Interesting perspective, I'm not 100% for tariffs but China in particular has been flooding the west with cheap substandard goods for years, often produced by what can only be referred to as slave labour. They have been taking advantage of the employment law in the west which requires organisations to take care of their employees. This is not fair trade, it's exploitation. I can therefore understand why people would support tariffs, but a better approach would be to improve quality of products and employment standards in China and other eastern countries.
I have to laugh at the hypocrisy of the Chinese sometimes when they decide to reject the import of landfill into China. I can only imagine that the majority of that landfill contains prematurely broken and irreparable products that originated from China. It's an environmental disaster no matter where the landfill ends up. We need to return to a world where disposability is frowned upon but the Chinese economy has been build on cheap disposable products. The tariffs are perhaps a wake up call for them.
Another way to solve this problem is for the american companies to market themselves as higher quality, non "slave-labor" produced goods and let the consumers decide if they want to support "slavery" or not.
I would agree with you on trade that a trade war would be really stupid as USA would ultimately lose.
But I don't think Trump's threats of tariffs is just about trade but rather politics.
Richard Wolff over at Democracy at work in a rather long video suggests that this tariff threat is politics as usual.
Trump is pitting the steel and aluminium corporations against the corporations that buy & use steel and aluminum to see which industries will give him the most campaign contributions. Trump is basically extorting industry for votes.
My guess is this move is more about national security than anything. Trump probably realizes that if we were ever to go to war against China we would need to massively improve our steel and aluminum production so we can provide our own for military vehicles, aircraft and ships. This might be an effective way to make sure that we, as a country, are self-sufficient in case of a war.
Don't misunderstand, I don't agree with the decision, I am just analyzing it. I am for complete free trade and no wars! :)
Interesting perspective, I'm not 100% for tariffs but China in particular has been flooding the west with cheap substandard goods for years, often produced by what can only be referred to as slave labour. They have been taking advantage of the employment law in the west which requires organisations to take care of their employees. This is not fair trade, it's exploitation. I can therefore understand why people would support tariffs, but a better approach would be to improve quality of products and employment standards in China and other eastern countries.
I have to laugh at the hypocrisy of the Chinese sometimes when they decide to reject the import of landfill into China. I can only imagine that the majority of that landfill contains prematurely broken and irreparable products that originated from China. It's an environmental disaster no matter where the landfill ends up. We need to return to a world where disposability is frowned upon but the Chinese economy has been build on cheap disposable products. The tariffs are perhaps a wake up call for them.
Another way to solve this problem is for the american companies to market themselves as higher quality, non "slave-labor" produced goods and let the consumers decide if they want to support "slavery" or not.
I would agree with you on trade that a trade war would be really stupid as USA would ultimately lose.
But I don't think Trump's threats of tariffs is just about trade but rather politics.
Richard Wolff over at Democracy at work in a rather long video suggests that this tariff threat is politics as usual.
Trump is pitting the steel and aluminium corporations against the corporations that buy & use steel and aluminum to see which industries will give him the most campaign contributions. Trump is basically extorting industry for votes.
My guess is this move is more about national security than anything. Trump probably realizes that if we were ever to go to war against China we would need to massively improve our steel and aluminum production so we can provide our own for military vehicles, aircraft and ships. This might be an effective way to make sure that we, as a country, are self-sufficient in case of a war.
Don't misunderstand, I don't agree with the decision, I am just analyzing it. I am for complete free trade and no wars! :)