Curtiss- Wright Case Neg

1NC It’s not the executive, but CONGRESS that has the majority of foreign commerce powerSomin ’17 (Ilya Somin is a law professor at George Mason University, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a blogger for the Volokh Conspiracy, and a former co-editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review., The Washington Post, "Justice Thomas on why the Foreign Commerce Clause does not make Congress “the world’s lawgiver”", March 12, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/03/12/justice-thomas-on-why-the-foreign-commerce-clause-does-not-make-congress-the-worlds-lawgiver/)The Supreme Court recently refused to hear Baston v. United States, a case involving the scope of the Foreign Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” Justice Clarence Thomas filed a forceful dissent to denial of certiorari (beginning at pg. 28 of the linked

document), arguing that the Court should have taken the case in order to pare back federal overreach in this field and “reaffirm that our Federal Government is one of limited and enumerated powers, not the world’s lawgiver.” The defendant in this case was prosecuted under a federal law that allows federal prosecutors to go after alleged sex traffickers even if the trafficking occurred outside the United States, so long as “the alleged offender is present in the United States.” Mr. Batson is a Jamaican citizen who was ordered to pay restitution for coercing a woman into sex trafficking while he was in Australia . The lower court ruled that Baston’s trafficking in Australia was within Congress’ jurisdiction because the Foreign Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate any activity that “substantially affects” trade between the US and foreign nations, including – in this case – sex trafficking abroad.

Thomas outlines the troubling implications of this reasoning: Taken to the limits of its logic, the consequences of the Court of Appeals’ reasoning are startling. The Foreign Commerce Clause would permit Congress to regulate any economic activity anywhere in the world, so long as Congress had a rational basis to conclude that the activity has a substantial effect on commerce between this Nation and any other. Congress would be able not only to criminalize prostitution in Australia, but also to regulate working conditions in factories in China, pollution from power-plants in India, or agricultural methods on farms in France. I am confident that whatever the correct interpretation of the

foreign commerce power may be, it does not confer upon Congress a virtually plenary power over global economic activity. As Thomas explains in his opinion, lower courts have fallen into this error by applying the Supreme Court’s

jurisprudence on the Interstate Commerce Clause to the Foreign Commerce Clause. The former does interpret the power to regulate interstate commerce as extending to virtually any “economic activity” that might have a “substantial effect” interstate commerce, including even the possession of medical marijuana that never crossed state lines or was sold in any market. This is an extremely dubious interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause, and it is even more problematic when it comes to the Foreign Commerce Clause, because of the potential for expanding US federal jurisdiction to cover virtually the entire world. Coercing women into sex trafficking, as Baston apparently did, is a terrible crime. But, at least with respect to his activities in Australia, it’s a crime that is properly addressed by Australian law, not the US federal government. The dangerous implications of this broad interpretation of the commerce power for foreign commerce also undermine the case for the Court’s ultrabroad interpretation of the interstate commerce power. If the power to regulate “commerce” does not imply a power to regulate any activity that might have some effect on it when it comes to international commerce, the same is likely true to of interstate commerce. After all, the Constitution literally uses the same word to describe both powers, putting them in the same clause of Article I, which states that Congress shall have the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Thomas is also a longtime critic of the Court’s interpretation of federal power over interstate commerce, most notably in his concurring opinion in United States v. Lopez (1995). I certainly don’t always agree with Justice Thomas. But he deserves credit for calling attention to the serious flaws in modern Commerce Clause jurisprudence, both domestic and foreign.

No Solvency Congress fails -- partisanshipMann and Ornstein ‘18(Thomas E. Mann is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution and Resident Scholar, Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies politics, elections, and the US Congress. Supply-side congressional reform? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/07/25/supply-side-congressional-reform/, JB)

We also agree with Levin that the contemporary party system is at the root of problems with Congress, but often in ways that differ with him. Two are of special importance. First, we argue in “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” that today’s parties are mismatched with Madison’s Congress. The parties have become ideologically polarized, tribalized, and strategically partisan. As we wrote, “Parliamentary-style parties in a separation-of-powers government are a formula for willful obstruction and policy avoidance.” Our Madisonian system is predicated on the willingness of elected officials representing highly diverse interests to engage in good-faith negotiations and compromise. Levin mostly agrees that contemporary parties undermine the constitutional design but he doesn’t squarely face the implications. Party identification is the most powerful identity in our politics, encompassing racial, ethnic, religious and geographical divides. There are few cross-cutting cleavages that might dampen the hyperpartisanship. Had the Framers been able to anticipate the nature of contemporary parties, we doubt they would have settled on the same constitutional design. The challenge for us is somehow to lessen the mismatch between our parties and our electoral and governing institutions. Capacity-building tinkering with Congress will not meet that challenge. Our second difference involves the specific parties that we have: the Democrats and the Republicans. Levin has little use for our formulation of asymmetric partisan polarization. What we wrote six years ago must be as annoying to him today as it was then, but we believe no less accurate: “The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” We’ve written two books (the second, One Nation After Trump, with E. J. Dionne, Jr.) and countless articles substantiating that argument. Dozens of scholars have now weighed in on this asymmetry. We do not argue that Democrats are pure—partisanship is deep on both sides—but the history of compromise and attempted compromise across the aisle, serious oversight, and a willingness to separate truth from lies is starkly different. The processes used by Republicans in their attempt to repeal Obamacare and enact the enormous tax cut show the problem is getting even worse. The current politics under a Trump-led unified Republican Party government—to say nothing of the struggle to preserve our democracy—clearly bears out this feature of our party system. Levin attempts to refute this asymmetry argument by using Frances Lee’s research, featured most recently in her excellent book, “Insecure Majorities.” Lee demonstrates how small majorities and hotly contested races for party control produce intensely partisan behavior in governing. We agree with Lee but don’t consider it a refutation of institutional mismatch or party asymmetry—and she doesn’t either. As we wrote, “The parties are now engaged in a much more competitive struggle for control of the levers of power—either can win the Congress and the White House. And the stakes of these battles are much higher because of the sharp

policy differences.” Both parties are affected by the broader forces operating in our polity but their distinctiveness in recent decades is an important contributor to our governing problems. The demand for a Madisonian Congress is overwhelmed by the tribal forces dominating our politics today. Building capacity in Congress will have to wait until the incentives are in place to have an assertive and functional legislature. The first step must come this November by replacing the majority party in at least one chamber of Congress.

Adv 1There’s a reason the executive has power over trade – giving congress power is worseElliott 18 (Kimberly Ann Elliott is a visiting scholar at the George Washington University Institute for International Economic Policy, and a visiting fellow with the Center for Global Development. Her WPR column appears every Tuesday. She is the author or co-author of numerous books and articles on trade policy and globalization, economic sanctions and food security. Her most recent book is “Global Agriculture and the American Farmer: Opportunities for U.S. Leadership,” published in 2017 by CGD. She is a member of the Research Consortium on Targeted U.N. Sanctions and has served on a number of official advisory committees, including the State Department’s Working Group on Economic Sanctions, the National Research Council Committee on Monitoring International Labor Standards, the USDA Consultative Group on the Elimination of Child Labor in U.S. Agricultural Imports, and the National Advisory Committee for Labor Provisions in U.S. Free Trade Agreements. “Be Careful What You Wish For in a Trade Fight Between Trump and Congress” July 3rd, 2018. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/24953/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-in-a-trade-fight-between-trump-and-congress)

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate trade, and for more than a century it did so with gusto. Then, grasping for ways to escape the Great Depression and reverse the downward economic spiral that followed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which passed in 1930, Congress delegated some of its trade power to the executive branch. In subsequent decades, Congress provided additional authorities allowing the president to control trade policy. Now, however, with concerns about President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policy moves—imposing a range of tariffs on close allies and rivals alike, and threatening

more—there are calls to shift some of that authority back to Congress. As the United States celebrates the anniversary of its founding this week, it seems like a good time to review history and see how and why the governance of trade evolved the way it has in Washington. This history suggests strongly that,

while some rebalancing is desirable, Congress should exercise great caution in reclaiming its power to regulate trade. Until the 1930s, Congress set import tariffs through periodic legislation. As described in the fascinating—for trade

wonks anyway—new book by Douglas Irwin, an economics professor at Dartmouth, the process often involved legislators going line by line through the tariff schedule to ensure that enough legislators got something for their constituents that the bill would pass. This “logrolling” process, whereby representatives traded their votes for tariffs based on what it meant for their constituents, reached its nadir with the Smoot-Hawley legislation of 1930. While economic historians have revised earlier conclusions that the global outbreak of protectionism and plummeting trade that followed the law caused the Great

Depression, there is little doubt that it contributed to making the economic disaster deeper and longer than it would otherwise have been. As my former Peterson Institute colleague I. M. Destler explained in another brilliant book, “American Trade Politics,” the decentralization of power in the legislative branch, especially the House of Representatives, made it almost inevitable that constituent pressures would result in relatively high tariffs as long as Congress had free rein to set them. Recognizing this inherent weakness, and wanting to prevent a repeat of Smoot-Hawley, Congress delegated tariff-setting authority to the president in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. This legislation, known as the RTAA, allowed the president to negotiate tariff reductions that would then take effect automatically, as long as certain conditions were met. That approach, embodied after World War II in the multilateral General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the precursor to the World Trade Organization, successfully lowered average tariffs among industrialized member states to the low single digits by the 1980s. And Congress generally eschewed specific trade-restricting acts after the RTAA passed. But any trade policy changes negotiated by the president other than tariff cuts still needed congressional approval before they could take effect. With the successful lowering of tariffs through the 1950s and

beyond, new nontariff issues rose to the fore. When Congress refused to pass legislation implementing certain nontariff provisions negotiated during the so-called Kennedy Round of global trade talks held in Geneva in the mid-1960s, the need for a new approach to trade became apparent. Without that, Congress could pick apart trade agreements, undermining the president’s credibility in trade negotiations and making it difficult or impossible to conclude them successfully. Congress responded in the 1974 Trade Act by creating the “fast-track” process for consideration of trade agreements, now known as “trade promotion authority.” Under this process, Congress sets out its priorities for trade negotiations and, as long as the president consults with legislators along the way, Congress commits itself to vote on

implementing legislation for trade agreements within certain deadlines and without amendments. As worrying as Trump’s actions are, restoring too much congressional control over trade is not the way to go. Congress approved the RTAA and later the fast-track procedure to ensure the president had adequate authority to pursue trade-liberalizing agreements. But as Europe and Japan recovered from the devastation of World War II, and key developing countries became larger players in global markets, America’s economic dominance

faded and protectionist pressures began to grow. Congress responded with new authorities and institutional innovations aimed at pushing the executive branch to be more aggressive on trade so Congress wouldn’t have to be. By the early 1960s, for example, Congress had become concerned that the State Department, then in charge of trade negotiations, prioritized broader foreign policy concerns over American trade interests. In the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Congress created what became the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to conduct trade negotiations and required it to report to Congress, as well as the president. That legislation also included the provisions, known as Section 232, which give the president broad authority to restrict imports for national security reasons. In the 1974 Trade Act, alongside the fast-track provisions to facilitate trade negotiations, Congress created Section 301, authorizing the president to take action against trade practices that unfairly impede U.S. exports. Since then, Congress has mostly followed a pattern of supporting continued trade liberalization through bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations, while also pushing the executive branch to be more aggressive in confronting alleged unfair trade practices. In the 1980s, when the current U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, was the agency’s deputy, Congress pushed the Reagan administration for more help in resisting the protectionist pressures that were coming from an ever wider swath of American manufacturing. Among other actions, Congress added provisions to Section 301 that were “super”—aimed at whole countries deemed unfair traders, rather than particular practices—and “special”—targeting alleged violations of U.S. intellectual property rights. In response, the Reagan administration undertook far

more Section 301 and national security investigations than its predecessors, and the 1980s became known as a period of aggressive unilateralism in U.S. trade policy. But President Ronald Reagan still maintained a vocal commitment to open markets and launched new trade-liberalizing negotiations through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Like those in the White House before him, Reagan was generally restrained in how he used his congressionally authorized powers to restrict trade. And his successors generally did the same, until now. Trump’s willingness to employ all the tools at his disposal, with little or no regard for trade agreements and international rules, make this a whole new ballgame. So far, concerned legislators have been subdued in their efforts to rein in the president’s delegated authorities. Republican Senators Bob Corker and Pat Toomey, along with several of their colleagues, are proposing that congressional approval be required for actions to restrict trade for national security purposes under Section 232. This

is a modest proposal and worth serious consideration. But as worrying as Trump’s actions are, and while some rebalancing of the authority over trade is justified, Congress ignores the lessons of history at its own peril. As Irwin’s book reminds us, the founders gave Congress the power to set tariffs because they were a key source of revenue at the time. The trouble started when tariffs instead became primarily a tool for protecting American producers. While much has changed with global trade, the political dynamics in Congress are essentially the same. As bad as things look right now, restoring too much congressional control over trade is not the way to go.

Trade war thumpsNon-unique AND absent an end to China-US trade war, economic downturn continuesSmialek et al 6-18-19 (Jeanna Smialek writes about the Federal Reserve and the economy for The New York Times. She previously covered economics at Bloomberg News, where she also wrote feature stories for Businessweek magazine. Ms. Smialek is studying for her master’s in business administration at New York University’s Stern School. She graduated with a bachelor’s in journalism and international relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and grew up in Mars, Pennsylvania, a small town on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. Jim Tankersley covers economic and tax policy for The New York Times. Over more than a decade covering politics and economics in Washington, he has written extensively about the stagnation of the American middle class and the decline of economic opportunity in wide swaths of the country. Jack Ewing writes about business, banking, economics and monetary policy from Frankfurt, and sometimes helps out on terrorism coverage and other breaking news. “Global Economic Growth Is Already Slowing. The U.S. Trade War Is Making It Worse.” June 18th, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/business/economy/global-economy-trade-war.html)

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s trade war is chilling business investment, confidence and trade flows across the world, a development that foreign leaders and business executives say is worsening a global economic slowdown that was already underway . Recent softening in Europe, Australia and other parts of the world coincides with Mr. Trump’s intensified trade fight with China and other partners. Economists warn that further escalation by Mr. Trump — like tariffs on more Chinese goods or levies on foreign autos — could slow global growth to a crawl.

“With these trade tensions, the global economy, in a sense, is getting close to a crossroads,” said Ayhan Kose, the director of the World Bank’s Prospects Group. Weakness in China, driven in part by fallout from the trade war, has spread to Germany, Australia and other nations, raising supply chain costs, chilling exports and worrying political and economic leaders. On Tuesday, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said the bank was prepared to inject more stimulus into the eurozone economy to combat the economic slowdown. The effects of Mr. Trump’s trade war have been particularly hard on Germany, Europe’s largest economy, which has been bracing for a decision about whether the United States will impose tariffs on auto imports. Trade anxiety has led to a decline in business sentiment and spending: Overall German

industrial production contracted sharply in April, falling 1.9 percent on the month versus the 0.5 percent analysts expected. “The risks that have been prominent throughout the past year, in particular geopolitical factors, the rising threat of protectionism and vulnerabilities in emerging markets, have not dissipated,” Mr. Draghi said in a speech on Tuesday. “The prolongation of risks has weighed on exports and in particular on manufacturing.” Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Draghi by name on Twitter, accusing him of trying to weaken Europe’s currency to get a leg up in global trade by making its goods cheaper to buy overseas. “Mario Draghi just announced more stimulus

could come, which immediately dropped the Euro against the Dollar, making it unfairly easier for them to compete against the USA,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “They have been getting away with this for years, along with China and others.” The president’s aggressive approach to trading partners comes as developed and developing nations are already pulling back on the rapid globalization that dominated two decades of economic policymaking. Global flows of foreign direct investment fell by 13 percent last year, to their lowest level since the financial crisis, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development reported last week. It was the third consecutive annual decline, which officials blamed on multinational corporations bringing cash back to the United States after Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul. Officials warned that trade tensions posed a “downward risk” for a rebound in investment growth this year. Mr. Trump has made steady use of tariffs to punish trading partners, like China, Europe, Canada and Mexico, that he says have destroyed American jobs by flooding the United States with cheap products and erecting unfair economic barriers at home. The president and his top officials insist that the trade war is lifting the American economy and that any slowdown in global growth is not related to the administration’s trade policies. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview this month that he did not “think in any way that the slowdowns you’re seeing in parts of the world are a result of trade tensions at the moment.” He noted that growth in Asia and Europe had been tapering off before trade talks between the United States and China broke down in early May. Mr. Trump has repeatedly cited China’s slowdown as proof that his trade war is working, telling reporters

last week that the United States has “picked up $14 trillion in net worth of the United States.” “And China has gone down probably by $20 trillion,” he continued. “There’s a tremendous gap.” But a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy — one that’s deeply enmeshed in global trade networks — affects other economies. “China is the biggest trading nation in the world,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson

Institute for International Economics in Washington. “The idea that you could slow down the global growth engine and not affect other countries is just not credible.” Multinational companies are already shifting supply chains and delaying capital spending in response to Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods and foreign metals. Tom Linebarger, the chairman and chief executive of diesel engine manufacturer Cummins, said last week that his company had lost business for part of its operation in China as a result of the trade war. The Indiana company is changing its sourcing practices to minimize exposure to China, and Mr. Linebarger said its costs from tariffs now exceeded the

benefits from the corporate tax cuts Mr. Trump signed in 2017. “The tariffs that are in place now, and which may be in place for some time, are a significant burden on U.S. businesses and farms,” Mr. Linebarger said. Data increasingly suggest trade tensions are weighing on economic confidence, globally and in the United States. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York manufacturing survey registered its worst drop ever on Monday, which many economists blamed on Mr. Trump’s threats this month to impose tariffs on Mexican imports as punishment for failing to curb illegal immigration. While those tariffs were averted, the chance that Mr. Trump could make a similar

move against another trading partner has caught the attention of global companies and foreign leaders. The trade war is having “a much bigger impact” on business hiring and investment in the United States than most analysts think, Deutsche Bank wrote in a research note on Monday. Several measures of policy uncertainty, compiled by economists Scott R. Baker of Northwestern University, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and Steven J. Davis of the University of Chicago, have spiked with the increased tensions. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he had spoken by phone to President Xi Jinping of China and that the two leaders would have an “extended” meeting next week at the Group of 20 summit in Japan. Those comments could help calm global trade fears, which had risen after the United States accused China of breaking a trade deal last month and Mr. Trump raised tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as punishment. But no agreement is guaranteed, and Mr. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods if Mr. Xi does not agree to the original deal. The president has already placed import taxes on $250 billion worth of products from China and has hit trading partners with steel and aluminum tariffs and threatened tariffs on foreign autos from Europe and Japan. The World Bank cut its forecast for global growth by 0.3 percentage points for this year in response to unexpected weakness in trade and manufacturing across advanced and developing economies. Global trade growth has slowed to its lowest rate since the 2008 financial crisis as exports from Europe and Japan have plummeted, particularly to China. The bank noted that heightened policy uncertainty, including trade tensions, had been accompanied by slowing global investment and weakening confidence. It warned in a report this month that risks to its outlook were “firmly on the downside, in part reflecting the possibility of destabilizing policy developments, including a further escalation of trade tensions between major economies.” International Monetary Fund economists estimate that if Mr. Trump follows through on his threat to broaden the Chinese trade spat, tariffs added this year alone will subtract 0.3 percent off global gross domestic product in 2020, with an additional 0.2 percent drag coming from tariffs the administration put in place last year. Manufacturing, which is especially vulnerable to trade, is slowing across advanced

economies even as service industries hold up. Factory gauges have dipped lower across Europe and are wavering in Japan. In the United States, the Institute for Supply Management’s factory index dropped to its lowest reading of Mr. Trump’s presidency in May. Trade policies aren’t the only culprit behind slowing production. A continuing, structural slowdown in Chinese growth and tensions from Britain’s attempted exit from the European Union are among other factors. China posted its weakest economic growth in 28 years in 2018, a pullback that analysts blame partly on structural reforms and long-running trends and partly on the trade spat. Analysts at Moody’s Investors Service expect a further slowdown in 2019, to 6.2 percent from 6.6 percent, amid continued trade uncertainty. Europe, where the I.M.F. estimates 70 percent of exports are links in global supply chains, is particularly sensitive to trade disputes. And Germany highlights how the trade war between the United States and China can spill over. The nation’s car industry is the backbone of its economy and is dependent on China for growth. As trade tensions exacerbate China’s economic weakening, manufacturers in Germany pay the price. Volkswagen, the world’s largest carmaker, said last week that sales in China fell 7 percent from January through May, to about 1.2 million vehicles. Largely because of China, Volkswagen’s global sales fell 5 percent

during the same period. “We are experiencing the biggest decline in the world auto market in 20 years,” Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen, said in a report. If Mr. Trump follows through on threats to impose further tariffs on China, Mr. Dudenhöffer said, “there is danger of a global auto crisis.” Germany’s central bank has slashed its forecast for growth this year to 0.6 percent from 1.6 percent. That bleak change was “mainly

due to the downturn in industry, where lackluster export growth is taking a toll.” “The fear factor, the uncertainty, is denting willingness to spend, willingness to invest,’’ said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist for Germany and Austria at ING in Frankfurt. “It’s therefore undermining growth in the eurozone.” And in Australia, where an almost 28-year-old expansion is looking less secure and the central bank recently cut rates for the first time since 2016, economic officials are watching trade wars warily. The governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Philip Lowe, called international

trade disputes “the main downside risk” in a recent news conference. If coming trade negotiations don’t end in a resolution, the United States and its companies could also pay a price, leaders of the Business Roundtable, a corporate lobbying group in Washington, warned last week. “The biggest self-inflicted risk to growth today would be trade going south,” said Jamie Dimon, chief executive at JPMorgan Chase.

