winginit wrote:Tugger wrote:However over time, if allowed to continue, it will impact the Chinese manufactures as higher prices will change the consumer buying habits.
Is there any historical precedent for that latter outcome that you've stated? If the thought is that tariffs will genuinely change the habits of the American consumer from buying Chinese to buying American that's complete nonsense: they'll go from buying Chinese to buying Vietnamese or what have you.
Apologies for being way off topic and I will end this portion of posting here after this.
To reply to you and zakuivcustom and casinterest:
I am fine with "Made in Vietnam" or Ireland, or India, or Morocco, or Brazil, and yes also "Made in the USA". But I am not a fool and believe everything can a should be made domestically, I want global trade and production. But I also do not like predatory production sources and China, I feel, has become one. Forced technology transfer, no IP firm protections, production that relies on methods the world has shunned (environmental, workforce, waste etc. problems). They are big and capable enough that they do not still need protections or to be allowed to abuse trade rules. And a lot of the world has treated them with kid gloves, some out of fear, others out of a desire to access their enormous internal market, and there is even historical shame of the abuse of China by early colonial traders. Enough of that. Trade is a great thing, if you participate on equal footing and rules. I fully support the intent of the Iran deal we had, more trade and integration in the global economy is the best process for the world to continue on.
So sure, by China made stuff, but in balance and with being aware of any missing reciprocal respect and trade.
There is at least one historical precedent that I know of: The USA. For many years after the colonies became a force of production and as the USA came into being and expanded, we had a very robust trade that disrupted quite a few global trade networks. The USA displaced home production for several categories of production, then as labor and land and additional costs grew, the cost advantage shrank. But the USA was so successful because it had lower costs for production and greater scaleability combined with strong technological development that increased production capacity even more.
Of course the depth that modern global production goes further than when the USA was a production power house. It is now fairly easy/cheap to take one million "things" (components needed for other items) and ship them to another country where they are integrated into another thing then sent somewhere else and built into something else and "final assembly" can then occur almost anywhere needed. The USA still exports a tremendous amount of goods, some $2.5 trillion worth, it just happens that being the wealthiest nation on earth we are at the end of the of the chain and so the import back into the USA is for higher value than what was exported ($3.1 trillion in imports).
Tugg
