It's not a question of whether China manipulates its currency (it does), or whether it can be punished for doing so (it can). It's the assumption that jobs would shift here if China is punished that is erroneous.
"It's not a question of whether China manipulates its currency (it does), or whether it can be punished for doing so (it can). It's the assumption that jobs would shift here if China is punished that is erroneous. "Depends on how we do it. If we target China alone, most of the jobs will simply shift to another low wage country. But if we target a class of goods that China makes and raise the import tariff high enough, they will indeed shift back here.
If we don't raise the tariffs high enough, the jobs won't shift back, but the Chinese profit will be reduced and U.S. Gov't revenues will increase. That alone would be a positive.