[arvigeus]

The general idea is to restore that order, and decouple from China. The problem is such things will require serious leadership, not mafia style extortion.

[smt88]

There is no universe where any set of policies will restore manufacturing to the US that can compete with China

[impossiblefork]

I think there is, but it would screw over large capital owners and would be practically impossible in the US political system. The policies I believe could too it are also too radical to realistically be implemented in Europe.

We know that massive investment in early education with tutoring etc. could easily give the average US child the equivalent of today's top 2% level academic performance. This would be expensive, but essentially unproblematic it will never happen. Similarly, university education could be made publicly funded, and also cheaper. Here in Sweden it's cheaper per head than highschool education.

We know that physician labour in the US cost more than it should due to a shortage due to too few residencies. It could be solved tomorrow, and all US medical system problems could be solved over 15-20 years.

You could ensure that there's investment capital and no inflation, sidestepping the simultaneous inflation and need for investment caused by supply shocks due to war and technology change, by making everybody save a certain inflation-dependent fraction of their income from wages.

When a company is doing weird legal stuff to prevent their competitor from opening a warehouse in a certain, crush them-- impose criminal penalties, throw the planners and everyone who knew about the idea in jail.

15 years of this and you'd be in another world, one in which China might not be such a competitor after all. The only reason you aren't moving towards this world is because 'you' in the sense of the donors and the political leadership don't want to do it. There's even people who don't want publicly funded school lunches. With this attitude one makes oneself irrelevant.

[boppo1]

Sure there is, it's just a real monkey's paw.

[scrubs]

Not proven - america can engage in selected manufacturing esp if profit isn't the main tool of measurement.

Also keep in mind then ... China can't be cheap labor forever either ... either it will regress or we're all be buying from Africa which is the last place there's lower cost labor at scale.

In other words it's a double edge sword for China.

[theamk]

This would be easier to believe if tariffs were actually helping American manufactures. As of now, the tariffs on raw materials and high uncertainty means life is getting significantly worse for them. Those actions are drastic, yes, but they are harming the wrong side (American one).

[lantry]

It's too bad this administration is taking it's stand very incompetently, by ostracizing all our allies and smashing our govt capacity

[seanmcdirmid]

If Trump was really going to focus on China in a constructive manner, he wouldn’t have gone off and pissed off all of our allies first. Our allies now are just as likely now to form trade agreements with China as they are with the USA, since we now appear just as bad to them as China (even worse, we don’t have much to offer compared to China). As it stands now, China couldn’t have asked for a better situation of American just deciding to go off on everyone at once.

Even Canada is now looking seriously at making a trade agreement with China than with the USA, which was unthinkable just 3 months ago.

[mindslight]

"taking a stand" - is this what the narrative is going to shift to when the decades-out-of-date approach of this mentally ill false idol blows up into widespread shortages and high inflation (again) ? "Our country is in ruins, but at least we took a stand"