re: #115 freetoken

Trump has yet to do any real change to existing agreements. The treaties like NAFTA can only be changed by further agreements. Trump keeps dumping on NAFTA, but apparently he doesn’t realize that once the Senate approves a treaty it becomes law.

The killing of TPP was probably inevitable. What comes next is anyone’s guess… but I bet that the South American agriculture exporters find a way to get into an agreement with Asian buyers that give them a step up from US ag exporters. Then all my farmer relatives in Trump-land will discover that their grain prices have to be slashed for them to dump their product on the market… and around and around it goes.

Trump has yet to enter into any real negotiation. He’s all talk. Given global momentum, he can do that for a while. A year or two of G20 meetings can come and go and unless there is a world war nothing really will change.

Long term the erosion of American buying power won’t be seen until there is a noticeable change in the world order. And that may not happen during my lifetime. As I noted -unless there is a world-scaled war, things can just bumble along, and for us here in the US we’ll just gripe, while the poor people in other lands will die.

Any student of history will tell you that what seems obvious in hindsight is never so when viewed from the past. So while we will not see an immediate shift in America’s power and prestige, the stage will be set as we begin abandoning our responsibilities to embrace “America First.” Already we’re seeing future scientists, engineers, and doctors seeking out friendlier nations because of the growing hostility in America towards “foreigners.” As that ratchets up, we’re going to experience a “brain drain” that will mean the next great innovations will go to rival nations. China’s already working to become the chief exporter of green/alternative energies, while we bitterly cling to fossil fuels and dub global warming a “hoax.”