We all benefit from more free trade, cheap labor, and global competition.
Whereas protecting "jobs" of certain parasites at the expense of everyone else makes our economy worse, not better.
You can bolster domestic businesses with protectionist activities.
We've known that for a long time.
But let's call it what it is.
Protectionism.
Not free market capitalism.
You would be right if all nations were tariff-free but sadly, that is not the case. Trump has said many times that his ultimate goal is for no country to have any tariffs. And that is what free trade is really supposed to mean.
No, it also means unilateral free trade, where the smart country eliminates the trade barriers even if other countries do not. This has happened many times, in degrees, and the more-free-trade countries do just as well or better.
Possibly you could argue that there is a loss of "jobs" without the protectionism, and there's no way to disprove that. But if all you want is artificial "jobs" for the sake of "jobs," regardless of the general standard of living, we can always have more "jobs" by getting rid of the robots and computers, and also by building more bridges to nowhere. China has increased their artificial jobs by building whole cities which no one lives in, just in order to put people to work, at "jobs" that produce little value.
What creates real prosperity is not the artificial "jobs" that protectionism can create, in some cases, but improved competition to force producers to improve their performance. There's no evidence that China's standard of living is higher because of all the artificial "jobs" it creates with its protectionism and makework programs.
But whenever Trump mentions that ALL countries remove tariffs, other leaders are simply not interested. It's the rest of the world that is not yet ready for free trade.
Singapore and Hong Kong are ready for free trade and have a higher standard of living because of it. Some countries are closer to free trade than the U.S.
It's only the uncompetitive crybabies who need protectionism. Producers who are competitive don't need it, and virtually everyone is made better off by the increased competition, even if the total number of "jobs" is slightly lower.
Just because makework and corporate welfare and protectionism might benefit certain select producers does not translate into a net benefit to the whole population, all consumers, who are universally penalized by the trade barriers and have to pay higher cost in order to subsidize the minority of crybabies who need the protection.
Trump is correct and now even conservative talk hosts like Rush Limbaugh agree with him.
There could be some truth to this, but only if countries like China give in and reduce their trade barriers. If they do not, the trade war will be a loss for the U.S., and the Limbaughs know this. They are counting on Trump driving a hard bargain and pressuring China to give in. It's his negotiating power they are counting on. It's a gamble and could backfire.
The US needs tariffs to globally compete in the tariff war we have already been losing for 30 years.
But what are we "losing"? The standard of living is not lower because of this. Having extra "jobs" does not automatically mean a higher living standard. China and other protectionist countries are harming themselves more than the U.S. Unless you assume that a successful economy means providing artificial "jobs" to keep crybabies out of mischief. It's obviously not for a higher standard of living that we need these "jobs" Trump is producing.
And much of the aggressiveness of China is really in their low cost of labor rather than their trade barriers or tariffs. Which means it's more their competitiveness in labor that's driving the trade imbalance. So we're not "losing" much because of the tariffs, but rather because our labor force has too many crybabies who demand to be paid more than they're worth.
So it's not clear that we've been "losing" anything. You can't name what we've been "losing" -- other than artificial "jobs" for uncompetitive crybabies who demand to be paid more than they're worth. But pandering to these crybabies does not make the country better off. Rather it makes most of us worse off -- i.e., ALL consumers are made worse off by the artificially-high labor cost, and it's overall a net loss for the economy. Whereas taking advantage of the cheap foreign labor makes us all better off.
Because ALL cheap labor makes the economy, i.e., consumers, better off. I.e., ALL competition makes us better off, by driving down production cost and prices and increasing production. Whereas artificially high cost (e.g., high labor cost) drives up prices we all have to pay, which reduces our living standard.
The fact this hasn't been done already simply displays how incompetent our politicians have been.
No, there's nothing competent about driving up costs, like labor costs, and thus forcing consumers to pay higher prices. There's nothing competent about ignoring supply & demand and making us all pay higher prices in order to subsidize the incomes of a few crybaby steel-workers and auto-workers etc. at everyone else's expense.
But more on topic, the tariffs being played today are not just temporary support, they are meant to give the US an equal opportunity.
But all that's "equal" is the higher cost of production and assault on consumers to pay for the artificial "jobs" to be created. Who needs that kind of "equality"?
They drive up U.S. labor cost and make the production more expensive by forcing companies to produce in the U.S. even though the production would be more efficient in Asia.
They're intended to produce more artificial "jobs" in the U.S., if that's what you mean by "equal opportunity," but this kind of "equal opportunity" is one which will make U.S. consumers poorer, by driving up costs we have to pay. It really means to punish U.S. consumers more equally to how China punishes its consumers, thus making us worse off, reducing our living standard, as a price to produce more equality.
What good is "equality" if the price for it is a lower standard of living?
IOW, the Trump tariffs are not just a temp sugar high.
Perhaps in a sense, yes, because the goal is to maximize "jobs" for crybabies, as the permanent long-term goal, at the cost of a lower standard of living to pay for it.
Just as China has many artificial "jobs" produced by its assault on their consumers, who have a lower standard of living because of it. But you can call that a long-term result, rather than a short-term high, and desirable because a country has to find artificial "jobs" to put the rabble into, who are really worthless and must be put into these artificial "jobs" in order to keep them out of mischief.
Assuming that's what you mean, then yes, you do have a point.
But not everyone agrees with your ultimate goal of more artificial "jobs" to absorb all the uncompetitive crybabies at the price of a lower standard of living for most of the population.
(Though admittedly many do seem to favor "jobs" for the rabble over the general welfare of all the citizens. Apparently the premise is that unless we provide all these artificial "jobs" at any cost, the rabble will go on a rampage and destroy our cities.)
