We all pay the price for protectionism

So you are a socialist for free trade?

My tariff examples were surrounding protecting strategically important industries. I made no comment on using tariffs to punish unfriendly nations, which as you indicate has mixed results and limited utility.

 

A good bit of analysis in that post.

As I age, I care less about the "Free Trade" vs "Protectionism" divide/debate. Similar to my foreign relations/diplomacy ideas, I prefer analysis and decisions on a case by case basis. Does that subject me to the charge of "inconsistency"? Sure, but I don't value consistency as much as I do positive results economically/strategically.

 

Yeah me too. Such issues affect things one way or other but IMO with advantages and disadvantages both ways.

The other thing is when you completely ignore populist concerns you tend to get political blowback.

 

I was expecting a deez nuts joke.

 

I'm not a free trader, I'd like to end capitalism altogether. But in the ideal world we would still have to exchange goods 'freely' because no one can make everything for themselves. But given the options within capitalist societies, a world in which borders are relatively open and trade is prefered to economic warfare and militarism seems preferable to me.

 

seems to me free trade and socialism are in conflict with each other. A socialist society would not want competitively priced goods from capitalistic country that put home workers out of work

 

if china or ??? builds something with no pollution or labor protections and/or state subsidies, should we allow our essential industries to be put out of business so we are dependent on others that may use that dependency as leverage?

doesn't our economy benefit from having industry here?

 

trade yes, uncontrolled trade no.

you didn't answer the question, would you allow uncontrolled trade to decimate essential industries? if not, how would you control it?

 

so tariffs on a case by case are good. we can agree on that. I could be wrong but it seems that every country controls their currency and subsidizes industries that they want to see advance. do we do too much, likely yes. Sugar comes to mind as it is a major pollution problem for our country. No reason to subsidize it o rprotect it along with many other items you mentioned above.

 

Protectionism works for China... and I would call it American job protectionism if I were being honest about it.

This whole thread seems odd since we have Biden still in the WH... and it's almost preemptive and foreshadowing an event coming soon. I wonder what that could be?

 

chemicals, steel, autos, nuts/bolts, ball bearings all seem like essential industries

note that Russia has major problems now due to shortages of quality ball bearings. had to ground a whole fleet of bombers due to bad bearings in their landing gear. we currently have problems building next gen nuclear reactors beacause we agave away all of our production to russia.

 

don't think I said China would be the only source...you seem to be awfully defensive when you start reading things that aren't there and throwing out all caps.

how would you ensure that we have a viable source from a friendly country in the event that the source form an unfriendly country is impeded?

 

How many industries do the Chinese have to end here in America before you see their tactics? How many jobs do we lose for you to see that maybe the Chinese are dumping on us? Besides that, no one is forcing you to buy Chinese made goods. I took a flag back to Home Depot because it was made in China, and I gladly paid slightly more for one made in The U.S.A.