74 – No Such Thing as Free Trade

In today’s episode, Peter and Sonny explain their point of view on what free trade is and what it is not. They argue that the implementation of free trade created an imbalance that destroyed certain areas and industries. At the end, it shouldn’t have been about free trade but fair trade.

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Transcript

Sonny Maken 0:09

M

Peter Dyga 0:15

I'm Peter Dyga, president and CEO at ABC Florida East Coast. Happy Friday. Oh, let's get let's get into now you got me doing it. I got you doing it.

Sonny Maken 0:25

So we got our obligatory language we need to do. So you're listening, listening or watching the Obvious Podcast, where all opinions expressed are our own, unless we say otherwise.

Peter Dyga 0:36

Love the show. Subscribe on any major podcast platform or watch us in action on YouTube. Follow the Obvious Podcast on Instagram, X, Truth Social, and now TikTok. All the links you need are in the show notes. Reach out to us anytime at the Obvious at ABC Eastflorida.com. And if you're enjoying the ride, help others find us by leaving us a review wherever you listen. All right. All right. Happy Friday for Friday. So it's good to see you again. Likewise. Thank you, listeners and viewers. We appreciate you joining us.

Sonny Maken 1:09

Yep. The other day, a friend of mine who is in Texas, I've known her since my days at Georgetown, posted a little clip of uh George Bush, the son, and Bill Clinton. They were at some conference talking to each other, having a very friendly conversation. And she made this point about how much she misses politics where we all got along. Right? That was my reaction.

Peter Dyga 1:44

Of course. Can't we just go back to where we were just like all talking about uh fraud and really not do anything about it? You know, that would be a much better time. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Sort of the theory.

Sonny Maken 2:02

Yeah.

Peter Dyga 2:02

But again, it's like, you know, I don't know. It's the Oh whack-mole. Yeah. Yeah. It's like anytime somebody tries to break free of that traditional just get along. You know, times were better when we were all just got along. You know? We all just talked about the things that people, the public didn't like, but we never really did anything about things.

Sonny Maken 2:21

Right. So I mean I came to age under under Reagan, and I just now that I look back and I look at uh Bush, the Bushes what do they do? I mean, besides go to war and get a bunch of people killed, what did they do? They haven't they haven't never did anything to sort of advance American values or American prosperity. You know, they just kind of went along. So let's do a thought experiment.

Peter Dyga 2:51

Okay. What's the first word that comes to mind? Ronald Reagan. Impactful. Jimmy Carter.

Sonny Maken 3:00

Loser.

Peter Dyga 3:02

I'm sorry. That was the first word that came looking for more like policy things. Let's try again. Give me uh policy implications. Policy uh failure. Okay. Disaster. Um effective. Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking inflation. The inflation um The Boss Iranian hostage issue, right? Yeah. So with Reagan, what do you mean what are you what what is what is he going to be remembered for? Uh the Berlin Wall eyes. Berlin Wall. Excellent. Perfect example. Perfect example. All right. So let's think of so now if I go to one of the Bushes, you know, I don't know. The Bush the father? Yeah.

Sonny Maken 3:39

Nothing. Like literally.

Peter Dyga 3:40

What can you think of?

Sonny Maken 3:41

He's not going to be remembered for. No new taxes, and then you raise taxes. And then he did. Read my lips. Remember that? Yeah.

Peter Dyga 3:49

So who did we have? So who did we have in between? Was that Clinton? Clinton. So what Clinton, what do you remember? What was he known for?

Sonny Maken 3:57

Monica Lewinsky, the admin of the internet, booming stock market.

Peter Dyga 4:03

Okay.

Sonny Maken 4:04

Because he got lucky. I mean, he was happened to be there. I think that was uh contract with America with the the welfare reform?

Peter Dyga 4:12

Oh, because he had the Republican legislature for the first time in this reconstruction or something.

Sonny Maken 4:19

Newt Gingrich was like, we're going to do something effective.

