I am requesting a classified briefing on the Natanz incident. It should go without saying that there is no viable military path to divorcing Iran from a nuclear weapon. Only a diplomatic path. And now, the diplomatic road is more difficult.
And in the end I would say that the US will probably... lose? I feel like the Taliban (that is to say, local relatively hardline Pashtun militias under an umbrella) will go back to controlling their territories, as they already do in many places
I wonder what will happen post? Reprisals almost certainly, but then what? Will we see another Afghan Civil War? And then maybe a period of relative peace?
Not to be a pedant but I don’t know what to call the last 18+ years but a civil war, so I’d say we see a continuation of an ongoing civil war if there’s no peace deal along with the pullout. For a new civil war to start, the old one would need to have stopped at some point.
I'd agree although there are levels. The speaker of the Afghanistan Parliament, Rahman Rahmani, has said this could lead to civil war. So I do think that while the current situation is terrible... the situation can get a lot lot worse
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
The public sentiment is what killed it in the end. And while people were thinking it wouldn't matter, those weren't the people talking to the public. That's not the messaging the public was getting about TPP.
And in the end I would say that the US will probably... lose? I feel like the Taliban (that is to say, local relatively hardline Pashtun militias under an umbrella) will go back to controlling their territories, as they already do in many places
I wonder what will happen post? Reprisals almost certainly, but then what? Will we see another Afghan Civil War? And then maybe a period of relative peace?
Not to be a pedant but I don’t know what to call the last 18+ years but a civil war, so I’d say we see a continuation of an ongoing civil war if there’s no peace deal along with the pullout. For a new civil war to start, the old one would need to have stopped at some point.
I agree and would go so far to as to say that Afghanistan has been in the midst of a civil war since the 1978 Saur Revolution. You could probably even stretch that to the overthrow of Shah, but the shortlived Republic of Afghanistan was relatively stable so I'd probably stick to 1978.
Things may have cooled a bit at points and you could almost say they were stable when it was just skirmishes between the Taliban and Northern Alliance. But you can certainly trace the mess in Afghanistan back to the USSR backing the PDPA assassination of Khan.
I am requesting a classified briefing on the Natanz incident. It should go without saying that there is no viable military path to divorcing Iran from a nuclear weapon. Only a diplomatic path. And now, the diplomatic road is more difficult.
The US denied involvement, despite our role in the original Stuxnet attack. If I had to say, I’d guess this was a purely Israeli move meant to complicate US negotiations with Iran, given the timing.
The wrinkle in that line of thought is that some policy folks think the original Stuxnet sabotage was an important precursor to getting the original JCPOA in place by limiting Iran’s technological advancements while sanctions were in place. By that logic, this might change Iran’s calculus in the US’s favor - adding additional years to any long-term nuclear ambitions and the specter of never reaching that goal so long as Israel is willing to regularly destroy your nuclear infrastructure.
Maybe a bigger wrinkle is that, from my understanding, the Stuxnet approach was essentially a bomb with an unknown length of fuse. If this attack was similar, it’s possible that Iran spinning up new technology to emphasize their nuclear capacity during negotiations was the trigger for activating the sabotage, and the timing isn’t really any sort of tell on anybody’s part.
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
The TPP also didn't completely die. The countries negotiating it ended up signing the CPTPP which was largely the same agreement, minus a bunch of onerous IP and governmental procurement provisions that the USA had been insisting on. Also, America is still free to join the trade agreement. As someone who lives in one of the countries that signed it, the agreement that we ended up with is largely superior to the TPP. If America's goal was to create an alliance against Chinese interests and garner goodwill among the signatories, then the way they went about it with a very strong push to enshrine extremely restrictive American IP and DRM laws/regulations into the agreement was probably not the right approach to take. It looked a lot more like America using their position to extract the maximum benefit out of the deal that they could. This isn't new to America, as you can see the same pattern repeated multiple times (pre-WWII America trade deals with Japan are something I'm reminded of).
I am requesting a classified briefing on the Natanz incident. It should go without saying that there is no viable military path to divorcing Iran from a nuclear weapon. Only a diplomatic path. And now, the diplomatic road is more difficult.
The US denied involvement, despite our role in the original Stuxnet attack. If I had to say, I’d guess this was a purely Israeli move meant to complicate US negotiations with Iran, given the timing.
The wrinkle in that line of thought is that some policy folks think the original Stuxnet sabotage was an important precursor to getting the original JCPOA in place by limiting Iran’s technological advancements while sanctions were in place. By that logic, this might change Iran’s calculus in the US’s favor - adding additional years to any long-term nuclear ambitions and the specter of never reaching that goal so long as Israel is willing to regularly destroy your nuclear infrastructure.