Econ collapse inevitableEVEN IF the trade war ends, the damage is done – means economic collapse is inevitableLee 2-25-19 (Lee Yen Nee is a correspondent for CNBC digital based in Singapore, covering a range of business topics from around the region, including banks and macroeconomics. She is no stranger to the business reporting scene, having worked previously at Thomson Reuters and Singapore's daily newspaper TODAY. “The US and China may be nearing a trade deal. That won’t stop the global economic slowdown” February 25th, 2019. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/trade-war-us-china-deal-wont-stop-global-economic-slowdown.html)

The U.S. and China appear to be close to ending a tariff fight that hurt financial markets and dented economic activity worldwide, but that’s not going to stop the slowdown already seen in the global economy, experts said on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that he would delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods that was initially planned for early-March. Washington and Beijing were locked in a tariff fight for months last year, but that battle was put on hold — for an initial 90 days — after Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina in December. The American president also said he would meet Xi at his golf club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, “to conclude an agreement” if “both sides make additional progress.” Trump didn’t announce a timeline for that meeting, but CNBC reported last week that the two countries were discussing holding a late-March summit. Asian markets on Monday reacted

positively to Trump’s announcement, but several experts pointed out that an easing in tensions between the two economic giants won’t stop a global slowdown that’s already happening. “I think we need to take a little bit of a step back and take a look at the economic cycle,” Paul Kitney, chief

equity strategist at Daiwa Capital Markets, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday. “The shape of the cycle is one where we see moderation in growth in the United States this year ... we see risks of a recession in the United States growing possibly as early as the middle of 2020.” “The downturn is not going away” regardless of how positively current risks — including the U.S.-China trade war and the U.K.’s impending exit from the European Union — are resolved, Kitney said. The International Monetary Fund in January projected

the global economy would grow 3.5 percent this year, down from 3.7 percent in 2018. Recent data have pointed to that slowdown materializing: A widely watched indicator of factory activity, the Purchasing Managers’ Index, showed weakness in major economies such as the U.S., China, Japan and Germany. In addition, several trade-oriented economies also reported softness in their import and export activities. That downward momentum in the global economy will likely get worse — at least into the next quarter — “even if we do see a deal of some kind,” Sadiq Currimbhoy, global strategist and head of research at Maybank Kim Eng, told CNBC’s “Street Signs” on Monday. ‘Core, critical thorny issues’

Additional tariffs that were implemented during the tit-for-tat fight last year have not gone away. That’s one of the reasons why some strategists and analysts have refrained from cheering the latest trade development between the two largest economies in the world. “Indeed, there is no reason to turn over-optimistic. We don’t expect the existing tariffs to be reduced any time soon,”

Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at consultancy firm Oxford Economics, wrote in a Monday note. “It is also not clear whether there will be any significant reduction in other US restrictions in the area of technology or a change in its stance on Huawei. ” There has also been a lack of progress in addressing several “core, critical thorny issues” between the U.S. and China, said Pushan

Dutt, an economics and political science professor at business school INSEAD. That means global uncertainties

brought about by tensions between the U.S. and China may drag on longer, he said. “In the short term, we will basically have the Chinese agreeing to buy some more products, some more soybeans, some more natural energy. The U.S. hopefully will scale back some of the protection measures, ” Dutt told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Monday. “At the same time, we have to keep in mind that the really core, critical thorny issues — which is to do with IP (intellectual property rights) protection, technology transfers, subsidies for the Chinese technological champions — those have not been addressed. So, the best we can hope for is that they will continue to talk about these into the future,” he added.

No adv solvency Alternative laws that mean the prez still has preemption and FCC regulatory powers post-affLewis ’16 (Caitlain Devereaux Lewis is a Legislative attorney for the Congressional Research Service., Congressional Research Service, "Presidential Authority over Trade: Imposing Tariffs and Duties", December 9th, 2016, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44707.pdf)Sample Provisions Delegating Tariff Powers to the President Congress’s delegations of tariff and other international trade-related powers to the President through legislation have been worded in various ways. A non-exhaustive list of sample statutory provisions that delegate some authority to the President to take trade-related action follows. What can be culled from these examples is that most of the provisions require the President to make some threshold finding or determination before he may take some circumscribed trade related action to counteract his finding. For

example, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, certain importation/exportation powers were given to the President if he first “declares a national emergency ... to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat.”20 Similarly, in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, if the Secretary of Commerce determines that “an article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security,” then the President is authorized to take certain “actions necessary to adjust the imports of such article.”21 More recent statutes frequently begin with the word “Whenever” to set out this threshold determination before delineating the specific authority given to the President. As the following list illustrates, these delegations of power are usually accompanied by clearly defined conditions and frequently include time restrictions. Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 §5(b)(1)(B): 22 “During the time of war, the President may ...

investigate, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, by any person, or with

respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” This is an example of a fairly broadly

worded authority that can be exercised only “[d]uring the time of war.” Tariff Act of 1930 §338(a): 23 “The President when he finds that the public interest will be served shall by proclamation specify and declare new or additional duties as hereinafter provided upon articles wholly or in part the growth or product of, or imported in a vessel of, any foreign country whenever he shall find as a fact that such country—(1) Imposes, directly or indirectly, upon the disposition in or transportation in transit through or reexportation from such country of any article wholly or in part the growth or product of the United States any unreasonable charge, exaction, regulation, or limitation which is not equally enforced upon the like articles of every foreign country; or (2) Discriminates in fact against the commerce of the United States....” Trade Expansion Act of 1962 §232(b)–(c): 24 If the Secretary of Commerce “finds that an article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security,” then the President is authorized to take “such other actions as the President deems necessary to adjust the imports of such article so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security” (subject to certain procedural requirements). Trade Act of 1974 §122: 25 “Whenever fundamental international payments problems require special import measures to restrict imports—(1) to deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits, (2) to prevent an imminent and significant depreciation of the dollar in foreign exchange markets, or (3) to cooperate with other countries in correcting an international balance-ofpayments disequilibrium, the President shall proclaim, for a period not exceeding 150 days (unless such period is extended by Act of Congress)—(A) a temporary import surcharge, not to exceed 15 percent ad valorem, in the form of duties (in addition to those already imposed, if any) on articles imported into the United States; (B) temporary limitations through the use of quotas on the importation of articles into the United States; or (C) both a temporary import surcharge described in Subparagraph (A) and temporary limitations described in subparagraph (B).” This example clearly expresses a time period restriction (“for a period not exceeding 150 days”) and the permissible tariff range (“not to exceed 15 percent ad valorem”). This section also authorizes the President “to proclaim, for a period of 150 days (unless such period is extended by Act of Congress)—(A) a temporary reduction (of not more than 5 percent ad valorem) in the rate of duty on any article; and (B) a temporary increase in the value or quantity of articles which may be imported under any import restriction, or a temporary suspension of any import restriction.” Trade Act of 1974 §123(a): 26 “Whenever—(1) any action taken [that is related to relief from injury caused by import competition, the enforcement of U.S. rights under trade agreements, or the trade relations with countries not receiving nondiscriminatory treatment occur]; or (2) any judicial or administrative tariff reclassification that becomes final after August 23, 1988; increases or imposes any duty or other import restriction, the President ... may proclaim such modification or continuance of any existing duty, or such continuance of existing duty-

free or excise treatment, as he determines to be required or appropriate to carry out any such agreement.” Trade Act of 1974 §301: 27 Delegates authority to the Executive to modify certain tariff rates when “the rights of the United States under any trade agreement are being denied” or “an act, policy, or practice of a foreign country ... (i) violates, or is inconsistent with, the provisions of, or otherwise denies benefits to the United States under, any trade agreement, or (ii) is unjustifiable and burdens or restricts United States commerce.” Trade Act of 1974 §501: 28 “The President may provide duty-free treatment for any eligible article from any beneficiary developing country in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter” after considering certain conditions. This is an example of a statute authorizing the President to grant certain duty preferences.29 International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 §203(a)(1)(B): 30 If the President “declares a national emergency” “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States” under Section 202(a) (50 U.S.C. §1701(a)), “the President may ... investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.” In exercising this power, Section 204 (19 U.S.C. §1703) specifies that “The President, in every possible instance, shall consult with the Congress before exercising any of the authorities granted by this chapter and shall consult regularly with the Congress so long as such authorities are exercised.” North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act §201(a)(1) (1993): 31 “The President may proclaim—(A) such modifications or continuation of any duty, (B) such continuation of duty-free or excise treatment, or (C) such additional duties, as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to carry out or apply [specified] articles ... of the Agreement.” This is an example of an Agreement-specific delegation that allows the President to act within the confines of the Agreement. North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act §201(b)(1) (1993): 32 “[T]he President may proclaim—(A) such modifications or continuation of any duty, (B) such modifications as the United States may agree to with Mexico or Canada regarding the staging of any duty treatment set forth in Annex 302.2 of the Agreement, (C) such continuation of duty-free or excise treatment, or (D) such additional duties, as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to maintain the general level of reciprocal and mutually advantageous concessions with respect to Canada or Mexico provided for by the Agreement.” This is another example of an Agreement-specific delegation that allows the President to act within the confines of the Agreement. Uruguay Round Agreements Act §111(a) (1994): 33 “[T]he President shall have the authority to proclaim—(1) such other modification of any duty, (2) such other staged rate reduction, or (3) such additional duties, as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to carry out Schedule XX.” This is another example of an Agreement-specific delegation that allows the President to act within the confines of the Agreement. Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade §201(a) (2005): 34 “The President may proclaim—(A) such modifications or continuation of any duty, (B) such continuation of duty-free or excise treatment, or (C) such additional duties, as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to carry out or apply [specified] articles ..., and [specified] Annexes ... of the Agreement.” This is an example of limited tariff-reduction authority under the implementing legislation of a free trade agreement, and is another example of an Agreement-specific delegation that allows the President to act within the confines of the Agreement. Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 §103(a): 35 “Whenever the President determines that one or more existing duties or other import restrictions of any foreign country or the United States are unduly burdening and restricting the foreign trade of the United States and that the purposes, policies, priorities, and objectives of this chapter will be promoted thereby, the President ... may ... proclaim—(i) such modification or continuance of any existing duty, (ii) such continuance of existing duty-free or excise treatment, or (iii) such additional duties, as the President determines to be required or appropriate to carry out any such trade agreement.... The President shall notify Congress of the President’s intention to enter into an agreement under this subsection.” This authority is subject to the following restrictions: “No proclamation may be made under paragraph (1) that—(A) reduces any rate of duty (other than a rate of duty that does not exceed 5 percent ad valorem on June 29, 2015) to a rate of duty which is less than 50 percent of the rate of such duty that applies on June 29, 2015; (B) reduces the rate of duty below that applicable under the Uruguay Round Agreements or a successor agreement, on any import sensitive agricultural product; or (C) increases any rate of duty above the rate that applied on June 29, 2015.” This act is the most recent example of trade promotion authority legislation, but also includes tariff-modifying authority with set ranges and timelines.36

Arms k2 econTrump just made economic benefits a criteria for Conventional Arms Transfers – means arms sales are intended to boost the economyGholz 19 (Eugene Gholz is an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. He was awarded the US Department of Defense Exceptional Public Service Medal for his service as senior advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy (2010–2012). He earned a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is co- author of two books and author of multiple articles and book chapters. Strategic Studies Quarterly: “Conventional Arms Transfers and US Economic Security” Spring 2019. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/SSQ/documents/Volume-13_Issue-1/Gholz.pdf)

On 19 April 2018, President Trump issued a National Security Presi- dential Memorandum directing

revisions to the US Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy.1 The president has been especially interested in the economic implications of arms transfers, and they are, indeed, worth a good deal of money. The United States closed deals for $55.6 billion in government-mediated Foreign Military Sales in fiscal year 2018, a 33 percent increase from the prior year but less than the 2012 record of $69.1 billion.2 Unlike most US trade, arms sales require specific approval from the US government, through a deliberate process involving several executive branch agencies—most notably the Departments of State (DOS) and Defense (DOD). Ultimately sales are subject to congressional approval (or disapproval) for amounts above certain threshold values. Regulation of arms transfers by an overarching presidential policy statement dates to the Carter administration. The president set out to limit arms exports with “a strong presumption of denial,” a policy goal that did not even survive the Carter administration.3 The idea of a CAT policy did survive. Through four subsequent iterations, CAT policy made arms sales decisions depend on US diplomatic relations with the purchasing country, the national security implications of transferring particular technologies, and the human rights performance of the pur- chasing country. The CAT policy did not (and does not) provide an explicit prioritization of these various concerns. So each approval or dis- approval of a transfer is determined on a case-by-case basis. President Trump’s memorandum changed many parts of the process, attempting to streamline CAT and focus more upon the implications of third-party countries’ potential arms exports to the same purchasing country. Trump tasked the Departments of State and Energy with issu- ing detailed implementation memos. Additionally, the DOD's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, whose job it is to oversee Foreign

Military Sales, is also working on adapting its rules and procedures. Perhaps the most significant change in President Trump’s memoran- dum is that it added “economic security” as a criterion to the arms transfer decision-making process.4 Nearly twenty-five years ago, Presi- dent Clinton added a vague statement that the arms transfer policy should “consider the impact on the US arms industry when deciding whether to approve an export.”5 Critics worried that Clinton’s policy would draw pork-barrel political considerations into US foreign rela- tions and that the effort to sustain the US defense industry would work against prioritizing strategic and human rights concerns.6 The indus- trial goal subsequently faded until President Trump

resurrected it in his new version of the CAT policy. Economic security interests, as defined

in the memorandum, include “bolster[ing] our economy; spur[ring] research and development; enhanc[ing] the ability of the defense indus- trial base to create jobs; [and] increas[ing] our competitiveness in key markets. . . .”7 Future decisions on arms transfers will “consider . . . [t]he transfer’s financial or economic effect on United States industry and its effect on the defense industrial base, including contributions to United States manufacturing and innovation.”8

Trade war good-impact turnTrade war goodRaynovich ‘18(R. Scott Raynovich is the Founder and Chief Analyst of Futuriom. For two decades he has been covering a wide range of technology as an editor, analyst, and publisher, “THE UPSIDE TO TECH TRADE WAR HYSTERIA,” http://www.futuriom.com/articles/news/the-upside-to-tech-trade-war-hysteria/2018/04, JB)

If you haven't noticed, there's been some prominent debate about global trade, including the increasingly bellicose exchange of

threats of increased tariffs between the United States and China. The hysteria is exaggerated. It will subside. What's important is that this is a golden opportunity to improve and optimize the mutually beneficial technology trade relationship between the United State and China -- as well as other nations. Global technology trade -- and particularly the relationship between the United States and China -- is a complex issue,

but over time it has generated enormous amount of value. The iPhone is a great example. The iPhone's core intellectual property and innovation -- software -- comes from the United States but is enabled and enhanced by the hardware, which consists of hundreds of parts being manufactured all over the world. Some of those parts come from China, some don't. The iPhone itself, of course, is manufactured in

China. It's foolish and crazy to think that all of the sudden, an iPhone will be made with fewer parts, either in the U.S. or China, or that suddenly Apple will start making it in Iowa . Technology products require a global supply chain and wide footprint of labor and manufacturing -- there will be no rollback of technology globalization. What's important is that the U.S.-China discussion evolved and be pushed forward in a more civilized way. The market fireworks -- easy to watch on the scoreboard with volatile swings in the market following announcements by the Trump administration -- have been exaggerated by aggressive rhetoric and press releases, including the threat of tariffs. One could argue with the technique, though it's hard to argue with the facts that there are issues in the relationship that need to be worked out. It's like a couple building up years of remorse that's ready to head into therapy. This Friday morning, after China tossed the latest firebomb back onto the U.S. side of the court with the threat of $100 billion in new tariffs, I was watching Bloomberg anchor Jonathan Ferro interviewing Larry Kudlow, the new economic advisor in the Trump Administration, on Bloomberg TV. Hiring Kudlow was a good move, because Kudlow has polished communication skills, which isn't the most common trait in the White House. When he comes on television he tends to allay fears about the trade war and the market rallies. Kudlow said some very important things to say on Friday morning, which help clarify the facts: Kudlow said there is "no trade war" -- only that the United States has brought up a list of grievances and suggested tariffs and the Chinese have had their own response Kudlow said the major gripe with China is forced technology transfer and the theft of U.S. intellectual property Kudlow said there is "no timeline" to the discussion. He made clear that it's an ongoing negotiation. Taking Kudlow's statements at face value, it's hard to argue with those facts. There are

certainly issues to be hashed out. So now it's out in the open. The therapy session has become public. The Trump administration has made it clear that we want to fix some things about intellectual property and technology transfer. The Chinese have responded forcefully with their own threats, making clear they're not going to roll over. Everybody is going to want to save face. It's going to be a prolonged negotiation. While I don't agree with much of what the Trump administration says, there's no denying that they are making some valid points about technology intellectual property rights and technology transfer. The fact that the market is starting to digest this news may be an early indication that the reaction to the threat of "trade war" is a bit overdone. It's good to have Kudlow out in front on the issue, because he seems to make the points more eloquently and diplomatically than the Trump administration's normal mode of diplomacy-by-tweet-bomb. As Ed Yardeni, president of investment advisory Yardeni Research, said

on Bloomberg Friday, "[the grievances] all seem pretty legitimate." The solution may be to tone down the rhetoric and take these difficult discussions into the back rooms, where they can be handled by professional trade negotiators. Many months from now, I think that's where we'll be.

Econ decline doesn’t cause war Economic decline doesn’t cause warTir 10 (Jaroslav Tir has Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia, “Territorial Diversion: Diversionary Theory of War and Territorial Conflict,” The Journal of Politics, 2010, Volume 72: 413-425)

Empirical support for the economic growth rate is much weaker. The finding that poor economic performance is associated with a higher likelihood of territorial conflict initiation is significant only in Models . The weak results are not altogether surprising given the findings from prior literature. In accordance with the insignificant relationships

of Models 1-2 and 5-6, Ostrom and Job (1986), for example, note that the likelihood that a U.S. President will use force is uncertain, as economy the bad might create incentives both to divert the public’s attention with a

foreign adventure and to focus on solving the economic problem, thus reducing the inclination to act abroad. Similarly, Fordham (1998a, 1998b), DeRouen (1995), and Gowa (1998) find no relation between a poor economy and U.S. use of force. Furthermore, Leeds and Davis (1997) conclude that the conflict-initiating behavior of 18 industrialized democracies is unrelated to economic conditions as do Pickering and Kisangani (2005) and Russett and Oneal (2001) in global studies. In contrast and more in line with my findings of a significant relationship (in Models 3–4), Hess and Orphanides (1995), for example, argue that economic recessions are linked with forceful action by an incumbent U.S. president. Furthermore, Fordham’s (2002) revision of Gowa’s (1998) analysis shows some effect of a bad economy and DeRouen and Peake (2002) report that U.S. use of force diverts the public’s attention from a poor economy. Among cross-national studies, Oneal and Russett (1997) report that slow growth increases

the incidence of militarized disputes, as does Russett (1990) - but only for the United States; slow growth does not affect the behavior of other countries. Kisangani and Pickering (2007) report some significant associations, but they are sensitive to model specification, while Tir and Jasinski (2008) find a clearer link between economic underperformance and increased attacks on domestic ethnic minorities. While none of these works has focused on territorial diversions, my own inconsistent findings for economic growth fit well with the mixed results reported in the literature.15 Hypothesis 1 thus receives strong support via the

unpopularity variable but only weak support via the economic growth variable. These results suggest that embattled leaders are much more likely to respond with territorial diversions to direct signs of their unpopularity (e.g., strikes, protests, riots) than to general background conditions such as economic malaise. Presumably, protesters can be distracted via territorial diversions while fixing the economy would take a more concerted and prolonged policy effort. Bad economic conditions seem to motivate only the most serious, fatal territorial confrontations. This implies that leaders may be reserving the most high-profile and risky diversions for the times when they are the most desperate, that is when their power is threatened both by signs of discontent with their rule and by more systemic problems plaguing the country (i.e., an underperforming economy).

Adv 2

Alt causesMultiple alt causes to environmental collapse-the government has decked key restrictions on the environment and the plan can’t compensateAtkin 18 (Emily Atkin is a staff writer at The New Republic in Waington, DC. Her work on environmental and food policy has

appeared in Newsweek, Slate, Mother Jones, The New York Observer, The Daily Beast, and The Hill. , The New Republic, "Trump Is

Undoing Much More Than Obama’s Legacy", December 17, 2018, https://newrepublic.com/article/152644/trump-undoing-much-

obamas-legacy)Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, last week announced a plan to rewrite the Clean Water Rule, a 2015 regulation which ensured that small bodies of

water like wetlands and streams would be protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. But the new rule, if

implemented, would do much more than just reverse an Obama-era protection. “This would be taking a sledgehammer to the Clean Water Act and rolling things back to a place we haven’t been since it was passed,” Blan Holman of the Southern Environmental Law Center told the Los Angeles Times. Vetoed by President Richard

Nixon but overridden by Congress, the Clean Water Act originally only gave federal protection to traditional “navigable” waters—i.e., water that can be navigated by boat. But the bodies of water covered by the law were expanded several times over the years. George H. W. Bush implemented a policy that broadened federal protection for more

wetlands, and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton strengthened Clean Water Act protections even further. The EPA’s new rule would effectively erase many of those developments, giving federal protections only to permanent bodies of water, and

only to wetlands directly adjacent to very large bodies of water. In some states, that means more than 70 percent of wetlands would lose their safeguards, according to the BBC. The Clean Water Rule isn’t the Trump

administration’s only attempt to revert America to a less enlightened era that long predates Obama. In April, the White House proposed dramatically weakening the Endangered Species Act, the immensely successful wildlife protection

law signed by Nixon in 1973. Trump’s move represented “the most sweeping set of changes in decades,” the New

York Times reported, eliminating “longstanding language” about how to most effectively protect plants and animals facing extinction. The administration is also proposing to effectively gut the N ational E nvironmental P olicy A ct . Another

bedrock environmental protection law signed by Nixon, it ensures that environmentally important land isn’t bulldozed solely in the name of economic development. “The Trump administration is taking a sledgehammer to the review process that allows scientists and the public to have a say on federal projects that harm clean air, water and wildlife,” said Paulo Lopes of the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is the beginning of the largest rollback in the history of the

National Environmental Policy Act....” And earlier this year, Trump’s EPA loosened a Clinton-era rule intended to limit toxic air pollution from major industrial polluters.

CCS badThe carbon capture system will not attain widespread adoption until 2100Jan Christoph Minx and Gregory Nemet 17 [Minx has a PhD, is head of the MCC working group Applied Sustainability Science and Professor for Climate Change and Public Policy at the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds and Nemet is a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Nelson Institute's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment], 6-3-2017, "The inconvenient truth about carbon capture," Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/05/31/carbon-capture//AC Meeting the climate goals of the Paris Agreement is going to be nearly impossible without removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Simply reducing emissions from their current level is unlikely to be enough to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. In fact, we need to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide — billions of tons per year — to meet these goals because we have repeatedly delayed our decarbonization efforts. At least a quarter of what we currently emit needs to be stored in trees, soil and under the Earth’s crust. But we are not developing these technologies that we desperately need at the required speed. All the blame is on us: we have simply been too slow to reduce emissions, leaving us in a dire situation where we are going to have to depend on technologies that may not be available in time. Carbon dioxide removal technologies include familiar practices such as afforestation and reforestation, where trees take up the CO2 during their growth and store it temporarily. There are also more high-tech options such as bioenergy — energy from any form of biomass such as plants, trees or other organic matter — combined with carbon capture and storage. With this approach, the biomass absorbs CO2 from the air through the process of photosynthesis; it is released again when it is burned to produce electricity in power plants but then immediately captured and stored underground. There is also the possibility of filtering CO2 directly out of the air through chemical processes. There is no silver bullet : no single technology is likely to provide all the CO2 removal that is required. All technologies have economic and environmental constrains . They are dependent upon the establishment of policy incentives. We therefore need to explore smart technology portfolios where multiple CO2 removal technologies are deployed at more modest scales. Only diversified portfolios can help us to hedge the risks associated with CO2 removal. Given our growing dependence on carbon dioxide removal, it is very encouraging to see burgeoning research activities. But the vast bulk focuses on early stage research. The process of innovation is often described as a sequence of stages — from basic science to applied research to demonstration projects to serving early niche markets to scaling up to a larger market, including public acceptance of inevitable side effects at widespread adoption. Case studies on innovation show that this process typically takes decades to play out. It is a slow grind of building up and transferring knowledge as more entities become involved in the emerging technological system: not just scientists and engineers, but also companies, financiers, regulators and crucially, adopters of the technology. Little has been said about who might use the technology or what their incentives to do so might be. A breakthrough invention in science often stimulates exuberant assumptions that shortcuts in the process of technology adoption are available. But they rarely are. The research community on carbon dioxide removal may be proceeding down a path of wishful thinking that the brilliance of the ideas behind this research

will inherently create adopters and users. A revealing point is that in many studies and news articles, these technologies will be “deployed.” Only rarely do we read about people “adopting” them. This top-down orientation, using military language, is bound to run into problems, especially at the massive scales involved. Consider the experience of arguably the most dynamic low-carbon innovation so far, solar photovoltaic panels. It took 60 years after the first commercial use, the Vanguard-1 satellite in 1957, to get to the current state where solar beats coal and gas on cost in sunny places. By the 2030s, more than 10 percent of global energy supply is expected to come from solar . The first commercial direct CO2 air capture system came online last year. If air capture is to follow a similar timeline to solar, it will be low cost in 2077 and attain widespread adoption by 2100. That is far too late. If air capture follows a similar timeline to solar, it won’t be low cost until 2077 or attain widespread adoption until 2100. (William Lamb) Therefore, we need two major efforts. First, we need a new emphasis from the research community on innovation beyond research and development. We need serious work on early deployment, niche markets, scale-up, demand and public acceptance.