Peter Dyga 4:23

I saw a speech that he gave. And is there any doubt that uh Trump? You know, will what will I mean Trump will be remembered for. The second term is still to be determined, right? I suppose. But if you were to do it now or even the first year, you know, my gosh, the boom and the America first, and the uh and that's really the point of this episode, right? We want to kind of talk a little bit about the realignment or the reassessment of what it means to be a Democrat, what it means to be a Republican, what it means to be right? Yeah. And he certainly he might be remembered for that. Yep. Because he is he is starting, he's the reason why I think this conversation is happening.

Sonny Maken 5:03

Yes.

Peter Dyga 5:05

And you have some people that are like, we want to go back to the good old days when you know Republicans were just uh a countervoice where we talked about, well, we're we're for small government, but then did nothing about it. Did nothing about it. Did nothing about it. Didn't look or were for free trade, but all we really did was unbalanced trade that killed blue-collar and middle class jobs.

Sonny Maken 5:29

And we shipped American middle class overseas. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Peter Dyga 5:31

Yeah. So don't if anybody ever says we're not critical of the right. I mean, how many times have we talked about it?

Sonny Maken 5:37

And I and I I have I have a lot of contempt for sort of the traditional Republican uh party, you know, what it stands for, what it has actually done, the way it has ignored um data, especially when it comes to outsourcing and trade, and how they have literally just destroyed uh the Midwest, you know, uh the Rust Belt, the uh parts of the Sunbelt states.

Peter Dyga 6:06

So I sidetracked you a little bit, but so anyway, try to get back to your I mean you you uh the point of this uh podcast, you know, you had read an article, I think, or we wanted to the Wall Street Journal uh editorial uh back in December that I had read.

Sonny Maken 6:23

And the editorial was kind of talking about the traditional conservatives, right?

Peter Dyga 6:28

And how there was this big and how there's this counter uh Yeah.

Sonny Maken 6:33

The Heritage Foundation's been traditionally sort of the leading think tank for right of center issues.

Peter Dyga 6:39

Those that have never heard of them. You know, they were like I mean, I remember reading and subscribing to their I don't know if it was monthly or quarterly or what it was, you know, uh publication. I mean, these are the things that I cut my teeth on, you know, in terms of politics. But yeah, they were the thought leader, you know, in the conservative movement. And uh, you know, I remember back in the 80s, you know, the articles they would talk about privatization of social security and school choice, and you know, they were really the thought leaders in helping develop what the can what it meant to be a conservative and and in general Republicans, right? So, but now there's concern, there's some about what it means, how Trump is changing that.

Sonny Maken 7:18

Yeah.

Peter Dyga 7:18

Right?

Sonny Maken 7:19

Yeah. And they it's interesting, I think a lot of the Republicans, sort of the what what I call or what we call country club Republicans, have started calling Trump a protectionist, right? Because they are so wedded to this idea that uh free markets are the only way to go. And this is what annoys the crap out of me, is that they ignore all of the data that clearly shows the damage done by their version of free trade. This this were we wrong all along?

Peter Dyga 7:54

I mean, you know, when I was younger and you know, we were all behind free trade, or is i or is it our perception and our understanding of the Trevor Burrus, no, no, we were wrong because the the fundamental thing really what we should have been for was fair trade.

Sonny Maken 8:06

Fair trade. Because the fundamental thing you need in free trade is every country that participates needs to have free trade. That is the only way it works. Right? Right. But when you have countries that aren't fair, that's what fair trade means. Right.

Peter Dyga 8:19

It means everybody's kind of making decisions on the same terms. Exactly. So and but it is you can't say But if you don't have that, it's maybe good for the consumer. Because you get a lot of cheap free, you know, uh uh cheap crap.

unknown 8:37

Right.

Peter Dyga 8:37

But otherwise, it's not so good when it's a good thing. But then the number of consumers that can afford two decades later, but the number of consumers that can afford shrinks dramatically.

Sonny Maken 8:44

Right. Right? Right.

Peter Dyga 8:46

So I used to use this example. There's a battle going on. That's the point of this Wall Street Journal article. There's uh Mike Pence, I think, has started a counter Heritage Foundation, which again now probably going on 40 or 50 years, they've kind of been the for you know, for those that kind of were in inside baseball and politics and policy and whatnot, they were the leaders. Yeah. But they're Mike Pence and others are saying they now are no longer for the Heritage Foundation for free trade and for you know heritage is now protectionist, right? That's what they're claiming.

