To be clear, the current tariff execution is reckless and poorly planned. But I hear a lot of total tariff opposition from the same people who demand we continue to escalate with China over control of Taiwan, up to a potential hot war.
So what’s the plan? Western economies were brought to their knees during just a momentary interruption in shipping during the pandemic. How do you wage a war with a country that does all of your manufacturing? China could defeat most western countries without firing a single shot, just by cutting off their access to Chinese exports.
If you don’t support tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs domestically, how do you think we could make it through a war with our manufacturing partners? I can’t reconcile the two ideas, and I don’t understand how some of y’all are.
If you don’t support tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs
I also don’t support prohibition to improve crop output.
Tariffs don’t create manufacturing jobs. Subsidies do.
Neither do. Import bans and nationalization do.
By providing subsidies, you make it cheaper to build things in the US, so people do. It’s the reason we have so much farming, even though it’d be cheaper to outsource that.
By shutting down international trade, we will build things in the US where it’s affordable, and where it’s not we just do without.
Point is, you won’t get an iPhone anymore. You likely won’t get a new car. The value of the dollar goes down and we get less. Maybe you’re ok with that, but I personally like my quality of life.
We still pay for subsidies. Those don’t come out of thin air. Better to nationalize, and much more efficient.
This post is all over the place. Temporary indiscriminate tariffs on every trading partner won’t bring manufacturing jobs to America. What does that have to do with helping Taiwan?
Their intent is to bring back manufacturing. I agree, it’s a bad plan.
The point with Taiwan is that both Dems & the GOP want to escalate to a potential hot war with China over control of Taiwan. But I see a lot of crossover between people who oppose drastic measures to bring back manufacturing stateside, while also supporting increased escalation with China.
So I’m asking people how they reconcile the two. How do they support war with our chief manufacturing partner, without supporting immediate measures to bring back manufacturing? As things stand, China could defeat us within a month by cutting off exports to the US.
Nobody is “against tariffs” - they are used everywhere. We are against this ridiculous random implementation that makes no sense. Mr. Trump is not using them like a scalpel, to grow manufacturing here, I don’t think he cares about that. He seems to think they are some way to bully other countries into doing what he wants.
lol tariffs won’t really help, they will only escalate war
As I stated, yes, the implementation is a clusterfuck. But unless we’re moving to a planned economy, aren’t widespread tariffs and increased costs necessary to force manufacturing to come back to the states?
It sounds like the warhawks in the Dems and GOP want war with China sometime this decade. How do you go to war with your manufacturing partner, and not crash the economy?
No, they could use other means to reinvigorate manufacturing here, if that is even their goal. I tend to agree that this race to the bottom was a mistake, the chasing ever cheaper labor hasn’t done anything for the majority. But it’s only one part of the inequality we are suffering here. There is no method to the madness as far as I can tell. And to your last point (crashing the economy) I can’t even tell if they care about that.
What other means?
Where I live, they prop up companies with tax breaks, subsidies, sometimes will reimburse for wages even, to try to get businesses to establish and employ here.
That “chips act” was a national version, right?
We could also just do a lot more redistribution from the top, and try to advantage small businesses more. You can’t do everything from the top, a lot of a real economy has to grow from the ground, right? Nationalize healthcare so it’s not employer-based to encourage entrepreneurship.
I’m sure there are many more actions that could be taken - there is a huge opportunity for improvement in our economy but most of it relates to breaking up the top and growth from the bottom.
Tariffs are a tool, sure. But not the only one, and I’m not convinced they are tackling our main economic issues here, at all, certainly not as implemented. As one part of a more comprehensive progressive reform they might help but that’s not the way these guys roll.
That’s a lot of failed policies to avoid direct control and regulation of industries.
And that chips act was also paired with a chipmaker’s visa to import indentured labor from Taiwan. So while it was intended to bring back manufacturing, it was never going to deliver on the empty promises of jobs.
If you don’t support tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs domestically, how do you think we could make it through a war with our manufacturing partners?
I express no position here about China nor Taiwan, but the false dichotomy presented is between: 1) enforce trade barriers indiscriminately against every country, territory, and uninhabitable island in the world without regard for allies nor enemies, or 2) diversify economic dependency away from one particular country.
The former is rooted in lunacy and harkens back to the mercantilism era, where every country sought to bring more gold back home and export more stuff and reducing imports. The latter is pragmatic and diplomatic, creating new allies (economically and probably militarily) and is compatible with modern global economic notions like comparative advantage, where some countries are simply better at producing a given product (eg Swiss watches) so that other countries can focus on their own specialization (eg American-educated computer scientists).