Maybe a bigger wrinkle is that, from my understanding, the Stuxnet approach was essentially a bomb with an unknown length of fuse. If this attack was similar, it’s possible that Iran spinning up new technology to emphasize their nuclear capacity during negotiations was the trigger for activating the sabotage, and the timing isn’t really any sort of tell on anybody’s part.
If Israel was the sole state actor behind the attack then the only point of the attack is to drive another wedge between the US and Iran.
Israel doesn't overly care if Iran has a bomb, they have their own and the entity most likely to build or be provided one after Iran is SA who Israel is moving closer towards.
But the US moving towards Iran weakens their position long term by potentially losing whats still the most powerful benefactor on the planet (and the most sympathetic of the big 3).
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I am requesting a classified briefing on the Natanz incident. It should go without saying that there is no viable military path to divorcing Iran from a nuclear weapon. Only a diplomatic path. And now, the diplomatic road is more difficult.
The US denied involvement, despite our role in the original Stuxnet attack. If I had to say, I’d guess this was a purely Israeli move meant to complicate US negotiations with Iran, given the timing.
The wrinkle in that line of thought is that some policy folks think the original Stuxnet sabotage was an important precursor to getting the original JCPOA in place by limiting Iran’s technological advancements while sanctions were in place. By that logic, this might change Iran’s calculus in the US’s favor - adding additional years to any long-term nuclear ambitions and the specter of never reaching that goal so long as Israel is willing to regularly destroy your nuclear infrastructure.
Maybe a bigger wrinkle is that, from my understanding, the Stuxnet approach was essentially a bomb with an unknown length of fuse. If this attack was similar, it’s possible that Iran spinning up new technology to emphasize their nuclear capacity during negotiations was the trigger for activating the sabotage, and the timing isn’t really any sort of tell on anybody’s part.
If Israel was the sole state actor behind the attack then the only point of the attack is to drive another wedge between the US and Iran.
Israel doesn't overly care if Iran has a bomb, they have their own and the entity most likely to build or be provided one after Iran is SA who Israel is moving closer towards.
But the US moving towards Iran weakens their position long term by potentially losing whats still the most powerful benefactor on the planet (and the most sympathetic of the big 3).
Not to mention Bibi's personal motivation of staying out of the hoosegow.
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
Would you say policy makers have done a good job of of creating conditions for politically sustainable trade policy? Like ultimately, do you see this is a public failure or a policy failure? I keep seeing these lamentations for TPP and it always reads like the former.
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
Would you say policy makers have done a good job of of creating conditions for politically sustainable trade policy? Like ultimately, do you see this is a public failure or a policy failure? I keep seeing these lamentations for TPP and it always reads like the former.
Policy makers have both bungled sustainable trade policy and made strides to change trade policy to be more sustainable. There isn't a lot practice for this and thus mistakes are to be understood. At the same time there is a policy maker failure to educate the public on what is entailed in trade treaties and how they affect jobs and supply lines.
Trade treaties like most diplomacy are complicated bureaucracy not really good news or stories. The people they directly affect will learn especially if they are exporting as for example an increased quota of non-tariff beef is going to be a bigger money maker for ranchers and thus helps with planning on sales, building out contracts, and forecasting.
In fact we saw the fallout of what unplanned and undisclosed trade actions can do under Trump when tariffs were put in place and numerous US farm industries lost multiyear contracts with China that took years or even a decade to negotiate leaving a giant hole in their cash flow and how they planned for crops.
I think there is a bit though on the public as we tend to not take interest in such things unless it is to blame it, rightfully or not, for a loss of wage or jobs or if it becomes a political football. When one thing as a democracy that isn't expressed by the public is interest in how the government runs day to day unless it is a scandal and thus all those comment periods and public opinion request don't actually do anything.
Which includes things such trade negotiations where folks can put in their voice via representatives or public comment.
Of course in the TPP's case, which I said wasn't perfect by any stretch, it was killed by limited education and the riling up of public sentiment by both sides during a presidential election which led to the US pulling out of a multi-year negotiation leaving the US a weaker hand in a region than we could have had. And though some shit the US wanted in it as Caedwyr was removed so was some of the labor protections and such as many of the other nations didn't want deal with it or press for those types of actions in the treaty.
So back to the original question, the US pulling out of the TPP was a public failure for not understanding it wasn't a NAFTA but for the Pacific and a policy maker failure for them not educating the public about what it was about and what effects it could have positive and negative.
