Backwards, Nationalist, Progressive Neomercantilism

@anders216 said:

You are seeing this from the consumer point of view they’re talking about the gross domestic product having a deficit means we are importing more goods and we are exporting meanwhile we make more money if the goods are made in the United States cuz we have the initial production distribution transportation

Transportation of finished goods transportation of the raw Goods meanwhile that’s all money earned by American workers and then spent in the United States putting roofs over children’s heads and food on their tables. I’m sure your career does not produce anything you provide a service but we cannot be a leader in the world with a service oriented economy we have to be a production economy and Export are labor overseas and get paid

This is a common misconception of what a “trade deficit” actually is and how trade actually works. Spoiler alert: trade deficits are really quite meaningless.

Everything should boil down from a consumer point of view, because ultimately that’s what determines a healthy domestic economy. GDP, after all, includes all domestic consumption. Consumption, investment, and production comes from an incredibly complex series of transactions at home and around the world.

And if you understand that we pay for all our imports with our exports in trade, in one way or another, then you will see that as long as domestic production in the economy is going well it really does not matter what the trade deficit is. We are going to benefit either way. When we pay for cheap imports, our dollars must be used domestically at some point. Foreign governments are not going to just sit on US dollars. They are going to spend them on our exports, or invest in our market in a number of different ways. So trade ultimately benefits our country. Meanwhile, while tariffs may generate some revenue to the general government, they ultimately harm not only foreign importers but also domestic consumers. It’s a lose/lose. Sure, you may protect a few domestic production jobs, but at the cost everyone else.

A national economy cannot be successful if the country is an autarky – an economically independent, “self-sufficient”, closed economy. Hell, most individuals could not survive very well all on their own, think about it – and that’s coming from someone who enjoys bouts in the wilderness on my own. There are so many things people in the modern world take for granted today that is provided by readily available affordable goods and services produced in places you probably have never heard of before.

Our global trade system is so robust and diverse in both natural and labor resources that it would be quite foolish to try to close it off in order to “bring manufacturing jobs back to America.” Most of these jobs have dried up domestically because we have moved on to much better things, while poorer nations are producing these things because they are trying to catch up to us. Just imagine if our independent states decided to become autonomous in trade. They would not last long at all today. The states need each other. And the same can be said by the global economy.

Do yourself a favor and watch this short video explaining how even the most mundane of products are manufactured from commodities provided by an intricate network of producers from around the world in order to deliver cheap, convenient goods to your local market which benefit your life, even in the most insignificant of ways.

Why some conservatives have adopted this awful, backwards, nationalist, progressive, neomercantilist belief system is very odd to me. Trade protectionism does not “put America first,” it puts only a handful of special interest industries first. Even the most tribal of nativists should realize it ultimately is not in their best interest.