With Mitt Romney, we had the chance to have a business executive run the country which would have been nice. But I didn’t share his hard-line rhetoric toward China. Is China building up its navy? Yes, but all developed nations do that. I don’t see China taking over the world, militarily or economically. To be sure, their economy is big and growing, but that’s good news for everybody as we can now export more goods to their growing middle class. And take a look at where China is focusing their investments worldwide. For years we were worried that they were a closed society. Now we worry that they’re going to take over the world. We want them investing in the world. And here’s something else: their communistic regime will be replaced internally by a democracy sooner than later. The Chinese are simply too good of businessmen to put up with Communism for too much longer. And when that happens, they will be the world’s biggest democracy, but then we’ll probably worry about that too. 

It would appear that John Kerry and Company is doing everything it can to reinitiate a cold war with Russia. Now we hear that the US is “open” to imposing trade sanctions should Ukrainian authorities “violently” quash anti-government protests over cozying up with Russia. Once again we are messing where we should not be messing. Trade between Ukraine and Russia is quite frankly, none of our business. But, says the State Department, it’s not just trade ties but political ties that Ukraine and Russia are strengthening. And your point it what? Of course political ties strengthen when trade ties strengthen—the two go hand in hand. That’s why we have as our motto, “global peace through global trade.”

If you’ve ever had a high powered meeting with the Japanese, you know that it’s an exotic cocktail of cultural nuances, bluffing, innuendoes, fabricated politeness, patience, and serendipitous conversation. The ubiquitous Japanese interpreter was at once the fall guy and the point man, but always a part of the conversational drama. Well that’s all changing, especially at Honda which recently announced that heretofore, English will be the official language of the company. How boring!

Is NAFTA good for business? Yes. Is it good for American jobs? Depends on who you ask. US Government data claims that the US economy has lost around 845,000 jobs because of increased imports from Canada and Mexico. OK….but like any data, there are caveats. Is that a net loss of jobs? Were those manufacturing jobs replaced by new industry jobs? What about increased jobs in the transportation sector to get those goods from A to B? How many of those jobs were lost to an increase in the use of robotics in manufacturing? I hate to say this but…..most of the government data is produced by employees of public sector unions which makes you wonder if data analysis is being skewed toward union agendas?

Though I question his business acumen and wonder if all his decisions are politically motivated, President Obama—and for that matter any US president—should have “fastrack” trade authority. Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate global trade but the executive branch has the authority to forge trade agreements with other governments. Interesting to note however is that even Harry Reid doesn’t trust President Obama in this area. I’m not quite sure what that means except to underscore how political any business decisions have become these days in Washington. But to succeed as a nation, we have to put our economic growth ahead of politics.