tv Life Liberty Levin FOX News June 24, 2018 10:00pm-11:01pm PDT
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sunday when "the next revolution" will be televised. . mark: hello, america, i'm mark levin, we have a great guest tonight. dr. mark perry, how are you? >> very good, very good. mark: we're here to discuss capitalism, trade, commerce, good, bad, does it create wealth, does it eliminate jobs? do we have imbalance problem? before we do, professor of economic and finance at the flint campus of university of michigan. you're also a scholar at the
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american enterprise institute in d.c. mba degree in finance from the curtis l. carlson university of management in university of minnesota and george mason university. great school. you're a blogger, writer, lecturer and i have followed you for years. >> thank you. mark: very, very impressive. let's jump right into, this trade is a big issue. and some conservatives are confounded about what to say about this subject. some are saying that tariffs are a great thing, you know, it makes america strong and protects our industrial base. let's begin at the beginning. why is trade important? >> trade is important because it gives american firms access to global markets. it gives u.s. consumers access to global markets, and basic concept of economics is that trade, voluntary trade is
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win-win and makes both parties better off, from an economics standpoint to create the most amount of wealth and prosperity in jobs. what we want to do is maximize the amount of trading opportunities that are available both on the buying side and on the selling side. so it's very clear from an economic standpoint using economic theory, empirical evidence that economists are pretty united on this one topic. they might defer or diverge on other topics, economists as a group pretty much have unanimous support for the benefits of free trade and almost universally and unanimously opposed to restrictions on trade in the form of protectionism and tariffs. so trade is just a way that we increase our opportunities and enhances our standard of living and gives us a much higher prosperity and higher standard of living. mark: the vast majority of american people, do they benefit from trade? >> yes, of course, i always
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encourage people to look at trade through the viewpoint of the consumer. all we hear out of washington and trump and the protectionists is the viewpoint of the producer. if you view international trade from the viewpoint of the american consumer, we're much better off today getting access to low cost goods from all over the world, and so especially from the consumer standpoint, the opportunities we have to shop around the world, basically, that really elevates the standard of living of every american who buys anything at a target or walmart or home depot or travel abroad, from a consumer standpoint, americans are much better off with trade compared to the alternative, which would be protectionism or reductions in international trade. mark: and, of course, if the american people didn't want to participate in trade, then we wouldn't have the walmarts and these supermarkets and we wouldn't have all these things that we have today because there would be no need for them, would there? >> right. we kind of get a little offbase
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here because we talk about like the u.s. and maybe a deficit with china or japan or canadaer mexico but countries don't trade, individuals trade. that's important for people to understand. the trade happens at the individual level, that the united states doesn't decide to go on vacation to canada, tourism decides to go on vacation there. trade happens from economic theory and economic reasoning and logic, trade is win-win, and so we want to, again, maximize the amount of trade and individuals engaged in trade and that's where i think we have to always think of the consumer as the viewpoint of the consumer is what's important in trade. mark: what is fair trade mean? i'm having a little trouble wrapping my head around this. what does it mean exactly? >> usually when i hear people use fair trade, that translates to protectionism for u.s.
