Verbatim Mac

2NC UQ – Clinton Winning Now

1. Trump and Hillary are in close-race now, but concessionary stance on China’s mercantilist policies will swing key states towards Trump
   

2. Clinton will win- forecast models say so, but it’s a very slight margin

The Hill 7/1 (Victoria Needham, “Election model: Clinton will win easily” http://thehill.com/policy/finance/economy/prediction-hillary-clinton-easily-wins-beats-donald-trump-moodys-presidential-election-model 7/1/16 // ddi-hc 7/15)

Separately, a FiveThirtyEight election forecast gives Clinton a 79.2 percent chance of winning to Trump's 20.7. In that forecast, Clinton would win 48.8 percent of the vote to Trump's 42. The former secretary of State is holding leads across most major polls. Clinton leads Trump by 6 points, 47 to 41 percent, in a New York Times/CBS News poll. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll saw Clinton widen her lead to 51 to 39 percent from 46 to 44 in May. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Clinton holds a 46 to 41 percent advantage, though the race is essentially tied when third-party candidates are included. Fox News has the Democrat up 44-38 percent over Trump in a head-to-head matchup.

3. Clinton is leading in most polls but Trump is making ground

Sherfinski, 7/5 – (David Sherfinski, political writer and contributer, “Donald Trump cuts into Hilary Clinton’s lead: Poll,” 7/5/16, The Washington Times, “http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jul/5/donald-trump-cuts-hillary-clintons-lead-poll/”, Accessed 7/15/16, AG)

Likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has cut what had been a double-digit lead for Hillary Clinton two months ago down to single digits, according to a poll released Monday. Mrs. Clinton led Mr. Trump by about 5 percentage points, 45.6 percent to 40.4 percent, according to the USA Today/Suffolk University poll. Rounding would give Mrs. Clinton a 6-point, 46 percent to 40 percent, lead. That’s about in line with the lead Mrs. Clinton holds in an average of recent national polling. Two months ago, she had led Mr. Trump in the USA Today/Suffolk poll by 11 points, 50 percent to 39 percent. In the new poll, 61 percent reported feeling alarmed about the election, compared to 23 percent who said they feel excited and 9 percent who said they feel bored. Mrs. Clinton led among females voters by a 12-point, 50 percent to 38 percent, margin, while Mr. Trump led among men by 2 points, 43 percent to 41 percent. More than nine in 10 Clinton supporters and more than nine in 10 Trump supporters said they’re firm in their choice. But majorities still said they have an unfavorable opinion of both Mrs. Clinton (53 percent) and Mr. Trump (60 percent). Six in 10 Trump supporters, 62 percent, said they think he will actually win the election, compared to 89 percent of Clinton supporters who said they think she will win. In a four-way race, Mrs. Clinton held a 4-point lead over Mr. Trump, 39 percent to 35 percent, with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson at 8 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3 percent.

4. Clinton will win now- polls show

US News and World Report 7/14 (Gabrielle Levy, Political analyst, “New Poll Gives Clinton Wide Path to Victory” published 7/14/16//ddi-hc da 7/15/16)

Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump if the election were held today, heading to a relatively easy victory even if Trump were to win the key battleground state of Ohio. A massive new poll by Morning Consult finds Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, would collect 320 Electoral College votes to Trump's 212, far more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. [RELATED: Trump Family, Staff Divided Between Gingrich, Pence] The poll, taken between April and early July, surveyed nearly 60,000 registered voters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, a large enough sample to make a complete estimate of Electoral College results as the presidential race stands now. When eight toss-up states are removed, Clinton leads 225 electoral votes to Trump's 190. Morning Consult's overall result is consistent with the fluctuating but persistent lead Clinton has maintained over Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, in national polling since it became clear they would face each other in the general election. The survey also contains some surprises that may challenge the conventional wisdom regarding the states that are up for grabs this November.

Clinton will win general election-polls prove

ABC News 6/29 (VERONICA STRACQUALURSI, “FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver Predicts Hillary Clinton Wins Election Against Donald Trump”, ABC News on 6/29/2016//HC da: 7/14/16)

This morning on ABC's “Good Morning America,” FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver predicted that Hillary Clinton will win the presidential election against Donald Trump. Clinton has a 79 percent chance of winning, compared with Trump's 20 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast. View image on Twitter View image on Twitter Follow Good Morning America ✔ @GMA Chances of winning the election according to @FiveThirtyEight and @NateSilver538: Clinton - 79% Trump - 20% 4:16 AM - 29 Jun 2016 565 565 Retweets 685 685 likes "We're at halftime of the election right now," Silver said. "She's taking a 7-point, maybe a 10-point lead into halftime. There's a lot of football left to be played. She's ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national poll."

Clinton likely to win- reliable polls prove

Morton 6/29 (Victor, “Nate Silver gives Hillary Clinton 79 percent chance of beating Donald Trump”, The Washington Times 6/29/16// hc da:7/14)

Polling guru Nate Silver says Donald Trump has just a 20 percent chance of defeating Hillary Clinton in November and notes that the former first lady has a lead no candidate has blown in a generation. In a Wednesday appearance on “Good Morning America,” Mr. Silver put Mrs. Clinton’s chance of winning at 79 percent and said she is leading in almost every poll, both nationally and in swing states. “Here’s how to think about it: We’re kind of at halftime of the election right now, and she’s taking a 7-point, maybe a 10-point lead into halftime,” Mr. Silver said in an appearance on the ABC program. “There’s a lot of football left to be played, but she’s ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national poll.” Mr. Silver is the director of the polling site FiveThirtyEight and became a national figure when he correctly called all 50 states in the 2008 presidential race, and all but one in 2012, based on his weighted averages of state polls — a “poll of polls” essentially. He cautioned though, that both the Trump and Clinton campaigns “have a lot of room to grow” and that the 2016 cycle has been the most unpredictable in memory, in part because of Mr. Trump’s rise. Indeed, Mr. Silver was reminded that he had given Mr. Trump a mere 2 percent chance to win the Republican nomination last August.

Washington Post flows neg – the article concludes that Clinton has a slight edge over Trump in terms of party unity and public perception despite her weaknesses

2NC Link/IL

1. BIT shifts solar and wind market in favor of China, causes job loss and financial instability for manufacturing voting blocs

2. Hillary WILL be blamed for Obama administration’s BIT

Hilary Clinton is tied to Obama’s agenda

Collinson, 16 (Stephen Collinson, senior enterprise reporter for CNN covering the 2016 Presidential Election, “ “Obama hopes to pave way for Clinton with farewell State of the Union”, CNN (Politics), “http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/12/politics/barack-obama-hillary-clinton-2016-election,” accessed 7-13-16, AG)

The question for Clinton, as she faces a closer-than-expected race with Sanders and a potentially tight general election, is how much Obama helps her as she seeks to mobilize the Obama coalition of 2008 and 2012 but tries to mitigate the impact of his political failings. The former secretary of state is touting the administration's record on the economy, with the halving of the unemployment rate and progress on gay rights, health care and climate change -- issues that are important to the Democratic base and the Obama hordes of young, affluent, educated white voters and minorities that she needs to turn out. She is, meanwhile, vowing to go further than Obama on reforming the immigration system and to be more energetic on preventing gun violence. But any downturn in the economy during his last year could render the President's record less impressive and harm her own chances. Obama's struggles to impose U.S. power in the restive Middle East and elsewhere help fuel a Republican narrative that his foreign policy is a bust, to which she is vulnerable as his first-term secretary of state. Clinton has already signaled she would go further than Obama in Syria, in tackling ISIS, in mending relations with Israel and in adopting a tougher stance toward Iran, Russia and China than Obama has pursued.

2NC – Clinton solves coop

Clinton solves relations—China would rather see a Clinton Presidency – cooperation over BIT will be impossible under Trump presidency

Tatlow 7/12 (Didi Kirsten, New York Times journalist, “Hillary Clinton, as seen through a Chinese prism”, Atlanta Journal Constitution 7/12/16, accessed 7/13/16 ddi-hc)

Still, China’s leaders would rather see Clinton in the White House than the “volatile” Trump, said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing and an adviser to the State Council, China’s Cabinet. “Trump is volatile, and the worst situation is instability,” Shi said in an interview. China needs a good relationship with the United States, now more than ever, Shi said, adding that his comments were his own and did not necessarily represent the leadership. “This is very sensitive,” he explained. China’s leaders traditionally do not comment publicly on U.S. presidential candidates. “Trump is an autocrat,” he continued. “Maybe, with some luck, you can make some trade-offs with him. But if he became president, he would take quite a protective and nationalist policy towards every country.” “Personally, I prefer the lesser of the two evils,” he said. “If she becomes the U.S. president, we are familiar with her.” For Chinese policymakers, that familiarity may offer limited comfort. Although Clinton is seen as having pushed for stronger Chinese-U.S. ties at the beginning of her tenure in 2009 as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, and is credited in China with facilitating an annual dialogue between top Chinese and U.S. officials, she also angered Beijing by pressing for “the pivot,” Shi said. This rebalancing of U.S. power toward the Asia-Pacific region, in response to China’s growing assertiveness, was seen as an effort to “contain” a rising China, and it rankled some top officials. Then, too, “when she conducted U.S. foreign policy on China, Iran, Russia, during the ‘Arab Spring'” in 2011, Shi said, “her language and style of discourse were direct and much more blunt than Obama’s on issues such as human rights and website control. “The impression she left in China is quite negative. She criticized the Chinese government’s control over information freedom, said it was not compatible with international norms,” he continued. “Chinese people liked her husband. Bill Clinton was a very nice guy. Obama is also a nice guy. No one says Hillary is a very nice lady.”

2NC – Iran !

Our internal link scenario for the impact is the most likely for nuclear war – warming takes a long time to effect major populations and trade escalations have never led to armed conflict – Iran is situated in a key area of mistrust and tension in the squo, overturning a tenuous nuclear deal with exacerbate previous conflicts and lead to proliferation in surrounding nations – Mandelbaum

Trump has vowed to undo the Iran nuclear deal, and if elected, through executive order, would be able to immediately remove the deal without vote or debate

Toosi, 15 (Nahal Toosi, foreign affairs correspondent at POLITICO, “How a Republican president could kill the Iran deal,” Politico Magazine, 7-14-15, “http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/gop-president-iran-deal-kill-120077,” accessed 7-13-16, AG)

GOP candidates who oppose the new nuclear agreement can unwind it if they win the White House. If the next president hates the nuclear deal with Iran, he (or she) can undo it after taking office. The dilemma: Use blunt force? Or go for a soft kill? The accord reached this week in Vienna promises broad sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for significant curbs on its nuclear program. The agreement has taken years to negotiate, involves seven countries as well as the European Union and the United Nations, and relies upon the expertise of scientists as well as diplomats. But at the end of the day, the “deal” is at most a political arrangement — not a treaty or other form of signed legal document. That means that the presidential candidates who have threatened to cancel the deal — so far all of them Republicans — can keep their promise by using the presidency’s executive authority to reimpose suspended U.S. sanctions on Iran and withdrawing from panels involved in implementing the accord.

There will be immediate retaliation

Trump has vowed to slash the Iran deal immediately, which will cause huge negative backlash in the region.’

Toosi, 15 (Nahal Toosi, foreign affairs correspondent at POLITICO, “How a Republican president could kill the Iran deal,” Politico Magazine, 7-14-15, “http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/gop-president-iran-deal-kill-120077,” accessed 7-13-16, AG)

[A] sudden U.S. withdrawal could anger the European and Asian countries also involved in the deal, making them less inclined to reimpose their own sanctions on a country they consider an alluring trading partner. The international business community may resist efforts to once again seal off a youthful, well-educated nation with vast energy reserves. And Iran could respond to the U.S. move by resuming elements of its nuclear program, which the West has long suspected is aimed at making weapons. “If we try to reimpose sanctions on Iran and no one follows, then we have the worst of all worlds,” said Robert Einhorn, a former Iran nuclear negotiator at the State Department. Instead, even the deal’s most ardent critics say, a new president might be better off taking a more subtle, longer-term approach, one that involves laying the groundwork to ultimately convince the world that Iran — through perceived violations, intransigence, foot-dragging or whatever a president chooses to highlight — has left the U.S. no choice but to quit the deal. “You say it’s a bad deal, but you don’t just rip up the deal,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

2NC Case Turn – Warming

Case turn- Only Clinton solves warming – The plan prevents this.

Finding an effective solution to climate change is one of her top priorities

Friedman, 15 (Lisa Friedman, chief editor of Climatewire, which does extensive research on climate change solutions and fixes, staff writer for over 13 years, 4-13-15, Scientific American, “Hillary Clinton May Take a Strong Stance on Global Warming”, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hillary-clinton-may-take-a-strong-stance-on-global-warming/, Accessed: 7-12-16, AG)

"She showed a real grasp of not just the problem at the high level but the very concrete solutions the State Department was pursuing." Clinton, who officially launched her second presidential campaign in a video released yesterday, never developed a reputation for holding climate change dear to her heart like Secretary of State John Kerry, who has championed the issue since the early 1990s. Yet supporters of a 2016 Clinton presidency point out that she campaigned on major energy goals, including dramatically reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by midcentury. As secretary of State, she appointed Todd Stern as America's first-ever special envoy in charge of climate change, pointedly bringing him along on her first trip to Beijing where they made energy a top focus. And when negotiations at the 2009 U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, hit their lowest point, Clinton swooped in with a game-changing pledge to mobilize $100 billion annually in global climate aid by 2020 that helped bring about a voluntary global agreement. Over the past year, she has toughened her rhetoric against climate science-denying Republicans and recently brought on former White House adviser John Podesta, architect of Obama's climate strategy, to run her campaign. Some greens are skeptical But that might not be enough for the green base of voters who might view Clinton with a dose of skepticism for taking a neutral stand on the Keystone XL pipeline. They argue that with Republicans sharpening their knives against President Obama's power plant emissions cuts, the United States needs a president who can be counted on to defend and advance U.S. climate policy. Some activists said they remain bitter that international negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, did not result in a legally binding deal and question whether Clinton is the right person to champion a low-carbon future. "I think she has an awful lot to prove to environmentalists," said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. "Her record so far is undistinguished." "She was our nation's top diplomat when the climate fiasco in Copenhagen unfolded," he added. "So I think it's going to take more than just standing up and saying 'I believe in climate science' to convince many of us that she really understands the level of crisis we're dealing with." To rally those voters who are passionate about addressing climate change, Clinton might have to build on Obama's rules on power plant emissions, not just defend them, McKibben said. That might mean banning new oil drilling in the Atlantic and the Arctic in order to, in his words, "leave most of the carbon we know about underground." In announcing her bid for 2016, Clinton did not mention climate change or give any indication of how she would handle Obama's climate legacy. But she made it the focus of two major speeches last fall. Clinton signaled in September that she will stay apace of Obama's soaring oratory on the impacts of climbing temperatures (ClimateWire, Sept. 5, 2014). The president has described it as an ever-growing threat with deeper risks to the economy and the environment than perhaps even from disparate terrorist groups. Clinton also puts it near the top of her priority list. She described global warming as "the most consequential, urgent, sweeping collection of challenges we face as a nation and a world" at the National Clean Energy Summit held by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Then, in December, she locked arms with Obama's climate legacy by vowing to defend U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan "at all cost" (Greenwire, July 1, 2014). Some see that as a sign that she'll wage war against Republican climate change deniers in her campaign for the White House, potentially giving climate a higher profile in 2016 than in previous elections. "The science of climate change is unforgiving," Clinton said then. "No matter what deniers may say, sea levels are rising; ice caps are melting; storms, droughts and wildfires are wreaking havoc." Clinton isn't a recent convert. She proposed a cap-and-trade program in 2007 when she and Obama were dueling to be their party's presidential nominee -- and to be the leader on climate solutions. Her goal was to cut emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. That year, in a speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she reminisced about a trip she had taken to the Alaskan wilderness, where she heard about warming winters from dogsledders, rising seas from villagers and drying lakebeds. "There are no climate change skeptics inside the Arctic Circle," Clinton said then, adding later, "This is the biggest challenge we have faced in a generation." Podesta choice sends a strong signal Purvis noted that her tenure as secretary of State was more punctuated by work on womens' empowerment than on energy. But, he argued, she also found a way to weave those concerns into new climate policies. She put $50 million into a new initiative to encourage families to use cleaner-burning stoves instead of kerosene, wood, dung and other solid fuels as a way to both improve health and cut emissions, focused on helping those hardest hit by climate change. She also spearheaded the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, dedicated to curbing non-carbon-dioxide pollutants that cause global warming. "One has to acknowledge that the issues that probably animate her the most are the rights of women, community empowerment, children and democracy. But I can't think of a time when she didn't make the right environmental decision," Purvis said. Since leaving office, Clinton has toughened her language. Skeptical Republicans are now described as deniers by Clinton and her party. Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate adviser and now a fellow at the German Marshall Fund, noted that the fact Clinton tapped Podesta to run her campaign signals that she considers climate change a winning campaign issue and a top priority. "I think she's going to run as an economic populist and a defender of the middle class against the depredations of extreme economic inequality," Bledsoe said. "Climate fits in because I think she's going to portray the Republicans as willing to put the average American in clear and present danger from climate change, because the solutions don't fit with the ideological litmus test of the party. "I think she's going to be very aggressive in the campaign as pushing climate change as a part of the 'defender of the little guy' message," Bledsoe said.

Warming causes extinction.

Flournoy 12 -- Citing Feng Hsu, PhD NASA Scientist @ the Goddard Space Flight Center. Don Flournoy is a PhD and MA from the University of Texas, Former Dean of the University College @ Ohio University, Former Associate Dean @ State University of New York and Case Institute of Technology, Project Manager for University/Industry Experiments for the NASA ACTS Satellite, Currently Professor of Telecommunications @ Scripps College of Communications @ Ohio University (Don, "Solar Power Satellites," January, Springer Briefs in Space Development, Book, p. 10-11

In the Online Journal of Space Communication , Dr. Feng Hsu, a  NASA scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, a research center in the forefront of science of space and Earth, writes, “The evidence of global warming is alarming,” noting the potential for a catastrophic planetary climate change is real and troubling (Hsu 2010 ) . Hsu and his NASA colleagues were engaged in monitoring and analyzing climate changes on a global scale, through which they received first-hand scientific information and data relating to global warming issues, including the dynamics of polar ice cap melting. After discussing this research with colleagues who were world experts on the subject, he wrote: I now have no doubt global temperatures are rising, and that global warming is a serious problem confronting all of humanity. No matter whether these trends are due to human interference or to the cosmic cycling of our solar system, there are two basic facts that are crystal clear: (a) there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing positive correlations between the level of CO2 concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere with respect to the historical fluctuations of global temperature changes; and (b) the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientific community is in agreement about the risks of a potential catastrophic global climate change. That is, if we humans continue to ignore this problem and do nothing, if we continue dumping huge quantities of greenhouse gases into Earth’s biosphere, humanity will be at dire risk (Hsu 2010 ) . As a technology risk assessment expert, Hsu says he can show with some confidence that the planet will face more risk doing nothing to curb its fossil-based energy addictions than it will in making a fundamental shift in its energy supply. “This,” he writes, “is because the risks of a catastrophic anthropogenic climate change can be potentially the extinction of human species, a risk that is simply too high for us to take any chances” (Hsu 2010 ) 

2NC Case Turn – Trade

Trump decks global trade via protectionism

Ignatius, 3/18 (David Ignatius, award winning columnist and journalist for multiple major news sources, including the Washington Post, "The Mistaken Bipartisan Attack on Free Trade," 3-18-16, Real Clear Politics, “http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/03 /18/the_mistaken_bipartisan_attack_on_free_trade_130017.html,” accessed 7-13-16, AG)

Of the many dangerous trends in the 2016 election, the revolt against free trade that has captured both parties could do the most long-term damage. That's because protectionism would undermine future growth of the U.S. economy and subvert America's role as global leader. Globalization has undeniably hurt some American workers and cost some manufacturing jobs. But there's strong evidence that trade has benefited the U.S. economy and created whole new industries in which America is dominant. That's the essence of the "creative destruction" that makes a market economy so potent: It relentlessly pushes innovation and change. Rather than shooting at trade agreements with a blunderbuss, as both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have done (dragging their rivals along with them), candidates should be talking about how to protect the workers who are harmed by foreign competition. The debate should focus on trade-adjustment assistance, job training and better education at all levels. President Bill Clinton two decades ago spoke about "building a bridge to the 21st century" for all Americans. That's still the issue. The free trade argument feels like a rerun of what I covered in my first reporting job in Pittsburgh in the late 1970s, when foreign competition began to challenge the steel industry. Management and labor joined forces to plead for protection, arguing that lower-cost foreign steel was being "dumped" in the United States by the Japanese and others. But that argument wasn't true. Japanese mills had lower costs because they had innovated -- building new, super-efficient blast furnaces and rolling mills while the American industry slumbered. If the protectionists had won back then, they would, in effect, have imposed a tax on all American consumers to support bad management and high costs in the steel business. The protectionists failed, and the steel industry collapsed. People suffered in the transition: The population of Allegheny County got smaller, older and poorer from 1980 to 1995, as steel jobs vanished and workers moved or retired, according to the University of Pittsburgh's University Center for Social and Urban Research. The region's real median household incomes were also stagnant or declining. But over time, the disruptive whirlwind of change created new jobs and greater incomes, thanks to dynamic new businesses that spun up around the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Carnegie Mellon University. Census Bureau data show that in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, per-capita incomes roughly doubled from the beginning of steel's downturn in 1978 to 2014. In inflation-adjusted constant dollars, average personal income rose from $23,239 in 1978 to $45,231 in 2014. Over that time, average incomes in the Pittsburgh area grew faster than in Pennsylvania and the U.S. as a whole. The bipartisan protectionism of Trump and Sanders has focused its attacks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal the Obama administration negotiated with 11 other countries. Economists who have studied the TPP carefully argue that this assault is badly misplaced. In a new paper published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Robert Z. Lawrence and Tyler Moran estimate that between 2017 and 2026, when TPP would have its major impact, the costs to displaced workers would be 6 percent of the benefits to the economy -- or an 18-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio. So focus protection on that 6 percent. Even economists who think free trade has harmed U.S. manufacturing see benefits in the TPP. David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson argued last year that although import competition helped produce a "momentous decline" in U.S. manufacturing, "We believe blocking the TPP on fears of globalization would be a mistake." They note that the pact would promote trade in knowledge industries where the U.S. has a big advantage, and that "killing the TPP would do little to bring factory work back to America." Trump, the businessman, seems weirdly out of touch with real economic trends. He speaks of Japan as if it were an economic powerhouse, when it has actually suffered a two-decades-long slump; he describes a surging China, when the numbers show its growth is sagging. Trump is a real estate guy and hotelkeeper. So maybe he doesn't realize that because of low energy costs and high productivity, the U.S. is "seeing ... evidence of an American manufacturing renaissance," according to the Boston Consulting Group. The number of U.S. executives who plan to add production capacity at home has increased by about 250 percent since 2012, according to BCG. Trump and Sanders [is] swinging a wrecking ball on trade. The right answer is to help the workers who are being hurt as the economy evolves, not to shut down the global trading system.

Protectionism sparks global nuclear war

Panzer 8 (Michael J., Faculty – New York Institute of Finance, Financial Armageddon: Protect Your Future from Economic Collapse, p. 137-138)

The rise in isolationism and protectionism will bring about ever more heated arguments and dangerous confrontations over shared sources of oil, gas, and other key commodities as well as factors of production that must, out of necessity, be acquired from less-than-friendly nations. Whether involving raw materials used in strategic industries or basic necessities such as food, water, and energy, efforts to secure adequate supplies will take increasing precedence in a world where demand seems constantly out of kilter with supply. Disputes over the misuse, overuse, and pollution of the environment and natural resources will become more commonplace. Around the world, such tensions will give rise to full-scale military encounters, often with minimal provocation. In some instances, economic conditions will serve as a convenient pretext for conflicts that stem from cultural and religious differences. Alternatively, nations may look to divert attention away from domestic problems by channeling frustration and populist sentiment toward other countries and cultures. Enabled by cheap technology and the waning threat of American retribution, terrorist groups will likely boost the frequency and scale of their horrifying attacks, bringing the threat of random violence to a whole new level. Turbulent conditions will encourage aggressive saber rattling and interdictions by rogue nations running amok. Age-old clashes will also take on a new, more heated sense of urgency. China will likely assume an increasingly belligerent posture toward Taiwan, while Iran may embark on overt colonization of its neighbors in the Mideast. Israel, for its part, may look to draw a dwindling list of allies from around the world into a growing number of conflicts. Some observers, like John Mearsheimer, a political scientists at the University of Chicago, have even speculated that an “intense confrontation” between the United States and China is “inevitable” at some point. More than a few disputes will turn out to be almost wholly ideological. Growing cultural and religious differences will be transformed from wars of words to battles soaked in blood. Long-simmering resentments could also degenerate quickly, spurring the basest of humyn instincts and triggering genocidal acts. Terrorists employing biological or nuclear weapons will vie with conventional forces using jets, cruise missiles, and bunker-busting bombs to cause widespread destruction. Many will interpret stepped-up conflicts between Muslims and Western societies as the beginnings of a new world war.

AT: UQ Overwhelms—Trump Can’t Win

Trump can win- He gets first time voters—especially in places where the plan would be unpopular

Macleod 5/27(Andrew, “Donald Trump will win the US presidency by a landslide – don't underestimate him yet again” 5/27/16 http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-will-win-the-us-presidency-by-a-landslide-dont-underestimate-him-yet-again-a7051686.html //ddi-hc da 7/15)

Trump is gaining votes in the "rust belt" from people who would not normally vote Republican, or even vote at all. A recent poll even had Trump him behind Clinton, by only 0.3 per cent. His momentum is upward. Do you see where this is heading? Clinton will get fewer votes than Obama. Trump will get out far more first-time voters than the Republicans have ever achieved before, while regular Republican voters will hold their noses and punt for Trump.

Undecided Voters mean Trump still has a chance

Silver 6/29 (Nate Silver, political analyst “Donald Trump Has A 20 Percent Chance Of Becoming President”, FiveThirtyEight 6/29/16//ddi-hc 7/15)

Historically, high numbers of undecided voters contribute to uncertainty and volatility. So do third-party candidates, whose numbers sometimes fade down the stretch run.⁶ With Clinton at only 43 percent nationally, Trump doesn’t need to take away any of her voters to win. He just needs to consolidate most of the voters who haven’t committed to a candidate yet.

Trump Can win the election still- it’s unpredictable

ABC News 7/8 ( Noah Fitzgeral, political reporter, “Trump Has Just a 25 Percent Chance but Could Win, Polling Analyst Says” ABC News, 7/8/16, google news accessed on 7/13, ddi-hc)

“There’s a reason why we don’t have Hillary Clinton as a 100 percent chance of winning the election,” he said. “If the economy went south, Donald Trump would have a better chance of winning.” Reflecting on the 2016 primary process, Enten told ABC News’ deputy political director, Shushannah Walshe, and correspondent Brad Mielke that Americans ought to keep a close eye on opinion polls. Enten said one takeaway from the primaries is that Americans should “trust the polls more than our intuition and perhaps more than other fundamentals in the past that have been more reliable indicators.” “Donald Trump jumped out to a lead in the polls fairly early on,” Enten said. But people were dismissing Trump’s campaign, and “we were like, ‘Oh, no, it’s too early. We shouldn’t trust the polls.’”

Trump can still win—just needs a little more support

Fox News 7/11 (Van Hipp, “Why the right vice presidential pick will help Trump win the White House”, Fox news 7/11/16, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/07/11/why-right-vice-presidential-pick-will-help-trump-win-white-house.html accessed 7/13 ddi-hc)

Donald Trump is winning the independent vote. Yes, you heard that right. Most polls now show that independents are breaking for Donald Trump. Thus, if he can get close to the same amount of Republican support as Hillary Clinton enjoys from Democrats, he’s got a real shot to be the 45th president of the United States. Usually a vice presidential pick goes to someone who can help their party's nominee with the key swing states on the electoral map or perhaps, help with a particular demographic group. In Trump’s case he is very competitive in most key swing states and again, he is winning with independent voters. What Trump needs is a VP running mate who can bring the GOP base home and increase his vote with the rank and file Republican electorate.

AT: Foreign Policy Not Key

The plan gets tied up in economic debates—trade resentment is a driving issue in the election

Casselman, 6/13 – (Ben Casselman, FiveThirtyEight’s chief elections writer and cooresponder; “The Consequences: How Trade Became a Major Issue in 2016,” FiveThirtyEight, 6/13/16, “http://fivethirtyeight.com/feat ures/the-consequences-how-trade-became-a-major-issue-in-2016/, accessed 7/15/16, AG)

Welcome to the first installment of “The Consequences,” a series of chats about the issues being debated in this year’s political campaign. A couple of times every month, we’ll gather a group of FiveThirtyEight staffers and invited guests for a conversation on subjects in the news, particularly when the subjects are complex and could use a little illumination. That’s an apt description of our first subject, international trade, which has become a central theme in this year’s presidential race. Our participants this week are two members of FiveThirtyEight’s economics staff, Ben Casselman, chief economics writer, and Andrew Flowers, quantitative editor. Also joining us is Dr. Shushanik Hakobyan, assistant professor of economics at Fordham University and a scholar of U.S. trade policy who has extensively analyzed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other international pacts. The moderator is David Firestone, FiveThirtyEight’s managing editor. David: International trade has emerged from wonky obscurity to become one of the most heated issues in this year’s presidential campaign. Given its complexity, were you surprised to see trade blamed for so many of the country’s economic woes, attacked from both right and left as the reason for slow job growth and stagnant wages? Shushanik: I was not at all surprised. Trade issues become hotly debated in every election season. The campaign rhetoric eventually gives way to a much calmer tone after the elections. Just recall the 2008 election season when Obama was campaigning against NAFTA. It was very similar in spirit to what we’ve seen this year, now with an added incentive to bash trade in the run up to the vote for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Ben: I agree, Shushanik, but I do think there’s something a bit different this time. For one thing, you have both major-party nominees coming out against the TPP, and Donald Trump has built his whole campaign around protectionism, which is unusual for a GOP nominee. Andrew: It’s revealing the degree to which resentment about trade has been one of the driving issues in this election, at least in explaining Trump’s appeal. It’s an indication that the costs from trade have been very concentrated — more so than we thought. It’s hit a certain segment of American workers very hard. They’re angry and disaffected. For many of them, trade is to blame. Shushanik: I agree, Andrew, but much of the research, including mine on NAFTA, suggests that a very small share of the labor force is affected by trade. Yes, it is true the impact is very concentrated not only by sector, but also by location. Trade is an easy scapegoat for the economic situation and it is much more easily understandable by an average person. David: What do each of you think of the quality of the debate we’re seeing? If you had a personal truth-o-meter, how would you rate the assertions that Trump and Sanders are making on trade in general, and the TPP and NAFTA in particular? Ben: It’s interesting you highlight those two, David, because I think a lot of the evidence suggests the impact of both those agreements probably pales (or will pale, in the case of TPP) to the impact of trade with China. Research from MIT economist David Autor and various colleagues has pointed to pretty substantial impacts from liberalized trade with China, on the order of 2 to 2.4 million lost jobs. Andrew: I don’t think Trump has elevated the debate on trade. His approach is populist and mercantilist — in the sense that “winning” at trade means exporting more to other countries than we import from them. He is furiously promising to renegotiate trade agreements and win a better “deal,” even if that means slapping a tariff on Chinese goods, which could potentially bring disastrous consequences via an escalating trade war. Sanders, on the other hand, has just flatly opposed trade deals — both old and new. But Ben is right: Far more important than NAFTA or the TPP is China. That research by Autor et al. is stunning: they estimate at least 1 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost due to the rise of Chinese imports. David: OK, let’s talk about China for a minute, and then get back to NAFTA and Shushanik’s research on it. Trump seems perfectly willing to start a trade war with China and has actually said it would have little harmful impact. Is there any economist out there who believes that? Ben: There are some mainstream economists who have argued for at least a pause in new agreements. But I don’t know of any who think a trade war with China is a good idea. Andrew: There are several reputable economists arguing for a more confrontational stance with China on specific trade issues like manipulation of their currency. But no serious economist would recommend what Trump’s saying he’ll do: tax Chinese imports until they give in to our demands. Ben: Right. There are legitimate questions about whether China is playing by the rules in terms of opening up its markets. Shushanik: I have yet to see any analysis confirming Trump’s claims on the impact of a trade war. The truth is that an average consumer benefits greatly from Chinese imports via lower prices and increased variety. Plus businesses are able to obtain intermediate goods [such as raw materials and parts used in manufacturing] at lower prices. Let’s not forget that about two-thirds of our imports are actually not final goods. Andrew: Yes, the gains from trade with China are real — in the form of lower prices on goods — and these benefits disproportionately help poor Americans. But the costs from this trade with China are not diffuse but concentrated. Ben: MIT Technology Review had a fun piece the other day looking at what the iPhone would look like if it were made entirely in America. Shushanik: A few years back there was also a study showing that much of the value of an iPad is American, and only a small share is Chinese value added. David: But why is it so hard for many Americans to see those benefits? Lower prices and variety always seem to be pushed to the side when trade is blamed for jobs. Ben: Those benefits are individually small, even if they’re large in the aggregate. But a lost job is very big and easy to see. As Andrew said, the benefits are diffuse and the costs are concentrated. Shushanik: Andrew is right. And this is true of any trade policy. Ben: Of course, many would argue that we can help offset those costs — job retraining, direct benefits, or other programs to help people who lose jobs adjust. That’s the idea behind the “Trade Adjustment Assistance” program. But we haven’t expanded those efforts, and it doesn’t look like we will anytime soon. Andrew: When people blame trade they often don’t just mean being out-competed by cheaper Chinese imports. They’re using trade as a stand-in for offshoring and outsourcing, too. Shushanik: Here’s another example: Sugar costs twice as much in the U.S. than abroad due to quotas. As consumers we pay a few cents more per year, but the profits reaped by sugarcane farmers are huge. Andrew: The real failure in American trade policy hasn’t so much been in specific deals or in the push for globalization more generally. The failure, as Ben noted, is that our safety net never modernized as trade expanded. Ben: Not to mention automation. Remember: U.S. manufacturing employment is down, but output is way up. casselman-tradechat-1 Andrew: Yes, but these trends predate the expansion in trade. They’re due to technology. To me, the real inflection point in how economists viewed trade happened in the 1990s, when trade joined technology in being a powerful driver behind the decline in manufacturing jobs. Shushanik: Offshoring is also part of the story and cannot be ignored. Just recall the Carrier case recently. Ben: Trump certainly recalls! Andrew: It’s China joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 that was the real game changer. David: As you mentioned, Shushanik, the debate is similar around any trade pact. NAFTA is widely reviled by unions, for example, but your research has shown that much of that derision is undeserved. Shushanik: NAFTA had an overall positive impact on real income in the U.S. There’s no indication that it had any impact on long-term employment. True, some jobs were lost in the short run, but job creation over the medium and long run outweighed jobs those lost due to NAFTA. For most U.S. workers, any change in income due to NAFTA was insignificant. But for workers who were in the industries most vulnerable to imports from Mexico, blue-collar wage growth was significantly slower than for other workers while NAFTA was being implemented. That was also true for workers in locations where such vulnerable industries were concentrated. Ben: I think it’s important to keep all of this in the broader context of the stagnation, or at least the anemic growth, of wages, particularly for those without a college degree. Some of that is trade. Some of that is globalization in other forms (outsourcing, etc.). Some of that is technology. Some of that is fiscal policy. And we can argue about how to allocate the blame. But the problem is real. I think what has shifted somewhat is our understanding of how durable the negative impacts are for people who do lose jobs. The places that are hit hardest don’t seem to rebound as quickly as we once thought, as Autor and his colleagues recently noted. That doesn’t change the fact that liberalized trade is a net positive for the economy. But distribution matters too. Shushanik: There were many structural changes in the U.S. economy, along with external factors (China’s W.T.O. accession, other low-income countries opening up to trade, etc.), that could be responsible for the decline in manufacturing jobs. Ben: Right, part of the challenge here is there were a lot of changes hitting at once. It’s hard to tease out the specific factors that drove these trends. Andrew: Good point. Shushanik: Past experience with trade agreements suggests that although most workers will neither gain nor lose much, U.S. blue-collar workers in unskilled labor-intensive manufacturing industries are likely to suffer income losses. And if there are locations in the country where such jobs are concentrated, blue-collar workers in those locations (whether they are in the service sector or the manufacturing sector) are likely to suffer losses. However, such workers are much less numerous than they were at the time of NAFTA, since the manufacturing sector employs so many fewer Americans than it once did. David: And yet it’s always a trade pact that gets the blame — the fallacy of the easy target. The consensus by the disaffected candidates on the right and left will put a lot of pressure on the center, though — specifically, Hillary Clinton, who has turned critical of the TPP. Do you see a long-term shift coming in how mainstream Washington thinks of trade and globalization, moving away from an earlier free-trade consensus? Andrew: Economists’ consensus on trade circa 2000 was that it was good for the economy as a whole; and while there would be some “losers,” they would eventually find jobs in other industries or move to more prosperous towns. That hand-waving confidence in the benefits of trade now looks misguided. Ben: One other trend that I think is important here is the decline in labor market mobility. People are changing jobs less often, they’re moving (physically) less often, companies are creating and destroying fewer jobs. And that makes it harder for workers and regions to adjust to shocks, including those caused by trade. And unfortunately, we don’t really understand what’s behind that decline in dynamism, or how to reverse it. Andrew: Clinton is in a bind, though: her husband supported and signed NAFTA, against the wishes of most Democrats. And while she is now against the TPP, she is still associated with President Obama, who supports it. Ben: I strongly doubt that Clinton has suddenly turned into a huge trade skeptic. She turned against TPP — I won’t try to guess whether that was purely political, but politics clearly played a role — but she isn’t railing against trade the way Trump is. So if she wins, I suspect we’ll retain the basic trade policy we’ve had since NAFTA, with maybe just a bit more of a nudge to the left. If Trump wins… who knows? It’s notable that he doesn’t say he wants to end free trade, he just wants better agreements, whatever that means.