Tbh a big issue with TPP was just that they kept the language secret for so long; I guess that might have been important for the negotiators but it gave skeptics a ton of time to create more of a negative impression than it deserved (the IP provisions were obviously shit but I don’t think the u.s. public particularly cares about those issues)
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Didn’t TPP give corporations a lot more power to pull the kind of shit we’ve seen tobacco companies pull against various South Pacific nations trying to regulate smoking and tobacco sales
The shit where they go no you can’t pass these laws because this trade treaty says we get leeway on our shitty marketing that other nations banned decades ago. Also you can’t make us out health warnings on our shit either.
And though some shit the US wanted in it as Caedwyr was removed so was some of the labor protections and such as many of the other nations didn't want deal with it or press for those types of actions in the treaty.
There's one clause of labor protection that's suspended, and it's mostly about government procurement. All the stuff that's actually about protecting workers is still there.
Didn’t TPP give corporations a lot more power to pull the kind of shit we’ve seen tobacco companies pull against various South Pacific nations trying to regulate smoking and tobacco sales
The shit where they go no you can’t pass these laws because this trade treaty says we get leeway on our shitty marketing that other nations banned decades ago. Also you can’t make us out health warnings on our shit either.
Left wing objections were largely rooted in labor and IP concerns yeah
I'm not sure that the economic system is especially impactful on the matter - it's about who is making decisions and who can affect who is in power. If the people in power over your society are comfortable with putting people into concentration camps it doesn't especially matter how labor is organized.
Technically how your labor is organized IS a matter of who gets to make decisions and holds power
Decentralize ownership so that the economy isn’t being driven by the whims of a handful of billionaires who literally own everything the nation depends on and get to buy seats and legislation that preserve and grow their personal power I imagine you start seeing stronger change in the direction of both domestic and foreign policy
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
Would you say policy makers have done a good job of of creating conditions for politically sustainable trade policy? Like ultimately, do you see this is a public failure or a policy failure? I keep seeing these lamentations for TPP and it always reads like the former.
The TPP was a big deal to me, and I think it's a bit of both. There were ways to do it without making it a full on trade policy deal -- the Obama Admin could've done multiple rounds of negotiating deals that separated out trade policy from China containment, but wanted to do both to save time (it was 2015 and they wanted it done before leaving office).
I wonder how much of the last 20 years of American politics can be traced back to the damage NAFTA did and the government's failure to reckon with it.
Honestly? Probably not a whole lot. The research I've seen showed minimal impact, both negatively and positively, on the U.S. economy directly from NAFTA.
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
Would you say policy makers have done a good job of of creating conditions for politically sustainable trade policy? Like ultimately, do you see this is a public failure or a policy failure? I keep seeing these lamentations for TPP and it always reads like the former.
The TPP was a big deal to me, and I think it's a bit of both. There were ways to do it without making it a full on trade policy deal -- the Obama Admin could've done multiple rounds of negotiating deals that separated out trade policy from China containment, but wanted to do both to save time (it was 2015 and they wanted it done before leaving office).
I wonder how much of the last 20 years of American politics can be traced back to the damage NAFTA did and the government's failure to reckon with it.
Honestly? Probably not a whole lot. The research I've seen showed minimal impact, both negatively and positively, on the U.S. economy directly from NAFTA.
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
Would you say policy makers have done a good job of of creating conditions for politically sustainable trade policy? Like ultimately, do you see this is a public failure or a policy failure? I keep seeing these lamentations for TPP and it always reads like the former.
The TPP was a big deal to me, and I think it's a bit of both. There were ways to do it without making it a full on trade policy deal -- the Obama Admin could've done multiple rounds of negotiating deals that separated out trade policy from China containment, but wanted to do both to save time (it was 2015 and they wanted it done before leaving office).
I wonder how much of the last 20 years of American politics can be traced back to the damage NAFTA did and the government's failure to reckon with it.
Honestly? Probably not a whole lot. The research I've seen showed minimal impact, both negatively and positively, on the U.S. economy directly from NAFTA.
It's been a popular target of blame though.
Oh sure, plenty of people attribute it with economic losses -- doesn't mean the actual economic changes were impactful though
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
Would you say policy makers have done a good job of of creating conditions for politically sustainable trade policy? Like ultimately, do you see this is a public failure or a policy failure? I keep seeing these lamentations for TPP and it always reads like the former.
