China has announced plans to put tariffs of up to 25% on US products worth $60 billion, the latest salvo in an escalating trade war.
The Chinese government said Friday that it would impose duties of 25%, 20%, 10% and 5% on the products if the Trump administration follows through on threats to tax $200 billion of Chinese goods.
Do you know who wins tariff wars? Government. Tariffs are just another outflow of cash from consumers to government. Meanwhile, consumers and our economy suffers.
Even Levin, a screaming naysayer on tariffs (literally!) concedes that PRChina must be whacked across the nose–hard–and by tariffs.
Unless the Koch Brothers have another remedy, I suggest that there may be some pain, but PRChina must be stopped.
Dear Leader hasn’t figured out yet that a trade war doesn’t work when one country (China) is primarily importing raw goods that it can get from other countries, and the other (the U.S.) is primarily importing finished goods that it can’t get from other countries.
He also has a dreadfully dated and myopic view of trade that focuses solely on domestic production of goods, which is awesome for an economy in 1918 but not such a good measure today. A far better measure for today’s economy is aggregate sales, which counts sales of goods and services by American companies that are produced abroad (and conversely, counts economic activity by foreign companies who produce products here). There’s far greater value to the American economy from U.S. companies that manufacture and sell goods abroad (companies like GM and Apple, who actually sell more products abroad than they do here in the U.S.) than there is in Chinese companies receiving giant subsidies to create jobs with modest wages here (rhymes with Schmoxconn).
Ah, yes, the Ricardo Theory of ……losing elegantly. The one that has near-eliminated the middle class of the USA, has stopped capex dead at year 2000 spend, and which never contemplated currency manipulation and gummint direct-capital support. Services are nice, but don’t pay the bills for people who are Deplorable such as miners, welders, fabricators, and assemblers.
Not to worry!! Ricardo tells us that they can be re-trained as CompSci engineers, brain surgeons, and business consultants, so they can sell services to the Chinese.
Let’s be serious. A country which exports all its manufacturing jobs AND imports lots of fresh manufacturing labor is headed for BK. Some Gummint employees don’t give a rip, of course. They’re assured of a comfy perch from which to watch the conflagration with the Koch Brothers……until the tax money runs dry, too.