There are many problems with the carbon capture technology and many scientist are worried about unintended consequencesUmair Irfan [Staff writer at Vox, Covers climate change, energy, and the environment, Contributes to Science Friday, Received Sasakawa Peace Foundation fellowship and Arthur F. Burns fellowship] E&E News 17, 5-25-2017, "Will Carbon Capture and Storage Ever Work?," Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-carbon-capture-and-storage-ever-work//AC

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is looking into another controversial tactic to fight climate change. This time, it's carbon dioxide removal and sequestration. The term encompasses several techniques that pull greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and keep them from going back, thereby reducing warming. And scientists say the world needs to figure out what works and when to use it. “Can we pull it out again and stick it someplace where it won't do any harm?” asked Princeton University professor Stephen Pacala, who is chairing the National Academies committee for carbon dioxide removal and sequestration. “This is a tall order, because we've put a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere.” Scientists are concerned about the unintended consequences of nurturing ecosystems to breathe in more carbon dioxide or building machines that react with greenhouse gases and sequester them. There isn't much research out there on the economics and effectiveness of these strategies. Many activists are worried that carbon dioxide removal technologies will detract from climate change mitigation efforts, that they will cost too much, or that nations will see them as a license to keep polluting. “The No. 1 outcome we wanted to make clear is there is no substitute for mitigation and adaptation,” Waleed Abdalati, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said at a public meeting of the National Academies yesterday in Washington, D.C. The pace of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions output continues to grow, and even with international targets for curbing emissions, many scientists project that the world will overshoot a target of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Keeping warming in check would require methods that result in negative greenhouse gas emissions, whether using air capture systems or

bioenergy coupled with carbon capture and sequestration setups (Climatewire, March 24). This poses an immense engineering challenge to counteract humanity's influence on the planet, so the National Academies is chalking out a plan that could bridge the divide between where the technology stands and where it needs to go (Climatewire, May 19). “It took the entire fossil fuel infrastructure of the world to put it all there, and if you're going to do it at scale, you're going to need a lot of stuff, a lot of people, and it's going to be expensive,” said Pacala. “So you want to figure a way to minimize the energy, materials, consumption and lower the costs.” The new research is supported by the Department of Energy, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. EPA and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. The work on carbon removal builds on past analyses at the National Academies examining contentious geoengineering techniques, like seeding oceans with iron to spur the growth of organisms that take up carbon dioxide. Removing carbon dioxide gets at the root of the climate change problem, unlike geoengineering, which masks it. But there are some unique challenges. Carbon dioxide itself is not a very reactive molecule, so many proposals for sucking it up require an energy input. This means careful life-cycle accounting to make sure that more carbon dioxide comes out of the atmosphere in deploying these systems than goes in. In addition, carbon dioxide is extremely dilute in the atmosphere, with concentrations peaking around 400 parts per million, so a machine that scrubs it out of the atmosphere would have to go through an immense amount of air to make a meaningful dent in rising temperatures. DOE is taking a stab at this with two projects launched last year: a $1.5 million system in Canada that uses a hydroxide solution to react with carbon dioxide and a $1.25 million project at Ohio State University that uses membranes to separate carbon dioxide from the air.

CCS massively turns case – a million reasonsShah ‘18(Nafi Shah, “Behind The Myth of Biofuels with Carbon Capture Storage: Food Security, Water Concerns, Famine, Land Scarcity, and more CO2 Emissions,” http://www.texasvox.org/behind-myth-biofuels-carbon-capture-storage-food-security-water-concerns-

famine-land-scarcity-co2-emissions/, JB)

As global temperatures continue to rise along with CO2 emissions, leaders in need of solutions should be cautious when considering the potential of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). While the wholesale success of these technologies was assumed in many of the climate models used in developing the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. In the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the world agreed on implementing greenhouse gas mitigation plans which focus on producing negative carbon dioxide emissions to help curb climate change. Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage Project. Capture CO2 from ADM’s Decatur corn processing facility and store it underground. Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) facilities generate electricity by burning trees and crops that have taken CO2 from the atmosphere throughout their lifetime. When the biomass is burned, BECCS facilities capture the CO2 emissions and store them or, more often, use CO2 in order to enhance oil recovery (EOR). BECCS is one of the technologies the potential to achieve negative emissions if easy-to-grow feedstocks, such as switchgrass, are grown with sustainable practices and the captured CO2 is

sequestered. However, these conditions don’t currently exist at commercial facilities. BECCS Case Study: Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage Project In April 2017, the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage (ICCS) project at Archer Daniels Midland Company’s (ADM) Decatur corn ethanol facility had begun operations by injecting carbon dioxide into a large saline reservoir. The ICCS project stores more than 1 million tons of CO2 a year. The project captures CO2 from ADM’s Decatur corn processing facility, and stores it almost a mile and a half underground. The total project cost is $207.9 million and it has received a cost-share agreement of $141 million investment from the Department Of Energy. The project team members include ADM, Schlumberger Carbon Services, Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), University of

Illinois, and Richland Community College (RCC). The technology demonstrated for this project aimed to help the development of the regional CCS industry (i.e., enhanced oil recovery in the depleted oilfields in the Illinois Basin). Although the main purpose of BECCS technology is to reduce greenhouse gases and help combat with climate change, practically, CO2 has been captured in order to enhance oil recovery, which will result in more CO2 in the atmosphere. As the world’s focus is on keeping global temperature below 2 degree Celsius, using carbon capture storage (CCS) and BECCS in this way will perpetuate the use of fossil fuels. Also, emissions from the transportation of feedstock and the use of nitrogen fertilizer for growing crops could be a big challenge and accelerate the trend of global warming especially associated with ozone destruction. The Illinois Basin Decatur facility and the EBCCS plant as a whole emit more CO2 than the BECCS plant has been designed to capture. The graphics info provided by Carbon Brief shows that the total CO2 emissions have been emitted by Decatur facility over 2.5 years of the operation was 12,693,283 tons of CO2. However, the EBCCS plant only absorbed 2,095,400 tons of CO2 which means that Decatur facility as a whole has emitted 10,597,883 tons of CO2 even with BECCS capacity. Thus, this project failed to fulfill the purpose of reducing carbon and curbing climate change. The Illinois Basin Decatur Project. By Rosamund Pearce for Carbon Brief. Caption: The Illinois Basin Decatur Project. By Rosamund Pearce for

Carbon Brief. Challenges and Concerns of BECCS Projects: High Cost of Capturing and Storing Carbon: It costs $100 to capture a ton of CO2 for a biomass plant. Whereas, fossil fuel plants are capturing carbon for about $60 a ton. This difference is based on varying bioenergy feedstock prices; energy production process; and capture technology. Also, transporting large amounts of biomass long distances to the storage site would significantly add to the cost of BECCS, since biomass tends to have a lot of weight relative to its energy. Transporting CO2 to the reservoirs via pipelines or

trucks: The transportation networks are costly and also turn more CO2 back into the atmosphere. More infrastructure – such as pipelines – would need to be built, which increases the cost of BECCS and indirectly results in more emissions through the construction process. Also, CO2 leakage from pipelines or storage sites could endanger people, harm marine ecosystems, and threaten freshwater ecosystem. Navigating the property rights of local communities can also be a challenge. Effects of increased fertilizer use, such as nitrogen: Nitrogen fertilizers can be leached into the groundwater and washed into waterways, resulting in serious health, environmental, and economic damage. Nitrogen fertilizers applied in agriculture can add more nitrous oxide to the atmosphere than any other human activity. Nitrous oxide also moves into the stratosphere and destroys ozone which could result in increasing global heat. Nitrogen pollution is identified as a cause of decline in native species and is a threat to biodiversity for vertebrate, invertebrate and plant species. A study found 78 federally listed species identified as affected by nitrogen pollution. Use of fertilizer nitrogen for crop production also influences soil health, by reducing organic matter content and microbial life, and increasing acidity of the soil. Water concerns: Agriculture and power generation are highly water intensive. In order to produce 1 ton of ethanol, 3.5 t of CO2 and 5 t of H2O is needed, which means that more than 21,000 t of CO2 and 300,000 t of water vapor are consumed each year. However, more than 3 billion people are already affected by water scarcity so it is a critical challenge in utilizing BECCS technology. Food Scarcity: food prices would increase as a result of changes in land use. Also, since climate change has already threatened the crop yields harvest, sudden changes in the weather could result in food shortage or even famine in some regions. Altering lands to a specific crop yield would affect the land quality and may result in regional resource shortages. Geological storage sites for CO2: In the fertile Midwest of the U.S., croplands are too far from geologic storage to be a viable location for BECCS in the near-term. There are relatively few pipelines in place for transporting CO2 and the long-distance transportation of large volumes of captured CO2 is expensive, particularly if many small pipelines have to be built. Biomass could be transported to sites where CO2 storage is available, but that would significantly add to the cost of a BECCS project. Land Use challenges: Could displace or expose small farmers to the volatility of world markets. Also, as a result of changing land applications, soil erosion, and degradation could happen and soil would lose its fertility. Poor management of bioenergy crop production can result in soil carbon loss from direct and indirect land use changes and significantly affect the net amount of CO2 removed by BECCS. In addition, land rights of farmers & ranchers should be

considered as important challenges as well. Cost of Ethanol Production: Depending on a cost of a barrel of

oil and production cost of gasoline refining, ethanol can either increase or slightly decrease the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Overall, even though the U.S has a large potential for geological storage sites, there is still a need for transportation systems for either biomass or CO2 for the large-scale deployment of BECCS. Also, concerns associated with the land, water, and fertilizer use that would be required at the large-scale deployment of BECCS make the long-term economic viability of this technology uncertain. Tax incentives such as 45Q might cover some parts of the related costs, however, the health, environmental, and economic impacts of this project on the society is still unclear as well. Overly

optimistic assumptions about quickly achieving negative emissions on a large scale are dangerous. The world carbon budget is running out for 2 degree Celsius and we have already used the 1.5 degree’s carbon budget. While investments in BECCS are needed, these technologies do not give us a license to postpone eliminating emissions from other sources. And BECCS is only a solution if sustainable agriculture practices are employed, CO2 emissions are permanently sequestered and not used for oil recovery, and project sites are carefully selected to reduce emissions from transportation.

Carbon Tax Adv. CPThe United States Federal Government should establish the Carbon Tax. The carbon tax is the only effective way to decrease carbon emissionsRott ‘7/18 (Nathan Rott is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where he focuses on environment issues and the American West., NPR, "Going 'Zero Carbon' Is All The Rage. But Will It Slow Climate Change?", June 18th, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/06/18/724343789/going-zero-carbon-is-all-the-rage-but-will-it-slow-climate-change)Are 'zero carbon' goals the most effective way to cut greenhouse gases? "All evidence points to no," says Sanya Carley, an associate professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "The most efficient and cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions would be directly pricing carbon and putting a price tag on the cost of those emissions." In other words, something like a carbon tax would bake the environmental and health costs of greenhouse gas emissions into the existing market economy. It would be a rapid, large-scale way to incentivize reductions across all sectors. A 2018 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that putting a price on carbon and returning the revenue from it to the public would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The higher the cost, the greater the reductions. Renewable energy goals or zero-carbon commitments are "less efficient, less cost-effective, but usually more politically feasible," Carley says. That's why we're seeing more of them. But they should still help slow climate change, right? Every little bit helps.

Trade War Adv. CP

CP Text: The United States federal government should settle an agreement with the People’s Republic of China to end their trade war. The U.S.-China trade war is economically damaging for both countries – we must end it before it is too late. Hufbauer 19, (Gary Clyde Hufbauer is an economist and senior fellow at the Peterson

Institute for International Economics, “Trump must call off escalating US-China trade war before it's too late”, published on 05/30/19, https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/trump-us-china-tariffs-trade-war, JGS)

The Trump administration’s impulse to wage trade wars with major economic powers -- steel, aluminum, autos with Europe and Japan, and essentially every product under the sun with China Opens a New Window. -- are dimming the prospect of what promised to be a lengthy American economic renaissance. Financial markets don’t like tariffs and they hate trade wars. Increasing tariffs on China is a terrible remedy for correcting Beijing’s misbehavior on intellectual property rights, hidden subsidies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Tariffs catch American consumers in the crossfire by raising prices. They badly erode business confidence and threaten to undo all the good from tax reform for employment and the economy. The truth is that Chinese-American trade is a pillar of the international economic landscape, facilitating high growth for both superpowers and benefiting the rest of the world. We need a comprehensive agreement with China that addresses rightful U.S. concerns, not a trade war. It’s clear the president wants to deal roughly with China but consider the cost. Contrary to Trump’s statements that China pays the tariffs, American consumers bear the brunt. One estimate by academics from Yale, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and Columbia calculate that tariffs already added $69 billion in annual costs for Americans consumers, before the latest escalation. The National Bureau of Economic Research says that an all-out trade war could eventually cost more than $300 billion. Estimates indicate that the average American household will pay at least $500 extra this year because of tariffs already imposed. Escalation to an all-out trade war will raise that tab to $2,200. Jobs will be hit hard, too, with upwards of 455,000 jobs put at risk because of this costly conflict. In the end, tariffs hit consumers hardest and compel American firms to pull back on expansion and innovation. China’s retaliatory tariffs will also negatively affect America’s energy exports to China. The Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. oil exports ultimately plummeted in 2018 since China’s importers essentially shunned American energy producers. The retaliatory tariffs will also jeopardize American investment in liquefied natural gas (LNG) and consequently restrict America’s contribution to the growing LNG market. The damage to farm exports is well known and at best the administration can offer temporary relief through stockpiling programs. To be sure, the U.S. must have a strategy for China. But China does not pose an “existential threat” to America. If it did, an approach much stronger than tariffs would be warranted. Making China an enemy is a sure way to isolate America from much of Asia and Africa, as well as parts of Latin America and Europe. That’s not a prescription for ensuring that the United States remains the indispensable global power. The solutions?

America’s best answer to Chinese competition is a strong U.S. economy that promotes innovation. We were headed in that direction through meaningful tax reform. Specific reprisals to answer Chinese trade and investment misbehavior are the right response, not broad protectionist tariffs. We can afford no further escalation of the tariff war with China. Instead of a fresh tariff volley, President Trump should encourage free and fair trade with China through a comprehensive agreement. If China does not fulfill its side of the new bargain, President Trump can target offending Chinese companies – private or state-owned – with specific reprisals rather than renewing all-out tariffs that injure American firms and workers. In the coming days, the president has a significant opportunity to calm American markets and ensure that the U.S. economy continues to prosper. He can call off an escalating trade war that inflates consumer prices and endangers job gains. Free and fair trade with China, not more tariffs, is the real path to prosperity.

2nc

2nc No Solvency ext.

Senate failsReynolds ‘18(Molly Reynolds is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes. “Why is the Senate broken?” https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/02/21/why-is-the-senate-broken/, JB)

Despite promises to “let a thousand flowers bloom,” last week the Senate was anything but a fruitful garden. After two days of fits-and-starts efforts to begin floor debate, senators cast four back-to-back votes on various immigration proposals. The process was structured such that all four would need at least 60 votes to pass. None cleared that threshold, leaving tens of thousands of DACA recipients vulnerable to deportation in the months to come. This kind of dysfunction is nothing new to Senate watchers. In a new book entitled Broken, Ira Shapiro lays much of the blame for the Senate’s current state at the feet of those who lead the chamber. And while there are certainly choices those leaders have

made about how to run the Senate and how to use Senate rules and procedure that have contributed to the environment in which we currently find ourselves, it’s equally as important to consider the environment that those leaders have found themselves in. First of all, since the early 1980s, bipartisan compromise has become harder to achieve in the Senate, in part because of the disappearance of moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats. According to political scientists’ workhorse measure for capturing House members’ and Senators’ ideologies, the distance between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican in the Senate has grown significantly. To the extent that major legislation still gets done, it

tends to happen on a bipartisan basis, but it is harder to build those coalitions in a time of polarized parties. Senate leaders, then, are heading into a legislative environment where ideological positions make it more difficult to work collaboratively, regardless of the tactics they use. The electoral fate of individual senators has also become more closely tied to national political forces, decreasing their individual incentives to work with members of the opposite party . In 2016, for example, no state with a Senate election chose a senator of one party while giving its electoral votes to the presidential candidate of the opposite

party—the first time this occurred since the advent of popular election of senators in early 20th century. Voters, in other words, are not splitting their tickets at the same rate they once were, which means that senators have less of an incentive to try to formulate the kind of independent brand that would involve working across party lines. Perhaps the biggest electoral difference, however, is the increase in partisan competition for control of the chambers of Congress since about 1980. As political scientist Frances Lee has documented, the period between the early 1950s and the early 1980s was dominated in Congress by Democrats—the party controlled both chambers, and Republicans in one Congress did not have a reasonable expectation that they would take control after the next election (in the following Congress). Since about 1980, however, majority control of the Senate has been more or less up for grabs each election cycle. Because of this heightened competition, both parties in the Senate have an incentive to engage in more messaging activities

that help them win elections over messaging that helps them legislate. This is especially true for minority parties, who have little incentive to make their majority party opponents look like capable legislators. This emphasis on messaging and the potential of shifts in party control also means that there can be increased value in putting bills on the floor that are intended to fail. A majority party may think it worthwhile to write a piece of legislation that it knows will not become law in order to signal to its voters and interest group allies what it would do if it had more power after the following election. Recall, for example, when Republicans sent a veto-bait Obamacare repeal bill to President Obama’s desk in 2016; they knew that it would get vetoed, but they wanted to be able to keep the issue active as a campaign topic during the 2016 election . Beyond these changing electoral circumstances, we have also seen growing incentives from outside the chamber for senators inside the chamber to exploit all of their individual procedural rights to try to achieve political goals. My Brookings colleague, Sarah Binder, and her co-author

Steve Smith made this argument in a book on the Senate filibuster from the late 1990s, suggesting that once interest group allies and other external audiences began rewarding senators for using obstructive tactics in the chamber, senators’ incentives to engage these behaviors increased. Take, for example, Senator Ted Cruz’s decision to engineer a government shutdown in 2013 over the Affordable Care Act. That use of his procedural rights helped build his national reputation. When senators believe there is political value in using all of the available procedural tools, they are likely to do so at the expense of bipartisan legislative work. These broader political circumstances have also made it more difficult for senators of both parties to unite as a counter-balance to executive power. In the early 1970s, we saw several high-profile pieces of legislation—like the Congressional Budget Act and the measure creating the Senate Intelligence Committee to oversee certain executive branch activities—pass with large, bipartisan

majorities. This cooperation occurred, in part, because senators from both parties saw a reason to work together to increase the legislative branch’s power at the expense of the executive branch. As the president has become an increasingly polarizing figure in American politics, however, it can be more difficult to build support for an issue on institutional grounds. Even matters that might be ripe cross-partisan coalitions can be harder to address if the president is too closely identified with them. In 2015, for example, when President Obama was lobbying Congress on fast-track trade legislation, Republican congressional aides asked the White House to stop requesting that Congress “give” him the authority to negotiate trade agreements. They did not want to be seen as “giving” a Democratic president any special powers. In an honest account of how the Senate got to where it is today, Senate leaders are far from blameless. But to potentially fix the chamber moving forward, we need to ask hard questions about whether individual senators really want to regain more power over the process, and if they got it, whether they would actually use it to do the hard work of legislating. The broader political context in which they find themselves suggests the answers to those questions may be no.

Adv 1- Commerce

2nc Congressional trade power bad ext.

Congressional control of trade produces inefficient policy – it entrenched the US in the great depression – and the aff cant solve the reciprocal trade agreementHauk 7/9/19(William Hauk is an associate professor of economics at the University of South Carolina. “THE PRESIDENT DIDN'T ALWAYS HAVE POWER OVER TRADE DEALS,” https://psmag.com/economics/the-president-recently-gained-power-over-trade-deals, JB)

Some in Congress want to wrest control of trade policy back from the president. It might surprise you to learn that lawmakers ever had it. Until the 1930s, it was Congress that set the terms of United States trade negotiations with other countries and raised and lowered tariffs as it saw fit, while the president did little but sign his name. Over the ensuing decades, however, the legislative branch began to cede more and more power to the executive after a trade war sparked by protectionist tariffs worsened the Great Depression. As a result, President Donald Trump today has been able to unilaterally raise tariffs and launch trade wars with several countries—including allies—without a word from Congress. For some lawmakers, his recent threat, since aborted, to impose a 5 percent tariff on everything that crosses the border from Mexico was the last straw. I'm an economist who has worked on the political economy of U.S. trade policy. To provide context on what's happening today, I thought it was worth revisiting the history of how lawmakers lost their trade powers. Until the 20th century, the president had little say in how the U.S. conducted trade. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to raise taxes. And since tariffs are, by definition, a type of tax paid on goods and services imported from overseas, Congress carefully guarded its authority in this area, particularly since they were the largest source of revenue for the federal government until the creation of the income tax in 1913. As a result, debates over tariffs made up the biggest economic fights of the 19th century and were often used to embarrass political rivals. This is not to say that the president had no influence over trade policy. But all changes in tariffs necessarily started as legislation in the House of Representatives since they were, after all, revenue bills. Therefore, before the bill got to the president's desk, it would go through a full congressional debate with committee reports, amendments, filibusters, and the like. SMOOT-HAWLEY PROMPTS FDR TO SEIZE CONTROL The Great Depression marked a sharp turning point in U.S. trade policy. Just as the Depression began, Congress passed what has become known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930. It raised prices on imported commodities like wool rags, which were necessary in the clothing industry. It also harmed the economies of U.S. trading partners—which in turn hurt America. For example, Germany, still recovering from World War I and subsequent reparations payments, saw its exports to the U.S. fall by $181 million. As a result, German consumers had fewer U.S. dollars to spend, and U.S. exports to Germany fell by $277 million. ADVERTISING And that's the problem when hundreds of lawmakers with scores of often narrow interests are in charge of trade policy. As I noted in a 2011 paper, tariffs imposed during this era weren't designed to maximize national welfare; they instead represented the wishes of interest groups and institutions of the legislative branch. While this misbegotten legislation did not cause the Great Depression, it almost certainly hindered the recovery. And, as a result, the Roosevelt administration worked to seize control of trade policy from Congress. This effort led

to the the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act in 1934, which provided the president with the authority to negotiate tariff agreements with foreign governments as long as both sides mutually lowered their trade barriers. Congress' role was reduced to primarily ratifying those agreements—or not—with a simple majority vote. Raising tariffs, however, still required an act of Congress

Congressional control over policy ruins trade -- logrolling – turns case Elliott ‘18(Kimberly Ann Elliott is a visiting scholar at the George Washington University Institute for International Economic Policy, and a visiting fellow with the Center for Global Development, Be Careful What You Wish For in a Trade Fight Between Trump and Congress, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/24953/be-careful-what-you-wish-for-in-a-trade-fight-between-trump-and-congress, JB)

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate trade, and for more than a century it did so with

gusto. Then, grasping for ways to escape the Great Depression and reverse the downward economic spiral that followed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which passed in 1930, Congress delegated some of its trade power to the executive branch. In subsequent decades, Congress provided additional authorities allowing the president to control trade policy. Now, however, with concerns about President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policy moves—imposing a range of tariffs on close allies and rivals alike, and threatening more—there are calls to shift some of that authority back to Congress. As the United States celebrates the anniversary of its founding

this week, it seems like a good time to review history and see how and why the governance of trade evolved the way it has in Washington. This history suggests strongly that, while some rebalancing is desirable, Congress should exercise great caution in reclaiming its power to regulate trade. Until the 1930s, Congress set import tariffs through periodic legislation. As described in the fascinating—for trade wonks anyway—new book by Douglas Irwin, an economics professor

at Dartmouth, the process often involved legislators going line by line through the tariff schedule to ensure that enough legislators got something for their constituents that the bill would pass. This “logrolling” process, whereby representatives traded their votes for tariffs based on what it meant for their constituents, reached its nadir with the Smoot-Hawley legislation of 1930. While economic historians have revised earlier conclusions that the global outbreak of protectionism and plummeting trade that followed the law caused the Great Depression, there is little doubt that it contributed to making the economic disaster deeper and longer than it would otherwise have been. As my former Peterson Institute colleague I. M. Destler explained in another brilliant book, “American Trade Politics,” the decentralization of power in the legislative branch, especially the House of Representatives, made it almost inevitable that

constituent pressures would result in relatively high tariffs as long as Congress had free rein to set them. Recognizing this inherent weakness, and wanting to prevent a repeat of Smoot-Hawley, Congress delegated tariff-setting authority to the president in the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934. This legislation, known as the RTAA, allowed the president to negotiate tariff reductions that would then take effect automatically, as long as certain conditions were met. That approach, embodied after World War II in the multilateral General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the precursor to the World Trade Organization, successfully lowered average tariffs among industrialized member states to the low single digits by the 1980s.