Sonny Maken 9:18

They're claiming heritage is so they're not for globalism or intervention and and because they're no longer supporting heritage is no longer and and then obviously you can obviously give credit to Trump for this heritage no longer supports endless foreign wars, right? That they are no longer for, and this is how they say it, robust American foreign policy. Right?

Peter Dyga 9:40

That's the irony there. I I would argue if you look back on uh you know, I'm I'm I'm um looking forward a little bit, but I'd be willing to bet you'd look back on the Trump administration and you cannot say he didn't have a robust foreign policy.

unknown 9:55

Exactly.

Peter Dyga 9:56

It's just different. It's not what it's not the same kind of robustness and the same kind of activity that they wanted. Right. Or they supported for years and years and years.

Sonny Maken 10:05

So well, I mean, there's another thing that we should just kind of state on the record.

Peter Dyga 10:09

The left's the same way. I mean, they're all for interventionists. It's just they're their type of intervention.

Sonny Maken 10:14

We call them limous limousine liberals, so right? And to me to us, to me, there's no difference between a limousine liberal and a and a control republican. It's the same. You know, I think one of the reasons why Trump has resonated the way he's resonated is he's really not a Republican. I mean, he's in a very not in the traditional sense. Yeah. Yeah. He's uh very much a pragmatist. Very much a pragmatist.

Peter Dyga 10:35

And to him America first. I think that's it. Right. To him. They want to ridicule him for that. I think that's really what drives every decision.

Sonny Maken 10:44

Oh, yeah.

Peter Dyga 10:44

It's a good for America. So in a way, he's also for the collective. You could argue that. Right? Yep. I think we've made that argument in previous podcasts. So um there really is no difference between Mandami and Trump, the two side ends of the political spectrum. They both publicly claim that they want what's back for the collective. The collective for Mandami right now is you know residents of New York City, I suppose. The collective for uh Trump is, you know, America. The difference is how they get there. Yeah, but Mamdani hates white people. I mean, that we But there's that's that's pretty significant. That's that's now the love claims Trump's a racist too, but this gets back to a previous podcast too. Get give give me some data. Don't give me your anecdotal, you know, whatever. So, any event. And that's crazy to me. That doesn't get us some email. I don't know what will. But in any event.

Sonny Maken 11:42

They're not any different, right? I've I've had I've had Indians tell me Trump hates brown people. I'm like, have you ever been to his private country club? There's a ton of Indian members there, right? I mean, he's got him in his cabinet, right? The guy who runs the FBI, so friggin' Patel. Like, there is there is enough um, I guess, anecdotal evidence to uh to sh to share with you that he's not a racist. I mean, you know, I I know people who know him. And subject for another show. Yeah. It's a different topic.

Peter Dyga 12:12

But so how does this impact so all right, so there's a well no a struggle. There's a there's a battle.

Sonny Maken 12:19

There's a battle in the sort of the Republican definition of words, because you know, words matter. But what I what I really am fascinated by is this concept, and especially on free trade, that if you look back sort of when free trade really kicked it into high gear, which was around Nixon going to China and then sort of the liberalization that started then, right? The whole concept was oh, we get access to Chinese markets. I mean, my gosh, I've been hearing that for my whole life.

Peter Dyga 12:48

What are we selling there? Chopsticks? I think we were for a while until Washington put a kibosh on budgeting.

Sonny Maken 12:56

I mean, we wanted to sell iPhones, but they can't afford them because the average Chinese salary is way too low. Right. Maybe some agricultural products. Some uh soybeans. Right. Right? Our soybeans uh were were big time there. But in terms of consumer goods, in terms of the Chinese market, like the way we define our market, which is 80% of our market, is consumer spending, our GDP is consumer spending. Uh that is not true of China because their consumer spending is so low, because people are low paid.

Peter Dyga 13:21

Democrats might we might have exported some uh Democrat policies and governments.

Sonny Maken 13:26

No, they've exported their policies here through our colleges and universities.