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industries or companies, that they're usually people who use that term, they don't want free trade. in their perception, they view trade as somehow being unfair, that foreign producers are undercutting american producers or dumping goods here, and so usually when we hear people from my experience talk about fair trade, what they want is protectionism for american producers or american industries. mark: let me give you an example. president has been talking about dairy and canada, and i don't know if this is accurate, may be. 270% tariff that the canadians put on dairy products that we seek to ship into canada. first of all, a tariff is a tax, is that right? >> that's right. mark: they're taxing their own people. >> right. mark: on the price of eggs and milk and butter, cheese, dairy product. so the canadian government is
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doing that to protect their dairy markets. does that help us, hurt us? does it help them, hurt them? >> in general, as a country canada's tariffs are lower than america. more of a free market trading nation than the u.s. but if we look at a specific example, and, if the u.s., we pay twice the world price of sugar. mark: as a matter of fact, you once wrote that we have 12,000 tariffs in place on all kinds of products all across the board from all kinds of countries. taxing the american people for all kinds of products that we use every day. >> yeah, and including the 25% tariff that started in the 60s with what's called a chicken tax. we have a 25% tariff on imported pickup trucks. so that gives gm and ford and chrysler, 83% market share of that very valuable market, more than half the vehicles sold are truck, so they get the production. mark: does that mean the cost is higher for the american
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consumer because of the tariff? >> sure, that would be the logical outcome is a u.s. producer is protected from foreign competition, then there's going to be less choice, and i say perry's law is competition breeds competence. the more competition, the more competent our producers would be. mark: if there's a tax on pickup truck, what's to stop the domestic producer saying fine, we're going to increase 23%. talk about an open playing field. they have an open playing field then, don't they? >> that's right. to the extent they're protected for more efficient foreign producers, they would be able to charge higher prices to americans and basically with the 25% tariff on pickup trucks. no pickup trucks come into the country because it's so cost prohibitive. mark: let's get back to the dairy example that the president used. >> yeah. mark: my question to you is
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this: if one country makes it prohibitively expensive for their people to purchase something from us, aren't there other countries we can sell them to? >> that's one good point is that in a global market because canada doesn't, if they don't really welcome our exports of dairy products, that it's a big world, we can sell them elsewhere and to the extend they're penalizing and taxing their consumers in the form of higher prices for milk and dairy products it wouldn't make sense to charge our consumers higher prices and imposing tariffs. whole retaliation doesn't make sense, if they commit economic suicide, shouldn't mean that we would have self-inflicted economic suicide. mark: this is a very important point, what you're saying. if other countries want to drive up taxes on their own consumers, those taxes go to their government. when we put tariffs in place, we're not only taxing the
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american people driving up the cost of our products, the government get the money. not like some industry gets the money, the government gets a money. if a country wants to do it to its own people why, should we do it to our people? >> that's right. it's a form of a tax. you look at the headlines, the u.s. is going to impose tariffs on china. not on china -- mark: we're going to get to china, you and i may disagree. let's talk about our allies. >> we're going to tax steel from canada or europe. that's not a tax on them, they don't pay the tax, we can't impose a tax on the foreign company. the american companies who import it into the u.s. pay the tax and pass it along in the form of higher prices to american consumers and american companies to use that as an input. mark: is there any question really that we're talking about special interest protectionism with tariffs in many cases, whether it's the steel industry or the aluminum industry and these are people, just being blunt about, their unions have
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pushed for. politicians that represent the areas, bernie sanders, this has been his philosophy. chuck schumer, this is his philosophy. new to conservatism, these across-the-board ideas of tariffs of our allies. i guess my question is this: while it may at least temporarily protect those workers, aren't there more workers down economic stream who are using steel and when you drive up the price of steel, more and more of those industries go out of business or cut back on r&d, or cut back on wages and benefits or they cut back unemployment, period. >> sure, that's the reality they guess for every protected job in the u.s. steel industry, for workers who are making steel, 25 or 30 workers whose jobs are at risk now because their companies use steel as an input, and so it drives up the price of an input and makes them less competitive. a lot of u.s. companies are not only selling here, they're selling globally, driving up
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input prices for american companies, makes them less competitive. they lose market share, less demand for workers. that's the part that you have to trace all of the effects through and not just look at the one steelworker whose job is now protected because of protectionism, we have to trace it through and look at the negative effects on the economy. when you do, that i don't think you can point to any case where the benefits of protectionism have outweighed the cost. it's always that the cost outweigh the benefits or the jobs lost are greater than the jobs saved. mark: what do you say when somebody says and they ultimately do, look, it's not fair because our wages are higher, and when we're trading with the poor countries of the third world or so forth, wages are de minimis, and so that's just not fair. what is the answer to that? >> again, if you look tat from the viewpoint of the american consumer, we want the lowest prices, lowest labor costs. if american companies can
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import products produced in another country because of lower wages in china or mexico, that still creates huge benefit for american consumers and to the extent that they save money on buying imports that freeze up money that they spend on other goods and services, so there could be the stimulus effect that are hard to identify, but again -- mark: you are saying it's a complex world out there. when you're looking product for product, that's not the way to look at it. you may import something that resonates beneficially to the american consumer, the american consumer may spend money on this industry or searcheses or products or buying natural resources using them to create jobs throughout the american economy. >> yeah, that's right. if you think of, again, the global marketplace that the advantages are, is that goods can be produced in the countries that have the lowest cost of production.
