Barack Obama and free trade: Economic vandalism

You can be fairly sure that when a government slips an announcement out at nine o’clock on a Friday night, it is not proud of what it is doing. That is one of the only things that makes sense about Barack Obama’s decision to break a commitment he, along with other G20 leaders, reaffirmed last April: to avoid protectionist measures at a time of great economic peril. In every other way the president’s decision to slap a 35% tariff on imported Chinese ... Full Story »

Posted by Fabrice Florin

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Review

Vincent Caminiti
2.1
by Vincent Caminiti - Sep. 20, 2009

This article, an opinion piece, called on the author's opinion for research as well as its object. It is contains a large amount of rhetoric that could be applied to any anti-Obama article and then re-purposed to provide a shell for the tariff subject. It is a nonsense article. It discusses no possible motives for the unpopular opinion and it cites none of the proponents of the action. It is a factory spec fear piece, neglecting what could be valuable objections.

I'm not in agreement with the Obama administrations moves as it regards the tariff on China tires. That being said - a good point is often marred by a bad argument - this is a bad argument because it is boiler plate anti-Obama talking points with the tire tariff controversy pasted into a pre-fabricated article. (Emphasis on fabricated)

Mr Bush’s tariffs, like the Reagan-era export restraints on Japanese cars and semiconductors, came from a president who was fundamentally committed to free trade. Mr Obama’s, it seems, do not.

This is an example of the tenor of the article. The facts are irrelevant – the author(s) attempt to legitimize their tactics with a distraction into assuming the motivations of Bush and Reagan were good – Obama’s bad – the central point of the article.

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