The TPP was a big deal to me, and I think it's a bit of both. There were ways to do it without making it a full on trade policy deal -- the Obama Admin could've done multiple rounds of negotiating deals that separated out trade policy from China containment, but wanted to do both to save time (it was 2015 and they wanted it done before leaving office).
I wonder how much of the last 20 years of American politics can be traced back to the damage NAFTA did and the government's failure to reckon with it.
Honestly? Probably not a whole lot. The research I've seen showed minimal impact, both negatively and positively, on the U.S. economy directly from NAFTA.
It's been a popular target of blame though.
Oh sure, plenty of people attribute it with economic losses -- doesn't mean the actual economic changes were impactful though
I was gonna say, the fallout of NAFTA is more in the perception of trade then in actual effects afaik. It's biggest impact politically was as a populist boogeyman.
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
It's correlated with the loss of light industry in Canada and the US, so it's a convenient scapegoat for wealth concentration.
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
It destroyed the corn market in Mexico since they had to stop subsidizeing it but the US never did so millions of farmers became unemployed and had to migrate to the us to look for work
It was a pretty shitty deal for Mexico
NAFTA expanded the maquiladora program by removing tariffs.8 This program allows United States-owned companies to employ Mexican workers near the border.9 They cheaply assemble products for export back into the United States. The program grew to employ 30% of Mexico's labor force. These worksites were known for abusing worker rights, with reports of workdays lasting 12 hours or more and women being subjected to pregnancy test when they applied for jobs.
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
Except NAFTA in actuality didn't really do any of that. Most outsourcing went to non-NAFTA countries. Which is why NAFTA is much more of a boogeyman
This is potentially a naive question, but my understanding is that the cheapest manufacturers have already begun shifting out of China and towards other regions due to rising labor costs. If accurate, has that increase in labor cost corresponded with any improvement in worker safety and compensation?
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
Except NAFTA in actuality didn't really do any of that. Most outsourcing went to non-NAFTA countries. Which is why NAFTA is much more of a boogeyman
I should note that I meant that about economic globalism in general.
The West has never had to really reckon with its history of exploitation as colonists and as it becomes untenable to grow wealth domestically thanks to things like labor protections or living wages, continues to travel abroad to exploit cheap sources of labor instead of creating actual humane and sustainable conditions.
Then they’ll talk, in their most white savior voice possible, about how their jibs are creating new opportunities and wealth abroad when they’re really just trying to find new folks who they think can’t fight back for basic safety or good wages
As for NAFTA itself even that isn’t without its crushing of the less well off like the already cited issues with Mexican agriculture basically getting demolished
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
Except NAFTA in actuality didn't really do any of that. Most outsourcing went to non-NAFTA countries. Which is why NAFTA is much more of a boogeyman
I should note that I meant that about economic globalism in general.
The West has never had to really reckon with its history of exploitation as colonists and as it becomes untenable to grow wealth domestically thanks to things like labor protections or living wages, continues to travel abroad to exploit cheap sources of labor instead of creating actual humane and sustainable conditions.
Then they’ll talk, in their most white savior voice possible, about how their jibs are creating new opportunities and wealth abroad when they’re really just trying to find new folks who they think can’t fight back for basic safety or good wages
As for NAFTA itself even that isn’t without its crushing of the less well off like the already cited issues with Mexican agriculture basically getting demolished
But you'll note that that wasn't American jobs getting crushed. So when Americans talk about how NAFTA cost them jobs, those people are full of more s*** than the average septic tank.
Now if Mexicans were not crazy about it that would make sense they got screwed.
Canada's always worried about having to take our crazy over subsidized milk. So if they weren't crazy about NAFTA that would make sense
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
Except NAFTA in actuality didn't really do any of that. Most outsourcing went to non-NAFTA countries. Which is why NAFTA is much more of a boogeyman
NAFTA basically just happens to coincide with part of a period where other things were happening that made people mad. Before NAFTA was the boogeyman, it was the japanese.
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
Except NAFTA in actuality didn't really do any of that. Most outsourcing went to non-NAFTA countries. Which is why NAFTA is much more of a boogeyman
NAFTA basically just happens to coincide with part of a period where other things were happening that made people made. Before NAFTA was the boogeyman, it was the japanese.
One that got trashed due to public sentiment and a bit of misinformation was actually Trans-Pacific Partnership where we were building an economic community of shared rules and goals to counter China's regional clout. This included everything from union and worker protections to helping mitigate dumping into the international system and closer connections between East Asia and SE Asia to help produce an economic ring around China. Even after the US pulled out many of the countries involved finalized a treaty that was much less protective of the environment and workers but still to help provide themselves a buffer verse China but the US was not involved.
