not say that it is a poor country as the Washington Post says is "Trump's telling." As Greg Ip of the WSJ pointed out in 2024, it is that the US simply cannot sustain the blows to its workers and its manufacturing base from a $1 trillion deficit year after year with China. Before bringing economist's into the picture one has facts of what the devastation to American workers has done to communities across America. DJT said and most workers will stand by his words- "For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. American steelworkers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen. They really suffered gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream." Not a single report in the US and foreign media reports of Liberation Day Rose Garden speech by DJT on April 2, 2025, says that DJT said he would trust what he sees with his own eyes and experience for 40 years, and not economists who have turned their backs on American workers, turned to a UAW worker from Detroit and asked him to tell what he saw for 40 years.  "Brian, I’d like to have you come up here for a second. Okay? I just see him sitting. He’s been a fan of ours, and he understands this business a lot better than the economists, a lot better than anybody. Brian, say a few words, please. Would you?" And this what Brian a retired autoworker from Macomb Conty, Michigan saw for 40 years that economists refused to see in their economic theories- "I have watched my entire life, I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the Metro Detroit area close. There are now plants sitting idle. There are now plants that are underutilized, and Donald Trump’s policies are going to bring product back into those underutilized plants. There’s going to be new investment. There’s going to be new plants built."     ...

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The French refusal to make concessions on subsidies to farming for a new trade accord comes from cultural and emotional factors. Food is important in France, and farming and quality farm product is take quite seriously. One reason is the varied climate which is very conducive to different kinds of farming, dairy, cheese, grapes and wine, olives, wheat depending on the climate. Compared to US and Britain, France is serious farming country in an emotional and cultural sense, and different regions have their own best farming product. Historically also France has protected its farmers and farm products, both during the monarchy when farmers were seen as a conservative element and late nineteenth century with high tariff walls, and after the Second War when a common program to support farming was written into the founding treaty. Useful information: France has 26,000 local farmers markets vs 500 in the UK. The regional focus for farm products has a term: terroir. Farm unions are amazingly well organized and command widespread support, upto the point that a former trade minister says "the politicians are frightened." One could say farming is part of the French culture....

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US Trade Representative Lighthizer in the Report on China's Entry into WTO sees this as a mistake in the policy of president Clinton. Clinton has said that was a mistake. David Sacks raised this issue in a podcast with Larry Summers, an economist who was deputy to Robert Rubin and Deputy Treasury Secretary, then Treasury Secretary succeeding Rubin in 1999. Clinton on the advice of Rubin and Summers set up the framework for China to join the World Trade Organization without the safeguards and the setup that would prevent it using state capitalism and subisidies to build its own economy with exports, to ally with American corporations to support the outshoring of almost the entire industrial base of the US. Shocking as it sounds this has happened, had happened by 2016, when Donald Trump with the advice of USTR Lighthizer took the first steps to reverse this with Tariff policy, which was supported by president Biden, and continues in its new phase under DJT in 2025. Rubin and Summers had supported deregulation of financial markets and removal of the Glass Steagall Act by 1999. This was to led to the financial crisis of 2009 that was to be one of three body blows to the American working and middle class. The others China entering WTO without safeguards that led to deindustrializing US and loss of its manufacturing base, loss of 5 million jobs, tens of thousands of factories. And the third was the pandemic. “ . . .it seems clear that the United States erred in supporting China’s entry into the WTO on terms that have proven to be ineffective in securing China’s embrace of an open, market-oriented trade regime” 2017 USTR Report to Congress on China’s WTO ...

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Two weeks after his election Donald Trump says the U.S. will not join the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement during his term in office. Barack Obama took seven years to negotiate the trade agreement which was opposed by trade unions, the auto industry and was unpopular in the midwestern U.S. because of the impact of trade in hollowing out the manufacturing sector. Here Frank Sieren of the DW.com points out that the agreement was not really about trade, as most of the gains of trade had already been realized according to experts. It was part of the "pivot to Asia" to maintain American dominance in the region, says Sieren. After China pulled together some Asian and European countries into its trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the U.S. pushed for TPP as a counterweight to the China sponsored trade zone. China says it will try to integrate the countries in TPP into the trade zone it has sponsored. President Trump has said that the U.S. is better off negotiating agreements with each country and not getting into multilateral trade agreements. He fought the election campaign on the basis of the opposition to TPP and trade agreements that unfairly hurt American workers. This could have provided the 110,000 margin of victory in the states suffering from the hollowing out in manufacturing such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A similar hollowing out in Ontario favored Justin Trudeau's Liberals against the Conservatives in Canada's election. ...

