[sharken]

The madness is the total reliance on cheap Chinese products, with very few or zero US alternatives. But building knowhow and sourcing rare metals will be a very tough challenge.

It seems that China has the upper hand for now, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[breakyerself]

China has the upper hand and the US is being run by morons. With the US cutting itself off from the largest supplier of electronics while simultaneously destroying the basic research infrastructure that keeps America on the bleeding edge you can expect a brain drain towards Europe and Asia. The damage from this administration will last generations.

[x0x0]

We are being run by abject morons who will never be able to understand simple truths, one of which is China is in a far stronger position: their factories are missing dollars. We are missing goods. One of those is easy for a central bank / government to replace.

Watching these people discover where the world's rare earths come from is equally amazing and terrifying.

[Workaccount2]

But think of the coal mining jobs...

In all seriousness though, China is also not some young slick economic powerhouse. It's largely propped up facade with serious structural issues that the US doesn't have.

Also keep in mind that while countries are annoyed with the US, that doesn't mean they are going to welcome Chinese ships into their waters.

[littlecorner]

The brain drain started decades ago. We've been importing people for STEM jobs and exporting manufacturing for a while, leaving behind large numbers of people with no hope for a better future. Now the rest of the country faces that prospect as well

[20after4]

I think it's worse than generations. It will likely never recover. What's happening resembles when private equity takes over a company and runs it into the ground intentionally.

[melenaboija]

Not sure why people keep insisting that goods from China are “cheap,” which always seems to carry a negative connotation when in reality, “cheap” is exactly what we seem to want as consumers in wealthier western countries.

And in many cases, these products are neither cheap nor expensive, they’re simply the only option, because no one else in the world manufactures them. So, what exactly are we comparing them to? And if the assumption is that producing the same goods in Europe or the US would be more expensive then that’s likely true but only because we still expect to earn a living wage, even in factory jobs

[WarOnPrivacy]

> these products are neither cheap nor expensive, they’re simply the only option, because no one else in the world manufactures them.

This is exactly it. And even if an item can be US-supplied, it's components are only available from China.

Tariffs are how we get it to stop being built in the US.

[Johnny555]

The USA could bring manufacturing back, but not with tariffs.

They can't tell businesses "Look, we've dramatically increased your cost of doing business, made your products more expensive (which will likely lead to lower sales) and we're forcing you to spend extra capital by paying tariffs on your products... Now all you need to do is come up with billions of dollars to build the factories that build your product and eat the high costs for the 5 - 10 years it will take to build the factories. We don't care if you're a small business that only sells $1M of product a year, if you want to reduce your costs, you need to build the factories."

Of course, the question is whether Americans really want those factory jobs -- do parents aspire to have their children work in a factory assembling iPhones? There's only so many Robot Technician jobs to go around (despite the promise of unlimited high paid technician jobs, for the forseable future there will be plenty of menial factory jobs)

[smeg_it]

I don't know what jobs will be left. As our benefits have dried up. e.g. retirement, healthcare, job stability. Every article I've read basically said workers are going to need to be very adaptable. Forget about the lives your parents, and or grandparents had. That is gone. AI is only going to make things worse. I'm not anti-immigrant but H1-B has made the U.S. dependent on Indian labor, as it has done exactly what it was never supposed to do i.e. replace american workers with cheaper foreign labor, this is largely due to Indian Contract companies that are rife with fraud (both conservative and liberal administrations have found that). So, IT has lead the way to professional gig work i.e. contracts with either no benefits, are very high cost ones. Without protection, there just will not be stable jobs in this country. Forget retirement, most of us probably can't afford basic health care. Don't even think about dental care. In my mind, we are entering a new feudal age. No it won't be land based, but it's the same thing. Land was just the leverage for power, now it might just be net-worth and/or position. In general, American's are becoming poorer. I see us looking more like other nations with a largely poor populous. I'm guessing the rich already see most of us, like the nobles of old as peasants, with the same or similar justifications for bigotry. Divine right, or the rest are just dumb, and uneducated and only fit for manual labor, until we die (early).

P.S. I love sherlock holmes, and from that have some fascination of Victorian England, I just never thought we would go back to it. It was great if you were a noble and/or rich, but most of the populous wasn't either and suffered. All from my understanding, so historians or just more historically knowledgeable people can correct me.

[datavirtue]

This has very little to do with "bringing mfg back."

[haswell]

I think the total reliance is a legitimate concern that needs to be addressed.

I still think this approach to addressing that issue is complete madness.

Not only is there no coherent plan for how that reliance will be reduced, but we’ve now crippled ourselves in the meantime.

[jacobyoder]

> I think the total reliance is a legitimate concern that needs to be addressed.

> I still think this approach to addressing that issue is complete madness.

You're assuming the 'total reliance' argument and corresponding actions are being done in good faith. The original 'emergency' declarations justifying large initial tariffs in February were because of a 'fentanyl crisis'. Which then morphed in to 'well, we should be manufacturing here for defense purposes' and assorted other arguments along the way ("we're getting ripped off!", etc).

There's a danger in being cynical about this, but also danger in taking everything at face value. There's been no coherent communicated policy with justifications and expected outcomes or timelines ever put forward the same way twice from this administration.

[justin66]

Yeah. One thing among many that some in the US don't seem to get: only one side in this war needs to completely rearrange their economy in order to survive, and it's us.