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ultimately that benefits the entire world economy and benefits american consumers, and also american workers from the standpoint that the higher the level of our standard of living and more economic prosperity and liberty we have is going to create jobs in the various industries. so -- mark: and the economic prosperity we have in this country the last half century is unparalleled in human history, isn't it? >> that's right, never been any other country that has this record of economic growth and prosperity that's benefitted more people and raised the standard of living, especially for lower income and the vulnerable populations that we have because the access to cheap products from overseas, it really, again, has this trickle-up effect that it helps people from the bottom all the way up by having access to world markets. >> back to the labor issue, and what would the answer be, are we supposed to reduce our
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salaries? benefits? medical expenses for each labor, or force another country to raise them? the arguments that it's not fair, that argument can you make whenever there is liberty, whenever there is capitalism. that, is the whole notion is to spread opportunity and spread wealth, right? >> yeah. mark: so people can benefit from it? >> in some cases, wages in the united states are not marked to determine wages, higher wages like in the auto industry, you think of the uaw, where their wages and compensation packages were way out of whack based on the rest of the world. that exposed that industry because their labor costs were so high. mark: it came more in line in the 70s and really the 80s and 90s. ladies and gentlemen, we're going to come right back. before we do. don't forget you can join us on levin tv by going to crtv.com or give us a call at 844-levin tv. we'd love you to join us over there.
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are you two getting along? oh, yeah, yeah. [ hiss ] [ gasps ] [ birds chirping] ♪ no matter what you are they're a perfect match. the new ipad and xfinity stream app. hey guys, i'm home! surprise! i got a puppy. add an ipad to select packages for just $5 a month for 24 months. upgrade online now. . mark: dr. mark perry. i read that the price of steel now since we got into this tariff stuff, has gone up 40%
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domestically. now that may help the steel barons and may help the steel unions, but when that begins to resonate throughout the economy and the consumer does, that help everyone on assembly lines? does that help the united states military buying new tanks and armaments right down through the economic system? >> look at experience in 2002 when george w. bush imposed steel tariffs and completely backfired in a way i think might happen again this time because the higher that steel prices go, that's a main input for manufacturers all across the economy, and there was an article i think in the "wall street journal" the other day about a domestic u.s. producer of lockers for schools and government and offices or whatever, gyms, and that's the main input is steel, so they're really getting hammered. they're a small company trying to survive in a globally
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economic marketplace, as you see the prices ripple through the economy, what we're going to see is like in 2002, job losses and in that case, 2002, more jobs lost throughout the economy than jobs -- mark: i think i read 200,000 in ten months. >> we're at the early stages of this. looking a year from now, i don't see how it would be much different than in 2002 and all the other times one would try to impose tariffs on steel. mark: what about the impact on inflation, when you're driving up the cost of raw material like that, which is everywhere. in cars, kitchens and appliances, and so forth and so on and so on. >> could have inflationary effect to a small amount, but really inflation is when all goods and services are rising simultaneously by some high rate, so that could have some impact on some of the input prices, but it wouldn't necessarily -- mark: not across the board? >> not across-the-board
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inflation. mark: we hear the phrase imbalance of trade, and i think people consider the national debt where there's a big balance sheet problem with income versus expendures and borrowing and look at your own home, best not to have great debt, keep things under control. imbalance of trade, i don't know why we would keep these numbers. give you an example, let's say the nation, the businesses in the country, buy a billion dollars worth of oil in saudi arabia and saudi arabia buys nothing, so we're in the hole quote, unquote a billion dollars with saudi arabia but need the oil to finance assembly lines, to build stuffs, build products and so on and so forth. why is that so bad? >> it isn't, from the saudi arabian standpoint, if they sold a billion dollars of oil and now have the american funds. >> what do they do with it? >> either buy something from
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here or invest in the united states or sell the dollars on the foreign exchange market. that's the point people don't understand is that those dollars that are outside of the country. mark: they don't disappear. >> right. if they would accept green piece of paper with dead presidents, we could sell the oil and get green paper. we know they're not going to do that. the dollars get spent for our goods and services and financial assets. there is no trade imbalance, once you account for the dollar outflows and inflows that the balance of payments as the bureau of economic council counts it accounts for zero. mark: if we play along with the equation, i ask myself, okay, we're 600 billion, 800 billion and the numbers pop around here, 50 billion with this country, whatever it is, and they never break it down by products. in other words, maybe we need this stuff in order to have our economy to be a vibrant economy and so forth.
