[alaxhn]

I'll continue playing devils advocate here.

> To improve rust belt manufacturing, you would target competitors of industries in that area, not the whole global economy.

If you accept as a premise that the goal is to prevent offshoring our manufacturing base THEN you may also want to develop new industry and not just protect industries in that area. Moreover the goal is presumably not restricted to just that area it is an example of a specific region which was hard hit.

> We imposed a 32% tariff on Taiwan. Simultaneously, we are making it more expensive to manufacture here in the states. We have 1/4 China's pop - why would we try to compete on raw output by ourselves, instead of strengthening ties w/ the world?

I don't immediately see how each of these statements relate to each other. I'll just reply to "We have 1/4 China's pop - why would we try to compete on raw output by ourselves" by stating that we may want to compete with China on manufacturing output because of national security implications.

> For many countries, there is nothing to negotiate since we already have free trade agreements with them. We may import a lot of goods, but we export a lot of services, like many developed nations do.

The Tariff calculations have a differential rate for each country so it appears to have taken into account to some degree that we need more negotiation with certain relationships. I won't state that this was necessarily done well...

> With regard to raising revenue, think of the tradeoffs. If demand is elastic (given our trade deficit, it has to be!), this will be a tax on many, many American businesses and consumers. Its just moving the taxes from income tax to a consumption tax. That's a worse deal for poorer/middle-class Americans.

A consumption tax is a worse deal for poorer/middle-class Americans. I agree with you. It may be the case that this functions as a consumption tax on foreign labor which could increase the negotiating power of poorer/middle-class Americans.

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I really do not mean to defend the specific actions of the sudden global Tariffs. I am attempting to explain how I believe some on the right may see things in case people find this interesting. The furthest I will go is to state that I think the fears about a new great depression may be somewhat overblown.

[biophysboy]

You could broaden beyond the rust belt: America is a rich country that manufactures fancy things. A smart trade policy would focus on these things; it would not make policies to be competitive with poor nations. We tariffed places that export commodities or low-value-add products, places that we import ingredients from to make the fancy things.

Taiwan and China are related specifically on semiconductor trade; its the hottest point in our "battle" w/ China. TSMC is really the only company in the world that can make the best chips. Losing their trust is itself a security risk.

On the last point, I agree it would increase labor competitiveness, but I don't think its smart to compete with the whole world. If we wanted to do this, we should set policies to make skilled Americans competitive in the manufacturing industries that already exist here.