Evan, Your 15 Minutes Are Up
Can we all agree that it’s time for Evan McMullin to sail into the sunset? Seriously, dude, your 15 mins of fame are up. Please go away …
His recent 10-point plan to fight Trump just appeared in my work Twitter feed as a must read. I made the mistake of clicking on it and just lost an hour of my life. Yeah, I know, this is on me; I give a shit about this stuff. But seriously …
Point 1) The President-elect is NOT outside his authority to threaten companies with tariffs if they move jobs to Mexico.
Any company planning to use NAFTA to move jobs out of the United States can do this. It’s their business. And Trump is within current policy to tariff those companies when they do this. Since McMullin doesn’t seem to understand how NAFTA works, here’s an education for him: NAFTA has a 90-day withdrawal notice. All the president has to do is give 90 days notice to the two other trading partners and then, the treaty ends. The president has the authority to do this in the treaty; it’s not via Congress – they voted to give away that authority 23 years ago. The act of withdrawing and canceling the treaty AUTOMATICALLY RETURNS tariff levels with Mexico to their pre-NAFTA levels (random amounts, on specific products, materials, etc., to between 20-65%). How do you think Trump got the “35 percent” figure? Because that was the average of all the tariffs on imports from Mexico before NAFTA (Tariffs with Canada will go back to the pre-FTA 1988 levels).
How do I know all this? Well, I own a copy of the treaty and I’ve read it. You were in high school at the time, McMullin, so no one expects you to know or understand this.
The president can direct their appointments in the ITA at Commerce to begin the process of negotiating a new treaty (or leave the tariffs in place).
Point 2) While the Constitution designates Congress to be in control of tariffing (A1, S8, C1), tariffs are constitutional.
So, when you argue that he is being unconstitutional by threatening to tariff companies moving to Mexico, you’re talking out of your ass. He is using existing law to protect our jobs and raise badly needed revenue for the federal government … and this is a reason for celebration, finally.
Tariffs, since you don’t seem to know or realize, funded the federal government before the income tax 100 years ago. The reciprocal tariff built the country and there are COUNTLESS examples in history from the railroad on down.
Point 3) Your delusional call to action.
Where is all this nonsense coming from? We need to come together to stop this authoritarian … “build bridges” with others to “create diversity” blah, blah, blah. You’re a jackass. You deemed the GOP nominee not “conservative” enough for your values. Where was your “diversity” and “bridge building” when you spent, what, five useless months trying to stop the first GOP nominee in GENERATIONS that was vaulted into the nomination by a diverse coalition of Republicans, indies, non-voters, veterans, bikers, small biz people, pissed off folks, etc. You, Willard, Kasich, my former boss Gordon Humphrey, and others, were having temper tantrums trying to STOP the most diverse policy Republican candidate in a long time and you FAILED. Get over yourself.
Point 4) People should “Read and learn the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights … these rights are inalienable.”
We are in agreement. You and others need to go back and learn some of OUR HISTORY which, often, doesn’t fit in with your political opinions. As well, and most importantly, corporations DO NOT have Constitutional rights. PEOPLE have rights. It is a PRIVILEGE to do business in America. It is a PRIVILEGE to import into our market.
Trump’s action on trade are not “violations of our rights or our democracy”; it’s actually the exact opposite.
Seriously, please, go away. Thanks.