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or maybe people want to buy this stuff because it's really important to households and we're not producing quantity in the united states. whatever the reason is. i often think we talk about this balance of trade. okay, so what's the answer to that if we accept their argument? does the government now decide we're going to have a balance, so we have to be exactly 100% each way with this country, that country? what would that do to economy and empower the federal government? i don't understand what the answer to this is. >> there's another common misunderstanding about the trade deficit and trump has perpetuated this. mark: you don't like trump, do you? >> not on trade. i like him on israel and regulation and taxes and education and supreme court. mark: you could say bernie sanders, you know? [laughter] >> anyway, go ahead. if anybody shops at a local supermarket and spends $100 a week for the rest of the life, they would have a trade imbalance with the grocer if the grocer is never buying from
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them. just having a trade deficit doesn't mean anything is bad. mark: you have a trade deficit with the bank with a mortgage. >> right. the way they calculate statistics, deficit sounds like a bad thing and surplus sounds like a much better thing, in terms of overall balance of trade, once you account for the international transactions for goods and for services and we have a trade surplus on services, and all of the trade for financial assets, that we have a capital deficit for goods and services, a capital inflow that exactly offsets that for financial assets. there is no trade imbalance once we account for assets, financial assets and goods and services. in a way, i argue we get the best of both worlds. a trade deficit means a net flow of goods, a goods surplus, more coming in than out. and net inflow of capital from our capital account surplus. so we have a net inflow of goods and capital and complain
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that somebody's taking advantage of us. mark: what else do we have a net inflow of? knowledge. creativity. technology. that is since the beginning of mankind. you know, explorers, journeymen, they wanted to learn, know more. everything isn't known in new jersey or pennsylvania or minnesota or the united states. there's things we can learn, things that we can do and so there's a back-and-forth knowledge flow too, that capitalism, that trade, that commerce is involved in, it's not like that's the intention of everybody, but, wow, look how they did this, maybe we can improve upon this and so on and so forth. am i right. >> that's a good point. not only international exchange of goods and services and financial assets but also an international exchange of knowledge in technology and innovation, and so that accumulates over time in ways that thomas solo said we have
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natural resources but don't get instruction booklets from mother nature how to produce microchips from sand or something. we get this huge sharing of global knowledge that makes the world a better place and makes america a better place in ways that increase the prosperity and our standard of living here. here. mark: we'll be right back. man: i got scar tissue there. same thing with any dent or dings on this truck. they all got a story about what happened to 'em. man 2: it was raining,
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[♪] reporter: live from news already. indonesian authorities announced they have found the location of the ferry that sank last week in lake toba. it was loaded with three times more than the aloud number of people. at least 200 people are presumed dead. violence erupts between farmers and herders. the feud between muslim herders and christian farmers has been deadlier than the boko haram. now back to "life, liberty & levin." for all your headlines, log onto foxnews.com. mark: dr. mark perry, if we
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didn't import a lot of stuff, and i don't mean just product, things to make products and services and ideas and all sorts of things, we would be denying ourselves a lot of stuff. a lot of luxuries, a lot of necessities that we expect each and every day. so if other countries, because they have more authoritarian and autocraftic governments, choose to impose their will on their people, limit what they can buy, drive up the cost of our products. limit access to technology and so forth and so on, that's to their detriment, not to ours, is that correct? >> that's right. no reason to retaliate and think we're get back at them by making our people poor, and one thing about the goods coming into the country, people don't aelz realize, this we think of automobiles and tv's and computers two. thirds of what comes into the country as imports are products that u.s. firms are buying. raw materials and supplies and
