President Trump’s First 100 Days in office
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/future-president-trump-100-days-article-1.2384306On Jan. 20, 2017, Donald Trump will take the oath of office for the presidency of the United States. What follows is an exclusive report on the first 100 days that followed his fabulous inauguration and after-party (attended by thousands of beautiful women with beautiful faces) as he set off on a short road to making America great again.
Day 1. Even as President Trump orders federal workers to bundle the inaugural ball’s gold foil confetti for smelting and reuse in White House restroom faucets, he begins making good on his campaign vow to seal the U.S.-Mexico border “on my first day.”
Refusing to let supporters hold hands along the border, Red Rover style, to prevent immigrants from crossing over, germophobe Trump orders the National Guard to douse the border in gasoline, set it afire and maintain the blaze.
He proclaims the conflagration, which is visible from space, to be “spectacular.”
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For Mexico’s “convenience,” Trump says he will accept $40 billion in a “terrifically” structured balloon mortgage.
Simultaneously, the President moves to debunk fears that he intends to brutally uproot and deport 11 million undocumented residents — and send them back to their home countries in cattle cars. Stretch limousines and well-dressed men with Tasers begin appearing in American cities.
“We have just begun the fastest, classiest mass deportation in world history,” Trump declares.
Day 2. When Secretary of State Arnold Schwarzenegger reports that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto laughed in his face about paying for the $40 billion wall, Trump tears up the North American Free Trade Agreement on live television.
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This is a crucially important difference which is being misunderstood by many low-information voters to mean that Trump is against legal corporate trade in services, his position appears to be similar to Hillary's - He supports it. The cost to US workers could be astronomical and rapid.
"Movement of Natural Persons" provisions in existing and ending deals are potentially the most damaging, especially to people in skilled professions, IT, academia, nursing, energy, construction. Wherever the wage gradients between US and international average wages are the highest.
For example, because of ongoing changes shifting to international e-tendering and bidding on procurements of both goods and services such as staffing, as well as new as well as already existing mandates to privatize quasi-public jobs, any future New Deal to rebuild infrastructure would dilute government spending internationally, not create domestic jobs. Subcontractors would travel to the US to staff their employers contracts. Huge increases in these kinds of visas could occur overnight in response to a case now before the WTO. We could not stop it.
Changes could even come before the election if a case now pending before the WTO is decided, ending the use of quotas. I think this is likely. That would allow levels of low wage subcontracting to rise until wages reached some kind of equilibrium. Its possible that the higher of two countries minimum wages might be paid, if they had them, or its also possible that no wage parity would apply, that has been the preference of many potential supplying countries as they feel that "high" minimum wages would be used as a way for countries like the US to get out of our WTO obligations to allow trade in services based only on objective and verifiable criteria. (Developing countries, especially the official "least developed countries"- ("LDCs"
have repeatedly argued that as their main competitive advantage is low wages relative to the high educational level of their skilled workers, that they should be able to use that competitive advantage in winning subcontracts.
Ultimately, the US could end up with 30 million or more guest workers under L-1 visas working as subcontractors in a great many new workplaces.
Only "services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority" "which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers." or which involves national security, is exempt from the mandates to privatize. So large numbers of jobs will be privatized where some commercial presence exists. (schools, hospitals, utilities such as water, financial services, - wherever there is a commercial provider the government has to stop competing with them. That's what both existing and new, pending services portions of back room deals attempt to do.
Additionally huge increases in cross border data flows is expected. (Business services over international borders, delivered electronically)
The justification, to the WTO is simply that its more profitable to the owners of the companies and in theory to the guest workers around the world. (although they would be paid a fraction of the wages of those they were replacing, perhaps as low as minimum wage if there is one. ) Higher profits = "More efficient" in economics lingo.
So, beware of Trump. He is no different than Hillary on trade in services. Certainly no better. Every area where he proposes to enact drmatic change, you can bet he's counting on using foreign, not domestic labor to do it. And it will become irreversible, its not possible to "turn it off" as he says. Thats the difference between trade deals and domestic regulation. The changes made by trade deals are designed to completely override domestic regulations and politicians and elections, in crucial areas that will make any rational decisions on policy completely preordained, for example, blocking everything in Bernie Sanders platform, for good. Obama wants his legacy to be these deals so expect a push to sign them before his successors inauguration. Also, since many of them originated in a 90s deal that was signed two decades ago, which the country was never told about, consider the Democratic primaries as a referendum on that deal, By pretending they dont exist, and arguing for a return to the previous state - which most Americans still believe to be the current situation, Sanders's platform basically is a referendum on those deals.
