President-Elect Donald Trump said that “other countries are eating our lunch” when it comes to trade deals and environmental policies during an exclusive interview that aired Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump spoke of how U.S. workers, those he call the “forgotten” men and women, have watched as their jobs and 70,000 factories were shipped to China, Mexico, and other countries. While foreign countries were building “our plants” without waiting years to receive their permits, Trump noted that American businesses and manufacturers languished for 10 or 15 years while waiting for the Environmental Protection Agency to approve their plans and set regulations. But things are going to change, the president-elect promised.
“I do know this: Other countries are eating our lunch … We can’t let all of these permits that take forever to get stop our jobs,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace. “I won because of the fact that people that are great, great American people have been forgotten. I call them the forgotten man and the forgotten woman.”
It looked like Wallace has made peace with himself and has embraced reality.
The POS over at NBC, Chuck Todd, appears to be in a permanent state of denial. He will never accept Trump and bet your ass, he will spend every moment the next 4 or 8 years, denigrating everything Trump accomplishes.
Too bad for him, Trump could care less. The irrelevance he will convey about Todd will be just as devastating as “low energy” or “crooked” or “lying”
Trump is right on this issue, but needs to remember some history.
Carter and Reagan, in an effort to help our struggling auto industry in the face of fuel efficient Japanese cars, placed a limit on how many Japanese cars would be allowed into the US.
The US manufacturers, feeling relief from the competition, continued turning out some of the shittiest cars ever built, and didn’t adequately address the demand for fuel economy.
Why would they, when they can rely on government intervening to protect them against competition.
What did Japan do?
Since they were limited to a certain number of cars, they learned to make cars that would command a higher price, with great fuel economy. Up to this point, the early Honda, Toyota and Datsun vehicles had been the same or similar to what was sold in Japan.
They learned that we need more room, power, comfort, convenience and style – and started building what we want.
When the import limits were lifted, people bought even more Japanese cars.
Moral is that the protection, while well-intended, allows the protected industry to get complacent, and not make the difficult changes necessary to compete.
I’m going to watch how Trump implements his policy, and hope he’s remembering the potential unintended consequences.
@Boehnerdict Ryan Arnold: You are right on the money with your analysis – one has to be very careful when fixing problems. To paraphrase H.L. Mencken: For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
@Boehnerdict Ryan Arnold
in addition to the imports back in the early 1980s, the big 3 car makers had been engaged in “benefits” for the big shots/unions, for several years already. That’s one of the main reasons US car prices skyrocketed, the bennies had to be funded.
The imports weren’t as expensive & more importantly, they didn’t have as many warranty issues, as US made vehicles.
Ending the current practice of allowing the EPA or DHS (that is rapidly sticking their nose into everything) or any other fed.gov alphabet agency to block permission to build new factories for fifteen years before denying it completely.
Or only after more than a decade giving the go ahead with expensive environmental controls that no other country requires is not protectionism. It’s common sense that will permit companies here to build a better product quickly. And that will be a welcome change. An end to strangling government bureaucracy.
We, as a country, are no longer ‘innocent until proven guilty’. We must prove our innocence, from the line worker all the way up to the CEO, before we get ‘permission’ to do anything. Sometimes, rarely, this is warranted. Seems the opposite is the norm these days. It has to stop. I can’t build a garden shed in my backyard without a $600 land survey to prove I’d build it correctly and according to zoning laws. I’m no dummy, I can do that. How about the city come after me if I screw up? Building permits should not have to be approved, just filed.
Sorry, rant off for now.
Many “foreign” cars are made in the USA these days, by American workers.
Lots of “domestic” vehicles are made outside the U.S.
Something worth pondering.
http://thehill.com/regulation/309983-manufacturers-trumps-regs-plan-music-to-our-ears .
Feed your friends.
Starve your enemies.
Tom, you’re right. I have no gripe with American quality – I think we have an amazing, hard working heritage, and we’re capable of building great cars. There’s a good reason why Japan wants Americans building their cars. We do great work.
But if management dictates that a mediocre car is to be built, it will be done.