And Congress generally eschewed specific trade-restricting acts after the RTAA passed. But any trade policy changes negotiated by the president other than tariff cuts still needed congressional approval before they could take effect. With the successful lowering of tariffs through the 1950s and beyond, new nontariff issues rose to the fore. When Congress refused to pass legislation implementing certain nontariff provisions negotiated during the so-called Kennedy Round of global trade talks held in Geneva in the mid-1960s, the need for a new approach to trade became apparent.

Without that, Congress could pick apart trade agreements, undermining the president’s credibility in trade negotiations and making it difficult or impossible to conclude them successfully. Congress responded in the 1974 Trade Act by creating the “fast-track” process for consideration of trade

agreements, now known as “trade promotion authority. Under this process, Congress sets out its priorities for trade negotiations and, as long as the president consults with legislators along the way, Congress commits itself to vote on implementing legislation for trade agreements within certain deadlines and without amendments. As worrying as Trump’s actions are, restoring too much congressional control over trade is not the way to go. Congress approved the RTAA and later the fast-track procedure to ensure the president had adequate authority to pursue trade-liberalizing agreements. But as Europe and Japan recovered from the devastation of World War II, and key developing countries became larger players in global markets, America’s economic dominance faded and protectionist pressures began to grow. Congress responded with new authorities and institutional innovations aimed at pushing the executive branch to be more aggressive on trade so Congress wouldn’t have to be. By the early 1960s, for example, Congress had become concerned that the State Department, then in charge of trade negotiations, prioritized broader foreign policy concerns over American trade interests. In the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Congress created what became the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to conduct trade negotiations and required it to report to Congress, as well as the president. That legislation also included the provisions, known as Section 232, which give the president broad authority to restrict imports for national security reasons. In the 1974 Trade Act, alongside the fast-track provisions to facilitate trade negotiations, Congress created Section 301, authorizing the president to take action against trade practices that unfairly impede U.S. exports. Since then, Congress has mostly followed a pattern of supporting continued trade liberalization through bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations, while also pushing the executive branch to be more aggressive in confronting alleged unfair trade practices. In the 1980s, when the current U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, was the agency’s deputy, Congress pushed the Reagan administration for more help in resisting the protectionist pressures that were coming from an ever wider swath of American manufacturing. Among other actions, Congress added provisions to Section 301 that were “super”—aimed at whole countries deemed unfair traders, rather than particular practices—and “special”—targeting alleged violations of U.S. intellectual property rights. In response, the Reagan administration undertook far more Section 301 and national security investigations than its predecessors, and the 1980s became known as a period of aggressive unilateralism in U.S. trade policy. But President Ronald Reagan still maintained a vocal commitment to open markets and launched new trade-liberalizing negotiations through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Like those in the White House before him, Reagan was generally restrained in how he used his

congressionally authorized powers to restrict trade. And his successors generally did the same, until now. Trump’s willingness to employ all the tools at his disposal, with little or no regard for trade agreements and international rules, make this a whole new ballgame. So far, concerned legislators have been subdued in their efforts to rein in the president’s delegated authorities. Republican Senators Bob Corker and Pat Toomey, along with several of their colleagues, are proposing that congressional approval be required for actions to restrict

trade for national security purposes under Section 232. This is a modest proposal and worth serious consideration. But as worrying as Trump’s actions are, and while some rebalancing of the authority over trade is justified, Congress ignores the lessons of history at its own peril. As Irwin’s book reminds us, the founders gave Congress the power to set tariffs because they were a key source of revenue at the time. The trouble started when tariffs instead became primarily a tool for protecting American producers. While much has changed with global trade, the political dynamics in Congress are essentially the same. As bad as things look right now, restoring too much congressional control over trade is not the way to go.

Shortly after passage of the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1929 that increased protectionism drastically, the United States began a shift toward free trade that would soon see them leading the movement for the global liberalization of trade. How was this rapid turnaround possible? Many scholars, both political scientists and economists, have suggested that institutional changes to the trade policy-making apparatus namely, the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act (RTAA) of 1934 and fast-track authority that replaced it in the 1970s?contrib? uted to or directly caused this move by delegating power to the president to negotiate bilateral tariff reductions, thereby breaking the logroll that led to Smoot-Hawley. Recent work, though, has suggested that the RTAA was epiphenomenal and that the real cause of liberalization was exogenous changes

to the U.S. economy that changed the preferences of U.S. legislators. This debate goes to the heart of political economy in attempting to determine what role politics plays in economic policy making. Left unresolved by this debate are two crucial questions. First, do political institutions play a role in the setting of U.S. trade policy or do political preferences, determined by economic and political interests alone, determine policy? Second, if institutions matter, what effect do they have? This article argues that institutions do matter, in part by affecting the incentives for interest groups to lobby policy makers and, thereby, change policy Author's note: I would like to thank Chris Achen, Matt Beckman, Alan Deardorff, Laura Evans, Rob Franzese, Rick Hall, Mike Hanmer, Jude Hays, Corrine McConnaughy, Will Moore, James D. Morrow, Won-Ho Park, Clint Peinhardt, Steve Poe, Mark Souva, Jeff Staton, and three anonymous reviewers for advice and comments on this arti? cle and Yoshi Ono for excellent research assistance. All errors are, of course, my own. The data used in this article are available through the Dataverse Network Project (http://dvn.iq.haiTard.edu/dvn/dv/isq) and on the ISA data archive online at http://www.isanet.org/data_archive.html. ? 2008 International Studies Association. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main Street, Maiden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK. This content downloaded from 129.170.195.145 on Sun, 21 Jul 2019 23:04:20 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 428 The Tariff and the Lobbyist makers' induced policy preferences. The article makes this argument by applying a theory about how the number of access points to policy making affects the level of protection in a country. The access point theory argues that the more access provided to interest groups, the more protectionist policy should be because of the collective action advantage held by protectionists. Increasing the number of access points will lower the price of lobbying each access point through competition between the policy makers for lobbyist dollars. Protectionists, who are better able to overcome the collective action problem than free? traders because of the concentrated benefits of protection, are more likely to take advantage of this opportunity for cheaper lobbying. Thus, increasing the number of access points should increase the level of protection because protec? tionists can better exploit these cheaper lobbying opportunities. This article applies this theory to the questions of delegation, in the forms of the RTAA and, subsequently, Fast-Track Authority. The rest of the article is organized as follows: First, I review the literature on the RTAA to assess the current state of the debate. Second, I introduce the access point theory and apply it to U.S. institutional structures to generate pre? dictions about U.S. trade policy. Third, I conduct time series analysis using Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) models on U.S. tariff rates to test the effects of delegation on the trade policy outcomes, which serves as an indirect test of the theory. Fourth, I examine the pattern of interest group testimony before Con? gress to provide a direct test of the microfoundations of the access point theory. Finally, I conclude by assessing the performance of the access point theory and discussing what lessons we can learn from it for current policy debates.

Foreign Commerce Clause not actually meant for congress to restrain interstate commerceMartin ‘13

(Ronald Martin is a writer for a the tenth amendment center. “Commerce Power: “To Regulate,” not “Prohibit,” https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/author/ronald1/, JB)

In a law review article titled “To Regulate, Not Prohibit: Limiting the Commerce Power,” New York University Law Professor Barry Friedman, and 2011 New York University Law graduate, Genevieve Lakier take on the daunting task of reasserting the historic and genealogical lineage of the Commerce Clause from its inception through the country’s 237 years of existence as a federal republic. This thorough and thoughtful 67 page treatise is broken down into three distinct eras. In the first section, the authors cite numerous uses and misuses of commerce power, including a legal concept allowing the federal government to prohibit commerce of certain goods or fungible items. The Commerce Clause is found at: Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution, and declares: the congress shall have power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.”

Lawyers and laity alike generally assume the Congress’s power “to regulate” commerce, includes the authority to prohibit it. Professor Friedman points out that historically, this is not how the Commerce Clause has always been understood and practiced. “At the Founding, and roughly 115 years thereafter, the dominant view was that Congress did not possess the authority to ban goods merely because they crossed state lines.” Friedman maintains, “While there was paucity of discussion at the Constitutional Convention about the domestic commerce power, extant evidence suggests the Framers neither imagined or intended Congress to determine, via prohibition, what kinds of goods could move in interstate markets.” However, “Congress’s power over foreign commerce received far more attention, and here it was clear that the power “to regulate” foreign commerce included the power to prohibit it.” “The primary reason for granting Congress the domestic commerce power was to facilitate interstate trade and protect it against the sort of protectionist state trade policies that occurred all too frequently under the Articles of Confederation. These protectionist type laws, “proliferated in the weak economic conditions of the post-Revolutionary period, as states attempted to protect local manufacturers by discriminatory taxing and regulating domestic imports and by restricting access of the states’ vessels into local ports. These measures generated increasing concern about their effect on the national economy and political unity.” Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 22: “The interfering and neighborly regulation of some States, contrary to the true spirit of the Union, have, in different instances given just cause and umbrage and complaint to others, and it is to be feared that examples of this nature, if not restrained by national control, would be multiplied and extended, till they become not less serious sources of animosity and discord than injurious impediments to the intercourse between the different parts of the confederacy.” “The Framers clearly sought to take away from the states, the power and ability to legislate interfering and neighborly regulations of this sort. They also enabled Congress to create uniform rules for trade. The Framer’s primary goal of the Commerce Clause was to facilitate the unrestrained intercourse between States, which was described by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 11, in which he believed would promote both “economic

prosperity and political unity.” Prof. Friedman declares that in his research, he found no record of, or a suggestion made, during the framing and ratification of the Constitution that “in addition to facilitating an unrestrained intercourse between the states, Congress would also be empowered to restrain such exchanges, by restricting what goods could cross state lines or be sold in interstate markets.” When the delegates referred to the Congress’s interstate commerce powers, they referred to them exclusively as a solution to the problem of burdensome or discriminatory state legislation. The few documented occurrences of delegates discussing Congress’ domestic powers generally opined congruous with the ideology promulgated by Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers. Professor Friedman argues that in the absence of other recorded debates, “which hardly provides irrefutable evidence” of the clause’s constitutional meaning, he believes, “the silence speaks loudly given the quite explicit acknowledgement that under it’s foreign commerce power, Congress would possess the power to not only to regulate, that is, to set the rules for trade with foreign nations, but also to limit it.” In regard to foreign commerce,”there was wide agreement among the delegates in Philadelphia that Congress would have the authority to pass what were colloquially referred to as navigational acts, restricting what kinds of ships could legally bring goods into and out of the United States, and what kinds of goods they could carry.” By empowering Congress to limit foreign trade, it was believed to be necessary to defend the interests of the United States against the “exclusionary trade policies” of Great Britain, which were implemented after the Revolutionary War. These laws forbade the ships and most goods of the United States from access to British ports which caused extreme harm to the industries of the new fledgling nation, which relied greatly on trading with Britain and it’s other colonies. The power to ban goods of foreign nations was debated at great lengths within the convention hall. This power was not granted “unknowingly or without a challenge. The Federalists promoted the idea that one of the major benefits of a new Constitution was that the delegates could grant Congress the ability to enact prohibitory regulations capable of excluding Britain from all of the new nation’s ports.” Delegates from southern states were concerned Congress would limit foreign trade, benefiting the northern states. The southern states were also concerned Congress would use their new-found power to limit the importation of slaves. The delegations of Georgia and South Carolina threatened to walk out of the convention if their concerns were not explicitly acknowledged within the convention. Although the southern delegates had concerns with limitations being placed upon the importation of slaves from foreign nations, these same delegates failed to voice a single concern regarding the importation of slaves from the several member states covered by the interstate portion of the commerce clause. Historian, David Lightner suggests, “The Anti-federalists racked their brains to conjure up every possible objection to the Constitution, not one of them ever suggested that it (the interstate commerce clause) opened the way for Congress to restrict the interstate movement of

slaves.” Mr. Friedman claims, “other esteemed historians have interpreted this silence, (of the southern states on this issue) to be decisive proof that, Congress’s interstate commerce

powers were not intended by the Framers to empower Congress to prohibit the interstate sale, or transport of slaves, or anything else.” Some other delegates were concerned the Commerce Clause granted Congress the ability to establish “mercantile monopolies,” meaning to dictate which persons or entities could provide certain types of goods and services to the interstate market. Friedman concedes, “It seems to have occurred to no one that Congress might act not only to limit who could provide goods and services to the interstate market, but also to limit what kinds of interstate markets could exist. In short, both positive and negative evidence suggests that the Framers did not intend, and probably did not even imagine, that the Interstate Commerce Clause would be read in such a way as to give Congress the power to restrain interstate

intercourse, as well as promote it.” “Those who believe Congress has the power to restrain interstate commerce, generally rely on the argument that, since Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce appears in the same sentence granting the power “to regulate” foreign commerce, the argument fallaciously promotes that the two powers should be read in pari materia, or treated the same, as a subject matter. Unfortunately this argument does not yield any evidence or standing from the Founders to support this position.” Professor Friedman adds, “the foreign and interstate commerce powers were understood, and aimed at distant evils, suggesting the power to regulate each must be read to address distinct problems.” James Madison argues this same point “in 1819, while debates concerning the introduction of slavery in the Missouri territories emerged. Madison expressly denied Congress had authority to ban the interstate transfer of slaves, notwithstanding its’ clear authority to ban their foreign import and export.” In a letter written to a Virginia senator, Joseph Cabell, Madison made his views unambiguous: the interstate and foreign commerce clauses were not intended, nor construed, to vest in Congress equivalent powers when regulating domestic and foreign commerce. “I always foresaw difficulties might be started in relation to the interstate commerce power. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain it grew out of the abuse of the power of the importing states in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventative provision against injustice amongst the states themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged. And it will be safer to leave the power with this key to it, than to extend it all the qualities and incidental means belonging to the power over foreign commerce.” Friedman’s astute examination of the express and implied understanding of “to regulate,” recognizes Madison’s interpretation was widely held amongst the founders, “despite the similarity of constitutional language, that the two powers (foreign and domestic commerce) should be interpreted differently, in light of the different problems to which they were addressed.”

Congress fails – institutional ambitionMann and Ornstein ‘18(Thomas E. Mann is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution and Resident Scholar, Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Norman Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies politics, elections, and the US Congress. Supply-side congressional reform? https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/07/25/supply-side-congressional-reform/, JB)

Dismayed by the apparent dysfunctionality of Congress, many scholars and reformers have proposed strengthening its institutional capacity. Think of it as a supply-side approach to revitalizing the first branch of government: “If we build it, they will use it.” But what if there is no market among its members for an assertive and functional Congress—a “Madisonian Congress?” That is the central question addressed by Yuval Levin, one of the brightest conservative thinkers writing today. His recent article in Commentary, “Congress is Weak Because Its Members Want It to be Weak,” assesses the perilous condition of American constitutional democracy from the vantage point of institutional ambition. Ambition was the incentive the Framers believed would ensure enough tension between branches to keep the constitutional system in balance. But the ambition of today’s members, Levin argues, is realized not by the mundane work of legislating or governing but “rather engaging in a kind of performative outrage for a partisan audience.” This perspective “suggests that the two trends that have most worried conservatives about the system—the trends toward excessive executive

power and excessive judicial activism—are both rooted in congressional dereliction.” Levin’s essay is lively and thoughtful, and it deserves a wide reading. Much of what he writes rings true with us. The lack of institutional patriotism has been evident for decades. The same is true of the amount and quality of genuine deliberation. The budget process is in tatters. Committee work is often marginalized. Evidence-based research is routinely pushed aside. Honest debate between opposing views has given way to canned speeches. Oversight is inadequate and misdirected. Blame avoidance leads to deferral to the executive, on domestic and especially foreign policy, and to a willingness to punt tough decisions to the courts.

2nc US-China trade war thumps extAff can’t solve – republican support means congress won’t end the trade warByrd 5-15-19 (Haley Byrd is a CNN reporter based in Washington, D.C. She joined the network in 2019 to cover Congress, trade, and economic policy. She was previously a congressional reporter at The Weekly Standard, where she reported extensively on the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill, domestic policy, and the Trump administration's Section 232 tariffs. She also wrote long-form profiles and reported from the 2018 campaign trail for the print magazine. Before joining The Standard in 2018, Byrd was congressional reporter for The Independent Journal Review. At IJR, she regularly broke news about the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the early days of the Trump presidency. She also wrote deep dives into a variety of policy debates, such as international de minimis rules for online commerce, universal basic income, and highway rest stop privatization. She grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, and later, the Florida panhandle. Byrd is pursuing a degree in Homeland Security at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “Republicans stick with Trump on China as White House prepares to punt on car tariffs” May 15, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/politics/republicans-trump-trade-china/index.html)

(CNN) — Senate Republicans are standing by President Donald Trump in his escalating trade war with China -- but they aren't prepared to back his other protectionist impulses. Trump faced a Saturday deadline to decide whether to move ahead with threatened tariffs of up to 25% on cars coming from Europe, a move many fear would alienate key US allies and devastate global supply chains, as the President is trying to resolve brewing crises in Iran and North Korea. But Trump plans to delay his decision on auto tariffs by six months, according to a person familiar with the situation, in order to pursue negotiations with the European Union and Japan. The delay will give Congress six months to take action to limit Trump's ability to move unilaterally on the tariffs, in the event that talks with the EU -- which Trump's top trade negotiator has already said

are at "a complete stalemate" -- fall apart. Republicans have long been more deferential to Trump on China -- a country they agree should be held accountable for intellectual property theft and other unfair trading practices. But they don't feel that logic applies to Trump's other trade moves, including steel and aluminum tariffs imposed last year on national security grounds, under Section 232 of the Cold War-era Trade Expansion

Act. "We would look back and say, 'OK, this pain was worth it because we ended up with a really good agreement and much better Chinese behavior,'" Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey told reporters on Tuesday. "That's what we can still hope for with respect to China. But with respect to the 232 tariffs that we've seen on steel and aluminum against our allies and nearest neighbors and closest friends, I'm afraid we can't make that case at all." Republicans view duties on auto imports as a doomsday scenario that could cripple the economy if paired with the ongoing tensions with China. If Trump follows through on his threats, it could spur congressional action to limit his power on the issue. "I would be very surprised and extremely disappointed if we decided that Volkswagens are a threat to America's national security and we imposed a tax on American consumers in that category," Toomey said. Republicans have pushed back on the White House's previous use of Section 232, though they have not advanced

legislation on the matter. GOP leaders shot down a bill to require congressional approval for the national security tariffs last year, spearheaded by retired Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, because members did not want to take a difficult vote before the 2018 midterm elections. Toomey has introduced a revamped version of the bill. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman has meanwhile advocated a less direct approach, which would not require congressional approval for the tariffs. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley says he plans to introduce a compromise bill to blend the two, but

negotiations have moved slowly. "We're not there yet," Portman told CNN on Tuesday. Portman, a former US trade representative, also explained why he was more willing to get behind the White House on combating Chinese trade practices. "If you look at the 301 case that was filed, it is very specific on what China is doing on subsidization, on tech transfer and so on," Portman, who was US trade representative during the Bush administration, told CNN of the distinction between China and Trump's other

national security tariffs. "It's a different approach, different animal." On China, they've expressed willingness to go along with Trump's roller coaster ride in hopes that he can reach the comprehensive deal he's promised. "Ultimately, nobody wins a trade war unless there is an agreement at the end, after which tariffs go away," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, when asked how patient

senators are willing to be given the pain for farmers and other interests, told CNN: "I'm not sure this is entirely up to us." Other senators said they welcomed the crackdown on China despite the pain it has created for farmers and other US businesses -- as well as higher prices for consumers. "The President is right to hold China's feet the fire on this," Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso told CNN. "They wouldn't be negotiating at all if it weren't for what the President has done. ... The President has his own timeline. I support what he is doing. Democrats who oppose Trump's trade decisions say the GOP's failure to legislate on the issue is indicative of its members' timidity towards Trump. "I'm done listening to Republicans complain about this," Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters of tariffs on Tuesday. "They have the power to do something about it." He added: "There's a range of options, and Republicans are pretending as if they're not senators. They want to complain about the tariffs, but they don't actually want to do anything about it."