Peter Dyga 13:30

I'm just saying I think the Democrat Party could teach them a little bit about collectivism. Oh, collective, yeah, that's true. Central planning. Yeah.

Sonny Maken 13:39

I mean, uh, you know who who was the guy who had honeymoon in Moscow? Oh, Bernie Sanders.

Peter Dyga 13:47

Yeah, in Moscow, right? Yeah, Tim Waltz, I think, actually went, maybe not as Honeymoon, but didn't he do teaching gig over in, I don't know, China or Vietnam. Boy. The things we didn't know. Well, we knew was enough, but the things we didn't know.

Sonny Maken 14:02

This is what irritated me about Mike Pence's thing, advancing American Freedom Foundation, that's what he calls it, which is like uh an absurd misnomer.

Peter Dyga 14:08

And again, it's to try and by the way, I think it's great. We're all for competition. Yeah. You know, and there's gonna be there is a competition for the Republican, conservative, right of center approach. And uh I I think both of us. That's why we, you know, we uh I'm all for the realignment that Trump is, you know, the the the limousine liberals and the country cut Republicans can have their own party.

Sonny Maken 14:33

Yep.

Peter Dyga 14:34

I'll take the working class, blue-collar, you know, hardworking family, yeah uh, you know, um, from the Democrat side and you know, the the folks on the Republican side that aren't afraid of um uh American activism in the world.

Sonny Maken 14:50

Yep.

Peter Dyga 14:50

Um whether it's I mean we could uh list off a few things, whether it's Venezuela or his impact in our hemisphere, because it hasn't just impacted Venezuela but several other countries as well. Uh I pay particular close attention to Nicaragua because of my ties to Costa Rica. Um I mean, the dictator there is the same guy Reagan fought frigging 40 years ago. Uh Ortega and his wife. I mean, they're dictators there. They've got political prisoners, you know, which actually there was a story this week that they just released some because of the administration's pressure and what they did in Venezuela. The leadership has impacts all around the globe. What's happening in Colombia? And you've seen stories about the actual elections as well, where the countries have elected more right of center people. We even alluded to, I think, in our previous podcast that uh Trump tried to exert influence in one of them, and people were like screaming like, oh, who are you to try to exert influence in a foreign election? Well, well, what what are we supposed to do as a country? We give them millions of dollars in aid, and we're supposed to just sit back and say, go ahead, elect a dictator. He told him if you don't make the right decision, our money's taking a hike. He has every right. You know, I'm I'm glad we have a president that actually He understands how to use leverage. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's right. So he's not it's not like he's an isolationist, which a lot of people want to point, like there's a struggle going on. He's just not for those endless wars. Trevor Burrus, Jr. But people on our side that, which is what drives me on. They did.

Sonny Maken 16:24

Why is this important to ABC? Because economic prosperity has a huge impact on our members. Trevor Burrus, Jr. For sure. Right. For sure.

Peter Dyga 16:31

And economic prosperity, and not only that, but we have a long-standing tradition of trying to elect people who um A, we'll have a good relationship with so that you know they'll think of calling ABC before they file a bill or before they vote on a bill. Ask how does this impact your members, uh, making sure that we elect people that understand our industry. And if we don't understand electoral politics, we're not gonna be able to do that effectively. That that's how I think it impacts ABC.

Sonny Maken 16:56

Plus, we're a values-driven organization. Like, you know, our values are meritocracy and free markets. I mean, those are important values to us. So we want to make sure we define them. We want to make sure we acknowledge sort of the conflict within our own camp. And we kind of talk about what's what matters to us as an organization because that's what matters to our members.

Peter Dyga 17:14

Right. I mean, at our core is meritocracy. Absolutely. You know, and merit.

Sonny Maken 17:18

Um and anything that takes away from meritocracy is something that we will oppose every single time.

Peter Dyga 17:24

That's exactly right. So you know, we did a recent podcast on, you know, uh anecdotal being led by anecdotal evidence as opposed to the fallacy of it. Anecdotal evidence, right, as opposed to data. So and that gets that gets to meritocracy. You know, meritocracy is based on data, it's based on results, it's based on actual evidence. You know, yeah.

