Cheap labor, free trade, more competition = best for consumers and higher standard of living.
Despite bellowing blow-hards like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders
The right tariff system
The U.S. (or really any country) should eliminate all the complicated "trade agreements" and just issue a simple one-page free trade manifesto to the world:
Market is open to ALL countries, without exception, on the same identical terms to them all.
Market is open to ALL industries/companies, without exception, on the same identical terms to all.
A very low tariff, equivalent to about 1 - 2%, across-the-board on everything, without any exception or distinction of any product type from another.
A new tariff computation based only on the volume and weight of the cargo. Weigh it on a scale, factor in the volume of the container, derive the exact tax based on that alone, without any inspection to assess the value of the contents.
Off to market!
And abolish anti-dumping laws.
Tell all the uncompetitive crybabies -- companies, workers, unions -- to shove it.
And if Martians land, or ETs from somewhere, non-humans, open the market to them too.
In England a Romanian may earn 1/2 to 2/3 that of an English worker in certain jobs. He/she will stay in shared accommodation. Then he or she will send money back home to buy a very cheap house.
This is called unfair competition where workers from failed economies will (though not intentionally) destroy the wages of the average worker in the UK.
There's nothing "unfair" about it. If it benefits consumers, which it does, then it's good for the economy, even if the uncompetitive worker has more difficulty surviving. The country as a whole is made better off because of the increased benefit to consumers.
Consumers benefit from the increased competition, and that's what counts.
Hong Kong maintained and still maintains a booming economy but not on cheap labour. It has anti competition laws that forbid paying foreign workers less than local rates.
There's no totally pure-free-trade country. But Hong Kong's is near the top of the list and has succeeded because of it.
Hong Kong may now be enacting some labor laws like this, but overall, going back 50 years or more, Hong Kong has benefited from cheap labor as much as any country has. But it's only to be expected, as the living standard increased because of the trade, there would be demands to protect the domestic labor with some crybaby laws to drive up wages.
But Hong Kong's prosperity is largely a product of cheap labor and global competition generally. And laws to artificially prop up wages are not likely to be enforced very well, and it's impossible to monitor all the wages companies pay overseas. So they can pass laws and preach "fair trade" and other slogans, but the reality will generally be more wage competition and continued cheap labor, despite some laws like this and some workers being protected. Others will not be, despite such laws.
The companies can pay more if they like. This is how I earned a lot of money in Hong Kong.
You're probably one of the lucky ones for whom the law worked as intended. You probably benefited from the generations of cheap labor which helped to build the Hong Kong economy to its present prosperity. But protecting workers against wage competition will have an overall negative effect, forcing up costs and prices consumers have to pay.
But if you're lucky enough to be in the right place, you might experience a net gain from it. While most of the population overall is made worse off.
Would you like to sub your job to Bangladesh even if the person is not as experienced as you.
I wish I had a plush high-paying job that could be subbed. I don't feel sorry for high-paid workers who have guaranteed high wages because of laws protecting them against competition, and they want to increase this protection at everyone else's expense. It makes most people worse off. More competition is what makes us better off.
You are advertising the false concept of addressing costs alone with no concept of the value of work carried out.
That's up to the employers and consumers to decide. No outsider needs to dictate to employers and consumers what the quality or value should be. Sometimes it's better to get a lower price and lower quality. It's up to the buyers to make that decision.
If tariffs are needed keep them.
Their only value is to serve as one source of revenue for the treasury. So an accross-the-board low tariff on ALL imports, same to ALL companies and ALL countries, is best.
I worked for Chinese companies from from 1993 to 2010. The government will also subsidize the prices of its goods that go to Western countries. This is what unfair competition is really is.
But it's only unfair to the taxpayers (and consumers?) of that country where the goods (exports) are subsidized.
It's more than fair to the Western countries who gain the benefits of that subsidy, to the Western consumers. You're right that those countries should stop doing this harm to their own citizens, by forcing them to pay higher taxes and prices in order to prop up wages and subsidize uncompetitive jobs and companies.