NAFTA

What if Republicans were to recklessly cut tax rates? Would the economy grow or lose in the long run?

The United States is an $18-trillion-Gross-Domestic-Product-800-pound-gorilla in the global trade room. We have leverage to burn when it comes to cutting deals. We have thus far used…none of it.

For many people, Pittsburgh is defined by the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, out of which is formed the Ohio River. Three Rivers. But, Pittsburgh was transformed from a disease-infested frontier town into a great city by a different kind of confluence: the combination of coal from West Virginia and iron from Minnesota and the upper peninsula of Michigan.

Political rhetoric in the United States, particularly on the right, has a strong tendency to focus on the incomparable economic freedom of Americans and American businesses. They portray the rest of the world as more socialistic and the American system as the closest thing to a free market economy operating in the world. Yet that is far from the truth. In fact, America is swiftly being supplanted as a preferred place of business by many other countries in the rich world.