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inventory and so on. so it's really our companies that are buying inputs that make them more efficient and more productive and competitive. so again, if we cut off imports it really is a way that we're going to be to a great detriment of our own producers. >> don't we have many businesses in our country with many, many middle class worker, some of them blue collars, union members who rely on imports to make their liveings? >> that's right, if you look at finished products, tv set or computer, you go to an american store to buy it, you go to an american car dealer to buy a toyota. there's jobs being created by the u.s. companies, we buy it down the supply chain but if we think of tariffs on imports, it's really putting our manufacturers and our producers at a significant economic disadvantage. mark: the longshoreman, right? all kinds of people. we have companies now in this
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country that are foreign companies. we have all kinds of americans working for companies on assembly lines and so forth and so on, so there's a lot of people who absolutely benefit directly from international trade. not even downstream directly from international trade and almost impossible to know how many, isn't it? >> right. very difficult to really calculate or account for all of the advantages and disadvantages, we know on net the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. if you think of the steel company coming in for a small company that makes lockers, they have a lot of workers and the more efficient and productive, the more workers they hire. mark: we have refrigerators, washing machines, driers, toasters, hubcaps, the aluminum is infinite. if you take a fairly, not even a complex product, there's the famous video and story about
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ipencil. if you take that product or a more complex product like a car, everything in the car cannot be made in america. everything in the car cannot come from america. everything in this pen cannot come from america or we wouldn't have the pens and other items, would we. >> and look at where the final assembly took place. iphones, maybe the final assembly took place in china, all the marketing and advertising take place in the united states, the parts might have come from all over the world, but again that's the advantages of a global marketplace to take advantage of the best products at the most competitively priced products and we all get significant benefits from that. just always hard to trace it all through and figure out what the benefits are. mark: protectionism used to be the big issue of the hard left, of the bernie sanders and so forth, because that was in part the big union bosses and so
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forth, part of their political constituency group, and finding in america today more and more, i and you, are in the minority. when it comes to capitalism. we talk about free trade. we don't have free trade. i mean, freer trade and all of a sudden you are anti-american, you don't believe in fair play. what do you say to people like that? >> this whole idea of make america first, that is putting american consumers last. if you think of it from the consumer standpoint and politically, that's one of the dangers is that protectism sells in the political -- mark: it's an easy headliner. >> yeah. and it looks like the politicians are doing something and identifiable companies or industries that are now protected. you can look at the workers protected. have you photo opportunities, but then the costs imposed throughout the entire economy are much more difficult. mark: give an example. you talk about steel. we're trying to increase defense spending. we are.
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price of a tank go up? price of a jet fighter go up? price of a bomber go up? price of a bomb go up? the increased spending just as an example, the government taking the one hand and spending with the other hand just on the military side. you get less, may i say, bang for the, but when you have protectionism in terms of the materials that are used to build what's necessary even for the united states military. >> yeah, according to a source of mine, the general motors estimated their cost of producing cars in the united states will go up by about a billion dollars because of higher costs for steel and for aluminum. and the defense department, you know, would be the same idea that you're imposing costs on american companies and ultimately the american taxpayer. disabuse of notion that we're imposing the tariffs on what they really are, taxes on americans. mark: when we come back, i want to talk about china.