As a specific example, see Mexico, which under NAFTA and USMCA stood to be America’s new and rising manufacturing comrade. Mexico has the necessary geographical connectivity and transportation links to the mainland USA, its own diverse economy, relatively cheap labor, timezones and culture that make for easier business dealings than cross-Pacific, and overall was very receptive to the idea of taking a share of the pie from China.
Long-term thinking would be to commit to this strategic position, this changing the domestic focus to: 1) replace China with North America suppliers for certain manufactured goods, 2) continue to foster industries which are “offshore-proof”, such as small businesses that simply have to exist locally or industries whose products remain super-expensive or hazrdous to ship (eg lithium ion batteries). Sadly, the USA has not done this.
It is sheer arrogance to believe that the economic tide for industries of yore (eg plastic goods, combustion motor vehicles, call centers) can be substantially turned around in even a decade, when that transition away from domestic manufacturing took decades to occur. Further egoism is expressed by unilateral tarrif decisions that don’t pass muster logically nor arithmetically.
I agree that requiring certain industries to be based domestically is the best route, but both the GOP & Dems opposed that type of planned economy. They prefer to manipulate market influences to incentivize what they want, rather than direct regulation.
If you don’t tariff everyone, how does that bring manufacturing back? They’ll just move to the next cheapest country, and then you’re playing whack-a-mole.
I agree that requiring certain industries to be based domestically is the best route
This isn’t what I said at all. What I meant was, for service businesses (eg car dealerships, warehouses, restaurants) and heavy industry (eg oil refineries, plastics and chemicals, composites like wind turbine blades or aircraft fuselages) which practically must remain within the country, support those endeavors by making it easier or cheaper to operate, so that an internal economy for those products develops locally. Trying to force stronger internal ties would inevitably lead to resources and incentives spent where they’re not most needed.
If you don’t tariff everyone, how does that bring manufacturing back? They’ll just move to the next cheapest country, and then you’re playing whack-a-mole.
I’m not sure if you saw my Mexico example or not, or purposely chose to ignore it, but manufacturing that moves from China to Mexico would still further a USA policy of reduced economic dependency on China. It doesn’t matter so much that it’s not “Made in USA” so much that it’s not “Made in China”, if that’s the desired economic policy.
And that doesn’t even include the knock-on effects that anchoring the Mexican economy would create: economic migration – when people move from a place of poorer economic condition to a richer economic place – would naturally abate if the Mexican economy grew. Economic opportunity also displaces gang warfare and drug distribution, in part.
The alternative is to apply huge subsidies for manufactures to ignore Mexico and set up shop in the USA, but then the cost of land, labor, and capital is substantially higher, and the products less affordable because they must be higher priced to pay for those means of production. Why do all this when Mexico or Canada are right next door?
Hey, I agree with you entirely, but I’m worried you’re wasting energy arguing with a bot. It doesn’t really seem to understand what you’re saying
I had an inkling that was the case. But I figured that, for my own benefit, I’d elucidate my position a bit more. If it falls on deaf bot ears, then that’s just how it is. There’s not much else I was going to say anyway.
Don’t get me wrong! I appreciate that there are people (like you) are willing and able to shut people like them up
I personally don’t have the energy to argue and I guess I want to help make sure folks like you don’t waste your enegy on bots
Thank you for doing what you do, haha
Thank you for you kind words!
Yeah, everyone who disagrees with you is a bot.
I didn’t choose to ignore anything. I simply don’t agree with the status quo of finding exploitable populations to outsource to, and I don’t agree that shifting problems to a different part of the globe eliminates the problem.
One of the main reasons for mass immigration from Mexico is the exploitation in NAFTA that has had the opposite effect of what you claim, and eliminated upward mobility in Mexico.
If you don’t support tariffs to bring back manufacturing jobs domestically
Do they even accomplish this?
“Chinese exports have a large impact on our economy, therefore you have to either support tariffs or let them do anything they want” 🤡 take
How was China’s economy doing during global shipping interruptions, btw? 🙃
The difference is China is expanding their trade partnerships across Asia and Africa. They can sell to someone else. I don’t know how we survive a sudden cut off from the global manufacturing base.
China could tell their businesses not to sell to countries they’re at war with but then they wouldn’t be able to sell any of the goods they produce and they’d all be unemployed
So you believe China will continue to trade with the US during a hot war over Taiwan?
“China” doesn’t really trade, the businesses in China do. So yes
Wow. That was a wildly inaccurate and naïve statement.
Idk if you’re trolling now or?
For one, every country in the world controls which countries and outside parties their corporations can do business with.
Secondly, you obviously have no idea how business works in China, and the amount of control the central government exercises over them.
So what the fuck are you talking about?
1990 wants its talking points back
US manufacturing output is far larger than the amount we import form China.