Sonny Maken 17:45

You can't even define meritocracy without data, right? Like you can't tell you can't even define who's a winner and who's not a winner unl unless you have accurate data, and that's so important. And I think what a lot of these Republicans, the the country club Republicans or traditional Republicans or the neocons do, is they just ignore the data. Yeah. Because philosophically they feel they're a certain way. And that that that's what I think that's my biggest problem. Like you your philosophy, if it doesn't change based on data, then it's a flawed philosophy.

Peter Dyga 18:19

Um I remember during the last campaign and the individual um comp conventions, uh party conventions, and uh the the the controversy within ABC inner circles and conversations that were had when um the Republicans um I think invited a labor leader to speak at the convention. You know, it was again it gets to this struggle that's going on right now, you know, between and there's people, and and by the way, a lot of people would put us in that camp, right? Because traditionally, a lot of our our struggles, our battles, our policy conversations and whatnot, uh our you know, our our management and labor, you know, kind of uh um spectrum or or prism, if you will. So um my my reaction though to that was did we or what did we do to approach the Democrats to ask them for an equal opportunity? Yeah. Don't complain about what the Republicans did by inviting somebody. Yeah. My reaction was, have we as an organization or a party or anybody actually gone to the Democrat Party and said, let somebody from ABC speak at your convention about meritocracy and why it's more important than that was my reaction. It's like battle for that as opposed to complain about this struggle within our own house. You know, and again, why that's important is um the policymakers of the future and how they get elected and whether they get elected is going to be important for us. Absolutely. Um, you know, in terms of understanding that.

Sonny Maken 19:52

So in any event. All right. So to wrap it up, follow the data, right? And don't be so hung up on your philosophy that you you ignore data that clearly shows the philosophy isn't working. And there's a lot of that happening and and certainly in sort of the traditional Republican camps.

Peter Dyga 20:12

And I think some of the larger scale um value propositions that we all need to assess are uh are you more for are you more of a believer in free trade or fair trade? Are you more of a believer in uh uh uh uh looking out for American interest globally, but not endless wars? I think that's the real conversation being had today. Are you more for, you know, the rule of law or um you know chaos. Chaos, you know? Uh are you more for actually action, you know, rather than just talking about fraud and abuse and government waste and continuing to talk about it to do nothing? Or do you actually want to support people who are trying to do something, even if uh the anecdotal stories that the media might portray are are gonna tug at your heartstrings. Anyway.

Sonny Maken 21:05

Listen, those are the decisions ahead of us. I know we're running out of time, but do you remember the USAID uh controversy when they discovered all this fraud and abuse and nonsense that they were spending taxpayer money on? I I really got into the weeds on that whole thing. I read a ton of stuff on that. And the only thing I could think of is it made me so angry that no other Republican had ever even talked about it, had even tackled that issue. Right. You know? Right. Uh jobs numbers come out, and if you look at the jobs number numbers data monthly, you'll realize one area of job growth that had dominated in the last, I don't know, four years under certainly under Biden and definitely under under Clinton and Obama was uh government job growth. And that has fallen off a cliff under this president, right? And so they were like, Oh, he's only adding 20,000 jobs. But that's only because he's not adding government jobs. Like they've always, you know, but they only the the media will never make it.

Peter Dyga 22:00

So when you consider the government jobs that have gone away, he's actually added quite a few private sector jobs. Exactly.

Sonny Maken 22:04

So um again, you know, the the anecdotal evidence you would hear, or especially around the USAID issue, was just amazing. And then the data comes.

Peter Dyga 22:12

It's a fair for me to say sometimes I feel like these discussions revolve around uh adult conversations versus what a kid would say. It's a parent versus a child or a parent. Exactly. You know, you're gonna get that shot. Quit your crying. You know, it's gonna do good for you in the long term and give it some time. Yeah, the adults are in the right.

Sonny Maken 22:32

Anyway, I sleep a lot better knowing that. Yeah, we have we have to go. So thank you for uh listening and honoring us with your time. We look forward to sharing another episode with you next Friday.

Peter Dyga 22:41

And for comments, we ask you to send us an email at theobvious at abceflorida.com. Thank you all next Friday.

unknown 22:49

Ciao.