2nc Trump tariffs alt causeThe aff can’t solve section 232 tariffs – decks steel industry Oberoi 6/17/19

(“What Section 232 Steel Tariffs Have Achieved in the Last Year,” https://marketrealist.com/2019/06/what-section-232-steel-tariffs-have-achieved-in-the-last-year/, JB)

When it recommended Section 232 steel tariffs, the Commerce Department highlighted certain issues such as the fact that the US steel industry’s capacity utilization rate was below 80%, which is not sustainable. Now, 15 months into the tariffs, the Commerce Department seems to have achieved its objective, as the US steel industry has operated above the 80% utilization rate almost throughout the entire last year. Steel imports The Commerce

Department also cited higher steel imports and import penetration levels. After the tariffs, US steel imports fell 11% last year. Imports are down on a year-over-year basis in the first four months of 2019 also . So, the objective of fewer imports also seems to have been achieved. US steel production has also gained pace, and according to the World Steel Association, US steel production has risen 6.7% year-over-year in the first four months of the year. So, it would be fair to say

that US steel production has picked up pace after the tariffs. Investments and steel jobs The Commerce Department also cited falling jobs in the steel industry as well as lower capital expenditure from US steel companies in its Section 232 report. On these fronts, the Commerce Department can claim victory. There has been a flurry of capital investment projects by companies including U.S. Steel (X), Steel Dynamics, and Nucor (NUE). Nucor and Steel Dynamics have announced greenfield projects that would enhance US steel production capacity. The new plants would also support new jobs. U.S. Steel has restarted two of its blast furnaces and is investing significantly in revamping its aging steel plants. AK Steel (AKS), however, has permanently closed its Ashland Works facility. Notably, in its report, the Commerce Department also cited stagnant steel production capacity in the United States. While the Commerce Department has achieved these critical objectives, there’s more to the story. In its Section 232 steel probe, the Commerce Department pointed to the high steel import to export ratio. It emphasized the subsidized steel in other countries that makes US steel exports to those countries uncompetitive. Now, while US steel imports

have fallen after the Section 232 tariffs, we’ve seen a steeper fall in US steel exports. The most recent data suggests that US steel exports fell more than 30% year-over-year in March and April. Steel prices have fallen The Commerce Department also pointed to lower US steel prices as a result of global overproduction. While US steel prices rose sharply in the first half of 2018, they have now fallen below the price levels when the tariffs were announced. In short, Section 232 tariffs haven’t helped in a sustainable rise in US steel prices. The Commerce Department also pointed to US steel companies’ poor earnings. After last year’s spike wherein both Nucor (NUE) and Steel Dynamics reported record earnings, all steel companies including U.S. Steel (X) and AK Steel (AKS) are expected to post a yearly fall in their 2019 earnings. Having said that, despite lower earnings, steel companies are still financially sound, and the current scenario is much better than in 2015 when companies like U.S. Steel posted negative

EBITDA in the fourth quarter. Glass half full or half empty? The tariffs only provided a temporary high to US steel companies’ earnings. After the exemption for Canada and Mexico, we’ll likely see higher steel imports from these regions. Moreover, US steel companies, especially Nucor and Steel Dynamics, are aggressively adding capacity, which could prove problematic if steel imports don’t fall more from these levels. Read Will Trump’s Steel Tariffs Fail Like Bush’s Tariffs for more analysis.

2nc No adv solvency

Youngstown Co. vs. Sawyer does not use Curtiss-Wright as a precedent and upholds unilateral presidential power over foreign affairsRivkin and Block ‘90 (David B. Rivkin Jr. is a conservative American attorney, political writer, and media commentator on matters of constitutional and international law, as well as foreign and defense policy. Lawrence J. Block is a former Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims who was confirmed on October 2, 2002. , The New York Review of Books, "‘The Constitution in Danger’: An Exchange", 1990, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/05/17/the-constitution-in-danger-an-exchange/)The Courts and Executive Power Despite the revisionist contentions of the neo-antifederalists, the Supreme Court has consistently and unambiguously recognized a presidential prerogative. As Mr. Draper clearly recognized, the Supreme Court first gave its imprimatur to the President’s broad discretion in foreign affairs in the leading case, United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.30 The Court did, as Draper acknowledges, draw a distinction between the President’s relatively limited inherent powers to act in the domestic sphere and his wide-reaching discretion to act upon his own authority in directing foreign affairs.31 However, the Court was obviously correct in maintaining that this discretion derives from the Constitution itself and that congressional efforts to intrude in this area must be closely scrutinized. Draper was right in observing that Justice Jackson characterized the Court’s discussion of the President’s inherent

power as dicta because the presidential action at issue in Curtiss-Wright was authorized by statute.32 However, the Court’s view of inherent executive power was clearly not dicta because it was essential to its conclusion that Congress had not unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority to the President. Significantly, the Supreme Court has consistently reaffirmed the Curtiss-Wright doctrine. For instance, in United States v. Nixon,33 the Court followed the Curtiss-Wright distinction between domestic and foreign powers. Although it rejected Nixon’s claim of absolute executive privilege for communications involving domestic affairs, the Court stressed that military and diplomatic secrets are altogether in a different category. Such secrets are encompassed in the Executive’s Article II grant of power, to the exercise of which “courts have traditionally shown the utmost deference.34 Moreover, recently the Court in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez35 at least implicitly upheld the validity of Curtiss-Wright when it held that Executive Branch personnel as agents of the President do not need a warrant when seizing foreign nationals abroad. Nor does the Youngstown case stand for the proposition, as Draper alleges, that the President has no plenary foreign affairs power or that

congressional will reigns supreme on any foreign policy issue it chooses to address. Because the Youngstown analysis is applicable to the domestic context, the case does not and need not refer to Curtiss-Wright’s analysis of executive prerogatives. Professor Corwin has written an excellent but seldom cited discussion of the Youngstown case.36 Significantly, the article is devoted solely to analysis of the plurality, concurring and dissenting opinions in Youngstown inasmuch as they fail, in Professor Corwin’s view, to acknowledge the President’s constitutional prerogatives to override statutory prescriptions in times of national emergency. The fact that Professor Corwin does not even touch upon the question of the President’s foreign affairs prerogative suggests that Youngstown casts no shadow over Curtiss-Wright.

2nc Collapse inevitable- Trade/EconTrade relations collapse with China inevitableYan 6/3/19

(Li Yan is the Deputy Director of Institute of American Studies at CICI, “Trade War Foretells Broader China-US “Decoupling,” https://www.chinausfocus.com/finance-economy/trade-war-foretells-broader-china-us-decoupling-, JB)

The recent 11th round of China-US trade talks has provoked serious frustration. The Trump administration has arbitrarily accused China of rejecting the consensus that had been reached before, with China strongly rejecting the US accusations. China-US trade talks seem to be at risk of totally breaking down. What is even more worrying is that mutual trust has fallen to a new low, while problems in other fields have emerged during China-US confrontation over trade issues. For example, when it comes to science and technology as well as people-to-people exchange, there has been a significant and growing trend of “decoupling” between China and the United States. Since the normalization of China-US relations in 1972, the relationship between the two countries has experienced frequent disputes, but within a condition of overall stability and growing interests binding the two countries together. Chinese leaders used to remark that "the relationship between China and the United States will not be so good, and it will not be too bad." Under the shadow of a serious trade war, the historical development of China-US relations may undergo fundamental changes — a new turning point toward decoupling and confrontation. The trade talks are not only a process of readjusting China-US trade interests and reshaping the pattern of economic interactions, but also the first strategic contest between China and the US under the new circumstances of great-power competition. The process and results of this strategic contest will have a profound impact on China-US relations for a considerable period of time going forward. As far as the current situation is concerned, a series of problems triggered by the trade war is highly likely to cast a pall over future China-US relations. First of all, the success or failure of trade talks will determine whether economic and trade relations will continue to constitute the "ballast" of bilateral relations. In recent years, as the conflicting factors in China-US economic exchange have gradually emerged, the complementarity of trade ties has not been as obvious as in past decades. Competing interests and incompatible contradictions over differing governance systems have gradually become an important part of China-US economic and trade relations. The American business community, which had always supported the stable development of China-US relations, has been complaining about China's business environment in recent years — their perception of economic and trade relations has gradually soured. This is an important example of the changes in China-US ties. If China and the US can reach an agreement this time, the "ballast" of China-US relations still has the opportunity to be further strengthened. But if agreement cannot be reached, or if the trade war continues for a long period of time, it is very likely that the economic and trade ties will become more stumbling block than ballast. Huge setbacks in recent trade negotiations show this major risk. Secondly, the stalemate on trade talks may trigger the immense risk of a Cold-War-style “decoupling” in the realm of technology and people-to-people exchange. China’s tremendous advances in science and technology in recent years have further hit a sensitive nerve in the US. As a result, attacking China's major tech firms, and its science and technology policies, has become an important means for the United States to exert "maximum pressure" on China during the trade war. There are quite a few American strategic experts who

hope to block China's national development and military modernization by cracking down on China's scientific and technological progress. Over the past year, the United States has issued a series of legislative restrictions on exchanges of scientific and technological personnel, to strengthen export control of sensitive technologies, and has also continuously implemented sanctions. The restrictions on personnel exchanges have further spread to people-to-people exchanges in other fields. Chinese students studying in America, as well as think-tank scholars, are frequently harassed by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies. American officials who are extremely unfriendly to China have given extreme remarks that invoked the concept of the "clash of civilizations" and "ethnic conflicts." The specter of McCarthyism is eroding the foundation of people-to-people exchange within China-US relations. Uninterrupted people-to-people exchanges are essential to keeping the relationship on right track. Otherwise, ties will likely drift apart and lead to a Cold-War level of hostility. This downward trend in China-US relations is largely the result of the Trump administration's shifting policy on China. It is indisputable that America’s strategy towards China has shifted from engagement and hedging to competition and containment. In response to this change, it is foreseeable that China will also have to adjust its policy toward the US accordingly. On the one hand, China will continue to seek improvement in China-US relations and promote a relationship based on coordination, cooperation, and stability. China hopes that the two countries will be able to recognize and accept each other once again, to seek a new model to reconcile with each other, while learning to find cooperation and mutual benefit even amid an atmosphere of competition. On the other hand, China will be also more determined to strike back and counter any pressure from the US. In its US strategy, China is likely to seek policies of “Peace by Strength” and “Peace by Struggle.” Faced with whole-of-government pressure from the US, China will rely on its increasingly powerful national strength and extensive strategic tools of foreign policy to strike back. In sum, both China and the US should learn to live in an era of superpower competition and coexist peacefully in the world, despite mutual distrust.

US and China inevitably decouple – aff cant solveBermingham ‘18(Finbarr Bermingham has been reporting on Asian trade since 2014. Prior to this, he covered global trade and economics in London. He joined the Post in 2018, before which he was Asia Editor at Global Trade Review and Trade Correspondent for the International Business Times, “Decoupling of US and Chinese economies is ‘inevitable’ and is being accelerated by trade war, author says,” https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2175795/decoupling-us-and-chinese-economies-inevitable-and-being, JB)

Decoupling of the United States and Chinese economies is “inevitable”, and the US should pursue an Anglophonic alliance to soften the blow, the author of a new book on China’s economic rise said on Friday. The speed and extent of the decoupling will depend on negotiations between the world’s two superpowers, but it is already under way, with the shifting of US companies’ supply chains out of China and into other, cheaper Asian manufacturing hubs. Stewart Paterson, a partner at fund management company Tiburon Partners and the author of China, Trade and Power, said that in future trading blocs could be based on ideology and could be similar in structure to the Five Eyes security grouping, an

intelligence alliance consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand the UK and US, formed after the Second World War. “I think an element of decoupling is inevitable,” Paterson said at the book’s launch in Hong Kong. “What is fairly certain is that the [Chinese Communist Party] is not prepared to give up control of the commanding heights of the Chinese economy. When you read [US Trade Representative Robert] Lighthizer’s criticisms of China, going back a decade at least, he would take a view that I would share, that a trade economy like this produces unfair outcomes,” he said. Amid trade war, Argentina sees opportunities with both US and China Decoupling would involve disentangling complex supply chains established over many years. Most of these were set up after China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001 opened the floodgates for western companies to established low-cost manufacturing bases there. Research from US-based firm Rhodium Group shows that US companies invested US$256.49 billion in China between 1990 and 2017. Fully 71 per cent of this went towards developing greenfield sites. Thanks in part to foreign investment, China subsequently became the “world’s factory”, but in recent years has lost some of its competitive advantage to emerging neighbours such as Vietnam and Malaysia. As reported by the South China Morning Post and Politico this week, even Chinese companies are shifting their manufacturing bases into Vietnam, partly to dodge tariffs and partly as a result of fears over production costs. “Total US corporate profits are about US$1.9 trillion. The profits that are made by US companies making and selling in China are less than 2 per cent of that. Then there are profits made on exports to China, but again you’re talking a fairly ‘de minimis’ amount compared to overall GDP. So America is not that vested in China directly. China is itself moving production out of China at the low end,” Paterson said. There are also signs that other western economies are starting to question their relationship with China. New Zealand has become the latest nation to freeze Chinese tech giant Huawei out of its plans to roll out a 5G internet network. This follows a decision by the Australian government to bar Huawei from bidding for similar work in Australia. Paterson’s book argues that China’s rise has come at the expense of western economies and societies and was facilitated by the governments of the time, notably the Clinton administration in the US. The rise of populism throughout the West today can be directly traced to China’s WTO membership, which was achieved after “pernicious” lobbying by US corporations around the turn of the century, it says. Paterson said that the only two winners from China’s accession were “the [Chinese Communist Party] and the 1 per cent [wealthiest] in the West”. The US’ “naive” pursuit of low inflation at the same time led to lower wages and poorer societies, “stimulating the Chinese economy by taking on greater levels of debt” while “China got everything it wanted”. As the US and Chinese Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping prepare for a meeting after the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires on Saturday, China will be looking for a moratorium on the planned tariff rise due to affect US$200bn of Chinese exports from January 1. The US’ strategy has brought China to the negotiating table and, according to Paterson, this shows that it has worked to a degree. Amid trade war, Argentina sees opportunities with both US and China “The Chinese have been surprised by it and wrong-footed by it, but America needs to do some relationship building around the world to ensure they’re not isolated. The good news for the US at this juncture is that China’s Belt and Road Initiative has alienated a lot of people. The Europeans have similar complaints to the US in terms of [intellectual property] theft, lack of market access and lack of reciprocity. It should be possible to build a global alliance to support this.” In a recent op-ed for the Post, Richard McGregor and Hervé Lemahieu, Lowy Institute

fellows in Sydney, argued that “decoupling runs the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater”. “Poorly handled, wholesale decoupling will do little to advance Washington’s resolve to compete against an illiberal peer competitor on the world stage. To the contrary, it may only entrench China’s growing gravitational pull,” they wrote. There will be some economic downturn as a result, with many analysts predicting a global recession as a result. “Whether or not a recession is avoidable in any circumstances, I don’t know. It might well not be,” Paterson said. “My point would be if the choice is between a continuation of the status quo or a recession but by standing up to China liberalism survives, I would go for that option.”

Econ resilient (i/l D)The US economy can’t and won’t collapse – multiple warrantsAmadeo 2-07-19 (Kimberly Amadeo has 20 years senior-level corporate experience in economic analysis and business strategy. She received an M.S. in Management from the Sloan School of Business at M.I.T.Kimberly is the U.S. Economy expert for The Balance, and has been writing for Dotdash/About.com since 2006. She covers economic and business news, and explains how the economy affects you. “Top 10 Reasons Why the US Economy Won’t Collapse” February 7, 2019. https://www.thebalance.com/us-economy-wont-collapse-3980688)

Have you come across those websites that urge you to prepare for the coming U.S. economic collapse? They start by saying the debt is unsustainable, the dollar is in a bubble, or the Federal Reserve is printing dollars. Those assertions are all true, but they’re nothing new and nothing to panic over. The fallacy in these arguments occurs afterward. You'll notice the doomsayers say "if" a specific event occurs, then the economy will collapse. For example, "if China sells its dollar holdings" or "if the U.S. defaults on its debt." But, they don’t tell you that these events are not at all likely. They suggest that you buy guns, gold coins,

or their survival book to prepare for the event "just in case." Why the U.S. Economy Won't Fail In fact, the U.S. economy is doing fine. Here are the top 10 reasons why it won't collapse.

Included are rebuttals to the negativists' claims. The U.S. debt is $21 trillion, more

than the economy produces in a year, but although the debt-to-GDP ratio is in the danger zone, it's not enough to cause a collapse. First, the United States prints its money. That means it is in control of its currency. Lenders feel safe that the U.S. government will pay them back. In fact, the United States could run a much higher debt-to-GDP ratio than it does now and still not face economic collapse. Japan is another strong economy that controls its currency. It has had a debt-to-GDP ratio above 200 percent for years. Its economy is

sluggish but in no danger of collapse. The United States won't default on its debt. Most members of Congress realize a debt default would destroy America's credibility in the financial markets. The tea party Republicans in

Congress were a minority that threatened to default during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis and in 2013. China and Japan are the biggest owners of the U.S. debt, but they have no incentive to create a collapse. The United States is their largest market. If it fails, so do their economies. Furthermore, China is not selling all of its dollar holdings. It has remained above $1 trillion since 2013. For more, see U.S.

Debt to China. If anything, the dollar would slowly decline instead of

collapse. It fell 40 percent between 2002 and 2008. It has gotten stronger since then because of the financial crisis. Investors flock to ultra-safe U.S. Treasurys and the U.S. dollar as a safe haven. The dollar won't be replaced as the world's global currency. The doomsayers point to gold, the euro, or Bitcoin as a replacement for the dollar. China has said it would like the yuan to replace the

dollar. It's true that the dollar's value is supported by its role, but none of these other alternatives have enough circulation to replace the dollar. The Fed's quantitative easing program and low fed funds rate won't cause hyperinflation. If anything, these programs have created a liquidity trap. That's when people, businesses, and banks hoard the extra cash instead of spending or lending it. The real

cause of hyperinflation has been debt repayments to fund wars. The stock market hit new highs in 2018. Stock prices are based on corporate earnings, so that’s a sign of business prosperity. Consumer confidence hit an 18-year high in 2018. Consumer spending drives almost 70 percent of the economy. Economic growth is slow but stable. Since the Great Recession, the economy has grown between 1.5 - 2.7 percent per year. According to business cycle theory, a bust only occurs after a boom. That's when GDP is more than 3 percent. It hasn't been that high since 2005 according to a review of GDP by year. President Obama added to the debt to get us out of recession, not send us into collapse. Many of these doomsters accuse Obama of deliberately increasing the debt to destroy the United States. What It Means to You Before you run out to buy gold or stock up on canned goods, do two things. First, read the

articles linked in the 10 points above. They will give you the facts the naysayers ignore. Or read "How the U.S. Economy Works." Second, see what a real economic collapse looks like. On September 17, 2008, the U.S. economy almost collapsed. That's when companies pulled out trillions of dollars from money market accounts. It would have created a severe cash crunch had it continued. The nation's trucking industry would have ground to a halt. Gas stations would have gone dry. Grocery stores shelves would have gone empty. But those things didn’t happen because the Federal Reserve prevented the collapse. It guaranteed money market accounts and restored confidence. Iceland's economy collapsed in 2008. Its banks had defaulted on $62 billion of foreign debt. They had used the debt to finance foreign acquisitions. But Iceland's entire gross domestic product was only $14 billion. When the banks defaulted, foreign investors fled. Within a week, the krona lost half its value. The stock market dropped 95 percent. That's when almost every business in Iceland went bankrupt. Although the Great Depression wasn't a collapse, it was close. GDP fell by half. Global trade dropped almost two-thirds. Unemployment was 25 percent. What caused it? Government actions turned a recession into a depression. First, the Fed used contractionary monetary policy like raising the fed funds rate to protect the gold standard. Congress cut back on spending as soon as the New Deal got the economy back on its feet and that contractionary fiscal policy brought back the depression in 1937. It didn't

end until the military build-up to World War II, but we aren't headed for a second Great Depression.

No collapse – Trump won’t risk letting the economy collapse and losing in the 2020 election Egan 5-30-19 (Matt Egan is a lead writer for CNN Business. He provides analysis on the day's biggest business stories, covering everything from Wall Street and the stock market to energy. Egan also tweets throughout the day on the latest market moves and corporate news. “Wall Street is betting the president won't let stocks collapse” May 30th, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/30/investing/stock-market-trade-war-trump/index.html)

New York (CNN Business) — Investors are once again growing worried about the US-China trade war. But Wall Street isn't completely freaked out. Even after the recent tumble, the S&P 500 is sitting just 6% away from all-time highs. And the VIX (VIX) volatility index is hardly flashing panic. One major factor: Investors know that President Donald Trump is very focused on swings in the stock market. There's a widespread belief that Trump won't let anything truly bad happen to stocks before the next presidential election. Wall Street is betting that if the market plunges far enough, the White House will throw in the towel and find a way to make trade peace with China rather than risk losing in 2020. Dow slides to three-month low, briefly slips below 25,000 "If the pain gets too great in the economy and stock market, he will have to find a face-saving solution," said Carter Mack, president and co-founder of JMP Group, a San Francisco-based investment bank. 'Security blanket' It's a new spin on the Fed put, the term coined for

a trading strategy based on the belief that the Federal Reserve will come to the rescue of markets and the economy by lowering interest rates. The Trump put is a bet that the president won't allow the market to collapse. "There is a security blanket," said Jeff Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab. "It certainly seems this administration is more reactive to the stock market." The bond market

is freaking out. Here's why that matters Trump checks financial markets "every few hours," according to Stephen Moore, a Trump campaign adviser. "He understands that if the stock market and economy crash on him, there's no way he can get re-elected ," Moore said earlier this month at the SALT Conference in Las Vegas. Retaliation jitters Financial markets have wobbled in recent weeks because of concerns about the

escalating trade war between the world's two biggest economies. Jittery investors have poured money into bonds. That's driven the 10-year Treasury yield down to the lowest levels since late 2017. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on all remaining US imports from China. And Chinese state media has floated the potential for harsh retaliation, including restricting imports of rare-earth minerals or even dumping Beijing's vast holdings of US Treasuries. Investors are hoping Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping make progress on trade negotiations at next month's G-20 summit. European officials warn that US stocks are overpriced Ryan Nauman, market strategist at Informa Financial Intelligence's Zephyr, warned that a "complete breakdown" of US-China talks could cause US stocks to plunge 10% to 15% from current levels. "That won't bode well for Trump and his reelection probabilities," said Nauman. "I do think that will put pressure on him to get a deal done." Facing economic and market turbulence, Trump and Xi reached a temporary trade truce in late 2018 in Argentina. What if the trade war can't be turned off? However, analysts warned against assuming that Washington and Beijing will automatically reach a face-saving deal this time. "Usually it's the market and economy that drive political outcomes, rather than politics driving market outcomes," said Kleintop. "There's a limit to what the president can do." One risk is that Trump decides picking a fight with China is popular enough politically to overshadow the economic fallout. Another potential problem is that Trump may opt for a deal -- only to rebuffed by Beijing. "China is digging in its heels," said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco. "It seems China is very focused on teaching the US a lesson." In other words, Trump may not be able to simply flip a switch to make the trade war go away.