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and what i consider in many respects, a national security exception, because china, i would argue, steals a lot of our stuff. steals a lot of our technology. manipulates currency. i'm not talking about play fair. i'm talking about stealing and violating the law. when we come back. ladies and gentlemen, remember, check out levin tv on crtv.com, almost every week night. love to have you join us there. call 844-levin with two times more geographic detail... ...ancestrydna can pinpoint where your ancestors are from... ...and the paths they took, to a new home. could their journey inspire yours? order your kit at ancestrydna.com. happy anniversary dinner, darlin'. can this much love be cleaned by a little bit of dawn ultra? oh yeah one bottle has the grease cleaning power
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[dr. gregory armstrong] it's pretty amazing when consider that 7 years ago, we didn't have the treatments we have now. we cure 80 percent of children with cancer. if you think about that, i mean go back 50 years, we were curing 20 to 30 percent. this is the miracle story of modern medicine. [dr. jessica valdez] the research here is research that we share with everyone else, because overall we want to help all children that have cancer. what makes that possible is people that give to st. jude. they really help us to fulfill our mission, and we're so grateful to have them on our team. ♪ . mark: welcome back. i want to talk about china. i consider china are greatest threat right now. there's iran, north korea, russia and others, but china is building up a significant military machine. it is trying to take control in geopolitical ways and the
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geographical ways that the south china sea, other navigable waters. space, cyber warfare and stealing us blind. they're compelling our companies that do business in china to cough up their technology and proprietary information by joining with these companies, basically state-run companies. stealing our technology here by buying up companies and taking technology and the latest twist is they're flooding our patent office with patent challenges to try and slow down our ability to get our own patent. they're not playing by any kinds of rules and seems to me there is a point at which, and we have export control regimes in place, the commerce department and state department to make sure we don't give our enemies cutting-edge technology to improve their nuclear weapons systems and so forth. so i consider this to be a national security exception. do you agree or disagree? >> to a certain extent, yes, i do agree that china is a very
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unique situation, we don't have to worry about the same situations with canada or europe. it is a unique situation, there is national security concerns, so then the question is how do we deal with that? engage in protectionism, to force them to change or do we use international courts or something or world trade organization? that's where i'm a little not sure what i would recommend as the best solution. mark: and you agree it's different? >> it's different, yes. mark: there was a decision in an international court with china in the philippines, over islands, rocks, that the chinese stole from the philippines and the ruling was against the chinese and the chinese said go ahead and enforce your ruling. in other words, the hell with you. that's the problem when you have a rogue statement you know, give our example. we talked about buying a car or buying food. buying, not breaking into the store and stealing it or
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breaking into the car lot and stealing the car. to me, that puts it in a different category. >> yeah, and i guess thinking back to like reagan who you worked with or for much he was a true free market person, in reality because he was a politician. mark: some exceptions. >> there were some exceptions but you could trust his instincts, in his core of his belief system he supported free trade and not a protectionist. the dangers i see under trump, he has none of the free trade principles that reagan had, and the journal called him the first protectionist in the white house since the 20s. if he's a protectionist at his core i'm not sure i can trust what he wants to do with china. mark: i like what he's doing with china. >> okay. mark: if he doesn't do, it nobody's going to do it. we've had republican president after republican president, quasi free market, whatever the label is for them, and basically let china get away
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with it. republican congress let china get away with it, why? the corporate instinct, which i like, is profit and some cases profit at all costs. got it, good. but sometimes just like with the constitution, when it comes to national security. we have to look at a country. i mean, i don't believe we should have had free trade with let's say the third reich. i don't think we should have had free trade with japan or mussolini's italy, before war broke out. when china is making it obvious with the phony islands and the rest that it is a threat us to, i think a president or government has a responsibility to try and find ways to protect the american people from them. >> yeah, international trade theory. one of the exceptions to free trade and one of the reasons you might want to have some kind of restrictions is national security. so to the extent that that's an issue now, we should really
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think about that seriously. the danger is every industry can make a national security argument. mark: that's different. i agree with you. i'm not talking about the industries making the argument. i'm talking about there's that country over there that's dangerous, i don't care what this industry, that industry or the other industry said, and you don't trust the current administration to do that? >> i'm thinking because as a protectionist i think trump is always going to favor protectionism over any other kind of solution. so in the case of china, maybe i would support what he's doing there, just not sure. mark: yet, i think when it comes to china, he's doing the right thing. i think so. they're trying to limit the technology flying to china. punishing china domestically in our courts and elsewhere for stealing our technology. he is putting tariffs in place, he said, for national security reasons because they're stealing our technology. they do not pay attention to
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international agreements or international court rulings. >> yeah, so maybe there is some justification there. maybe i would differ a little bit if we're claiming they subsidized producers or manipulate currency, then i would say that's fine that they do that because they're subsidizing american consumers and american companies if they subsidize producers or manipulating currency when the claims were being made it was that they were make the dollar too strong and goods too cheap. >> so essentially, we agree to disagree, in part. >> check out star spangled savings at bass pro shops and cabela's. like flag chairs for under $13. save 33% or more on select teva men's and ladies' sandals. and bring the kids for free workshops and activities.
