by Lewis Morris:  Trade negotiators from the U.S., Canada and Mexico are meeting in Montreal this week for the latest round of NAFTA talks. The big question remains whether President Donald Trump will stay in or pull out of the 24-year-old agreement, which he claims is a terrible deal for the United States.

          Scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was one of Trump’s campaign promises although congressional Republicans and many members of the business community caution against such a move. An open letter to Trump from over 300 state and local chambers of commerce last October pointed out that NAFTA is responsible for 14 million jobs and $3.3 billion in trade on a daily basis.
          The auto industry alone could face the loss of over 50,000 jobs if the U.S. were to walk away from NAFTA. As it stands now, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wants to tighten the rules of origin provision for autos, requiring that cars crossing the borders duty-free be 85% NAFTA made, up from the current 62.5%. He also wants to add a clause that requires these cars to be 50% U.S. made. Neither Mexico nor Canada are likely to agree to this change, which is likely a Trump-style “overreaching” negotiating chip.
          Agriculture is another area that could be hard hit by a U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA. Farm products sent to Mexico and Canada have quadrupled since the beginning of NAFTA, and they currently account for a third of all U.S. farm exports. Leaving the agreement would bring a sharp rise in duties on American poultry and wheat, among other items. Farmers in states like Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin and Indiana would be hard hit.
          These states were key to Trump’s 2016 victory, and they will figure large in the 2018 midterms. Republican lawmakers from these states reminded Trump of this fact in the days leading up to the Montreal talks.
          Trump makes the case that NAFTA has had a negative impact on America’s manufacturing sector, which has not grown as fast as the services sector since the agreement went into effect. So, while Lighthizer’s proposal to tighten the rules of origin provision might be considered extreme, manufacturing may need to be addressed — though with a caveat: U.S. manufacturing production has doubled since before NAFTA and is at a near-record high, albeit with fewer workers.
          Technology is another area that needs to be addressed. Internet commerce didn’t even exist when NAFTA first went into effect, but now America’s most valuable companies are tech giants such as Apple, Facebook and others. Intellectual property and digital commerce will now need to be part of the conversation.
          The American economy has grown significantly under Trump, but much of that progress could be undone by walking away from NAFTA or by altering it too much. Uncertainty about how the negotiations will shake out could also unsettle American markets. This is why the idea of adding a five-year sunset provision to NAFTA as proposed by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was not well received. Such a move would keep NAFTA in a perpetual state of negotiation, making it difficult for U.S. businesses to make long-term plans based on predictable and established rules.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53667-nafta-negotiations-bear-watching

by Political Editors:  Attorney General Jeff Sessions was interviewed last week for several hours by Robert Mueller’s special council investigation into the Donald Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy. And now Mueller is reportedly seeking an interview with President Trump, which several of the president’s advisers legitimately fear is a perjury trap. Perhaps Mueller wants to catch Trump in a lie in order to charge him with obstruction. It’s a roundabout way to get Trump, since the Russian collusion conspiracy has thus far proven to be nothing more than tantalizing fiction. Trump has yet to agree to the interview, but his lawyers have been seeking to work out ground rules for any potential meeting.

          The Mueller team reportedly is looking into Trump’s firing of both former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former FBI Director James Comey in order to ascertain if there is a “pattern” of obstructionist behavior. However, if Mueller is intent on investigating obstruction, he’s barking up the wrong tree. What was the actual crime for which Trump is being investigated? So far there’s nothing beyond innuendoes, much of which were based on the dubious opposition research “dossier” created by Fusion GPS and funded by liar-Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
          It was liar-Hillary who actually did break the law and who was “investigated” by the FBI. We hedge that word because all indications are the FBI had been indirectly, if not directly, instructed to let her off the hook. This is where the real investigation into obstruction should be focused. liar-Clinton’s illegal email setup was known by Barack liar-nObama, who corresponded with her at her private address using a pseudonym himself. If she had been charged, it would have pulled him into the investigation, implicating him for likewise being “grossly negligent” in handling classified material. He had to prevent that from occurring, ergo the public declarations that he was confident liar-Clinton would be cleared. Meanwhile, his Attorney General Loretta Lynch was behind the scenes making sure the FBI’s findings agreed with liar-nObama’s public statements. As we have learned, months before liar-Hillary sat for the FBI interview, she knew she was in the clear. She had no fears of incriminating herself because she knew the fix was in — and that liar-Obama was the fixer.
          Trump is facing a deck that is stacked against him. If he pleads his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination and refuses the Mueller interview, the Leftmedia will scream that it’s evidence of his obstruction. If he takes the interview, unlike liar-Hillary, he risks being caught in a lie, no matter how insignificant, hence the perjury and obstruction trap.
          With the recent revelations of a “secret society” within liar-nObama’s Justice Department and the FBI, coupled with the all-too-convenient loss of months of text messages between key FBI officials and the aforementioned investigation fixing, this deep state corruption is starting to look more and more like Watergate on steroids.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53668-the-real-obstruction-conspiracy

by Jordan Candler:  This week, solar industry imports were dealt a heavy blow with Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 30% tariff. The Associated Press reports that among those advocating for the tariff on solar panels was the U.S. International Trade Commission. According to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, “The president’s action makes clear again that the Trump administration will always defend American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses in this regard.”

