Instead of kvetching about problems, here’s a solution to our shrinking manufacturing sector RE; China:
Identify major manufacturing sectors we want to retain employment in.
Tell the world if they want to sell goods here from those sectors, 50% of them must be made in America. Same thing we do with foreign cars. Foreign capital/American workers.
Because we don’t export many manufactured goods, it will be hard for foreign countries to retaliate against us the same way, except…
Protect your ears from screaming American farmers when those foreign countries retaliate by not buying American farm exports.
Decide what degree of manufacturing sector increase offsets decreases in farm exports.
Come to grips with the senators from the farm states, when they torpedo this plan.
We might be talking about a different politician. Fighting back at China in their long trade war against us wasn’t his “talking point” it was his mantra, his platform. He had a whole slew of teams working on it & it was on the front pages for nearly 2 years. The guy wouldnt shut up about it. It infuriated the Chinese government, our media & DC establishment. Saying, “So what, all presidents talked tough about trade with China on the campaign trail” & comparing them to this guy would be the epiphany of disingenuous. But it was all for naught, that train left the station. If the US couldn’t get traction for better trade & manufacturing when we had a leader screaming it from the top of his lungs & begging for it from the bottom of his cold shallow heart then it never will. @freighterman1 can count out all the points he wants for better trade with China but no one cares, I seen it with my own eyes. Better trade with China & US manufacturing wasn’t on the front burner with the nut I’m talking about, it was on all 4 burners set to high & those who wanted to fight were ridiculed over it. Try to rewrite history all you want but the game is over. We lost. Only fools & hypocrites will advocate for better trade with China now.
If this was winning the trade war, I can see why people got sick of it. P45 famously tweeted, “trade wars are good, and easy to win”. He was obviously wrong about the last part. Claiming an easy victory before you’ve begun the fight is a rookie mistake for generals. Time for another strategy.
Okie Dokie then, good thing we have a new guy with a new set of ideas whose going to deal with China so much differently than before. He had it all pinned up for that last 50 years he was in DC & didn’t mentioned anything about better trade & bringing back US manufacturing before but its showtime now! Now if we can only get him to stop talking about it. He’s going to wear it out if he keeps talking about it like he has been.
The “Trade War” with China was lost long before 45 even thought about running for POTUS. Those who believed that believed Trump actually was a fighter for American manufacturing and could “easily” win a trade war on any level with any country, might have wanted to check out all the Chinese made Trump products before they considered 45 as a “Made in America”-MAGA guy,
In many ways we began loosing the trade war before it began, when Nixon’s visited China. All administrations since that time remained short sighted. China took that olive branch and unleashed it’s inherent-imposed ambition. All the while the west began it’s love affair with cheap consumer goods. Matson is one of the biggest and the oldest shipping company in America. What is the thrust of it’s present success? Importing high end clothing from China. It’s new liners are funded by America’s lust for high end clothing. US manufacturing on the level of the 50’s, 60s, & 70’s is never coming back. Niche manufacturing markets will come and go, ironically seeded by China in the USA, but we can not compete on any level with China. The reality is that no labor market of any country should endure the rigors, demands, working living & conditions of Chinese & Asian labor, but we accepted and supported it for ages and there is no possibility of competing and prevailing against it.
Five posts above, I outlined a plan developed by smarter persons than me. Feel free to pick it apart point by point. Where are the flaws?
There’s a 7th point I didn’t add to the six, provided the farming states are swayed to go with the strategy:
7. Wait things out for one to two generations, until the combination of China’s demographic time-bomb and rising wages steer manufacturing elsewhere in Asia.
This is the hardest part. Americans are not known for patience.
Having murdered about 80 million of its own citizens in that period, perhaps they kept the murders for their special anniversary down to a mere dribble.
So the modern CCP can murder far more efficiently now with all that development and keep it hidden from its useful idiots in the west. The CCP is now coming for you.