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still nervous [about buying a house? a little. thought i could de-stress with some zen gardening. at least we don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. just call geico. geico helps with homeowners insurance? good to know. been doing it for years. that's really good to know. i should clean this up. i'll get the dustpan. behind the golf clubs. get to know geico. and see how easy homeowners and renters insurance can be.
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. mark: i want to get back to this word fair. fair. some companies live. some companies die. some companies expand. some retract. on what basis are we supposed to subsidize companies and workers to the detriment of other companies and the workers and the taxpayers? >> yeah, the notion of fair or fairness is just so swishy and subjective that there's no definition for that. if we talk about fair wages or fair trade, from an economic standpoint it always is never quite as a good concept is to
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have freedom of and allow the free market and the principles of a market economy to determine the direction. mark: is it pro american to be in favor of fair trade? >> well, it is, unless like i said before, when people use the term fair, it is almost always followed by government intervention to impose fairness on a situation they have determined to be unfair. so i think in principle, it's a fine ideal to have everything be fair in people's minds, but usually fair translates into government intervention whereas freedom and free trade means the absence or less government control on regulation. mark: do you think if we as a country proposed let's eliminate all barriers, all subsidies, all tariffs, all taxes of every kind and every private conserveans, do you think our government would go along with that? i don't think our government would go along with that?
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>> no, that would be a great way to approach it. if we talk about free trade, nafta, 2,000-page negotiated contract or something like that, and again, the politicians get a payoff from their voters and supporters when they impose protectionism in ways they don't get when they support free trade. i think politically it's not viable, but from an economic standpoint, it would be a great -- mark: how many tariffs do we impose on the american people taxes? how many tariffs? >> i think it's in the thousands. mark: i think you and i have counted 12,000, slipped into bills to protect industries and give certain donations. you want to talk about the swamp, talk about entrenched bureaucracy. isn't that it? >> yeah, the idea that america is the big open market and is mean, the 25% tariff on trucks. the fact we don't allow foreign sugar in to protect our sugar
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beet farmers. it's not as if we come into the discussion with clean hands. discussion with clean hands. we (director) cut! nice, candace, but this time bold. did someone say "bold?" (gasping) starkist jalapeo tuna in a pouch! loaded with bold flavor. just tear, eat... mmmmm. and go bold! try all of my bold creations pouches!
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but we won't get there without you. visit alz.org to join the fight. mark: doctor mark perry, final question for you. you see the country abandoning capitalism, market capitalism moving toward socialism? >> i see promising signs under the current administration in areas like energy, education, regulation and taxes so i think were moving in the right direction but the danger now in terms of moving away from free-market capitalism is the trend toward greater protectionism that we are seeing because that is moving us in the wrong direction. the biggest challenge i see right now and the biggest threat to free-market capitalism is this wave of protectionism that we are seen.
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mark: what about the body politic? do you think the wave is a reaction to that because i'm starting to think it is? >> there has been some resistance in congress to trumps authority on his own to unilaterally impose these perfectionist policies so there is some blowback in congress. mark: what about the voters? >> the voters are being, i think, a little bit influenced by this wave of protectionism and that is the danger icy. people are now buying into that make america first. mark: what about the conservative movement customer. >> it has to remember its principles going back to reagan and heroes like milton freedman who showed us the way to think about the economy so if we keep that legacy in mind with those intellectual heroes of mine and
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yours, i think, we will be okay. mark: is that why we had the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth? >> yeah, our prosperity is because of our free market, democratic capitalism. mark: it has been a great pleasure. to give her much. see you next time on "life, liberton that note, it's been great having you. we'll see you next weekend. "fox news sunday" is next. >>chris: widespread confusion on our southern border as president trump flips on separating immigrant families but doubles down on his zero-tolerance policy against those entering the u.s. illegally. ♪.>> our first duty and our highest loyalty is to the citizens of the united states. we want safety in our country. we want border security. >> the president must continue to act to deal with these problems which he can do on his own. >>chris: we will discuss what the president will do next and if congress can pass immigration reform with republican congressman - - chair of the
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