Call me simple-minded, but isn't that what we've been doing for decades... being the world's "trade bitch"... running a big trade deficit with EVERYBODY? Trump says, "Let's put an end to this unfairness and strive for more balance"... and the world cries like a little girl that their advantage might be taken away. Sheesh!
I hear these shills for china, Europe etc moaning about how dumb Trump is and how every economist supports free trade. And they always have some condescending analogy about running a trade deficit with their barber and how it doesn't matter. If it is so stupid, why do the Chinese, Koreans, the rest of asia, Europe et al all run trade policies that are designed to benefit their homegrown industries and screw foreigners? Do they not have any competent economists who can show them the error of their ways? Or could it possibly be that we have been sold down the free trade river to benefit big business and the big thinkers in the foreign policy establishment who rationalized trading other people's jobs for nebulous foreign policy goals? Some of those foreign policy goals no doubt were worth giving a bit on trade. At the time. No longer. Europe is turning itself into a muslim caliphate and the Asians are doing just fine, thank you very much. Time to look after ourselves.
America is the second largest exporter in the world after China. Many of those products are industrial goods that can be manufactured by other countries (like airplanes). America is the largest importer in the world. America imports goods so that the middle class can have the highest standard of living in the world (ie buy good cheaply relative to their high (by global standards) incomes). Who will lose when America decides to fight the world on global trade?
Actually the results of who "wins" and who "loses" in a trade war is very complex. It is not a simple question -- nor is there a simple answer.
Yeah, but if you're on the "take it" end of ~$1T/year, it's pretty obvious who the big loser is regardless of how the nickels and dimes are shuffled.
There is a loser alright, welcome to your ocean. Past time for everyone to stop buying too much crap.
My concern with a potential trade war is that it will be like a “tide going out and dropping all boats”. A change in the current trade status quo will likely cause an populist backlash in the affected countries. This will in turn reduce foreign demand for U.S. products, regardless if that country’s government retaliates or not. Although my perception is we have been getting the short end of the stick in trade deals in other administrations, we are playing a dangerous game geopolitically as our trading partners may look for new relationships in their effort to make up for the loss of U.S. business. In addition, some of these countries over time may become less tolerant to U.S. military presence as their relationship grows with their new trading partners. Our trading competitors are well aware of this and may offer very good terms to help establish a new trade relationship. I would have rather seen trade reforms focus on things like effective enforcement of U.S. intellectual property rights and appropiate, enforceable fines on other illegal trade practices. It is more important for us to have a market for our value-added products than being competitive on bulk resources or basic manufactured items. There is less competition in the many of the value-added products and services we provide and these exports enjoy higher margins which allow higher wages to be paid to the American worker. My hope is our trading partners realize the great ride they had and except these changes knowing they are still getting a great deal.