2nc Econ impact DEconomic downturn inevitable Ross 6-25-19 (Sean Ross has a background which includes working as a bankruptcy specialist, consultant, broker, financial advisor, and as a journalist. Sean is the founder and manager of Free Lances, Ltd., a hub for freelance editors, researchers, and writers. He is a Strategic Adviser at 1031x.com, a firm helping real estate investors defer realized capital gains tax recognition through the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 1031. Sean is responsible for processing 1031x agreements and educating the public about the use of the tax code's program. He also works to market the firm and maintain client and property databases. Sean was formerly the editor-in-chief at Financial Poise™. Poise creates educational content which targets investors, private business owners, and legal advisors. Here, he worked with researching, writing, and editing the content. He is also a contributor to Axial Network, a hub offering business services to lower-middle market companies, Intuit–Quickbooks, InsideTheNation.com, and Investopedia. Sean has more than 600 articles available through the Investopedia site. His topics include works on insurance, retirement, investment strategy, financial analysis, international investing, private equity, and economic and monetary policy. You will see his work referenced in research and books. Sean writes for audiences in the United States, the U.K., and Australia. Sean earned his Bachelor of Science in Economics and International Political Economy at Regis University. “Are economic recessions inevitable?” June 25, 2019. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032015/are-economic-recessions-inevitable.asp)

The popular sentiment of financial analysts and many economists is that recessions are the inevitable result of the business cycle in a capitalist economy. The empirical evidence, at least on the surface, appears to strongly back up this theory. Recessions are highly frequent in modern economies and, more specifically, they seem to follow periods of strong growth. Unfortunately, empirical consistency can never prove inevitability. The only way to logically prove the inevitability of a business cycle outcome is through logic and reasoning, not historical evidence. Consider the following scenario: a six-sided die is rolled 24 times, never landing on the number four. Assuming away statistical probabilities, the empirical evidence would suggest it is not possible to end on the number four. Logically, though, there is nothing preventing the 25th roll from landing on four. That possible outcome is consistent with everything known about a six-sided die. In the same way, it does not make sense to say

recessions are inevitable only because history is filled with previous recessions. Understanding Recessions "Recession" is the title given to a an economic period marked by negative real growth, declining output, depressed prices and rising unemployment. These periods result from an unusual, simultaneous and large grouping of business errors, or malinvestments. Faced with financial loss and declining margins, businesses scale back production and reallocate resources from less valuable ends to toward more valuable ends. Oftentimes, the malinvestments create an atmosphere of unhealthy speculation in the market. Overvalued assets attract more investors who are chasing unsustainable gains. Many assert that the tendency to speculate on unsustainable investments is the primary driving force behind recessions. They suggest these speculators are a necessary part of the capitalist market and, consequently, periodic recessions are inevitable. As John Maynard Keynes suggested, "human nature requires quick results, there is particular zest in making money quickly." Logically,

though, there are missing components to this explanation. What creates the initial malinvestment? Why do so many previously smart and successful entrepreneurs fall into the trap? And why are there periods of strong asset or sector growth that do not cause speculative bubbles? Economics and Inevitability There are very few certainties or axiomatic truths in economics. Economists assert that human beings interact with scarce resources to pursue purposeful ends. Economics can show that no voluntary trade takes place without both parties receiving an increase in value, subjective value, at least in the ex ante sense. Economics can even show that price controls lead to relative shortages or surpluses. However, economic logic does not show the inevitable result of aggregated individual trades leads to periods of declining real output. Another way to look at this problem is to ask another

question: "Is it possible to achieve eternal economic growth?" Conceptually, yes. It is

possible, though unlikely, that technological or operational innovations occur at a rate consistent with continuous growth. It is also conceptually possible that economic actors consistently make correct entrepreneurial judgments, allocate resources effectively and maintain a level of constant or ever-increasing productivity. If it is conceptually possible to achieve permanent rates of growth, then it cannot be, by definition, inevitable for economic recessions to occur.

Economic decline is often only a reflection of false measurements, not actual declineWorstall 13 (Tim Worstall is a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, a writer here and there on this and that and strangely, one of the global experts on the metal scandium, one of the rare earths. An odd thing to be but someone does have to be such and in this flavour of our universe he is. He has written for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Express, Independent, City AM, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and online for the ASI, IEA, Social Affairs Unit, Spectator, The Guardian, The Register and Techcentralstation. “The Inevitable Decline Of The American Economy” July 29th, 2013. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/07/29/the-inevitable-decline-of-the-american-economy/#760cc2077fdd)

We've another piece discussing Robert Gordon's views on the future of the economy. Which are, essentially, that it all gets worse from here on in until we've riots in the streets and the return of starvation. This time it's at the New Yorker and to put the theory into a nutshell it's that everything has already been invented and so life isn't going to get any better. Yes, OK, there's a little more stringency to the theorising but not really a great deal. For all of measurable human history up until the year 1750, nothing happened that mattered. This isn’t to say history was stagnant, or that life was only grim and blank, but the well-being of average people did not perceptibly improve. All of the wars, literature, love affairs, and religious schisms, the schemes for empire-making and ocean-crossing and simple profit and freedom, the entire human theater of ambition and deceit and redemption took place on a scale too small to register, too minor to much improve the lot of ordinary human beings. In England before the middle of the eighteenth century, where industrialization first began, the pace of progress was so slow that it took 350 years for a family to double its standard of living. In Sweden, during a similar 200-year period, there was essentially no improvement at all. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the state of technology and the luxury and quality of life afforded the average individual were little better than they had been two millennia earlier, in ancient Rome. Then two things happened that did matter, and they were so grand that they dwarfed everything that had come before and encompassed most everything that has come since: the first industrial revolution, beginning in 1750 or so in the north of England, and the second industrial revolution, beginning around 1870 and created mostly in this country. That the second industrial revolution happened just as the first had begun to dissipate was an incredible stroke of good luck. It meant that during the whole modern era from 1750 onward—which contains, not coincidentally, the full life span of the United States—human well-being accelerated at a rate that could barely have been contemplated before. Instead of permanent stagnation, growth became so rapid and so seemingly automatic that by the fifties and sixties the average American would roughly double his or her parents’ standard of living. In the space of a single generation, for most everybody, life was getting twice as good.

So, we've had two industrial revolutions, both came along almost as luck and we're not going to have a third one of any similar size and therefore economic growth is pretty much over. Get used to what we've got because this is good as it gets. The thing about this prediction, as with so many of this sort, is that's it's not actually something that's refutable in the lifetimes of any of the people having the discussion. We're not going to know what economic and productivity growth are going to look like this coming century until that century's gone. And much as I'd like to be part of that first generation that doesn't keel over at three score and ten I don't

think that I will be so I'll certainly not be around to shout I told you so or anything. However, I think that at goodly portion of this gloom comes from a simple measurement error. It is true that both productivity and economic growth have slowed in recent decades (this isn't just the recession we're talking about). But at least to some extent that's a fault of how we measure those things rather than being a reflection of reality . Gordon’s second prediction is almost literary in its scope.

The forces of the second industrial revolution, he believes, were so powerful and so unique that they will not be repeated. The consequences of that breakthrough took a century to be fully realized, and as the internal combustion engine gave rise to the car and eventually the airplane, and electricity to radio and the telephone and then mass media, they came to rearrange social forces and transform everyday lives. Mechanized farm equipment permitted people to stay in school longer and to leave rural areas and move to cities. Electrical appliances allowed women of all social classes to leave behind housework for more fulfilling and productive jobs. Air-conditioning moved work indoors. The introduction of public sewers and sanitation reduced illness and infant mortality, improving health and extending lives. The car, mass media, and commercial aircraft led to a liberation from the narrow confines of geography and an introduction to a far broader

and richer world. What Gordon's saying there is entirely true: these are things that have happened and cannot happen again. So we've got to find something new to produce economic growth and just what the heck is that new darn thing going to be? At this point the argument usually degenerates into, well, there will be something and the growth will be there. But this is Gordon's very point: we've only had two of these revolutions (actually, we had a third, the invention of agriculture) in a couple of millennia, what makes you so sure that another one is going to some along? But do note something else about Gordon's argument: it relies to some extent on the proof that growth is already slowing. As indeed it is in the statistics. He's explaining observable reality which is always a useful thing in any theory. However, I think it's the statistics not the reality which show that slowdown. A little step backwards.

Worth recalling what GDP is actually measuring: the total final output of goods and services at market prices. This definition was set up in the 1930s and 40s as we were in the middle of that second industrial revolution. And as long as we recall that it's exactly what it says on the tin then it's a very good measure to use. However, it's vital to remember that GDP is not a measurement of living standards. For that we need to know the consumer surplus we get from whatever it is that we buy at those market prices. The larger that consumer surplus is the better off we are without GDP moving even a fraction of a penny. My favourite example of this is water: just the drinking stuff I add to my Scotch (and coffee, tea and so on as I'm not entirely a journalist and thus not purely fueled by alcohol). I can and do purchase, at times, bottles of water to drink. I've lived in places where the tap water really wasn't something you wanted to imbibe. That couple of litres a day I need costs perhaps two euros. Or, over a month, 60. Now, I can get perfectly drinkable water from the taps where I currently live at a price of 20 euros a month. Which is what I do. But the implication of this is that GDP has fallen while my living standard has risen: there's only 20 euros of water being bought, GDP has fallen, yet I'm now gaining a 40 euro a month consumer surplus. That difference between what I would be willing to pay for water and what I'm being charged. Yes, of course, I might then spend that 40 euro on something else and GDP rises again. But even if I'm spending the whole 60 euro, GDP has remained static while my living standard has risen: I've now got three four of Scotch a month as well as my water. GDP simply is not the determinant of lives as they are lived.

Consumer surplus, consumer consumptions, these are what determines living standards. Which brings us back to declining GDP growth in recent decades. You'll have noticed that many of the things we currently enjoy now come to us for free: or for some piddling amount of attention that we've got to use to look at the ads. This has affected different industries in different ways. Newspapers, for example, have been shrinking: their revenues are falling over a cliff and thus GDP, assuming everything else stays the same, will fall. Yet we all have much more news that we can consume, more sources, more different viewpoints and from a vastly greater geographical area. It's not true that as newspapers as a part of GDP have been declining that the consumer surplus from news consumption has been falling. Quite the opposite, it's been rising. The same could be said of the music industry: Spotify and Pandora have certainly hit the revenues of the record companies but can any of us really say that this is a decline in the general lifestyle? It's worth making one technical point here: productivity is calculated via the calculation of GDP. So,

whatever problems there are with GDP will also occur in the productivity stats. So, my contention is that, at least in part, this seeming slow down in growth and productivity is simply a reflection of the way that we measure these things. And we're assuming that GDP is the measure of the standard of living: which it isn't. As an example, look at the impact of Google upon GDP. Turnover is $50 billion or so (a company's turnover isn't really quite it's contribution to GDP but it's close enough for our purposes here) and that's the number that turns up in the GDP statistics. The creation and invention of Google, because we're measuring goods and services at market prices, leads to humanity as a whole being richer by $50 billion a year. Or $7 per head, man woman and child on the planet. But put that way it's obviously not true, is it? The value to us all of what we can do, even if it's not monetised in any manner, of Google's existence is hugely higher than that. Thus we're getting a lot richer by the existence of Google than that $50 billion addition to GDP indicates. Or take the $5 billion in Facebook revenues (2012): that's $5 per user of the site. That's what gets attributed to the existence of Facebook in those GDP statistics and it's just not a reasonable reflection of the consumer value that Facebook provides. And, of course, I am making the assumption that this digital revolution we're going through is providing us with goods and services which have much higher consumer surpluses than did the new technologies of 50 years ago. That is, that the measurement of life as it is lived, through the value experienced by consumers, is diverging, rising faster, than the value of GDP as it is traditionally recorded. And this isn't a process that I expect to see the end of either. Glenn Reynolds doesn't need to worry so

much. Whether or not I've managed to convince you I'm not sure but I am convinced that at least a goodly part of the GDP and productivity slow down is simply because GDP itself is a flawed measure. Precisely

because we're only measuring market transactions we're not capturing the consumer surplus and non-market transactions going on. And our economy is moving towards there being more of those latter two which is why we are indeed still getting richer even as the numbers tell us growth is falling away.

2nc Econ decline doesn’t cause war extThere is no causal relationship between the economy and conflictBrandt and Ulfelder 11 (Patrick, Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University and Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Science at the University of Texas, and Jay, Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and an American political scientist whose research interests include democratization, civil unrest, and violent conflict, April 2, Economic Growth and Political Instability, Social Science Research Network, pg. 4-6, JB)

These statements anticipating political fallout from the global economic crisis of 2008-2010 reflect a widely held view that economic growth has rapid and profound effects on countries’ political stability. When economies grow at a healthy clip, citizens are presumed to be too busy and too content to engage in protest or rebellion, and governments are thought to be flush with revenues they can use to enhance their own stability by producing public goods or rewarding cronies, depending on the type of regime they inhabit. When growth slows, however, citizens and cronies alike are presumed to grow frustrated with their governments, and the leaders at the receiving end of that frustration are thought to lack the financial resources to respond effectively. The expected result is an increase in the risks of social unrest, civil war, coup attempts, and regime breakdown. ¶ Although it is pervasive, the assumption that countries’ economic growth rates strongly affect their political stability has not been subjected to a great deal of careful empirical analysis, and evidence from social science research to date does not unambiguously support it. Theoretical models of civil wars, coups d’etat, and transitions to and from democracy often specify slow economic growth as an important cause or catalyst of those events, but empirical studies on the effects of economic growth on these phenomena have produced mixed results. Meanwhile, the effects of economic growth on the occurrence or incidence of social unrest seem to have hardly been studied in recent years, as empirical analysis of contentious collective action has concentrated on political opportunity structures and dynamics of protest and repression. ¶ This paper helps fill that gap by rigorously re-examining the effects of short-term variations in economic growth on the occurrence of several forms of political instability in countries worldwide over the past few decades. In this paper, we do not seek to develop and test new theories of political instability. Instead, we aim to subject a hypothesis common to many prior theories of political instability to more careful empirical scrutiny. The goal is to provide a detailed empirical characterization of the relationship between economic growth and political instability in a broad sense. In effect, we describe the conventional wisdom as seen in the data. We do so with statistical models that use smoothing splines and multiple lags to allow for nonlinear and dynamic effects from economic growth on political stability. We also do so with an instrumented measure of growth that explicitly accounts for endogeneity in the relationship between political instability and economic growth. To our knowledge, ours is the first statistical study of this relationship to simultaneously address the possibility of nonlinearity and problems of endogeneity. As such, we believe this paper offers what is probably the most rigorous general evaluation of this argument to date. ¶ As the results show, some of our findings are surprising. Consistent with conventional assumptions, we find that social unrest and civil violence are more likely to occur and democratic regimes are more susceptible to coup attempts around periods of slow economic growth. At the same time, our analysis shows no significant relationship between variation in growth and the risk of civil-war onset, and results from our analysis of regime changes contradict the widely accepted claim

that economic crises cause transitions from autocracy to democracy. While we would hardly pretend to have the last word on any of these relationships, our findings do suggest that the relationship between economic growth and political stability is neither as uniform nor as strong as the conventional wisdom(s) presume(s). We think these findings also help explain why the global recession of 2008--2010 has failed thus far to produce the wave of coups and regime failures that some observers had anticipated, in spite of the expected and apparent uptick in social unrest associated with the crisis

2nc Arms sales k2 econ ext

Arms sales boost the economyGould 18 (Joe Gould is a Staff Reporter at Defense News focused on writing and editing, based in Washington, D.C. metro area. “Trump warns halting Saudi arms sales would hurt economy” October 11, 2018. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/10/11/trump-warns-halting-saudi-arms-sales-would-hurt-economy/)

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday expressed reservations about halting U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of a Saudi journalist, warning such a move “would be hurting us .” The Trump administration has strengthened U.S. relations with Riyadh, touting a $110 billion package of proposed weapons sales as a key economic achievement, but reports the Saudi government plotted the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at its consulate in Turkey has added pressure. In a Wednesday night interview on Fox News, Trump said he would want to know what happened before committing to a response and expressed reluctance to halt arms sales to Riyadh, citing economic concerns. “Well, I think that would be hurting us. We have jobs. We have a lot of things happening in this country. We have a country that's doing probably better economically than it's ever done before,” Trump said. “Part of that is what we are doing with our defense systems, and everybody is wanting them, and frankly I think that

would be a very, very tough pill to swallow for our country. I mean, you’re affecting us.” On Trump’s first trip abroad as president, he visited Saudi Arabia and announced the massive arms sales package. U.S. ties have long been anchored by energy interests, counterterror cooperation and more recently U.S.-Saudi military

cooperation in the Yemen civil war. Since 2009, the executive branch has notified Congress of proposed foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia of major defense articles and services with a potential aggregate value of nearly $139 billion, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia concluded arms sale agreements worth more than $65 billion, from fiscal 2009 through fiscal 2016. Earlier Wednesday, Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and reviewed U.S. intelligence on the case, said it was likely that Khashoggi was killed the day he walked into the consulate. Whatever took place, Corker said, “there was Saudi involvement” and “everything points to them.” More than 20 Republicans and Democratic senators on Wednesday instructed Trump to order a probe into Khashoggi’s disappearance under legislation that authorizes imposition of sanctions for perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, torture or other gross human rights violations. Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy on Thursday called for the administration to cease military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, citing reports that Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Murphy is part of a growing call in Congress to check U.S. support — which includes aerial refueling and arms sales — amid reports Saudi airstrikes have killed civilians. “The United States cannot be in a military partnership with a country that has this little concern for human life,” said Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “The Saudis continue to claim that they aren’t targeting civilians inside Yemen, but how can we believe them when they apparently just hunted down and murdered an American resident whose only offense was writing critical articles about the Saudi royal family? This is the right time to suspend our military support for the disastrous bombing campaign in Yemen.” Earlier in the week, Sen. Rand Paul, another member of the committee, called for a halt on U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia until Khashoggi is found alive. “To me, this is just one more reason why we should be very suspect

about selling arms to the Saudis,” Paul, R-Ky., said in a Fox News interview. “If they have the ability and also the audacity to go into another country and kill a journalist, these aren’t the kind of people maybe that we want to be selling arms to.” Paul also cited Saudi Arabia’s intervention in neighboring Yemen’s civil war. “What you do have evidence of is that the Saudis have been bombing civilians in Yemen for over a year now,” he said. “I think [there’s] growing opposition to what the Saudis are doing in Yemen, and this just

adds to it.”

Adv 2- Progressive Federalism

2nc Alt Causes

The administrations can do other things that will destroy the environment even post plan:

1. They’ve already decked water qualityBBC ‘18 (BBC, "Trump rolls back decades of Clean Water Act protections", 11 December 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46526776)The Trump administration has taken aim at removing environmental federal protections for wetlands and

isolated streams from pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a proposal redefining US waters under the Clean Water Act. Farm and agriculture lobbyists have pushed for these changes since 2015. But

environmentalists say they could result in contaminating millions of acres of waters with pesticides and

other agricultural pollutants. What's in the proposal? The proposal seeks to remove protections on "ephemeral streams" - which only appear after rainfall - and wetlands not directly connected or adjacent to large bodies of water. The replacement regulation would not change protections for large bodies of water and neighbouring wetlands, and any state-imposed rules will also be unaffected. The changes would replace an Obama-era regulation, but the wetland protections impacted date back to the George HW Bush administration. Announcing the proposal on Tuesday, Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler described it as "an end to the previous administration's power grab". Mr Wheeler said the changes clarified what waters the federal government had jurisdiction over while respecting "the primary role of the states" in managing environmental resources. He added that the Obama-era definition of federal waters was "about power over farmers, developers, landowners". "Our goal is a more precise definition that gives the American people the freedom and certainty to do what they

do best: build homes, grow crops, and develop projects that improve the environment and the lives of their fellow citizens." Trump's environmental rollback rolls on 'Trump effect' limits action on climate The cost of Trump's Endangered Species Act proposal What's the reaction? Environmentalists say that by rescinding these federal protections, many wetlands and streams will face serious pollution from industry and farming operations. Wetlands are a crucial part of the ecosystem, improving water quality by absorbing pollutants, acting as a barrier for flooding and supporting a diverse array of wildlife. Blan Holdman of the Southern Environmental

Law Center (SELC) told the BBC the proposal could have "immediate effects" on water quality and wildlife if it goes into effect next year. "It's lifted protection for wetlands and ephemeral streams, for example, that were protected under both Obama and the pre-existing regimes."

2. They've destroyed regulatory processes like NEPA that prevent new projects from damaging the environment

Sobczyck ’18 (Nick Sobczyk covers Capitol Hill and climate change for E&E News. He has reported on the Department of

Defense, infrastructure, permitting rollbacks under the Trump administration and American Indian issues. He holds a degree in

government and creative writing from Hamilton College., E&E News, "Trump proposes sweeping changes to NEPA", February 12,

2018, https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060073597)

President Trump today proposed big changes to the National Environmental Policy Act as part of his program to

overhaul the nation's infrastructure. The plan, formally released this morning, includes $200 billion of new spending to be paid for by cuts elsewhere in the federal budget. Much of the proposal focuses on reforming

the permitting process with a "one agency, one decision" framework for environmental reviews. It would direct the White House

Council on Environmental Quality to rewrite its NEPA guidance for the first time since 1978, with the goal of streamlining approvals.

The plan would also designate a lead agency that would produce a single combined review document for each project, with a two-

year deadline. The proposal has already been panned by critics, but it marks the most detailed look yet at what the White House has

in mind when it comes to reforming the environmental permitting process. For comparison, the infrastructure outline the

administration provided with last year's budget request spanned just six pages, while the one released this morning comes in at 53.

Trump has long promised to cut down the permitting to two years or less, and the proposal delivers. That time frame is an "ambitious goal," said Ted Boling, associate director for NEPA at CEQ. Currently, NEPA permitting averages between three and five years, though it can take up to 25, Boling said last week

at the American Law Institute's annual environmental law conference in Washington, D.C. Environmentalists and other critics worry

about rewriting the CEQ guidance, saying they don't trust the current administration to do it in good faith. They fear the Trump team would get rid of the regulations that give the law teeth. Boling, however, said there is room for

improvement in guidelines that haven't been updated since the dawn of the internet. "Those regulations have a solid body of case

law behind them. They are familiar, but they also date to 1978. They predate things like the internet," Boling said. "So there are

some efficiencies out there, which could only have been dreamed of back in the Carter administration." Trump's proposal also

addresses the tricky issue of judicial review. Some in the legal community have warned it would be fruitless to put a time limit on

NEPA permitting without reforms to litigation because shorter reviews could leave permits more vulnerable to lawsuits. The White House plan would put a 150-day statute of limitation on permitting decisions. Currently, it is six years for most NEPA permits, meaning a fully funded project could theoretically be blocked more than

five years after getting approved, said Albert Ferlo, a partner at Perkins Coie, former Justice Department environmental attorney and

a NEPA expert. "The general statute of limitations for NEPA claims against the government is six years. So you could have a project,

fully funded, approved, and after five years and 11 months wind up in litigation and you could be enjoined," Ferlo said at the law

conference last week. Environmentalists say all of that undercuts, rather than reforms, one of the nation's bedrock environmental laws. "This isn't an infrastructure plan, it's a cheap excuse to gut health and environmental safeguards that protect communities from dangerous, ill-conceived and poorly constructed projects," Raul Garcia, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice, said in a statement. Clean Air

Act, Clean Water Act The plan also includes a number of other permitting provisions that have already drawn fire from Trump's

critics. It would, as expected, cut out U.S. EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to review other agencies' environmental impact statements. The move will likely worry groups that see EPA as a backstop against

decisions that could harm the environment and public health. When it comes to the Clean Water Act, the proposal would seek to

clarify deadlines for states to review pipelines and water infrastructure projects under Section 401. Current law says the Federal

Energy Regulatory Commission is the lead agency on all interstate natural gas projects. But Section 401 gives states time and

authority to decide if the proposed pipeline will meet state water laws. States' authority under Section 401 has become a target,

thanks to states like New York, which has used it to deny three gas pipelines in the last two years (Energywire, Feb. 2). The Trump

plan says "states increasingly do not issue permits within the applicable time frames" and proposes amending the Clean Water Act

to reduce delays, though it's unclear exactly how that revision would be worded. The provision is likely to roil members on both

sides of the aisle, especially Democrats, worried that it would limit states' ability to determine which projects are right for them. As

expected, the plan also includes a controversial provision that would make it easier to run natural gas pipelines through national

parks (Greenwire, Jan. 31). Current law requires Congress to approve any rights of way for the construction of natural gas pipelines across parkland, but the Trump administration says the process is too time consuming and results in too many delays. Trump wants to change the law to give the Interior secretary the power to make such decisions without congressional approval.