My memory of the attempt to adopt TPP is that public sentiment was thought to be largely irrelevant. Not talking about you Mazz, I think you would be capable of making a case for it, but the general attitude that I got was something like "it doesn't really matter what you or anyone else thinks, this thing will get passed during a lame duck, deal with it." If that's your foundation of how how you're gonna get what you want, I can't muster up that much sympathy for you when you fail.
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
I want to say a major gripe people had the TPP was with IP stuff, but IMO, that was putting the cart before the horse, when we factor in the labor improvements because TPP did tackle some of the bullshit we've seen with wealthy interests making use of global trade to fuck the average person over. Uncle Moneybag moves his plant to X place because his current plant's workforce either unionized, got government mandates raises or got government mandated safety improvements and the new location lets him pretty much fuck over his current workforce before firing them and then getting new set to abuse. Anyways, I'd argue that most copyright stuff doesn't get unfucked until we do something about the wealth inequality and that starts by ensuring that businesses can no longer get away with hiring people at slave wages, while having really shit safety standards, in developing nations. I mean, it's entrenched wealthy interests that have made IP law a fucking nightmare because they seek to turn IP stuff into a permanent cash cow.
Though given that a huge chunk of garbage IP stuff was removed and the TPP exists in a different form. I'm hoping their is a push to get on it, assuming it kept the labor protection stuff because that would strengthen the treaty and making it harder for China to do some of it's typical shit.
The thing that really gets my goad with conservative fuckwits, is they rail against the whole concept of diplomacy, alliances, treaties and agreements and it really shows they don't have a fucking clue how the US got it's position as a hegemony. They assume the US was like "Murica! Fuck yeah!" When it was more a case of America being the only developed economy that wasn't bombed the fuck out by WWII, being willing to dump money into rebuilding other nations and then the nation not being super shit assholes (I'll agree we were still assholes on numerous occasions) that could work out partnerships. I mean, the easiest way to exert power beyond your borders is essentially being on good enough terms with others, that they adopt your interests and are willing to help you push those further abroad. Being a stand offish asshole pretty much undermines your ability to exert influence because no one want s to deal with you dumb belligerent ass.
I'm still not sure what's wrong with NAFTA? If you want to rail against globalism, wouldn't most of the blame lie with everyone shifting their production to china?
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
Except NAFTA in actuality didn't really do any of that. Most outsourcing went to non-NAFTA countries. Which is why NAFTA is much more of a boogeyman
I should note that I meant that about economic globalism in general.
The West has never had to really reckon with its history of exploitation as colonists and as it becomes untenable to grow wealth domestically thanks to things like labor protections or living wages, continues to travel abroad to exploit cheap sources of labor instead of creating actual humane and sustainable conditions.
Then they’ll talk, in their most white savior voice possible, about how their jibs are creating new opportunities and wealth abroad when they’re really just trying to find new folks who they think can’t fight back for basic safety or good wages
As for NAFTA itself even that isn’t without its crushing of the less well off like the already cited issues with Mexican agriculture basically getting demolished
But you'll note that that wasn't American jobs getting crushed. So when Americans talk about how NAFTA cost them jobs, those people are full of more s*** than the average septic tank.
Now if Mexicans were not crazy about it that would make sense they got screwed.
Canada's always worried about having to take our crazy over subsidized milk. So if they weren't crazy about NAFTA that would make sense
But Americans have done pretty fine.
Now my understanding of NAFTA was that it initially crushed Mexican agriculture, certainly their small time farmers. But I've also heard in the past decade a lot of bemoaning from u.s. farmers how giant agribusiness has been setting up shop in Mexico due to the cheaper costs there. I've certainly seen a ton more produce coming from Mexico than it used to, but I'm no professional economist wonk so I'm not sure what the overall picture is. I think it's a bit muddier than you suggest though. Certainly I know our car manufacturing is alot more interconnected than it used to be, I recall the new tariffs ended up hurting the auto industry quite alot.
I mean corporations benefited but that doesn't actually translate to improved worker conditions quite the opposite
The auto manufacturing is a complicated beats that the US is still doing ok with due to protectionist policies, the Canadian/USA union split into two and Mexico wasn't allowed unions until like two years ago
So a constant threat that was followed through on was moving production to Mexico not all of it but it did become a easy negotiation tool, and it turns out promised production for Canada straight up bailed on contracts
Twice
If the economy is considered corps and not like the workers yeah NAFTA rules
(Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday called Iran's announcement of an intent to begin enriching uranium at 60% purity "provocative," saying the step raised questions about the seriousness of Tehran over the nuclear talks in Vienna.