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This article in the NYT explains why the loss of jobs particularly in the auto industry to Mexico, with the experience of NAFTA passed by president Bill Clinton, has caused widespread opposition to the TPP trade agreement proposed by president Obama. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in 2016 oppose the TPP.

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Gloomy spirits after Portman shifts to OMB Director and Susan Schwab takes over as Trade Representative. Doha Round stuck over negotiating points between Brazil, India and the EU and US over tariff reduction for agricultural exports from developing countries.

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Protests in Hannover, Germany, as U.S. president Obama visits the Hannover Trade Fair. Protesters oppose the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Treaty promoted by president Obama. A recent Bertelsmann Stiftung research institute poll shows larger rejection of the treaty in Germany than a mid-Feb. poll by German broadcaster ZDF showing about half of Germans opposed. Interviews with a dozen protesters show suspicion about large corporate interests, and fears that the talks are secretive, a sense that the interests of ordinary people would be neglected. Elections in the U.S. in 2016 have shown a surge in sentiment opposing trade agreements.

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Mr. Vanderhei of Politico leaves to form a rival political coverage site called Axios, which has funding from Comcast Universal. The result of a rift between Mr Albritton, the owner, and the CEO, Mr. Vanderhei, is that many executives are now leaving Politico, putting it into a crisis. 

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Immigration and drug flows became an explosive issue in the US by 2016, yet between 2016-2024 Venezuelan people outflows added up to 7.1 million migrants including about 1 million to the US, as Venezuela collapsed and Russia intervened to keep the regime.   None of this could have happened with major powers US Russian cooperation. The Monroe Doctrine of president Monroe, 1824, warned European powers to not restore colonial influence in the Americas. By 2024 Syria sent 14 million of its population to Europe, and Venezuela sent 7.7 million migrants to Colombia, Brazil, and the US, as their economies and democratic institutions collapsed. Missing was working cooperation with another military power Russia. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Western financial interests, failed to grasp the importance of US Russia cooperation and mutual respect. Obama denigrated Russia as insignificant because of its GDP.   Russia intervened in failing states but gained little, straining the good relations mutual respect from earlier periods of its history and interactions with the US.  DJT tariff on all importers of Venezuelan oil affect China to which Venezuela sent 55% of its oil exports over half a million barrels a day. It also affects India and other importers. These importers say experts, will shift to Russian crude preferring it to heavy oil from Venezuela. This is a sore point for Americans affected by violent crime from Venezuelan gang members reflected in recent election results. This also affects the sense of safety in American neighborhoods and in towns across America. The Linken Riley Act was passed in the US Congress as action on this issue. People in China, India, and in Europe, and some even in Silicon Valley in the US fail to grasp the way this has affected communities across the US when after decades of deindustrialization and shipping jobs overseas by American business, these communities are affected by a sense of lack of safety in their neighborhoods. There is also a failure to grasp the harm done by migration of 7.7 million people from Venezuela, almost a fourth of the country's population, because of mismanagement of the economy and crippling inflation, and the failure of democratic institutions to function effectively. A failure to grasp the extent of the economic and human disaster in Venezuela. DJT says- "Venezuela has been very hostile to the US and the Freedoms which we espouse...Venezuela has "purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals".    ...

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The TPP as negotiated by Nov. 2015 gives biologics drugs 8 years of protection. Senator Hatch of Utah and the pharmaceutical industry seek 12 years of protection to recoup costly investments in these drugs. Japan says the agreement would be difficult to renegotiate. There is opposition to extending it beyond 8 years in many TPP countries.

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Decades of investment in infrastructure and manufacturing have given China a strong grip on manufacturing. China's economy depends on exports with sluggish domestic demand. One economist in Hong Kong says Vietnam is the key, if tariffs are placed on Vietnam it will be tough he says, because Chinese goods enter the US from third countries.

In 2025 China's world trade is imbalanced to an extraordinarily large degree, hurting thriving manufacturing communities around the world, and depends on a concentration of port logistics, manufacturing and lack of fair trade practices, that allow $3.5 trillion in exports while taking in only $2.5 trillion in imports. By 2008 America was waking up to this, DJT actually flagged it a decade later, Biden realized this, in the second term what appears like a whirlwind 100 days is really action on many fronts that is coming one to two decades late. 

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The fears within Mexico's auto industry that the TPP will allow imports of cheap Chinese auto parts hurting its auto industry, and reversing years of gains made under NAFTA. Canada also has fears about the TPP for its auto industry. Japan uses China and Thailand as part of its supply chain. China is not part of the TPP. Add to this the UAW and Detroit's suspicion of TPP concessions to Japan. This has stalled U.S. negotiations with Japan on the TPP trade agreement in 2015.