3. They've also been passing policy that pulls out all the stops on air pollution

Irfan ’18 (Umair Irfan covers climate change, energy, and the environment for Vox. He is also a contributor to Science Friday.

Before joining Vox, Umair was a reporter for ClimateWire at E&E News in Washington, DC, where he covered health and climate

change, science, and energy policy. In 2016, he received a Sasakawa Peace Foundation fellowship to report on Japan's energy sector,

economy, and culture. In 2014, he was awarded the Arthur F. Burns fellowship to cover Germany’s energy transition., VOX, "The

Trump administration is lifting key controls on toxic air pollution", Jan 26th

2018, https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/26/16936104/epa-trump-toxic-air-pollution)

The Environmental Protection Agency just took a dramatic step toward deregulating some major sources of toxic

air pollution, which could have huge implications for public health. Under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to regulate facilities that emit one or more of 189 hazardous air toxics like benzene, dioxin,

and lead that cause health problems such as cancer and birth defects. A facility like a chemical plant or a factory is classified as

“major” by the Clear Air Act if it has the potential to emit more than 10 tons of an individual toxic chemical or 25 tons of a

combination of toxics into the air per year. Those that cross this line have to deploy the “maximum achievable control technology”

(MACT) to reduce pollution as much as possible with the best hardware that’s available. Pollution sources that are regulated under this major sources standard are subject to these regulations indefinitely. But the new EPA guidance, detailed in a memo

published Thursday, ends the “once in, always in” policy based on a “plain language reading” of the Clean Air Act. That means that once a pollution source brought its air emissions below the threshold for a major source, it would be held to the standard for an “area source,” or anything that isn’t a “major source,” instead. In other words, once a “major source” reduces its pollution below the line, it doesn’t have to keep using the best equipment to continue reducing pollution. Crucially, this rating downgrade means that air pollution from some of these facilities would suddenly be completely unregulated. The EPA did not respond to a request for comment at the time of filing. “The possibility seems very likely that some [downgraded] sources could actually increase their emissions as long as they don’t hit the cap,” said Janice Nolen, assistant vice president for national policy at the American Lung Association, who

added that changing these rules would remove an important tool for the public to enforce air quality laws. On Twitter, Sen. Ed Markey

(D-MA) called it perhaps “the worst environmental sin yet from the Trump [administration].” The policy change seems to be a favor

to mainly steel, paper, and chemical companies that have argued that major sources standard Section 112 is an expensive proposition

that could put them out of business. “Withdrawal of this policy means manufacturers, oil and gas operations, and other types of

industrial facilities will have greater incentive to reduce emissions,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), chair of the Senate Environment and

Public Works Committee, told the Washington Examiner. “Now these companies can help protect the environment without wasting

time and money on unnecessary red tape.” And in a press release, Bill Wehrum, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Air and

Radiation, said the policy was intended to “reduce regulatory burden for industries and the states.” But he also claimed it would do

this “while continuing to ensure stringent and effective controls on hazardous air pollutants.” This, according to John Walke, who

leads the climate and clean air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, is “word goulash. It’s just nonsense.” Moving to a

much lower standard would certainly “reduce regulatory burden,” but it would also make the controls weaker or put the regulations in the hands of states, many of which don’t allow citizens to sue for air quality permit violations. And overall, the directive would lead to a massive surge in toxic air pollution from hundreds of industries, Walke said. The

EPA release goes on to say that the old policy was “a longstanding disincentive for sources to implement voluntary pollution

abatement.” This too is very dubious. If you imagine a scenario where a chemical plant brought its emissions of chlorine gas down

from 50 tons per year to 15 tons with the best technology on the market, the old “once in, always in” policy made it so there was no

incentive to reduce these emissions further, since the plant was already complying with the rules. But with the possibility of getting

out from under these regulations by bringing chlorine emissions below 10 tons per year, the company would invest in even better

technology to reduce pollution further, according to the EPA. However, for companies that are already below the 10-ton limit for an

individual pollutant or the 25-ton limit for a group of pollutants, adhering to rules that are less strict would allow them to backslide,

Walke warned. In fact, the EPA reached a similar conclusion back in 1995. “Although maximum achievable control technology

(MACT) is required for all major sources of hazardous air pollutants, lesser controls or no controls may be required of area sources in

a particular industry,” read an agency memo (emphasis added). Ann Carlson, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, added that the

major source standard is designed to evolve over time, since polluters are required to meet the emissions levels achieved by the top 12

percent of all existing sources of air pollution. “[I]f the top 12 percent improve the standards, the standards ratchet more tightly,”

Carlson wrote in an email. “That means that emissions can continue to fall even further.” But if a factory or plant is held to the area

standard, the rate of decline in pollution could level off, or reverse, since these facilities don’t have to use the best scrubbers and

monitoring equipment to control their emissions.

2nc CCS bad

Carbon capture and storage is too complicated and expensive to be considered a viable solutionTom Baxter 17 [Senior Lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Aberdeen], 8-23-2017, "It's time to accept carbon capture has failed – here's what we should do instead," Conversation, https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-accept-carbon-capture-has-failed-heres-what-we-should-do-instead-82929//AC

For years, optimists have talked up carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an essential part of taking emissions out of electricity generation. Yes, build wind and solar farms, they have said, but they can’t be relied on to produce enough power all the time. So we’ll still need our fleet of fossil-fuel-burning power stations; we just need to stop them pumping carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere. Most of their emphasis has been on post-combustion capture. This involves removing CO₂ from power station flue gases by absorbing them into an aqueous solution containing chemicals known as amines. You then extract the CO₂, compress it into a liquid and pump it into a storage facility – the vision in the UK being to use depleted offshore oil and gas fields. One of the big attractions with such a system is it could be retrofitted to existing power stations. But ten years after the UK government first announced a £1 billion competition to design CCS, we’re not much further forward. The reason is summed up by the geologist Lord Oxburgh in his contribution to the government-commissioned report on CCS published last year: There is no serious commercial incentive and it will stay that way unless the state demonstrates there is a business there. The problem is that the process is costly and energy intensive. For a gas-fired power station, you typically have to burn 16% more gas to provide the capture power. Not only this, you end up with a 16% increase in emissions of other serious air pollutants like sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Concerns have also been expressed about the potential health effects of the amine solvent used in the carbon capture. You then have to contend with the extra emissions from processing and transporting 16% more gas. And all this before you factor in the pipeline costs of the CO₂ storage and the uncertainties around whether it might escape once you’ve got it in the ground. Around the world, the only places CCS looks viable are where there are heavy state subsidies or substantial additional revenue streams, such as from enhanced oil recovery from oilfields where the CO₂ is being pumped in. Well, say the carbon capture advocates, maybe another technology is the answer. They point to oxy-combustion, a system which is close toreaching fruition at a plant in Texas. First proposed many years ago by British engineer Rodney Allam, this involves separating oxygen from air, burning the oxygen with the fossil fuel, and using the combustion products – water and CO₂ – to drive a high-pressure turbine and produce electricity. The hot CO₂ is pressurised and recycled back into the burners, which improves thermal efficiency. It has the additional advantage that CO₂ is also available at pressures suitable for pipeline transportation. It is, according to some enthusiasts, the “holy grail” of CCS. Admittedly it looks promising, but I wouldn’t go that far. It’s not suitable for retrofitting existing power stations. With many existing stations viable for several decades, this will do little for immediate emissions. And you are still obtaining and moving fossil fuels in large quantities, with the resultant emissions along the way. Finally, my

experience would indicate that there is always very significant cost growth with new technology scaled up to industry.

CSS is being used to justify building inefficient, poorly constructed coal fired power stations, which only make the problem worseGreenpeace UK 08, 1-3-2008, "The problem with carbon capture and storage (CCS)," Greenpeace UK, https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/the-problem-with-carbon-capture-and-storage-ccs-20080103//AC

Should we accept the building of new coal plants if they include carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology? Is CCS is a silver bullet? Or is it just another false solution, touted by an industry desperately trying to stay relevant in a carbon constrained world? CCS is a means of separating out carbon dioxide when burning fossil fuels, and then dumping it – underground, or else at or under the sea bed. CCS isn’t commercially viable; there are no commercially operating CCS plants in the world. And for all the industry’s obfuscation, the new plant at Kingsnorth won’t be able to capture and store carbon; it will just be ready to incorporate CCS should the technology ever become viable in the future. Whether this will ever happen is unknowable. A UN report predicts that CCS won’t be able to play any significant role for decades, and the bulk of its deployment would take place in the second half of this century – and even then only if the appropriate subsidy mechanisms and policy drivers are put in place. Even Chancellor Alistair Darling – a supporter of coal – admits that CCS “may never work”. “Yes, carbon capture and storage, if it can be developed, would help,” he said. “But at this stage we cannot be certain of that. There is no commercial scale operation of CCS on power generation anywhere in the world.” So E.ON wants to build a plant that will pump out as much CO2 as thirty developing countries, year on year, in the hope that, at some unspecified point in the future, CCS technology will become viable. As Monbiot says: “We could be stuck with a new generation of coal-burning power stations, approved on the basis of a promise that never materialises, which commit us to massive emissions for 40 years.” To avoid a climate crisis, the UN says we have less than 100 months to peak in emissions and then start drastically reducing them. Given this urgency, it seems common sense that any solutions to climate change needs to be ready for deployment very quickly. And plenty of ready-to-go solutions do exist: energy efficiency, combined heat and power, wind, wave, tidal and solar power, for example. All that’s lacking is the political will to implement them – and investing money, time and political will in CCS, like that other false solution , is only going to undermine the real solutions we already have. CSS is being used as a justification to keep building inefficient, poorly constructed coal fired power stations – the dirtiest possible way of producing electricity ever invented.

CCS worse for the environment and can’t solveSkuce ‘16(Andy Skuce is an expert on Climate Change and renewable energy and he was a key contributor to Skeptical Science. He also contributed to a number of publications, including the consensus project paper. “The Quest for CCS,” https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/09/21/andy-skuce/, JB)

This article was originally published online at Corporate Knights and will appear in the hard copy Winter 2016 Edition of the Corporate Knights Magazine, which is to be included as a supplement to the Globe and Mail and Washington Post later in January

2016. The photograph used in the original was changed for copyright reasons. Human civilization developed over a period of 10,000 years during which global average surface temperatures remained remarkably stable, hovering within one degree Celsius of where they are today. If we are to keep future temperatures from getting far outside that range, humanity will be forced to reduce fossil fuel emissions to zero by 2050. Halving our emissions is not good enough: we need to get down to zero to stay under the 2 C target that scientists and policy makers have identified as the limit beyond which global warming becomes dangerous. Shell boasting about its government-funded Quest CCS project, on a Toronto bus. (Photo: rustneversleeps) "Shell Quest captures over one-third of our oil sands upgrader emissions" Many scenarios have been proposed to get us there. Some of these involve rapid deployment of solar and wind power in conjunction with

significant reductions in the amount of energy we consume. However, many of the economists and experts who have developed

scenarios for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believe that the only way to achieve the two-degree goal in a growing world economy is to invest in large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. These technologies capture carbon dioxide from the exhausts of power stations and industrial plants and then permanently store it, usually by injecting it into underground rock layers. Even with massive deployment of CCS over coming decades, most scenarios modelled by the IPCC overshoot the carbon budget and require that in the latter part of the century, we actually take more carbon out of the atmosphere than we put into it. Climate expert Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester recently reported in Nature Geoscience that, of the 400 IPCC emissions scenarios used in the 2014 Working Group report to keep warming below two degrees, some 344 require the deployment of

negative emissions technologies after 2050. The other 56 models assumed that we would start rapidly reducing emissions in 2010 (which, of course, did not happen). In other words, negative emissions are required in all of the IPCC scenarios that are still current. One favoured negative emissions technology is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). This involves burning biomass – such as wood pellets – in power stations, then capturing the carbon dioxide and burying it deep in the earth. The technology has not yet been demonstrated at an industrial scale. Using the large amounts of bioenergy envisioned in such scenarios will place huge demands on land use and will conflict with agriculture and biodiversity needs. Even the relatively small use of biofuels in Europe that relies on North American wood pellets is already causing land-use impacts in the southeastern United States (John Upton of Climate Central has recently published an excellent report on this titled Pulp Fiction). The European demand for wood pellets is driven by an EU policy that deems biomass use to be carbon-neutral. However, evidence is mounting that this is not the case. It takes energy to collect, process and transport the pellets. It also matters whether the wood used is waste that would otherwise be left to rot or burn, or whether it is taken from mature trees. And, of course, it can take many decades for a forest to regrow to its previous size. Six thousand feet under The scale required of CCS and BECCS in most two-degree emissions scenarios is staggering. Humans consume vast amounts of fossil fuels at present, and the basic chemistry of combustion,

which takes up oxygen, means that the mass of carbon dioxide produced is 2.8-3.7 times the mass of the fossil fuel itself. To get to zero emissions using CCS requires that three times or more matter be put back into the ground than was originally taken out. trash1 At present, North Americans produce about 40 times the mass of carbon dioxide than we do of household garbage. Already, many cities and towns struggle to find sufficient landfill sites for their trash. Relying on CCS and BECCS for mitigation will create a much bigger need to find room in safe storage sites underground. Carbon dioxide is stored as a supercritical fluid at the temperatures and pressures of the geological disposal layers, typically at a depth of 1,000 to 3,000 metres. This fluid has about half the density of water, but has some physical properties closer to those of a gas, allowing it to be injected into rocks with small pore spaces. [Graphic by John Garrett] Even though the volume of the compressed

carbon dioxide fluid is much less than the volume it takes up as a gas at the surface, the quantities are still colossal. Calculations based on the most detailedpublished two-degree mitigation scenario by Detlef van Vuuren and others at Utrecht University in 2011 estimate that the volume of carbon dioxide in need of

disposal by the end of the century is more than 60 billion cubic metres per year. That is equivalent to disposing of the volume of the water in Lake Erie every eight years. Injecting such a high volume of fluid into the ground is not without consequences. Existing subsurface fluids, mostly brines, will be displaced and there may be effects such as increased chances of earthquakes at some sites where there are faults nearby. The injected carbon dioxide must not be allowed to leak, not only because even slow leakage defeats the object of storage, but also because a rapid leak could pose a health hazard. The majority of the best storage sites are in sedimentary basins perforated by many tens of thousands of old oil and gas wells. Many of these wells have not been abandoned properly and could provide conduits for carbon dioxide to migrate to shallow aquifers or to the surface. If CCS is proposed in populated areas, one can expect there to be widespread public resistance to CCS projects in the same way that there are objections today to fracking and nuclear waste disposal.

CCS fails – not enough productionSkuce ‘16(Andy Skuce is an expert on Climate Change and renewable energy and he was a key contributor to Skeptical Science. He also contributed to a number of publications, including the consensus project paper. “The Quest for CCS,” https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/09/21/andy-skuce/, JB)

Widespread implementation will not simply be a matter of technology and economics. The carbon treadmill There are currently 14 CCS plants in operation around the world. All but three of these are associated with enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects, in which

the carbon dioxide is injected to force more oil out of an oil field. This brings up more carbon to the surface to be burned, making it disingenuous to regard such projects as mitigation solutions. In the absence of a carbon price or a government grant or mandate, there is currently no commercial case for CCS apart from EOR. The average capacity of the current 14 projects is about two million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. According to some IPCC scenarios, we will need to dispose of 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2090. That means that if we started in 2020 we would have to build 250 such plants every year, about one every working day for 70 years. University of Manitoba energy historian Vaclav Smil has argued convincingly that it is impossible to imagine that such a rapid transformation of the global energy system could take place . Canada currently has two major CCS projects underway. The Boundary Dam in Saskatchewan captures carbon dioxide from a coal power station and sells

the gas to Canadian oil company Cenovus, which uses it for an EOR project. However, there are reports that there are serious technical problemswith the project and it has so far only been able to capture a fraction of its one million tonnes per year capacity. Secondly, Shell has just started the Quest project in Alberta. This project is designed to capture one million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from a heavy-oil upgrader and inject it into a deep, Cambrian-age sandstone layer. According to Shell, the estimated cost of this project works out to $72 per captured and stored tonne of carbon dioxide. The project has received $860 million in government support. The emissions of greenhouse gases emitted in Alberta’s upstream sector (the emissions involved in producing, but not consuming, Alberta’s oil and gas) amount to 73 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. So, roughly speaking, 70 Quest-sized projects would be required to make the Alberta upstream industry carbon neutral, assuming no future growth. In contrast, the recent report from Alberta’s Climate Leadership Panel on emissions mitigation mentions CCS just three times. The provincial plan unveiled by the province in November was similarly scarce on any mentions of CCS. There does not appear to be the political appetite within Alberta to launch such an ambitious adoption of CCS, even with the government’s embrace of a $30 per tonne carbon tax by 2017. Even if it were possible to get to 2100 with a mix of CCS and BECCS, it would not constitute a sustainable solution. Humanity would find itself stuck on a treadmill of increasing fossil and biofuel use with a growing need to sequester carbon dioxide. Sooner or later, either fuel resources or the resources of disposal sites would be exhausted. At best, CCS and BECCS would be able to provide a stopgap to a more sustainable future.

CCS fails, energy efficiency is the only solution Baxter ‘17

(Tom Baxter is the senior lecturer in Chemical Engineering, University of Aberdeen. “It’s time to accept carbon capture has failed – here’s what we should do instead,” https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-accept-carbon-capture-has-failed-heres-what-we-should-do-instead-82929, JB)

For years, optimists have talked up carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an essential part of taking emissions out of electricity generation. Yes, build wind and solar farms, they have said, but they can’t be relied on to produce enough power all the time. So we’ll still need our fleet of fossil-fuel-burning power stations; we just need to stop them pumping carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere. Most of their emphasis has been on post-combustion capture. This involves removing CO₂ from power station flue gases by absorbing them into an aqueous solution containing chemicals known as

amines. You then extract the CO₂, compress it into a liquid and pump it into a storage facility – the vision in the UK being to use depleted offshore oil and gas fields. One of the big attractions with such a system is it could be retrofitted to existing power stations. The big let-down But ten years after the UK government first announced a £1 billion competition to design CCS, we’re not much further forward. The reason is summed up by the geologist Lord Oxburgh in his contribution to the government-commissioned

report on CCS published last year: There is no serious commercial incentive and it will stay that way unless the state demonstrates there is a business there. The problem is that the process is costly and energy intensive. For a gas-fired power station, you typically have to burn 16% more gas to provide the capture power. Not only this, you end up with a 16% increase in emissions of other serious air pollutants like sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Concerns have also been expressed about the potential health effects of the amine solvent used in the carbon capture. You then have to contend with the extra emissions from processing and transporting 16% more gas. And all this before you factor in the pipeline costs of the CO₂ storage and the uncertainties around whether it might escape once you’ve got it in the ground. Around the world, the only places CCS looks viable are where there are heavy state subsidies or substantial additional revenue streams, such as from enhanced oil recovery from oilfields where the CO₂ is being pumped in. Well, say the carbon capture advocates, maybe another technology is the answer. They point to oxy-combustion, a system which is close to reaching fruition at a plant in Texas. First proposed many years ago by British engineer Rodney Allam, this involves separating oxygen from air, burning the oxygen with the fossil fuel, and using the combustion products – water and CO₂ – to drive a high-pressure turbine and produce electricity. The hot CO₂ is pressurised and recycled back into the burners, which improves thermal efficiency. It has the additional advantage that CO₂ is also available at pressures suitable for pipeline transportation. It is, according to some enthusiasts, the “holy grail” of CCS. Admittedly it looks promising, but I wouldn’t go

that far. It’s not suitable for retrofitting existing power stations. With many existing stations viable for several decades, this will do little for immediate emissions. And you are still obtaining and moving fossil fuels in large quantities, with the resultant emissions along the way. Finally, my experience would indicate that there is always very significant cost growth with new technology scaled up to industry. Number crunching One UK post-combustion CCS project that was cancelled earlier this year was the joint-venture between SSE and Shell at the Peterhead gas-fired ation in northeast Scotland. It aimed to capture 10m tonnes of CO₂ over a 10-year period and store it 2km under the North Sea. Let’s put this saving into context. The diagram below summarises the amount of power

produced and used in the UK. It shows that the country uses 108 terawatt hours (TWhrs) of domestic electricity per annum. UK electricity generation/consumption All numbers are in terawatt hours (TWhrs). DECC Of this domestic usage, 16% goes to cooking. Boiling kettles makes up 34% – that’s 5.9TWhrs per annum, the equivalent of a 670MW power station. Domestic kettle use is particularly inefficient as we regularly overfill our kettles. We could save at least half the energy if we boiled only what we need to make tea and coffee. That would negate the need for 335MW of power. Now compare that to what

CCS would have saved from Peterhead – 85% of a 400MW gas turbine, or 340MW. Simply by not overfilling our kettles, we could remove about the same amount of CO₂. Unlike CCS, let alone oxy-combustion, we could do this immediately, for free, and cut our electricity bills and remove various air pollutants at the same time. Of course, being kettle smart will only deliver a fraction of the UK’s required carbon reduction goals. It’s only about 3TWhrs out of the approximately 170TWhrs produced by

gas-fired power in the UK each year. But it hopefully illustrates why energy efficiency is a much smarter way of reducing carbon and other harmful air emissions than CCS . Tower of power. gmstockstudio If we took the same approach to lighting, computer monitors, TVs on stand-by, running water and everything else, it becomes a very different proposition. If we could achieve the aim of a carbon-neutral house, we could shut down half the UK’s existing gas-fired power stations. And if industry and other non-domestic consumers made energy savings of the order of 20%, that would bring down the gas-fired power requirement by a corresponding percentage. Is 20% realistic? As a chemical engineer with a 40-year industrial career, I am confident it is. Key areas to be considered would be pump and compressor efficiency, energy use in separation processes, combined heat and power, furnace fuel management, green concrete and energy integration. Together with the government giving greater priority to renewable energy like offshore wind and solar, you have a viable plan for delivering the UK’s carbon goals. CCS may still have its place, but as a means of removing carbon emissions from burning things like wood and

rubbish as opposed to fossil fuels. Suffice to say it looks more promising on that front. But in short, it is time for governments to stop wasting time and money on technologies like CCS that aren’t working. They need to finally get serious about leading a major drive for energy efficiency instead.