          China’s Commerce Ministry was angered by the tariff, responding: “The U.S. side once again abused its trade remedy measures. China expresses its strong dissatisfaction with this.” Mexico is also rattled. The nation’s Economy Department shot back, “Mexico will use all available legal resources in response to the U.S. decision to apply protections on Mexican washing machines and solar panels.”
          These complaints are to be expected given where they’re coming from. Nevertheless, was this a wise decision? As Heritage Foundation analyst Katie Tubb explains, not exactly. She writes: “The case involves two failing manufacturing companies — Suniva and SolarWorld — which have petitioned the government for globally applicable tariffs on inexpensive imports of solar cells and panels. That petition has run the gauntlet of comments, hearings, and analysis from the U.S. International Trade Commission. Since then, organizations across the political spectrum, including the Solar Energy Industries Association, have made the case for why the requested tariffs would be harmful for the solar industry writ large.”
          Tubb lists three justifications for “why rejecting the request for sweeping tariffs would be consistent with Trump’s campaign trail ideals and policy vision for energy dominance.” It begins with innovation. As Tubb explains, “There is almost no better way to fossilize an industry than by guaranteeing prices and knocking out the competitors of a select few companies. The only innovation that this spurs is creative ways to lobby the government for new ways to interfere in energy markets.” Moreover, “[Government] intervention would also punish competitive American solar companies in order to keep two failing ones afloat.”
          Secondly, tariffs handcuff competition. “Trump should protect competition, not specific competitors,” says Tudd. “The solar industry in America can provide customers the best, most affordable service to Americans when it is able to access components from the most competitive companies around the globe. The proposed tariffs block this access. In essence, they are a massive regulatory subsidy for Suniva and SolarWorld — at the expense of the rest of the solar industry.”
          And finally, there’s the issue of fostering a healthy job market. Tudd notes: “Suniva and SolarWorld argue that global tariffs are essential to their survival and will create thousands of jobs. Using the force of government to eliminate a company’s competitors will almost certainly preserve those company jobs.” However, “There will be negative implications for the rest of the industry and the indirect jobs it creates if the administration bends over backward to shore up two failing companies. The federal government shouldn’t be the arbiter of whose job is more valuable.”
          National Taxpayer Union’s Free Trade Initiative director Bryan Riley makes yet another shrewd point: “Because the government provides a whopping 30 percent tax credit for the installation of solar energy systems, a big chunk of increased costs generated by the new trade restrictions will be paid for by the federal government. That doesn’t seem like an ‘America First’ policy.”
          In essence, Trump’s decision, unfortunately, continues the government’s proclivity for picking winners and losers. Furthermore, the Associated Press reports, “Sen. Ben Sasse … said Republicans need to understand that tariffs are a tax on consumers.” He’s right. There’s no doubt any of this was the administration’s intent — Trump, after all, once pledged, “We will get the bureaucracy out of the way of innovation, so we can pursue all forms of energy” — but nevertheless, the decision was made without taking these issues into account. Imposing tariffs on the solar industry wasn’t one of Trump’s brightest decisions.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53641-trump-misses-the-mark-with-solar-tariffs

by Jordan Candler:  A California state lawmaker from San Francisco, Phil Ting, is just one of the many Democrats nationwide who are mulling over how to take advantage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. He along with his Sacramento colleague, Kevin McCarty, have introduced a bill that would collect half of what million-dollar-plus corporations gain from the newly reduced 21% corporate tax rate. Their assertion is that a chunk of corporate tax savings should be rerouted and invested in programs geared toward non-wealthy residents. Because, according to Ting, “Trump’s tax reform plan was nothing more than a middle-class tax increase.”

          That’s an interesting and untruthful argument to make. Polling  suggests voters are already seeing the light on tax reform. What was an 18-point Democrat lead in generic polling has shrunk to just a five-point lead. And why shouldn’t it? Democrats are absolutely out of their minds if they really think Americans aren’t reaping tax reform’s benefits. To mention nothing of bonuses, “some two million American workers have already been told that their earnings are going up,” Jeff Jacoby reports, citing data from American for Tax Reform. That’s also to say nothing of the remarkable stock market performance.
          The complete distortion of tax reform by lawmakers like Ting and McCarty is business as usual in California. The state ranks dead last when it comes to poverty, and it’s because of the Golden State’s longtime obsession with redistributing people’s wealth. The new scheme revolves around the tax bill’s changes to write-offs, which blue states wrongly argue is unfair. On the contrary, Democrats selfishly don’t want to lower local taxes to alleviate tax reform’s impacts.
          But California also can’t afford to confiscate corporate tax savings. To do so would only worsen the great blue state exodus. In March 2017, the American Legislative Exchange Council reported that “the economic pain inflicted by Golden State government has induced more than a million Californians in just the past decade to seek better opportunities elsewhere.” What makes the state think corporations would put up with having their savings stolen from them? It’s California politics, not nationwide tax reform, that needs to change.  ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53615-ca-dems-may-confiscate-half-of-tax-cut savings