Gotta be pretty embarrassing to have an “ally” that’s openly sabotaging your diplomacy and you’re unable to even mention it.
Israel's logic is simple: They are one of the actors with agency on the region, and if they don't have a voice on the deal, well, then they are going to kick the table until they do. I fully expect the Sauds to follow suit.
Israel's logic is simple: They are one of the actors with agency on the region, and if they don't have a voice on the deal, well, then they are going to kick the table until they do. I fully expect the Sauds to follow suit.
At this point Biden should look at the two of them and say "listen the fuck up: If you two don't get the fuck in line with what I'm trying to do here I'm going to turn to the Iranians and say "As long as you aren't selling nukes to terrorists or yeeting them at our troops I don't give a shit whether you have them or not," and you two might think I'm bluffing but the two of you need to understand that I'm 78 years old and don't give a shit about going for a second term. So sit down, shut the fuck up and maybe I can salvage this shitshow you were so gleeful over when that orange spackled moron was around."
Posts
I'd agree although there are levels. The speaker of the Afghanistan Parliament, Rahman Rahmani, has said this could lead to civil war. So I do think that while the current situation is terrible... the situation can get a lot lot worse
Treaty language wasn't finalized until almost October if I remember right. The Japanese were holding out over some beef and dairy import clauses if I remember correctly. There was no way the treaty wasn't going to be passed except in the lame duck under Obama. And both candidates due to pressure from their respective bases, the Bernie/Left plus the AFL-CIO for Clinton and Xenophobia side for Trump, promised to pull out.
It wasn't a perfect treaty, they never are especially across 10+ countries of various government types and goals but it did have levers and pressure including guaranteeing unionization protections in some places where it is illegal or heavily suppressed. It died to NAFTA backlash that had been building around free trade for 20+ years. So it failed from voter anger more than lame duck issues.
The public sentiment is what killed it in the end. And while people were thinking it wouldn't matter, those weren't the people talking to the public. That's not the messaging the public was getting about TPP.
I agree and would go so far to as to say that Afghanistan has been in the midst of a civil war since the 1978 Saur Revolution. You could probably even stretch that to the overthrow of Shah, but the shortlived Republic of Afghanistan was relatively stable so I'd probably stick to 1978.
Things may have cooled a bit at points and you could almost say they were stable when it was just skirmishes between the Taliban and Northern Alliance. But you can certainly trace the mess in Afghanistan back to the USSR backing the PDPA assassination of Khan.
The US denied involvement, despite our role in the original Stuxnet attack. If I had to say, I’d guess this was a purely Israeli move meant to complicate US negotiations with Iran, given the timing.
The wrinkle in that line of thought is that some policy folks think the original Stuxnet sabotage was an important precursor to getting the original JCPOA in place by limiting Iran’s technological advancements while sanctions were in place. By that logic, this might change Iran’s calculus in the US’s favor - adding additional years to any long-term nuclear ambitions and the specter of never reaching that goal so long as Israel is willing to regularly destroy your nuclear infrastructure.
Maybe a bigger wrinkle is that, from my understanding, the Stuxnet approach was essentially a bomb with an unknown length of fuse. If this attack was similar, it’s possible that Iran spinning up new technology to emphasize their nuclear capacity during negotiations was the trigger for activating the sabotage, and the timing isn’t really any sort of tell on anybody’s part.
You seem to be implying that the US entered world war 2 because of the genocide the nazi's and the japanese were committing, which is incorrect.
That's....not what I'm talking about at all.
The TPP also didn't completely die. The countries negotiating it ended up signing the CPTPP which was largely the same agreement, minus a bunch of onerous IP and governmental procurement provisions that the USA had been insisting on. Also, America is still free to join the trade agreement. As someone who lives in one of the countries that signed it, the agreement that we ended up with is largely superior to the TPP. If America's goal was to create an alliance against Chinese interests and garner goodwill among the signatories, then the way they went about it with a very strong push to enshrine extremely restrictive American IP and DRM laws/regulations into the agreement was probably not the right approach to take. It looked a lot more like America using their position to extract the maximum benefit out of the deal that they could. This isn't new to America, as you can see the same pattern repeated multiple times (pre-WWII America trade deals with Japan are something I'm reminded of).
If Israel was the sole state actor behind the attack then the only point of the attack is to drive another wedge between the US and Iran.
Israel doesn't overly care if Iran has a bomb, they have their own and the entity most likely to build or be provided one after Iran is SA who Israel is moving closer towards.
