It was adjudicated and settled. All without additional tariffs.
Why is Trump not following his trade deal anymore?
You wrote: “Canada doesn’t think it’s fair that Trump is going against a deal HE NEGOTIATED.”
But you ignore and dismiss that
Why do you condemn Trump and not Canada?
Canada should not have done that. Trump should also not violate the agreement.
Do you agree?
I agree with . . . :
I have some questions:
As I understand it, tariffs are imposed to:
- Protect local industry
- Negate the advantage of countries using slave labor.
- Raise revenue for the tariffing government
Sound right?
I think we can all agree it is not possible for US labor to compete with $3.50 a day labor.
It’s immoral.
So do we agree the 3 objectives above are necessary?
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If that is a living wage in that country…. I have no problem with it. That’s the advantage of globalization… cheaper goods and more profits.
The goal of capitalism.
A true humanist.
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Protect local industry…sure. But this has to be done thoughtfully, and often slowly.
For example, chips industry…we have a little of this, but not enough. Fair argument to say, let’s us tariffs to protect our chips.
But what’s happening with this sharp and sudens is, chips are going to skyrocket in price for all the LOCAL industries that use them - like our strong AI industry - until we wait 2-4 years for some private company with 100B to build a few plants that come on line…
Add to this mix the notion that we are gonna kill the CHIPS act and…well, nothing good will come of this.
Slave labor…first, you have to be sure it is slave labor. Some countries have lower costs of living. But, yeah, it’s not good - morally - to live off slave labor. It’s great if you are just an unfettered capitalist. And using tariffs, as the TPP did, to isolate countries like China who exploit people I think is good.
But we aren’t in the TPP.
3 - no. Terribe way to do it. It’s a regressive tax at this point, as alot of the goods we import particularly from the countries you mention in point 2 are every day low cost items. Tariffs will hurt the lower income americans much more becuase of this fact.
Making money off our lower income citizens is dumb and cruel.
Of course we can, and we do every single day.
Labor is only ONE input cost, often not the highest, sometimes not even even 20%.
Buy a $1 million beef ranch.
Buy $200,000 worth of cattle and equipment.
Add one laborer at $50,000/year.
Add some more for the cost of transporting
The cost of labor is very low in comparison.
That’s why we raise our own cattle and don’t import them from China.
more examples in a bit.
Do tilapia next.
Many many times, labor is just a tiny portion of the overall price of a product. When the cost of labor matters so little, sometimes, among those capital intensive enterprises there will be areas of comparative advantage for the US
Nestle recently spent over $2 million per job to make a CoffeeMate factory in Arizona.
Cummins spent $7.25 million per job to build and engine plant in N. Carolina
I’m not sure of the numbers but I think it works like this.
- US passes all sorts of laws making tilapia production in the US almost impossible.
- US tilapia production collapses (except for a few firms in Florida)
- The left blames capitalism especially American companies.
Once again the cost of labor never even enters into the equation.
Though you were a pure capitalist?
The context is manufacturing, I should have made that clear.
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Valid point. Why?
My guess?
Probably a mix of good and bad policy.
To a degree, any law (no matter how stupid) will be supported by some just because it is packages as an environmental law. (and vice versa.)
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Fair enough.
Here is a manufacturing example.
A cold bottle of stuff costs almost the same no matter is what is in it.
Since “what is in it” matters so little, the labor cost of what is in it matters even less.
Ergo, yet another case where labor costs matter so little, we will probably never imported this product from China.
Aren’t bottling plants mostly automated now?
What about human labor intensive manufacturing?
I am not arguing btw. I am trying to comprehend your point.
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To prop up there overseas profits? 
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Oh umm lemme think back.
@WuWei posted> "I think we can all agree it is not possible for US labor to compete with $3.50 a day labor.
It’s immoral."
And of course he is right to a large degree.
I am pointing out that if we fight out fight there are plenty of places where labor costs matter little.
A few categories come to mind:
- the first is goods that naturally are so capital intensive cheap labor is only a tiny advantage. (I tried to list a few)
- another would be goods for which the production cost is relatively chap, but transportation costs relatively high. (cinderblocks come to mind.)
- a third approach, not completely parallel, is to point out that with some products, production costs are really cheap no matter where they are produced, but the money is made AFTER the product leaves the warehouse
Are tariffs bad? They are not worse than any other tax, in fact they are better than some taxes. The (only) real risk with tariffs is that they tend to become a slippery slope.
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