Jim Patterson on Trade Deals and the Political Campaign

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is campaigning against "lousy trade deals" made by "political hacks." Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are not supporting past or current trade deals. Clinton especially does not want to talk about her support of the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA.

 

Here are some of Donald Trumps recent statements on trade: 

"We will keep the car industry in Michigan and we're going to bring car companies back to Michigan." Jim Note: Popular to unemployed autoworkers in Michigan. It may be possible to do this but Michigan would have to import autoworkers from other countries and exempt them from all US and state labor and union protections to work on autos equivalent to those imported. Else, Michigan can adopt the Deep South auto attraction policy and forever gift foreign auto makers with former plantation Dixie Land tax free and pass state laws effectively exempting US workers from US labor standards and protections. If it sells to Dixie workers, idled from the textile exodus for cheaper labor abroad and if it sells to CEOs  of foreign auto firms, it might sell to Michiganders.

"They [Japan] have cars coming in by the millions and we sell practically nothing. When Japan thinks we mean it, they'll stop playing around with the yen. They're almost as good as China." Jim Note: Leaders in Japan and China have no respect for Obama. The president spied on Japanese officials, per Edward Snowden, and he lets China economically devastate US companies via cybertheft of trade secrets. The administration's lack of diplomatic, economic and military deterrents in the South China Sea is further evidence China has no respect for Obama. Hillary Clinton is compromised on the issue of China cybertheft due to her thousands of deleted emails, thank you Congressman Trey Gowdy, and mishandling of classified information. Further, Hillary's supporters cyber attacked the computer systems of Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders. This really reeks of Watergate. Clinton, compromised by dishonesty and lies, may narrowly defeat Bernie for the nomination so she did not have to resort to cyber attack on her opponent, whom I consider a brave and courageous man to take on the Clinton/Carville slime machine.

"The devaluations of their currencies by China and Japan and many, many other countries, and we don't do it because we don't play the game." Jim Note: I think Donald Trump will inject new thinking and diplomatic approaches into Foggy Bottom. I have former Secretary of State James Baker's book The Politics of Diplomacy in mind.

"We don't win at trade, China, everybody, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam, India, name the country. Anybody we do business with beats us. We don't win at trade." Jim Note: The US economy including the Trump Organization, benefits from globalization and free trade.If unemployed workers are not employable in the new digital economy it is because of poor educational systems that graduate students who want "careers" as Walmart Greeters or as minimum wage workers hoping for wages of $15 per hour or higher. A Trump administration would be advised to invest in a national adult education program to re-train workers so they have skills for the 21st century.

A final Jim Note: We have these and many other statements by GOP presidential candidate Donald   Trump on US trade policy. Other GOP presidential candidates are addressing this issue. Clinton and Sanders also oppose free trade and globalization  though they have records of supporting each. Apparently they both oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership Obama negotiated and is stalled in Congress due to opposition by Democratic "leadership."

In the main, the political campaign is highlighted by a total lack of understanding on US trade and foreign policy and US economic policy. What ideas are communicated are simplistic and, perhaps, that is the way it has to be. I witnessed Trade Ambassador Froman and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack given police protection at their San Francisco Commonwealth Club presentation on TPP. Voters, San Franciscans and elsewhere around the country, have their minds already made that US trade deals are "lousy" and negotiated by "political hacks." These are not ideas and language originated by Donald Trump. They come from real people who are angry and distrust their government for "sending jobs overseas" and "exploiting foreign workers with low (non-union) wages," "promoting a GMO agenda," and a host of ills so bizarre I would be embarrassed to report them. Voters, though, are not too embarrassed to angrily and violently shout them with effect to political and corporate leaders. Considering the foreign and economic policy failures of Obama, I am thinking of the late Walt Kelly who so brilliantly placed the thought cloud above Pogo: "We have meet the enemy and He is us." Our politicians are telling us what we are telling them.

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Jim Patterson reporting from Washington DC
March 21, 2016

Jim Patterson: Privacy, Security & Cyberspace

Commentary: Privacy, security and cyberspace

Posted by Steve Lee, Editor Online Only, Top Highlights, Around the Nation, Commentary Saturday, March 5th, 2016

Commentary

BY JIM PATTERSON

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s continued resistance to a federal court to allow the government access to information on the iPhone of dead ISIS inspired killer Syed Farook has produced a predictable cacophony of opinion. Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik, parents of a newborn, methodically murdered 14 colleagues in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.

Leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump called on consumers to boycott Apple. California’s senior U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein called on Cook to cooperate with federal authorities to determine if the iPhone contains information on other ISIS terrorists and other possible terror attacks.
Cook maintains the killers, both dead, have a right to privacy on the iPhone. It is an argument, like the iPhone, designed to change the ways society and government view technology, privacy and security.

It is an argument that will also cause discussion on the philosophy and management of a prominent and an out-of-the-closet and openly gay CEO. If being openly gay and out-of-the closet is liberating and productive for corporate managers and other professionals across the nation’s business sector, why should Mr. Cook take a position to hide information held by killers from the legitimate concerns of government investigators?

Sexuality as well as security are at the heart of the question. Consumers justifiably use iPhones to manage personal business, legal and questionable, and relationships, gay and straight. If Cook cooperates with government investigators, it could open electronic doors and closets not just to security issues but to relationship issues people would like to keep private.