US manufacturing made about $2.5 Trillion in 2021: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/manufacturing-output
US imported from China about $0.5 Trillion in 2021 (all goods, not just manufacturing): https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html
China could defeat most western countries without firing a single shot, just by cutting off their access to Chinese exports.
I disagree with this assumption!
We don’t rely on China, we benefit from trading with them. Some of our goods go there, we get some of their goods. If a war breaks out and that trade stops; we have plenty of manufacturing capacity. And the point of having allies is that we would expect assistance in the event of a war, so we don’t expect US manufacturing to even completely fill the gap (similarly our allies would expect the US to help if China were to target one of them… except that the current administration is alienating everyone but Russia…).
If you look another level down into what each country manufactures; the US makes a lot of military equipment, and imports a lot of consumer goods form China. Our military would not lose much capacity by a loss in trade with China, but US consumers would lose some of their consumption options. Guess which one matters when it comes to war?
I don’t support tariffs as a tool to increase American manufacturing jobs because they don’t accomplish that goal. This is not a political belief; it’s derived from evidence. Many sources available, here’s one: https://files.taxfoundation.org/20180627113002/Tax-Foundation-FF595-1.pdf
Using tariffs as a diplomatic tool is only effective in extreme cases. Diplomacy is difficult and so many things are interrelated. If a tariff threat makes China capitulate to our position on Taiwan, why not just use a tariff threat to bring China completely into line on every other position? Tariffs are blunt, and cause harm (economic and diplomatic) to broad areas of both countries unrelated to the specific issue. Topical example: sanctions on Russia did not change their position on Ukraine, even though those were far more severe than just a blanket X% tariff and were supported by many other countries (multi-lateral as opposed to uni-lateral). If we want to influence China’s position on Taiwan, diplomacy is more effective than tariffs.
The US mil will certainly be negatively effected in the short term if China were to cut/be cut from manufacturing. This substack article is by a retired US navy/NATO officer who explains it better than I can, but the short answer is a LOT of very important munitions, vessels and equipment have chinese semiconductors in them
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/you-cant-go-to-war-with-your-factory
Your positions do not seem to be supported by the facts. I don’t understand how you have maintained this perspective of interruptions and shipping affecting the US more than China. That certainly wasn’t the case during the pandemic.
And now with the tariff threats that we’re seeing, aerospace and military manufacturers are saying there are certain components they simply can’t manufacture here without importing from China. If tariffs are impeding that in anyway, I don’t see how they would survive a complete cut off. Especially without the raw resources we get from China, we couldn’t even set up independent manufacturing here if we wanted to.
My facts were provided and cited? I’d argue your positions are the ones not related to the facts:
aerospace and military manufacturers are saying there are certain components they simply can’t manufacture here without importing from China
This is a media statement, not a fact, and not reflected in industry data nor historical examples. There’s a cost they don’t want to pay, not a hard block. Manufacturing has historically been more than able to adjust, but at a cost. In the event of a war we’d likely pay that cost, in the face of tariffs it’s up to those individual manufacturers to decide. So we might see them choose to keep importing instead of replacing certain components… But that does not then mean they couldn’t do so.
I don’t understand how you have maintained this perspective of interruptions and shipping affecting the US more than China
I didn’t claim this at all? And I won’t argue it as relevant since interrupting shipping globally is not a relevant equivalent to bilateral trade halting.
I don’t feel like you’re making arguments in good faith, or you are disregarding my claims and raising straw man arguments… Apologies in advance as I’ll likely not continue this thread.
It’s not just a “media statement.” This is what they’re saying to their shareholders, who they are legally required to divulge the facts to.
I think you’re not appreciating the number of years it would take to move manufacturing bases and train up the local skillset. It’s not a ‘they can’t ever do it.’ It’s that it would take at least a decade, and at the rate tensions are escalating, they cannot get to the point of moving that production in time.
Manufacturing is costly in the United States because enforced minimum wages, enforced safety protocols (enshrined in the blood of lost workers), and regulations brought about as a reaction to violations of those safety protocols by management of the local companies have necessarily increased the cost of manufacturing locally.
In a totally free market, the owners of the businesses would be “free” to abuse their workers how they see fit. Thankfully, most of the people in the U.S. have recognized that safety of workers is an important factor. The ability to enforce safety is likewise necessary when some company managers/executives have shown disdain for safety routinely.
