He's been telling me this, for years. It's not a secret. The information has been out there, for ages. I'm surprised that the administration didn't understand this.
Curious why you are surprised at incompetence being unable to understand complexity.
My friend is watching his business get ready to die. His wife is still the CEO, and she's losing her shit. They're not alone. There's thousands and thousands of similar operations, all over the US, that will have to shut down, if something doesn't give.
I guess the mega-rich oligarchs think this is great, but they don't employ the majority of Americans.
Why would you assume they don't understand? Every time they're questioned about the tariffs the narrative shifts. We have a trade deficit, we're getting ripped off, we want to bring back domestic manufacturing jobs, we'll automate them with robotics and AI, we're playing hardball to negotiate a better trade deal and get rid of fentanyl, it's a matter of national security, an economic emergency, the dollar is overvalued.
You cannot trust a word from them. If you want to understand why they're doing something you must look only at incentives and outcomes. My current analysis is that there's some internal conflict, but the overall push for tariffs comes from a desire to crash the economy and use the downturn to consolidate wealth and power.
This has been a pretty sobering reminder to anyone that, in fact, there is no such thing.
That's the optimistic POV at least imo.
By acting against China that means I applaud moving manufacturing to Vietnam. I want to help Botswana grow - and I wish there were more countries in Africa I could name that seem to be on a good path (I cannot name the majority of countries in Africa, the ones I can are because they are in the news for bad things happening. I'm not even sure Botswana - I mostly know about them because last time I brought up Africa someone from there said their country was an exception).
Overall the world is better off with a lot of trade. Comparative advantage is real. There are things I can do that I don't want to become good at. However we also need to be aware that not everyone in the world is the friend of freedom and some must be cut off lest they grow. Nobody is perfect though, so you can't cut off everyone.
If the US sees it as a threat and wants to do something it should maybe look to what China has done. Because tbh what Trump did re Tariffs is pretty close to "nothing" all things considered.
They won't though because as soon as you have someone saying "look, let's just put together a staged plan so that in, say, five years we'll produce X% more electronics domestically..." you'll have a Republican shrieking about "five year plans" and how the USA is becoming communist
If you're going to talk wars, then .. US military manufacturing is still the world leader yet again. Plus the nukes.
I wonder where they were on election day, when they had a choice. The record of business owners voting D is .. not great.
Given the timescale any solution will require cooperation across political parties. You can’t start something that will get undone in four years.
Then accept it won’t make much difference to the inhabitants of bumfuck USA. Automation is what took their jobs.
Start at the top of the food chain and gradually work down. If America can make cars but not car tyres then implement gradually increasing tariffs on imported tyres. 1% this year, 2% next and so on. Pretty soon you have a car tyre industry again.
Know when to stop, just like it doesn’t make sense for a banker to clean their own house it doesn’t make sense for a rich country to be making tee shirts.
Of course this won’t happen because of the American political system.
Fix health care - socialism isn't the only answer despite what many hear will say.
Fix school - it shouldn't be all sit at your desk but that is what we get. Bring back gym class. Make kids get practical experience building the things they designed (that is shop class). Math could be fun - but most teachers don't believe it themselves, and so they haven't a hope of passing that on to students.
and
last time I brought up Africa someone from there said their country was an exception
Making what are essentially strategic decisions in this "shoot from the hip" fashion is what lands us repeatedly in these situations. By way of illustration, let me try one from the 1980's out on you:
"By acting against Iran that means I applaud men like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden"
(In fairness to the americans who made that colossal blunder, I'll assume that, to them, it seemed a good idea at the time. They were simply not long term thinkers. So no one ever asked, "Hmm, what comes next though?")
We, as a people, need to start thinking a bit further ahead than the ends of our noses.
You've said re healthcare that "socialism isn't the answer" - assuming you mean "I don't want a single-payer or free-at-the-point-of-use system" then I'm not sure what is the answer then. They've currently got some of the worst health outcomes on the planet despite spending amongst the most per-capita. They can either try more privatisation or maybe give something like Medicare For All a shot...
And re "fix school" you seem to suggest that shop class needs to be more widespread and maths teachers just need to be more enthusiastic? If the idea is to give kids more options then things like making sure that there are widely available apprenticeship programs and technical colleges to develop these skills, as well as strong (dare I say, union) jobs waiting for them when they complete their training.
And re maths teachers, if it's anything like the UK I suspect that teachers are being expected to do more with less at every stage of schooling. They handle more kids per class with fewer teaching assistants available. They need to handle more diverse lessons than before because there are insufficient PE teachers, Music teachers, Drama teachers etc). They're having a tougher time with kids behaviourally due to the rise of social media and a broader economic decline that causes a whole host of social issues that end up being schools' problem. Having poor school system is a symptom of greater societal problems, you don't fix schools without solving those (sidenote: you also don't solve those by pointing the finger at vulnerable communities like immigrants and LGBTQ+). Telling maths teachers to be a bit more enthusiastic doesn't fix any of that, it just makes the maths teachers hate their job a bit more.
