WarRI1 wrote:Are you what they call a Free Trader, or better yet are you a Chinese made Robot ?
I am very much in favor of free trade. But i compete directly with Chinese companies and don´t buy Chinese, neither in private, nor professionally (unless i have no other choice, rarely happened yet).
Or course we also have a global supply line and out of our biggest suppliers two are US, one is Chinese (other side of the house). We also have customer in both the US and China.
Guess how much i like the idea of those two slapping tariffs on each others products? Especially since i work in an area where you usually don´t change a screw or a single pixel on the type label. Those customers won´t have a choice than to keep buying.
Tariffs that negate government money artificially lowering prices, i am fine with that. But protectionist tariffs..... never worked to the benefit of people, never will. All it does is increase market pricing, so more margin for companies not effected by those tariffs. Its basically give-it-to-the-rich.tax plan part II.
You make it sound like China is invincible, untouchable. I think not myself.
They have 1.3 Billion people and an effective education system. Protectionism is like building higher dams along rivers, works for a while, but when it stops working, your countryside is under a couple of feet of water. Better make sure that the rivers have more room to expend to at high tide, harder to do, but avoids catastrophe in the long run.
If you want to beat the PRC, you have to make their citizens beat their own government and come into the fold of people who elect their leaders and are committed to at least one version of human rights that is recognizable as such. Slapping tariffs on their products just makes people gather behind their leaders and even increase their stranglehold.
Democracies should start treating any non-democratic state as 2nd class entities and basically make clear that those government don´t really have legal standing to present the territory they occupy. Would be a good start that, if such choice exists, recognize the democratically elected government instead of the Junta.If Trump wanted to send some sort of message to Bejing, he may want to move the US embassy to Taipei.
But well, i guess Trump had to do the Junta in Bejing more favors than just handing the pacific to them for getting some brand recognition. We know he is willing to throw lots of people under the bus if there is money in it for himself.
best regards
Thomas