But the US moving towards Iran weakens their position long term by potentially losing whats still the most powerful benefactor on the planet (and the most sympathetic of the big 3).
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Not to mention Bibi's personal motivation of staying out of the hoosegow.
Would you say policy makers have done a good job of of creating conditions for politically sustainable trade policy? Like ultimately, do you see this is a public failure or a policy failure? I keep seeing these lamentations for TPP and it always reads like the former.
Policy makers have both bungled sustainable trade policy and made strides to change trade policy to be more sustainable. There isn't a lot practice for this and thus mistakes are to be understood. At the same time there is a policy maker failure to educate the public on what is entailed in trade treaties and how they affect jobs and supply lines.
Trade treaties like most diplomacy are complicated bureaucracy not really good news or stories. The people they directly affect will learn especially if they are exporting as for example an increased quota of non-tariff beef is going to be a bigger money maker for ranchers and thus helps with planning on sales, building out contracts, and forecasting.
In fact we saw the fallout of what unplanned and undisclosed trade actions can do under Trump when tariffs were put in place and numerous US farm industries lost multiyear contracts with China that took years or even a decade to negotiate leaving a giant hole in their cash flow and how they planned for crops.
I think there is a bit though on the public as we tend to not take interest in such things unless it is to blame it, rightfully or not, for a loss of wage or jobs or if it becomes a political football. When one thing as a democracy that isn't expressed by the public is interest in how the government runs day to day unless it is a scandal and thus all those comment periods and public opinion request don't actually do anything.
Which includes things such trade negotiations where folks can put in their voice via representatives or public comment.
Of course in the TPP's case, which I said wasn't perfect by any stretch, it was killed by limited education and the riling up of public sentiment by both sides during a presidential election which led to the US pulling out of a multi-year negotiation leaving the US a weaker hand in a region than we could have had. And though some shit the US wanted in it as Caedwyr was removed so was some of the labor protections and such as many of the other nations didn't want deal with it or press for those types of actions in the treaty.
So back to the original question, the US pulling out of the TPP was a public failure for not understanding it wasn't a NAFTA but for the Pacific and a policy maker failure for them not educating the public about what it was about and what effects it could have positive and negative.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The shit where they go no you can’t pass these laws because this trade treaty says we get leeway on our shitty marketing that other nations banned decades ago. Also you can’t make us out health warnings on our shit either.
Left wing objections were largely rooted in labor and IP concerns yeah
Technically how your labor is organized IS a matter of who gets to make decisions and holds power
Decentralize ownership so that the economy isn’t being driven by the whims of a handful of billionaires who literally own everything the nation depends on and get to buy seats and legislation that preserve and grow their personal power I imagine you start seeing stronger change in the direction of both domestic and foreign policy
The TPP was a big deal to me, and I think it's a bit of both. There were ways to do it without making it a full on trade policy deal -- the Obama Admin could've done multiple rounds of negotiating deals that separated out trade policy from China containment, but wanted to do both to save time (it was 2015 and they wanted it done before leaving office).
Honestly? Probably not a whole lot. The research I've seen showed minimal impact, both negatively and positively, on the U.S. economy directly from NAFTA.
It's been a popular target of blame though.
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Oh sure, plenty of people attribute it with economic losses -- doesn't mean the actual economic changes were impactful though
I was gonna say, the fallout of NAFTA is more in the perception of trade then in actual effects afaik. It's biggest impact politically was as a populist boogeyman.
It's correlated with the loss of light industry in Canada and the US, so it's a convenient scapegoat for wealth concentration.
It destroyed the corn market in Mexico since they had to stop subsidizeing it but the US never did so millions of farmers became unemployed and had to migrate to the us to look for work
It was a pretty shitty deal for Mexico
There is an argument to be made that as domestic labor laws made production unprofitable, or at least unable to continue endless, cancerous growth, that US capital sought ways to send production abroad to countries that just coincidentally happened to lack the long and hard fought worker protections that their war on labor had yet to fully bleed out of the US
And also coincidentally in nations with issues with authoritarianism that would make labor agitation a more untenable prospect for those who now found themselves the wage slaves for the consumption habits of wealthier nations.
It’s one thing when interconnecting communities around the globe betters them both but I think it’s difficult to argue that what happened post NAFTA was much more than finding a way to whitewash the exploitation of labor in less well off nations for the benefit of America and others
Except NAFTA in actuality didn't really do any of that. Most outsourcing went to non-NAFTA countries. Which is why NAFTA is much more of a boogeyman
I should note that I meant that about economic globalism in general.