(Source - worked in int'l remittances w/ African receiving countries)
Trump's tariffs would theoretically rebalance trade on the long term, albeit in a highly destructive manner. But the more diplomatic solutions as proposed by other commentators like Catherine Tai, Yanis Varoufakis or Michael Pettis would be the introduction of capital controls to stem the demand for US treasuries, or better, the reintroduction of Keynes' proposal of the International Clearing Union back in 1945. The ICU's role would be to actively balance global trade surpluses via the international currency bancor, of which would have fixed control of FX rates rather than relying on FX markets to punish surplus nations and help deficit nations respectively. As for nations outside the Union, they would just get treated similar to the USSR.
This bizzare "we'll bring back manufacturing and be ready all the time" thing seems to imagine you'll just turn the local widget maker over to knocking out high temperature stealth composites for hypersonic missiles real quick.
Which is of course the story of a lot of American manufacturing: it's hard to get a hobby run of PCBs because all the PCB makers are optimized for large orders for defence procurement (and the clearance, supply line and stuff requirements that brings).
i'm not suggesting enthusiastic math teachers is all we need: lack of enthusism is a sympton of a problem but fixing symptoms isn't enough. Likewise I'm not sure shop class is the answer - but schools are leaving a lot of people out by not having them.
the us has a great school system overall but it needs to be better.
Bloc building. Europe has countries which do lots of manufacturing. Use those to gradually reduce reliance on China by slowly restricting Chinese access to the Bloc market and build up supply chains inside the Bloc.
Making everything in the US can not be done without a very severe decline in living standards.
>Is doing nothing acceptable?
How high is your desire to learn Chinese?
I see exactly zero point in repeating the example of China again. Why would the outcome be different? Vietnam is another Communist pseudo-dictatorship. Why is this one so different that it won't support Russia?
I dunno what to tell you man, it sounds like you're a true believer on this. I reckon everyone who has undergone a healthcare bankruptcy (a uniquely American thing, btw) or could not get treated be cause they couldn't afford it was a true believer before they were let down.
Vietnam has been at war with China in the recent past. Today China is claiming seas that the US and internal law both call Vietnam's territorial waters - though currently they are not at war. Thus even if Vietnam doesn't move in a good direction, just keeping them where they are (as opposed to supporting China) is useful if only because all indications today are China will start a war in the future. (again nobody knows if they will, but they are preparing as if they will)
Nothing prevents anyone from making moves 20 years from now that are bad. All we can do today is encourage those who seem to be moving for the better. We have no clue how things will turn out. Even when we make what in hindsight now looks like a bad decision, we have no idea how it would have been if we had done something different.
Just like China did? They had a whole phase of economic liberalization and opening trade.
>Nothing prevents anyone from making moves 20 years from now that are bad.
Vietnam is literally another communist pseudo-dictatorship. Their place in the world is obviously far more ambiguous than that of e.g. England. The idea of shifting manufacturing to Vietnam because you do not like the positions of China is just absurd.
>All we can do today is encourage those who seem to be moving for the better.
Why should the US not focus on supporting long term allies who aren't communist single party states?
Healthcare and schools are both important and hard problems. Most people with ideas have bad ideas IMHO.
we should of course support most of europe which usualy has better government. Likewise the other countries in America - both north and south. And so on for anywhere else we can find friends. I an not a Trump fan even if once in a while he does something I support
It is really of no consequence to me which you choose, I don't live there and it's looking likely I'll probably skip even visiting let alone consider moving there in future.
As has happened with China? When they opened up trade and became part of a global economy their nationalistic ambitions stopped and they ceased to support dictatorships like Russia. Also their political system opened up and they morphed from a uniparty communist country to a liberal democracy. Oh wait, the exact opposite happened on all accounts.
You didn't answer my question. Why would Vietnam be any different? Why should the US help build their economy so that they can do the exact same thing as China did. Your theory of how this works is disproven by reality. You can not make a country a liberal democracy by opening up trade with them. It failed with China, it failed with Russia.
It worked with South Korea, and Taiwan. (Japan and Germany, but they were on the losing side of a war with us which is a confounding factor). It is by no means perfect, but I've yet to see anyone suggest something else that has any chance of working.
Japan and Germany did not get convinced by the virtues of liberal democracy and free trade. They were both forcibly converted under US occupation.
They’re an environmental nightmare and very, very thin margins.
>They’re an environmental nightmare and very, very thin margins.
Which is an argument for consuming less tyres. It doesn't really have much to do with where you make them other than perhaps it is better to make them in a country with stronger environmental regulations.
Why does there need to be corruption and abuse?
Why do they have to expose their workers to pollution?
As far as I know, none of those things are required for manufacturing.
They were by all means military dictatorships, just not communist.
That’s why strong regulations are actually important (not something that businesses want to hear -until a “shortcutter” starts to eat their lunch).