I am so on Lutnick’s side, it’s not even funny:
I am so, so glad that finally, FINALLY, somebody in politics is stepping away from the neoliberal dogma of “removing all trade barriers”. No trade barriers means no nation-state. It means no country as a meaningful concept. It means uncontrolled migration. It means no culture, no civilization, and no America. It means one enormous global favela with a tiny oligarchy conducting medical experiments on the vast, undifferentiated mass of miserable, poor peasants.
I so voted for what Lutnick is saying. You go, Lutnick.
Clarissa's Blog 
Since at a practical level, so much of this is about economics, it would be useful to know the economic names for practices like “not having absolute free trade” and “not having absolutely open borders”…
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Nationalist protectionism.
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Apologies for trying to make a meme out of this…
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Is it from a movie because I don’t know movies.
But I love memes, so keep them coming.
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It’s from the original “Star Wars”. Protagonist is looking for someone, with just a name to go on, and happens to ask this old man…
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It’s also time to do away with the fakery that every relationship between two countries has to be on equal terms. Nobody’s ever believed in this. Powerful countries have bent over smaller countries on trade etc. since the beginning of time. But the language they’ve used, especially post-WWII is so egalitarian that libtards actually thought this is how things are run. So they get shocked at trivial exchanges like this.
Also, it is such a rookie error to think that the rules governing human relationships (golden rule, and so on) also apply to countries. They don’t! There is no such thing as a country being “unfair” to another country.
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That idjit Kennedy kept repeating “reciprocal” like it’s a magic word. Like this completely useless parity of trade should overcome every consideration. But he never tried to explain why he considers this reciprocation to be so important.
Lutnick looked like an adult explaining to a toddler why you can’t eat only ice cream all the time.
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—Also, it is such a rookie error to think that the rules governing human relationships (golden rule, and so on) also apply to countries.
OK, fair enough.
But where does this logic stop? Does it stop somewhere between where we are now and bombing other countries to recreate the situation of the 1950-ies when other industrial nations were damaged by WWII or not industrialized yet? If it does stop – where and why? Will it stop at actively undermining other countries economically but not by military force? Any other place?
Tariffs cannot be increased without limits – at some point it will have more economic sense for various countries to just find new markets and bypass the US.
Another interesting question is – what if the rest of the world refuse to adopt the US version of “protectionist nationalism” and preserve some version of the “free trade”?
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Yes, this is a planetary problem, I agree. We have all collectively marched in this direction, driven first and foremost by the US. But what is the solution? To resign ourselves and continue marching on the road we know leads nowhere good?
It’s a recent mistake, historically. It’s younger than you and me. Surely, it can be undone or at least not aggravated. I will be happy if anybody offers a better plan than Trump. But nobody is offering one. Where is a better plan? We either careen towards the global favela, or we don’t. I’m in favor of not doing it.
Capitalism is very plastic. It has been known to correct its mistakes in the past. It can correct this one if we decide that we want it to.
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Smaller countries do feel vulnerable to bullying by larger countries. This was a major reason for SA allying with Russia to head off US aggression.
https://www.news24.com/archives/city-press/zuma-champion-of-the-small-nations-20150429
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That Kennedy guy was so confused. Like he couldn’t comprehend strategy and fair reciprocity.
Some of these geezers belong in a nursing home.
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