He’s right about that and about the multilateral trade deals that are really post-national superstructures.
But tariffs are a bad idea. Among other things, protectionism in the past gave us fatty, uncompetitive industries like our auto and steel industries in the ‘70s.
Bilateral, fair, free trade deals are the way to go.
America had tariffs as its main source of funding the government for it's first 120 years and that's how it became the worlds power.
there was no income tax nor the many taxes we have now. The media wants the USA destroyed.
Then they came up with the income tax to replace tariffs and now we have China making everything .
> “But tariffs are a bad idea. Among other things, protectionism in the past gave us fatty, uncompetitive industries like our auto and steel industries in the ‘70s.”
That was the 1970s when America had led in the previous three decades the post-WWII reconstruction and recovery throughout the world. American companies controlled world markets and American labor got used to it.
What you’re missing is that the pendulum not only swings but changes its angle of swing.
Since Reagan, who did the right thing to bust up protectionist rackets, the pendulum has swung so far away from American workers that it natural and unsurprising that it is now swinging back as it must.
But the difference is that now the world is not recovering from the devastation of a world war, so there is no prosepct that Amerifan companies will rule the globe as they did in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to inefficient noncompetitive labor and management. That situation is not going to happen as severely this time around.
Understand that balance is needed and that is why Donald Trump is President.
I’ve heard this complaint about tariffs and Trump at least a hundred times and of course I agree with it on it’s face. But, Trump and his army of NEW and brilliant minds are not idiots. They know a 20% “tariff” means the the pickup truck costs 20% more ergo it comes out of the American truck buyers pocket.
The whole ARGUMENT it seems to me is redundant. Why? Because a 20% Tariff will never happen. Ipso facto the pickup with the 20% tariff cannot be sold in America because no one will buy it.
So, “tariffs” are just the stick. Trump will end up having his cake and eat it too on this “tariff” issue as there are a thousand ways to keep American vehicles being built in America. Unfortunately for Mexico, the party is over. Factory’s and jobs staying in America will not be pain free for Mexico no matter what.
Bull crap. High tariffs ended in 1913 just after the start of the auto age. The globalists killed all of them after WWII. The globalist Free Traitors™ gave us the “gift” of the income tax as a replacement.
I lived in Germany for a long time and I know they put a 10% customs charge and add VAT (currently 19% ) on all our products sold there. I know that is not technically a tariff but it seems to me that it serves the same purpose by making our products much more expensive there. Other countries do the same. I think we should return the favor to make it fair. Putting 29% on all German products until they drop their charges on our stuff would be cool with me, as would charging other countries whatever fees they add to our products. I think onerous and costly EPA and NHTSA mandates had as much to do with almost killing our auto industry in the 1970s as any tariffs we may have had.
“Among other things, protectionism in the past gave us fatty, uncompetitive industries like our auto and steel industries in the ‘70s.”
I know that’s the popular narrative, but it’s far from the whole story.
The nation of Japan—not the Japanese steel industry, not the Japanese automobile industry, but the entire nation of Japan—targeted our industries for destruction.
This was not “free and fair competition,” but an illegal, hostile attack on our economy. Their primary tactic, called “dumping,” is a violation of international law and any number of trade agreements.
While under attack from what the Chinese called “the brown dwarves,” our industries were also beset by the left: taxes, regulations, ridiculous union demands, et cetera, et cetera, formed the anvil against which Japanese dumping hammered them.
They hurt us much more with their “expanding market share” onslaught than they did at Pearl Harbor.
An extra-large dose of protectionism, which was entirely absent from our policies in the 1970s (Don’t know where you got that notion. Leftist college professor?) might just have saved our steel and auto industries.
>>He’s right about that and about the multilateral trade deals that are really post-national superstructures.<<
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You are absolutely right about this.
So why rule out tariffs? If we are going to have a “Best” deal for someone we like, such as the U.K., then that implies a “Worse” deal for those we don’t like, who refuse to fully open their markets to America, who manipulate their currencies, who oppose us in foreign affairs, or terrorism, or whatever.
We need to have available a weapon (for negotiations) that we can AIM, and FIRE IF NECESSARY.