The video (above) is a very interesting interview with potential US Presidential candidate Donal Trump who is in my honest opinion, having watched the interview, a horrible prospect for the United States. Whilst he raises one or two good points and has a generally good message about wanting to "rebuild the United States" he failed, at least in this interview, to propose any decent solutions to the countries current problems, instead just spouting off tired stereotypical conservative republican lines.
The first point raised was about job creation and the economy where he stated that the problem was stemming from jobs going to China; a fair point although grossly over simplified. His solution to this was rather less well informed, his suggestion is to enact a 25% import tax on all Chinese goods unless they agree to stop "fiddling" their currency exchange rates. But China can only fiddle with their currency because they own so many US Dollars in the form of debt, less debt would be a much easier solution to the problem.
Another problem with this protectionist stance is that it will erode the quality of living for all US citizens, by increasing the cost of Chinese imports peoples earning will buy fewer goods. My major gripe with this position is that it doesn't improve the economy, sure you can protect your manufactures from competition within your own boarders, but that doesn't mean you can compete on exports. Does he honestly believe that the US economy will grow by being isolationist about its industries? Just look how North Korea is fairing, how long the UK car manufacturing industry lasted despite being propped up by the government or even why China & India are growing so fast: because they export. In fact he even states that he wants to "rebuild the US so we start looking like what China is doing", but doesn't that involve lower wages rather than import tariffs Mr Trump?
The key thing he fails to understand is that high wages are not synonymous with high standards of living, by competing with China on labour price (rather than bowing to Union pressure on minimum wages and health care requirements) you will have more employment, this extra employment generates wealth which can be used for investment & purchasing (whilst reducing the need for welfare), thereby growing your economy further. Propping up artificially high wages gives you more $ but fewer consumable goods, and that is where real wealth is generated: in production/goods rather than paper notes.
There are a whole host of other stupid arguments put forward by Trump, especially on foreign policy. My favourite would probably be that the US should "stay and keep the oil" in Iraq, "to the victor belong the spoils". He is blatantly advocating mass theft in the name of US interests and whilst he attempts to cite history as evidence of this always being the case that doesn't make it right. In ancient history we had nations fighting & plundering each other constantly for spoils which didn't exactly bring prosperity to much of the world and in modern & more civilised history Germany was only forced to pay remunerations to the Allies to help repair the damage they had caused by starting the war. Whilst I see his point about preventing Iran from taking the oil, it is utterly hypocritical to say that the US should take it instead, after all the US started the war in the same way Iran would.
Mr Trump also claims to have changed his stance to now being "pro-life", despite claiming to be the most Militaristic person around who claims he will do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from having a nuke. He also just doesn't "feel right" about gay marriage, which is always a compelling argument. The whole interview is just rife with hypocrisy and ill conceived points/policy in what is clearly an attempt to kiss the ass of the "red-necks", who are now certainly sliding into a minority of Republican voters.
- "With Afghanistan I want to build our country"
- (Talking about Bin Laden) "If you say the leaders of Pakistan don't know where a 6'6" guy is standing, well your wrong"
- (Talking about Islam) "There something there, there is tremendous hatred & tremendous hatred of us. I look at Iraq, I was watching the other day. You know we've spent all this money and all those lives in Iraq and they hate us, they hate us, they can't get rid of us fast enough."
-"You stay and protect the oil."
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