[nickff]

I have no idea what the administration’s plan or thoughts might be, but I suspect that one part of it is that they’ve seen how many governments (including their own, as well as allies like the EU) delay and defer as negotiation strategies. The EU even used delays and uncertainty against its very closest ally (the UK) in trade negotiations. As a result, sudden and ‘violent’ shifts are the only way to get things done in the current environment.

[evantbyrne]

The only way for China to lose influence in this fight is by playing ball. They can simply continue to trade with the rest of the world and be totally fine when it is US consumers paying the bill.

[bilbo0s]

This is what I don't quite get? What is the impetus for their government to want to play ball with us?

The incentive for their companies is that they can access US markets. But their government is a bit different. That government has clearly been serious about 2 things for the past couple of decades, one is developing an internal market. (Which, prior to our imposition of tariffs, they were failing miserably at). The other is their pivot to the global south. (Which, prior to our imposition of tariffs, they were wildly successful at).

Now that we started a trade war, they will be more successful at both. Especially the pivot to the global south. I guess I just can't see why the government of China feels more urgency to talk with us, than it feels to accelerate their pivot to, and development of, markets in the global south for instance? Why is talking to us the better choice for their government strategically speaking?

I mean, if I were sitting in their shoes, I'd just be like, "Man, this is be the perfect illustration of why it was so important to pivot to the global south in the first place."

[dtech]

That's a valid argument, but a 125% tariff with basically zero notice - on manufacturing and shipping timelines - is not the solution.

[FpUser]

>"... is not the solution"

The source thinks the opposite. You can complain directly. I don't think it gives a flying fuck

[LPisGood]

Global trade is goodness, not madness.

[jl6]

There is surely a balance to be struck to get some of the benefits of global trade, without creating a dependency that can be exploited to create leverage against you.

[monero-xmr]

If your trading partner is an authoritarian dictatorship that has publicly stated they are in a thousands-year struggle for global supremacy, then maybe we should shift some key imports away from them

[jermaustin1]

I get what you are saying, but the U.S. BUYS goods, because we are "too rich" to make them. We SELL services, because other countries are "too poor" to offer them.

When this administration focuses solely on one side of that (Goods vs Services), they miss the forest for the trees. I'm not saying we shouldn't bring back manufacturing, because we should, but we can't pretend that we get the short end of the stick in this trade partnership.

China makes the cheap shit that isn't economical here, and the only way to make it economical here is to pay a tax on the cheap shit we want if it isn't made here, but the crazy thing is we could do a 400% tariff on Chinese imports, and it is still too expensive to buy American for most goods. Not even getting to the point that we don't have the infrastructure here because that also costs money, which would rise the price for American goods even higher.

Does Bill Gates mow his own lawn? No!

Does Donald Trump grill his own Big Mac? No!

Because when you hit a certain "wealth bracket" you stop doing things that are below that and hire them out. We hired China because we were too rich.

[more_corn]

Wait, so is the solution to make ourselves poor?

[RiverCrochet]

Something my half-brother said ...

"Cheap foreign products are a necessity when so-called American companies don't love Americans enough to pay them what they're worth. It's the whole reason things went overseas in the first place. It's gonna be nice if we can finally get American companies to actually support America and pay citizens what they're worth."

The above sounds nice, but it's oversimplified, like a lot of political rhetoric recently. Now, if this does end up making real living wages for the American worker a commonplace thing, that's awesome, but I'm pessimistic given the history of things, how money can influence politics, and how corporate lawyers can find loopholes.

[onesociety2022]

I'm not sure if it would pan out like how your half-brother wants it to be. Let's assume the manufacturing jobs return here and you are getting paid American wages. But if you try to turn around and spend it on anything, it will just be more expensive because everything else you want to buy is also being made in US factories and those workers are also getting pay similar to yours? You might have a manufacturing job finally but now you are paying $350 for a Nike shoe that used to be $150 when it was made in China. You want to buy a new TV? It costs more now. You want to upgrade your old iPhone? It costs more now.

So will the American manufacturing wages actually translate to living wages or will you just be getting paid more on paper but you still feel poor because the things you want to buy are all more expensive now?

[iancmceachern]

Wait till this person finds out he can't have his mandarin orange segments in his nightly Jello salad anymore and then I expect they'll have a different opinion.

[betterThanTexas]

What would an american upper hand look like?

[seanw444]

I agree, and I am in favor of protectionist tariffs. But it does seem to be poor strategy to rush into high tariffs without the pieces put in the place for American industry to grow and benefit. That said, I don't believe Trump is that stupid (despite the trendy opinion to the contrary), and I think he knows this is doomed to fail if the goal is immediate American industry bloom. Which is why I don't believe these are intended to be long term. Based on how the other tariffs have gone, it seems to be more of a negotiation tactic to reduce tariffs on both sides, not protectionism. China has just put up more of a resistance to it than other nations have, so now it's turned into a game of chicken.

[alabastervlog]

> That said, I don't believe Trump is that stupid

Do you think he's acting when he does things like keep preventing an interviewer from moving on because he wants to make extra sure everyone knows he entirely believes that obviously-photoshopped, not-trying-to-look-like-anything-but-an-overlay letters and numbers on a picture of someone's hand were in fact real tattoos?