Pat Buchanan :: History

honk BuchananPat Buchanan is currently campaigning to become the republi tin representative in the next U.S. Presidential election. He is credited with contact a chord amongst the main stream, blue collar sector of the bucolic. This is because he has based his economic platform on common myths about superfluous c are and how it is the cause of the economic problems in the U.S. His theme is that layoffs and the closing of American plants are the result of foreign companies and countries taking value of easy doorway into U.S. markets which, in his opinion, is not being reciprocated abroad. This is how he accounts for the current trade deficit that the U.S. is running with countries like Japan. Pats economic platform regarding trade policy can be summarized as follows * Impose a 10% tariff on Japanese imports and a 20% tariff on Chinese imports. This would generate, in his opinion, $20 billion in government revenue and reduce the trade deficit which could be reinvested into the American economy and help create evaluate cuts for small businesses. * Impose a social tariff on tertiary World manufactured goods to protect U.S. workers wage rates from the foreign laborers who are remunerative a fraction of what their U.S. counterparts earn. He also resents that foreign companies do not have to adhere to the strict environmental, safety, and health standards that American firms do yet get free access to the U.S. market via GATT and NAFTA. It is evident that Pat Buchanan believes that trade deficits and trade with Third World countries are at the cheek of what he perceives to be Americas economic problems. He feels that through tariffs the burden of income taxes paid by U.S. workers and small businesses can be shifted onto consumers who purchase foreign goods. His vestigial sentiment about his trade restrictive policies is, This is our land America is our country the U.S. our market. We decide who enters here and who does not. The basis of outside(a) trade i s that their are gains to be had from partaking in it. This was proven by David Ricardo, an economist in the early nineteenth century, who introduced the concept of comparative good. His theory stated that a countrys absolute advantage (overall productivity differences between countries) should be reflected in differences in income, whereas comparative advantage (variations in productivity differences by sector) will determine the pattern of international trade.