The infrastructure required to implement the wages and safety has increased the cost to the companies in question. No business will last very long if increased costs aren’t passed on to their customers in some way. This leads to manufacturers having to face the choice of increasing the passed on cost of working within the U.S.'s regulations and requirements, or moving their manufacturing process to countries with lower standards of wages and regulation. Most companies have chosen the latter. If the purpose of owning and running a business is to increase the profit it makes, then additional costs to the business are necessarily not absorbed by the company and allowed to eat into profit
A tariff is likewise only seen as a regulation for which the cost will be passed on to the consumer by increasing the retail price of a product, and is typically seen as a regressive action.
If one wants to increase manufacturing in the U.S., one has to provide incentives for manufacturers to do so. margin, they are simply built into the final price of the service/product provided by the business. These incentives could take many forms, from tax breaks in some ways, to more favorable interest rates for specific loans (given criteria relevant to the specific market).
We’ve been trying the incentive method for decades now. It hasn’t worked.
Tariffs aren’t the way either.
The problem with incentives isn’t that they “can’t” work, it’s that they need to be at a level that makes using foreign manufacturing unattractive.
The problem is, they will leave the moment you cut off the incentive. So it becomes a permanent subsidy.
I don’t disagree with that, but it assumes the incentives are intended to expire. If the aim is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., then one has to ensure manufacturing in the U.S. is profitable.
Tariffs do nothing for that.
That’s not correct. Almost every single manufacturing industry that was outsourced was plenty profitable here in the states. They were outsourced because it was more profitable to do it overseas. It’s a race to the bottom.
I agree tariffs aren’t the right move. Personally, I would support nationalization and import bans on certain industries.
I think you missed where we’re in agreement about it being more profitable outside of the country. I was only suggesting that a better way to combat that would be incentives that are designed to maintain a status where the process of manufacturing remains profitable within the U.S.
I didn’t miss anything. I just don’t think any domestic industry required for economic & national security should hinge on something as precarious as incentivizing. If they’re that critical, it needs to be nationalized, with strict import bans. Fuck the profitability or buttering up capitalists in hopes they’ll do the right thing for us.
I see. So you are ready to try the “increase all costs” route now…
Personally I’m ready to try communism, nationalization, and a planned economy.
There was no war with manufacturing partners. Trump started one with his silly plan. He doesn’t understand tariffs at all, and that’ll be to the detriment of the average Joe. Things will be more expensive to produce (the US relies heavily on imports and doesn’t have a strong manufacturing base for most products). Raw materials will still need to be imported, and you can bet the importers will charge the US more for them in retaliation.
The best solution was to let sleeping dogs lie, but the Fantascist wouldn’t understand this. He’s either an economically clueless buffoon or is shorting the market so his ilk can benefit.
Even if tariffs worked the way Trump wanted and it magically brings all this manufacturing back to the USA, it will still cause extreme inflation in the USA. The reason foreign goods are so cheap? Dirt cheap labor. To manufacture these goods in the USA would mean orders of magnitude higher labor costs and ultimately orders of magnitude higher price of goods to the consumer. Inflation.
the US relies heavily on imports and doesn’t have a strong manufacturing base for most products
And that’s the problem Trump is seemingly trying to fix. I agree he’s not going about the right way. His approach is a kind of clumsy shock therapy, that will cause chaos in at least the short term and may or may not produce the desired result, eventually, but reshoring production and rebuilding a strong manufacturing base for the US is a goal shared by the Democrats, as well.
I think saying it is short term is very hopeful. The ripples of this will be felt for many years. You can’t suddenly magic manufacturing infrastructure and supply chains into existence. It’s a long road to do that with seemingly no plan in the interim, and I’ve no doubt that tariffs will be changed many times at his whim, so it’s hard for anyone to set up any manufacturing business when they can’t get a solid grip on their costs, given the need to import raw materials and components.
Making items on home soil for your own market is a good idea but it takes a lot of time, and the general feeling in the rest of the world is that countries will want to import fewer US goods, so export markets for the US will dwindle, and I doubt there is enough buying power in the US to get the growth he wants, particularly when these products made on US soil will undoubtedly cost more to the consumer than they currently do, and with stagnating wages and high cost of living as part of the equation.
I’m sure he’ll start selling to his Russian buddies when the time comes, but doubt that will be enough to fix his mess.
I agree, rebuilding a US manufacturing base will require competent planning and management, but those are bad words here in the US, when it comes to the economy. To many Americans, competent, central economic management, direction, and planning is tyrannical rule by elites. To those Americans, Trump is the antidote. You might point out that there is significant irony in that. I agree, it is ironic, but that irony is completely lost on many millions of Americans.
I agree that a centrally planned economy controlled by the elites would be tyranny. It needs to be controlled by local worker councils.
But that’s communism, and a dealbreaker for many people, regardless of whether it’s better.
But this issue predates Trump. Trump is starting a trade war, but Biden was escalating militarily with China. Both seem like very, very bad ideas.
