One of the defining issues of this election must be the candidates views on trade. Trade is the oxygen of wealth creation. Whereas Hillary is for moderate reforms of trading agreements, Trump is talking up an all out confrontation with China. This would be sheer lunacy and self defeating. It is estimated that if the US put tarifs and controls on Chinese exports and imports, the retaliatory measures by China will cost the USA 5 million jobs and a huge economic slowdown.
Screw China and all those who do business with them. Tax the shit out of everything coming in. Tax companies like CAT out of business. Bring the jobs back on shore, or create new companies to fill the need. And before someone says that the chinks might call in all the debt let me say we should write a note with a big FUCK YOU on it. Grow a pair bitches.
That is just the usual redneck cry baby nonsense that Trump is depending on. America didn't grow rich hiding behind walls, refusing trading opportunities etc. Oh no, just the opposite. Go and hide in some self inflicted back water if you like, behind a stupid wall. It didn't work for The Soviets and it won't for the USA. Learn from their mistakes if you have more than a few braincells , why not. The rest of the world will gladly take the contracts you lose.
Restricting trade has NEVER, EVER been of benefit to any country. And sorry to tell you, but your former job paying $12.50 an hour putting together cheap widgets for WalMart ain't coming back to the U.S., no matter who is in the White House.
Nonsense. It has worked brilliantly for Japan and China. It made tiny little England a wealthy powerful country. If the jobs being offshored were university professors, DC lawyers and lobbyists and CEO's, you would be getting a different story about the glories of free trade.
Hiding behind tariff and other walls has been tried many times but without much success. The name of the game is to compete not get nasty. Here in the UK Arm Holdings was recently sold off to asset strippers. Now this is where your nationalist argument actually does hold water imho. A leading edge computer chip maker with many patents etc. does deserve political protection from the financial hyenas, with their 30 pieces of silver. I would suggest if the Board has sold them out to foreign competition the workers should have the right to refuse to be sold off like so many cattle and use strike action to protect a national asset. These state of the art companies do provide top quality careers to youngsters setting out in life.
Here is some data on US import/export activity: Exports Machines, engines, pumps: US$205.8 billion (13.7% of total exports) Electronic equipment: $169.8 billion (11.3%) Aircraft, spacecraft: $131.1 billion (8.7%) Vehicles: $127.1 billion (8.4%) Oil: $106.1 billion (7.1%) Medical, technical equipment: $83.4 billion (5.5%) Plastics: $60.3 billion (4%) Gems, precious metals, coins: $58.7 billion (3.9%) Pharmaceuticals: $47.3 billion (3.1%) Organic chemicals: $38.8 billion (2.6%) Imports: Electronic equipment: US$332.9 billion (14.4% of total US imports) Machines, engines, pumps: $329.3 billion (14.3%) Vehicles: $283.8 billion (12.3%) Oil: $201.2 billion (8.7%) Pharmaceuticals: $86.1 billion (3.7%) Medical, technical equipment: $78.3 billion (3.4%) Furniture, lighting, signs: $61.2 billion (2.6%) Gems, precious metals: $60.2 billion (2.6%) Organic chemicals: $52.1 billion (2.3%) Plastics: $50.2 billion (2.2%) In 2015 the net trade deficit for the US was 531 billion dollars. i.e. on a net basis we imported 531 billion more in goods and services than we exported. What would a trade war look like? Overall we would need to offset $532 billion mostly by increased cost of goods to US consumers. Then we wouldn't be at the mercy of US creditors like China. 1. tax things we import . This means that for the consumer, things we are not good at producing would cost more. e.g. electronics... we import 333 billion in electronics but export only 170 billion. thus in electronics we have a trade deficit of 163 billion. If we tax imports in electronics, electronics will cost consumers more, causing them to buy less and pushing the US towards a more even balance of trade in electronics. 2. Other countries will be forced to try to reset the balance by taxing things we export. e.g. aircraft. The US sells $131 billion in aircraft. Our import rate on aircraft is nil. So other countries will be forced to either tax aircraft purchases or change their sourcing of aircraft. A lot of the US sourcing of aircraft involves military planes (e.g. the F35), but a good deal is also commercial aircraft. When you talk aircraft you are talking Boing but there are other players including Airbus (a European consortium). http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/firms/Competitors/Competitors-Boeing.html Generating a trade war would mean increased pressure for countries to switch sourcing of aircraft away from the US. I could go on with this but you get the idea. When we lose jobs for widget makers we trade those jobs for higher level jobs like Boeing engineers and manufacturing workers. If you are a US widget maker and are not taking part in the US economic success it's because you didn't listen to your high school counselors when they told you to go to college and become an engineer. If you ARE an engineer you don't back Trump. If you are not a college graduate and work making widgets you back Trump. You are left behind... and now you want to solve your problem by electing Trump and resetting the US economy to favor widget makers. This MAY give you a temporary reprieve but only VERY TEMPORARY. The problem is that there are so many people who have been left behind that it's possible they will win and give Trump the opportunity to fracture the US/world economy so we can make more widgets in the US, lay off engineers at Boeing and allow Airbus and other US competitors to grab high end market share. The US does not compete at the widget level. This is a conscious choice because becoming a widget making country would make the US a third world rather than a first world country.