Carbon capture is too expensive plus requires global collaborations that countries don’t want to buy in toLewis and Chestney ’18 (Barbara Lewis and Nina Chestney are Reuters correspondents who write on the environment for Global News., Global News, "Why carbon capture tech is a tough sell despite dire warnings about climate change", November 29th, 2018, https://globalnews.ca/news/4710453/carbon-capture-storage-climate-change-cost/)When countries gather on Sunday to hammer out how they will enact pledges to cut carbon emissions, a Norwegian-led oil consortium will offer a solution: pump some of your excess carbon dioxide to us and we could store it for you. Environmentalists worry the costly technology, known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), will perpetuate the fossil fuel status quo when rapid and deep cuts to energy use are needed to limit global warming. But proponents of

CCS will be lobbying hard at the two-week climate conference in Katowice, Poland, for the extensive investment and regulatory change required to employ it at scale, citing UN assessments that it could play a role. “The expectation is that Katowice will be important,” said Stephen Bull, a senior vice president at Norwegian state-controlled oil company Equinor (EQNR.OL), which is involved in developing a CCS project called Northern Lights. “CCS is the only way to go,” he said, arguing that countries need the technology to help fulfill the pledges they made around the time of the breakthrough Paris climate change agreement in 2015. A United Nations report warned on Tuesday that nations would have to triple their current efforts to keep global temperature rises within boundaries scientists say are needed to avoid devastating floods, storms and drought. Along with the United States, Norway is one of the countries at the forefront of drive for CCS, building on 20 years of diverting carbon dioxide from its vast gas output and using some to push out hard-to-reach oil from aging fields. Oslo plans what it says will be the first viable project to use CCS to limit industrial emissions by taking carbon dioxide from industrial plants at home and abroad and storing it permanently in empty oil reservoirs under the seabed. The relatively small scale of the project, along with the unsolved problem of who will pay for it, highlight the obstacles to getting CCS technology off the ground. Necessary evil? Organizers of the estimated 1.6 billion euros (US$1.8 billion) Northern Lights project say it could store around 5 million tonnes per year of emissions from a Norwegian waste-to energy plant, a cement plant as well as emissions from other countries. READ MORE: World leaders gather for ‘impossible’ task of finalizing Paris climate agreement This is a tiny fraction of the 6 billion tonnes per year that would need to be stored by 2050 according to the International Energy Agency, which coordinates industrialized nations’ energy policies. The project still needs the Norwegian government to take a final investment decision, something which Trude Sundset, CEO of Gasnova, the Norwegian state’s CCS enterprise, said was scheduled for 2020 or 2021. That would depend on how the project developed, she said, adding it was also necessary to bring industry and other countries on board. “It is not easy to find a good business model in the short, medium term,” she said. “It’s naive to think one country can pay; it has to be a collaboration between industry and government.” A European Union climate strategy published on Wednesday said rapid deployment of renewables meant the potential of CCS to be a major decarbonization option appeared lower than before. But it said CCS would be needed, especially if the bloc wanted to reach a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “For sure, we have to improve carbon capture and storage and we have to invest,” EU climate chief Miguel Arias Canete told Reuters. READ MORE: Ontario government to unveil climate change plan Earlier attempts to fund CCS in Europe have largely failed. An EU program in 2012 did not go on to fund a single CCS project and a British support scheme was canceled in 2015. Britain’s government now plans to help develop the country’s first commercial project which will capture carbon dioxide to be used in industrial applications by the mid-2020s. Europe’s Green party prioritizes energy efficiency, recycling, tree-planting and renewable energy, but says there could be a role for CCS in offsetting emissions from processes like steelmaking. “We need to experiment with it. There is an industrial application — think steel,” Bas Eickhout, Dutch Green MEP and climate spokesman for the Greens, told Reuters. “The problem is that the longer we wait, the more it (CCS) becomes a necessary evil.” Coal debate Eighteen large-scale CCS plants are in operation around the world, according to the Global CCS Institute, which says 2,500 CCS facilities, each able to store 1.5 million tonnes a year, would be needed by 2040 to keep global warming within a 2C rise. Countries as far afield as Algeria and Japan are working with CCS but only two of the world’s CCS operations are on power plants. The CCS industry sees potential for many more. While Europe focuses on renewables and replacing emissions-heavy coal with gas,

developing countries say they cannot move so fast and U.S. President Donald Trump, who pulled his country out of the UN’s Paris climate change accord, promotes coal But the U.S. Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) think tank said this month that coal plants are having a difficult time competing with wind and solar resources which have come down rapidly in price even without CCS. “Economics is a serious issue. And to do CCS on a wide scale you need to build a whole new infrastructure: new pipelines, find repositories which would work, inspection equipment and then monitoring,” said IEEFA’S David Schlissel. IEEFA estimates putting CCS on an average U.S. coal plant would cost nearly $100/megawatt hour (MWh). This compares to average power purchase agreement prices for wind and solar of around $20-$40/MWh or less since 2017. The CCS Institute, which represents companies involved in developing the technology, said on Wednesday a feasibility study on fitting CSS to a second coal-fired power station in Saskatchewan, had shown it could be done more cheaply. It cited a cost of capture at $45 per ton of CO2, saying the study showed coal could be competitive with natural gas. Major mining companies are also counting on CCS. BHP BLT.L (BHP.AX), the world’s biggest listed miner and biggest producer of coking coal, used in steel-making, has set a goal for its own operations to be net zero by the second half of the century, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. READ MORE: Climate change means more disease, deaths for Canadians, Lancet report finds BHP has spun off many emissions-heavy operations into another company, South 32 (S32.AX), but the indirect emissions from the products it sells remain very high because of the use of its iron ore and coking coal to make steel. It has also said it hopes to expand its oil production. “If you’re not serious about CCS, you’re not serious about achieving 2 degrees (Celsius warming), let alone 1.5,” Fiona Wild, vice president, climate change and sustainability at BHP, said, referring to limits the UN says are needed to avoid a dramatic increase in heat waves, floods and droughts. BHP has given money toward CCS research in China, but says the technology needs investment and regulatory support from countries around the world, including a global carbon tax rather than locals ones — something which remains a long way off. READ MORE: Like beer? A new study shows that climate change could cause a shortage Poland, which depends heavily on coal, mostly mined in Silesia where the December climate talks will take place, has been an advocate for CCS but now emphasizes the role of its forests, calling for them to count as carbon sinks. Professor Stuart Haszeldine from Edinburgh University’s school of Geosciences, acknowledges the role of trees but says CCS is the only way to reach the UN goal of net zero emissions by the middle of the century. “Trees can mop up CO2 – but one tree takes 2 kilograms of CO2 every year. Each one of us would need three Wembley stadium football pitches to soak up our emissions,” he said.

No one will invest in carbon-sucking even post planRoberts ’18 (David Roberts is a VOX journalist who focuses his research and writing primarily on energy and climate issues. , VOX, "Sucking carbon out of the air won’t solve climate change ", July 16th, 2018, https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/6/14/17445622/direct-air-capture-air-to-fuels-carbon-dioxide-engineering)The article itself is judicious and smart, but it’s pretty clear from the broad public reaction that not a lot of people read past the headlines on this story .

That is ... extremely wrong. To state the bottom line clearly: The ability to pull carbon out of the air is not a silver bullet. It is not the cheapest or most effective way to fight climate change. It won‘t allow us to bypass any of the hard work of reducing our emissions. The apocalypse has not, in fact, been averted. At least not yet. No one who understands this technology, very much including Keith himself, believes otherwise. But DAC is an interesting case, a tool that could potentially help in several places where current clean energy technologies are lacking, so let’s take a look at where it fits in and what it can do. Where direct air capture fits into the carbon picture The basic problem of climate change is that we are removing too much carbon from the geosphere (below ground) and putting it into the active biosphere (above ground), where it serves to raise surface temperatures. From a climate change mitigation perspective, there are two basic ways of dealing with CO2 emissions. The smartest and cheapest is to not emit them in the first place. We can do that in a million different ways, by reducing our consumption, using current technologies more efficiently, or shifting to low-carbon technologies and practices. The second is to remove CO2 from the biosphere and put it back into the geosphere, where it won‘t cook the planet. Such “negative emissions” may end up being necessary if we emit more CO2 than our “carbon budget” for no more than 2 degrees Celsius rise in global average temperatures, the target the world agreed on in Paris. Much of the confusion around DAC arises from the fact that it can play either role — it can either prevent CO2 emissions or draw down CO2. At least for now, Keith’s company, Carbon Engineering, has elected to play in the former space, not the latter. So what does that mean? We have very few options so far for getting to true negative emissions Let’s look at the latter category first, since it‘s the one with the greatest long-term implications: moving carbon from the biosphere back into the geosphere, taking it out of circulation (sequestering it) so that it no longer warms the earth. There’s an important confusion about this category. From a net-carbon perspective, all that matters for negative emissions is burying more carbon than you dig up. It doesn’t matter what carbon you bury, or where, as long as the overall sign is negative, more in than out. But

when you look at individual carbon sequestration projects from a carbon accounting perspective, it’s a different matter. The projects that are most familiar as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) — namely, facilities that capture CO2 from the exhaust stream of a fossil-fueled power plant or heavy industrial process, like the (failed) Kemper power plant in Mississippi — do not qualify as negative emissions. They are not carbon-negative. (The same goes for the new Net Power natural gas plant in Texas, which separates CO2 during the combustion process.) Remember, for negative emissions, you have to move more carbon from the biosphere to the geosphere than the reverse. If you dig up coal from the geosphere, burn it for electricity, recapture the carbon, and put it back in the geosphere, you’re not moving any net carbon from the biosphere to the geosphere. You’re just

moving some from the geosphere back into the geosphere. You are creating (at best) carbon-neutral, not carbon-negative, power. You’re in the first category (preventing additional emissions), not the second (reducing net atmospheric carbon). That’s not to say CCS for fossil-fueled plants and processes won’t be an important part of getting to negative emissions. There may be applications of fossil fuels we can’t figure out how to avoid, so we’ll need to bury their emissions regardless. But to get negative, we‘ll have to do more. What are the options for getting to true negative emissions? While there are a number of ideas for how it might be done, including such techniques as adding alkalinity to the ocean by weathering stones, there are only two that we have any idea how to scale, at least currently. The first is bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS), which involves burning biomass (plants or biowaste) in a thermal power plant, capturing CO2 from the exhaust stream, and burying the CO2. Biomass is from the

biosphere, so this really does involve transferring carbon from the biosphere to the geosphere — reducing net atmospheric carbon. Second, even if there were a market for sequestration, that market wouldn’t care where the buried carbon came from (nor should it — carbon is carbon). It would pay for any CCS, anywhere. That would put DAC in direct competition with carbon capture at thermal power plants, and it is always going to be easier to pull CO2 out of an exhaust stream, where it is concentrated (roughly 1 molecule

out of every 10), than out of the air, where it is highly dispersed (roughly 1 molecule out of every 2,500).

Theoretically, DAC can be located anywhere, including right next to underground caverns suitable for carbon sequestration,

so it could cut down on CO2 transport costs. But even that is unlikely to cancel the cost disadvantage. Now, it may be that some blessed day, later in the century, we will have no more fossil fuel exhaust streams to pull CO2 from, and DAC will compete only with BECCS for sequestration funds. Then it might have a fighting chance; though its carbon capture costs are higher, it requires, Keith

estimates, 30 to 100 times less land. But that’s a long time off, and Carbon Engineering is a business, not a charitable enterprise, so it needs to do something with its captured CO2 that pays — pays enough to make the whole process worthwhile in the short term. That’s the only way DAC will be able to scale up.

Inevitability

Engineers, scientists, governments and industry all look for a magic bullet solution, but none of today’s existing technologies are feasible on any kind of realistic scaleMarco Poggio 19 [Multimedia journalist for New York Daily News], 4-13-2019, "Carbon capture: Will it save the climate, or the fossil fuel industry?," https://www.climateliabilitynews.org/2019/03/13/carbon-capture-fossil-fuels-ciel-report//AC

Climate scientists have for decades researched ways to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a way to slow climate change, but while their work has progressed from a handful of fringe theories to promising technologies, they remain controversial. That’s partly because they have drawn an unlikely backer: the fossil fuel industry. Since at least the 1980s, researchers have devised and tested

technologies aimed at capturing CO2 from the air—a field broadly referred to as carbon dioxide removal or negative emissions technologies. Governments and private investors have begun to hail those technologies as a viable path toward slowing global warming and a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mentions them as necessary to meet the terms of the Paris Climate

Agreement. They have drawn significant investment from oil, gas and coal companies looking for ways to continue developing fossil fuels as the world moves toward cleaner energy. But some scientists and policy makers are alarmed that a reliance on these technologies will continue our dependence on fossil fuels and will impede the transition to renewable energy sources. A recently

published study by the Center for International Environmental Law warned that some technologies, in particular carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies, could slow the transition to renewables. “CCUS is valuable to the fossil fuel industry in three key ways: it expands oil production, provides a lifeline to a declining coal industry, and further entrenches the overall fossil fuel economy,” the report says. “Incentivizing CCUS through policy and relying on it in planning will likely slow the transition away from fossil fuel investments and undermine broader efforts to mitigate climate change.” The debate

comes with few black-and-white solutions. Touting technology and innovation has become a talking point in dealing with climate change by Republicans who feel they can no longer run from the issue altogether, but climate activists argue it is little more than their latest cover for pushing climate action indefinitely into the future. And none of the technologies are close to being developed at a scale large enough to have a true impact on global warming, a process that would have to be coordinated among many countries on a vast global scale. At the same time, many climate scientists argue negative emissions technologies

are absolutely necessary to fend off the worst impacts of global warming. For the fossil fuel industry, which sees the cost of renewables falling rapidly, negative emissions technologies provide a scenario in which fossil fuels—in particular coal, by far the largest contributor to the world’s CO2 emissions—can survive the transition to cleaner energy. Negative emissions technologies differ widely in terms of techniques and results. Some involve natural ways to extract CO2 from the air, such as planting more trees, restoring wetlands or modifying the soil to make it absorb more CO2. Others require elaborate feats of engineering. Carbon dioxide can be captured from the smokestacks of power plants, refineries, iron, steel, or cement plants; or it can be extracted directly from the air, where it’s more rarefied, by way of giant fans, with a process called direct air capture. Some negative emissions technologies have failed to produce tangible results and others have produced little more than skyrocketing costs: one high-profile carbon capture and storage project in Kemper, Miss., was supposed to be the vanguard of clean coal technology but ended up costing $7.5 billion and the technology was scrapped altogether in favor of burning natural gas. Other technologies, like direct air capture—which works to separate carbon dioxide from the air and then store it—are on the rise, thanks to innovations that are making it less expensive and more appealing to investors. Harvard engineer David Keith has estimated the direct air capture system he devised could cut the cost of CO2 extraction from $1,000 per metric ton to a range between $94 and $232 per metric ton. His company, Carbon Engineering, received investments from billionaire Bill Gates, oil magnate Murray Edwards, and more recently, oil giants Chevron and Occidental. Captured CO2 with negative emissions technologies is either stored in deep underground geological formations in the case of carbon capture and storage, or used for production of chemical fuels, biofuels and heating system fluids. The vast majority of captured CO2, however, is currently used to extract oil. In a process called enhanced oil recovery, compressed CO2 is injected into depleted oil reservoirs, causing oil to expand and flow more easily to surface. The role of CO2 in oil extraction is what makes many critics think carbon capture and storage won’t help with climate change. Steven Feit, a lawyer and one of the authors of the Center for International Environmental Law report, said the unbreakable relationship between fuel combustion and CO2 removal helps sustain a vicious circle where fuel is burned, CO2 is produced, then captured, then used to produce more fuel. “We’re talking about a system that would be making fossil fuels harder to transition away from, while also making it easier for old companies to make more oil. There’s a kind of perverse relationship between all these moving parts,” Feit told Climate Liability News. Feit said he believes the majority of researchers and engineers studying negative emissions technologies are well-intentioned, but their solutions will not avoid

the need for drastic CO2 emissions cuts and the boosting of solar and wind energy. “What is required to effectively deal with climate change is a transition from the kinds of systems we have to ones which are sustainable and low or zero carbon,” he said. The U.S. government has long supported negative emissions technologies projects, with the Department of Energy having funded research since at least 1997. Last month,

Secretary Rick Perry awarded $24 million in funds to eight companies for research and development of CCUS technologies. The funds, which will come from the Office of Fossil Energy, will add to the $28.9 million in research fund awarded during fiscal year 2018. “By 2040 the world will still rely on fossil fuels for 77 percent of its energy use. Our goal is to produce them in a cleaner way,” Perry said in a statement. The federal government also provides tax credits to fossil fuel companies that incorporate CO2 capture and storage systems in their operations. All major oil companies have invested in negative emissions technologies. Currently, there are 23 large-scale CCUS projects around the world that are either operating or under construction. In its “2019 Energy and Carbon Summary,” ExxonMobil reported investments of more than $9 billion in the development of lower-emission energy solutions that include carbon capture and storage. The company boasts having 30-year expertise in storing captured CO2 underground “in a safe

and secure fashion.” In its “ Sky Scenario ,” Shell projected the deployment of 10,000 large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities by 2070, in a world with net-zero CO2 emissions. Chevron has invested more than $75 million in CCS research and development over the past decade. The company is also part of the CO2 Capture Project , an industry group of four major companies, which include BP, that have joined resources into CCS research. Those investments, while they may sound large, are tiny compared to the overall research and development budgets of the oil

companies. Exxon, for one, plans to invest $200 billion in the next seven years on traditional oil and gas projects around the world. While engineers, scientists, governments and industry all look for the magic bullet of some kind of carbon capture and storage, the reality is none of today’s existing technologies are feasible on any kind of realistic scale. And even if they were, not all climate engineers are convinced that transforming captured CO2 into products would be viable on a large enough scale to make a difference. Massachusett Institute of Technology engineer Howard Herzog believes the best way to deal

with carbon dioxide is to store it underground. He also thinks direct air capture technology is not cost effective, is too complicated and has the potential of removing only 1 or 2 percent of global emissions. “I’ve been very critical of direct air capture in my writings. I think the people who are promoting it are under-realistic. I just think it’s too expensive. Let me just say: I don’t believe the cost numbers that they’ve put out,” he said. Herzog, who discloses that he receives funding from Exxon to research CCS technologies, said they won’t solve the issue of climate change. “Carbon dioxide removal and negative emissions can be an important part of climate change policy. It doesn’t replace current efforts or lack of current efforts,” he said. “The best way to take CO2 out of the atmosphere is not put it there in the first place.” A spokesperson from Climeworks, a Europe-based direct air capture company, said in an email that even with tight climate regulations in place, negative emissions technology are still needed to offset the CO2 currently in the atmosphere. “We have already passed the point of an either/or-decision. To reach the Paris agreements, all means of promoting renewable energies and emission reductions have to be deployed together,” the email said. The Center for International Environmental Law report points out Climerwork’s partnership with car maker Audi in creating fuels made with captured CO2 that can be used alongside regular fuel as an example of a lingering influence fossil fuels still have on markets, and a sign of the industry opposition to change. The report also highlights the role of government funding and private investments in negative emissions technologies in helping the fossil fuel industry build new infrastructure. A new network of of pipelines will have to be built in order to transport the CO2 from the capture facilities to appropriate geological formations underground where it will be stored for hundreds of years. Those storages will have to be monitored to ensure the carbon dioxide doesn’t find its way up to the surface. The massive amount

of work that will be required to maintain a system highly reliant on negative emissions technologies will be dangerous step backwards, the report says. “We need to transition away from reliance on fossil fuels. Anything that moves us toward greater reliance will not be a solution,” the report says. Herzog disagreed with the main claim in the Center for International Environmental Law report—that negative emissions are helping the fossil fuel

industry. “Fossil fuel is 85 percent of our energy economy. There’s good and bad. With climate change, the point is to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere. So if you can use fossil fuels without putting CO2 into the atmosphere, what’s wrong?” he said. Herzog said the public has preconceived ideas about climate change.

Carbon Tax Adv. CPThe United States Federal Government should establish the Carbon Tax. The carbon tax is the only effective way to decrease carbon emissionsRott ‘7/18 (Nathan Rott is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where he focuses on environment issues and the American West., NPR, "Going 'Zero Carbon' Is All The Rage. But Will It Slow Climate Change?", June 18th, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/06/18/724343789/going-zero-carbon-is-all-the-rage-but-will-it-slow-climate-change)Are 'zero carbon' goals the most effective way to cut greenhouse gases? "All evidence points to no," says Sanya Carley, an associate professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "The most efficient and cost-effective way to reduce carbon emissions would be directly pricing carbon and putting a price tag on the cost of those emissions." In other words, something like a carbon tax would bake the environmental and health costs of greenhouse gas emissions into the existing market economy. It would be a rapid, large-scale way to incentivize reductions across all sectors. A 2018 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that putting a price on carbon and returning the revenue from it to the public would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The higher the cost, the greater the reductions. Renewable energy goals or zero-carbon commitments are "less efficient, less cost-effective, but usually more politically feasible," Carley says. That's why we're seeing more of them. But they should still help slow climate change, right? Every little bit helps.

Trade war cp 2NC

The U.S.-China trade war is not benefiting the U.S. and it is a poor strategy – ending it would stabilize U.S.-China relations. Dollar 19, (David Dollar is a Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Global Economy and Development, John L. Thornton China Center, “It’s time to give up on the failed trade war strategy with China”, published on 06/24/19, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/06/24/its-time-to-give-up-on-the-failed-trade-war-strategy-with-china/, JGS)

It’s impossible to know how long the U.S.-China trade war may drag on, but let’s assume that we could still be in its early days. And already, we can see patterns in the data that reveal why the U.S. strategy is a poor one. The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion of products from China and is threatening 25% tariffs on the remainder of our imports from China—an additional $300 billion. The objective for the Trump administration is to reduce the U.S. trade deficit, bring manufacturing jobs back from China to the U.S., and put an end to unfair Chinese trade practices including forced technology transfer, intellectual property theft, and subsidies to state enterprises. With the growing U.S. protection aimed at China, U.S. imports from China are declining. In the most recent data, from January through April, the U.S. imported $20.6 billion less from China than in the same period of 2018 (see chart). But imports from other partners have gone up. Increased imports from Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan partly reflect shifts in global value chains. China is at both the middle and end of many value chains. If final assembly shifts to Mexico (or Vietnam, or Bangladesh), then the U.S. tariffs can be avoided. China is still providing much of the value added; its exports to countries other than the U.S. are rising. Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles phones for Apple, has said that it could service the U.S. market from non-Chinese plants that it already has. Meanwhile, it will still continue to produce in China, for the Chinese, European, and other non-U.S. markets. Note that imports from Europe are up as well. This probably does not reflect reshuffling of value chains to Europe. Rather, it reflects the fact that a country that imposes protection can expect its currency to appreciate so that it imports more from any partners not hit by the protection. Excluding OPEC, total U.S. imports have increased, not decreased during this experiment with protection. What about trade balances? The U.S. deficit with China decreased by $11.7 billion in the first four months of the year. But the U.S. deficit with just about everyone else went up. And the total U.S. deficit, ignoring OPEC, went up as well. This accords with theory and history. The protection aimed at China is not likely to improve the overall U.S. trade deficit because value chains relocate to other partners and the U.S. dollar appreciates. This is similar to the results from protection in the 1930s and the 1980s; U.S. imports from targeted partners went down, but so did U.S. exports, and there was no improvement in the U.S. trade balance. The U.S. is likely to see some improvement in the trade balance because of falling imports from OPEC countries, arising from increasing oil and gas production at home. But this has nothing to do with the trade war with China. The evidence to date is consistent with the view that the trade war with China is not likely to reduce the U.S. trade deficit or bring manufacturing jobs back home. But what of the argument that this is a tactic meant to change China’s unfair trade practices? The problem with this approach is that changing China’s behavior requires cooperation with

partners like the European Union and Japan. But none of our partners agrees with this tactic. While U.S.-China trade declines, their trade with China is increasing. China has reduced tariffs and trade barriers overall to encourage this trade, but U.S. firms are largely shut out because of the reciprocal tariffs in place. The U.S. could have brought a joint case at the WTO, with the EU and Japan, on technology transfer and IPR issues. And/or it could have stayed in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and built a community of like-minded economies. Instead we chose a bilateral trade war with China, and that seems to be failing in terms of all of the stated objectives.