The West has never had to really reckon with its history of exploitation as colonists and as it becomes untenable to grow wealth domestically thanks to things like labor protections or living wages, continues to travel abroad to exploit cheap sources of labor instead of creating actual humane and sustainable conditions.
Then they’ll talk, in their most white savior voice possible, about how their jibs are creating new opportunities and wealth abroad when they’re really just trying to find new folks who they think can’t fight back for basic safety or good wages
As for NAFTA itself even that isn’t without its crushing of the less well off like the already cited issues with Mexican agriculture basically getting demolished
But you'll note that that wasn't American jobs getting crushed. So when Americans talk about how NAFTA cost them jobs, those people are full of more s*** than the average septic tank.
Now if Mexicans were not crazy about it that would make sense they got screwed.
Canada's always worried about having to take our crazy over subsidized milk. So if they weren't crazy about NAFTA that would make sense
But Americans have done pretty fine.
NAFTA basically just happens to coincide with part of a period where other things were happening that made people mad. Before NAFTA was the boogeyman, it was the japanese.
As always, the real culprit is
[yanks mask off the monster of the week]
OLD MAN CAPITALISM?!
[a Great Dane gasps in shock]
I want to say a major gripe people had the TPP was with IP stuff, but IMO, that was putting the cart before the horse, when we factor in the labor improvements because TPP did tackle some of the bullshit we've seen with wealthy interests making use of global trade to fuck the average person over. Uncle Moneybag moves his plant to X place because his current plant's workforce either unionized, got government mandates raises or got government mandated safety improvements and the new location lets him pretty much fuck over his current workforce before firing them and then getting new set to abuse. Anyways, I'd argue that most copyright stuff doesn't get unfucked until we do something about the wealth inequality and that starts by ensuring that businesses can no longer get away with hiring people at slave wages, while having really shit safety standards, in developing nations. I mean, it's entrenched wealthy interests that have made IP law a fucking nightmare because they seek to turn IP stuff into a permanent cash cow.
Though given that a huge chunk of garbage IP stuff was removed and the TPP exists in a different form. I'm hoping their is a push to get on it, assuming it kept the labor protection stuff because that would strengthen the treaty and making it harder for China to do some of it's typical shit.
The thing that really gets my goad with conservative fuckwits, is they rail against the whole concept of diplomacy, alliances, treaties and agreements and it really shows they don't have a fucking clue how the US got it's position as a hegemony. They assume the US was like "Murica! Fuck yeah!" When it was more a case of America being the only developed economy that wasn't bombed the fuck out by WWII, being willing to dump money into rebuilding other nations and then the nation not being super shit assholes (I'll agree we were still assholes on numerous occasions) that could work out partnerships. I mean, the easiest way to exert power beyond your borders is essentially being on good enough terms with others, that they adopt your interests and are willing to help you push those further abroad. Being a stand offish asshole pretty much undermines your ability to exert influence because no one want s to deal with you dumb belligerent ass.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Now my understanding of NAFTA was that it initially crushed Mexican agriculture, certainly their small time farmers. But I've also heard in the past decade a lot of bemoaning from u.s. farmers how giant agribusiness has been setting up shop in Mexico due to the cheaper costs there. I've certainly seen a ton more produce coming from Mexico than it used to, but I'm no professional economist wonk so I'm not sure what the overall picture is. I think it's a bit muddier than you suggest though. Certainly I know our car manufacturing is alot more interconnected than it used to be, I recall the new tariffs ended up hurting the auto industry quite alot.
The auto manufacturing is a complicated beats that the US is still doing ok with due to protectionist policies, the Canadian/USA union split into two and Mexico wasn't allowed unions until like two years ago
So a constant threat that was followed through on was moving production to Mexico not all of it but it did become a easy negotiation tool, and it turns out promised production for Canada straight up bailed on contracts
Twice
If the economy is considered corps and not like the workers yeah NAFTA rules
Gotta be pretty embarrassing to have an “ally” that’s openly sabotaging your diplomacy and you’re unable to even mention it.
At this point Biden should look at the two of them and say "listen the fuck up: If you two don't get the fuck in line with what I'm trying to do here I'm going to turn to the Iranians and say "As long as you aren't selling nukes to terrorists or yeeting them at our troops I don't give a shit whether you have them or not," and you two might think I'm bluffing but the two of you need to understand that I'm 78 years old and don't give a shit about going for a second term. So sit down, shut the fuck up and maybe I can salvage this shitshow you were so gleeful over when that orange spackled moron was around."