When you’ve lost the US Chamber Of Commerce, the big gilded GOP tent has collapsed:
Yesterday Chamber President and career puppet master Tom Donohue plugged an Op-Ed into the Washington Post extolling “free trade”. While it had a “pox on both houses” veneer the obvious and stated target of his rant was one Donald J Trump:
We care about those who have been negatively affected by trade, and we must help them. But let’s get one thing straight — ripping up our trade agreements, as presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggests, and raising a tariff wall around the U.S. economy wouldn’t bring those jobs home. Instead, it would decimate millions of high-wage American jobs and slam families trying to make ends meet. Increasing tariffs on Chinese and Mexican goods — another one of Trump’s proposals — could cost American families $250 billion per year.
That was the subtle version, meant to not offend Republican readers it clearly is aimed at. Less subtle is the original long form nuclear attack launched by Chamber Propaganda Minister JD Harrison back in April:
The U.S. recession would set in within the first year under Trump’s proposed trade policies, which include a 35 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and a 45 percent tax on goods coming in from China. Over the next three years, the U.S. economy would shrink by 4.6 percent and the unemployment rate would nearly double to 9.5 percent.
Should China and Mexico decide not to retaliate against Trump’s steep tariffs with heightened trade barriers of their own - an unlikely scenario based on recent history - the U.S. would still lose a minimum of 2 million current jobs, while another 1.5 million would not be created. In other words, even under the best case scenario, Trump’s tariffs would strip our country of at least 3.5 million jobs.
Just in case anyone was wondering why Donnie barely raised gas money last month and will get to announce an embarrassingly low haul right in the middle of his convention (BYOB) this month. If you are too incompetent for the US Chamber (evil is okay) you are fukked as they say: