[Moderating]
To the surprise of nobody, I’m moving this to GD.
I think the Chinese and other countries are getting the blame for America’s poor domestic policies. We don’t invest in schools, healthcare, unemployment benefits, or anything that improves the quality of life for the average American, and it’s somehow the fault of the Chinese. Of course Americans are going to buy foreign products if they can stretch our dollar, and yes, in some cases that has adverse effects on domestic businesses. That’s not China’s problem to fix; that’s our problem, but corporate interests and their proxies in the Republican party aren’t interested in fixing it. Proof of this lies in the fact that they went from being the party of free trade to being the party of Trump tariffs, foreign wars, and tax cuts. Don’t blame China, Mexico, or anyone else for American stupidity.
also, there was the thought that if china became an industrial power and started to let people actually have money it would undermine the communist ideals a bit …
However, what happened was the Chinese became obsessed/occupied with getting wealthy that they ignored anything else the government was doing to the point that as long as it doesn’t affect wealth and income large swaths of Chinese society doesn’t care what the party implements … a lot like our fair country …
I think you mistake what they want with what they say. Remember, there is no freedom of speech in china. Speak up against the party and you are going to get yourself into trouble. These guys murdered 10,000 students because they were protesting this.
No it doesn’t need to be both ways. It’s better both ways, but one way is better than no way.
Gee, the Chinese are willing to provide us with stuff much cheaper than we can make it ourselves. What a disaster! Imagine the horror if we got the stuff for free!
It would be better if free trade worked both directions, no doubt. But even unilateral free trade is better than tariffs.
Ask yourself what happens if the Chinese sell us stuff, but don’t buy our stuff. What happens? Well, the Chinese build up a glut of foreign currency. What can they do with it? Buy our stuff, buy our services, buy real estate, loan the dollars back to us, or sell them on international money markets to countries which then have to do the same thing. This is not bad.
I remember when Japan was supposedly ‘taking over’, because they were using the cash from their trade surplus to buy American businesses and real estate. And what happened then? When Japan had its own economic problems it sold off many of its foreign holdings - generally to large losses. So Americans benefitted from high quality, inexpensive Japanese products, then benefited again when the money they used to buy those products came back to the country at a discount.
The only way you can justify tariffs economically is if they are used as leverage to get the other side to drop their own tariffs. If it works. But if it doesn’t, you are imposing a pretty big cost on the American economy. And if the other side won’t drop their tariffs, you are still better off dropping your own.
Politically, it’s a different problem.
The only justification for tariffs is to protect industries vital to national security. For instance, there was a few years ago, when I consulted with a steel distributor, exactly one steel plant in the US making the kind of steel they distributed. If they got an order from a defense subcontractor, the steel had to come from that supplier; there was literally no other option. If all steel plants that made “high speed steel” shut down in the US, it would be a major problem for national security.
At some point you need to prop up industries that are vital if you were to get into a conflict that would potentially have you lose access to the products of those industries, and it’s more important the more that it relates to either defense production or basic consumables (mostly food).
But if there’s no military use and people can survive without them, there’s no good reason to try to protect their industries. And protecting domestic industry is the only really good reason for enacting tariffs, which is why it’s called protectionism. Sometimes it’s called for, but unless there’s a good reason, most trade that powers the modern economy should have as few barriers as possible.
This shows a myopic focus on physical goods versus intellectual property. It’s on the IP side where we are being raked over the coals constantly. Our companies literally can’t do business in china while they can do business here. That’s not a good situation.
The “myopic focus” is on the thread topic. It’s talking about physical goods.
Also, while I would be the first to criticize Chinese IP laws, local business rules and freedom of speech, it is incorrect to say companies “literally” can’t do business in China. Many big brands like Budweiser and Volkswagen make more money from China now than any other market.
If you had said something like can’t directly do business, I would have been more or less on board.
Where do you suppose this money would come from? Who do you think pays it?
It’s not inconsistent to support low tariffs but to engage in tariffs if you feel the other country is engaging in unequal trade practices. If you follow the logic of low tariffs no matter what, then the US shouldn’t have engaged in World War 2 because killing is bad.
Whether this particular trade war is wise is another story. However, my deepest criticism of it so far is that the administration is trying to prop up farmers who are hurt by the trade war, which is just shoveling money at them to keep their votes. We have enough agriculture subsidies as it is. I support ag subsidizes in theory, since food security is the most important aspect of national security, but we currently make more than enough food to feed the US and all of our allies, so I don’t think we need any ag subsidies at all, let alone additional ones that come about from trade wars.
To reiterate Little Nemo’s point, the Chinese are not dumping goods.
There are specific WTO definitions of what comprises dumping, and they relate to cost of production and domestic prices.
Putative tariffs are allowed to be imposed on dumped goods and all US manufacturers would be all over any suspected case like seagulls over chips.
US manufacturing output is higher than it’s ever been (discounting the slight dip in Q1). US exports are higher than they’ve ever been.
No, I wasn’t making a point about the USA or any other country or the rightness or wrongness of any specific tariff.
My point was about DrCube’s position that good and bad in general are not relative to context and goal, whether we are talking about tariffs or speeding or anything else.
I disagree that it is very meaningful to state that action X is “bad” in all contexts and with respect to all goals. Very little in the real world is that way.
1 - They do have some training abut how to do it safely to mitigate some of the risk
2 - They do have lights and sirens to mitigate some of the risk
3 - They do have an entire network of support that can help to mitigate risk in more extreme situations (e.g. blocking off intersections and roads)
4 - They do have rules about when and to what degree it’s justified based on the context and goal
There are examples of situations in which the risk to the public due to some driver (e.g. drunk and speeding, wrong way on freeway, etc.) far outweighs the additional risk of having police speed or break other laws in an attempt to stop them.