Privacy, as former National Security Agency contractor and exiled fugitive Edward Snowden demonstrated, is largely an illusion with government agents using wireless networks to illegally listen to conversations and monitor activity of U.S. citizens and allied foreign officials and international businesspeople.  If hackers can access U.S. government communications at the White House, and State and Defense Departments, are we to seriously believe a person’s Apple iPhone is immune from cyber surveillance by Apple employees, government officials, Chinese hackers, or tabloid reporters?
We would all like to think our private information is indeed private. Similarly, we would like to think government agents, like IRS agents, would not target private citizens for their political beliefs but President Obama fooled the nation by going after Tea Party political critics. Tim Cook, Apple shareholders and iPhone owners have similar concerns about the administration’s reach into the privacy of their device.

Despite talk about freedom and a Constitutional Right to Privacy, people have concerns. We have too many examples of government agents intent on punishing former lovers, bosses and political critics by causing legal and bureaucratic nightmares that result in personal bankruptcy, broken relationships and suicides.

In the 1960s a number of international sexual scandals at the United Nations, Westminster and Washington had columnists writing about sin and statecraft. Fast forward to 2016 and the issues are sin, security and cyberspace.

Issues of diplomacy and behavior were difficult to reconcile 60 years ago. They are more complex in the world Steve Jobs and Tim Cook have given us.

Longtime Washington diplomat Jim Patterson writes from Washington and Silicon Valley. JEPCapitolHill@gmail.com
(c) LGBT Weekly, San Diego.

Jim Patterson Commentary: Tim Cook should out Terrorists

Commentary: Tim Cook should out terrorists

Posted by Steve Lee, Editor Online Only, Top Highlights, Around the Nation, CommentaryLGBT Weekly, San Diego Wednesday, February 17th, 2016

BY JIM PATTERSON

With the Apple annual meeting only days away, the spirited event just got more spirited with news from Cupertino the corporation will fight a court order to cooperate with the FBI investigation into the encrypted Apple iPhone of the dead ISIS sympathizers who viciously murdered 14 co-workers Dec. 2. It is a bold move for CEO Tim Cook. Apple stock was up moderately in early trading Wednesday after the announcement.

With the announcement, openly gay Apple CEO Tim Cook has gone back in the closet. In a time when radical Islamic terrorists and sympathizers threaten American lives from San Bernardino to Times Square, Cook places privacy before national security in announcing he will fight a court order to help the FBI access the shooter iPhone of dead ISIS terrorists Syed Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik.
The dead couple left behind their terror tool of choice the Apple iPhone5C which could contain vital information on their plans, contacts and, most importantly, future terror plots by other ISIS sympathizers. The terror weapon is locked with Apple encryption technology that prevents state and federal agents from accessing information that could save lives.
Cook, in a public statement, said a software backdoor to the Apple iPhone is “too dangerous to create.” It may be too dangerous not to create. The government wants a work around to privacy that would allow them to use unlimited random codes to safely access the phone’s information.  Data are ordinarily deleted after minimal random attempts.
The Apple iPhone used by Farook and Malik and millions of others is an incredible communications device that Steve Jobs created and forever changed the world and the way business, legal and otherwise, is done.
It has also become a ubiquitous device for everything from entertainment to time saving apps to a recruiting station for terrorists and as an aid to kill innocent Americans. I believe Jobs would have realized that and cooperated with the FBI.
Cook wants to protect the privacy of two dead terrorists by denying law enforcement officials access to information that could save lives and provide valuable intelligence in the global fight against terror
in the name of good business. He argues it would be bad for the company and its customers to help the FBI with the technology to access user information. It would leave customers open to increased risk of cyber thieves and other criminals.
The risks are great from Cook cooperating with the feds or keeping the closet door shut on his customers. Washington officials, the family members of those killed in San Bernardino and most assuredly ISIS terrorists are looking to Cook to see what the future will look like for them and the rest of us. If only Jobs were here for Cook to consult.
Instead my fellow Alabamian and fellow Auburn University alum must seek counsel technologically and find a way for Apple to balance privacy and security in a time of serious and deadly global terror threats. If Cook finds a way philosophically and technologically to make this bridge, he may become one of America’s great corporate and global leaders like Jobs.
In ordinary times and under different circumstances, Cook would be right to fight access to customer information. But the times are not ordinary and terrorists are always looking for technological ways to attack our country, our families and our way of life.
The terrorists are effectively using our freedoms and laws to their advantage against us and Tim Cook needs to reconsider his strong willed opposition to cooperating with the government that gives him
the economic system and personal freedom to be the wealthy CEO he is.
He needs to find a way to join in the fight against terror not aid it. Failure to do so could lead to more tragedies he could have helped prevent.
The Apple annual meeting is next week. Security will be extremely heavy for Mr. Cook, board members including Al Gore and stockholders.
That is as it should be. Everyone needs to be protected from the constant threat of terror attacks. Just ask the families of those killed in Paris and San Bernardino.  Apple iPhones should be the product Jobs envisioned them to be to make our lives easier not devices of terrorists to create chaos and endanger lives.

Longtime Washington diplomat Jim Patterson writes from Washington and Silicon Valley.