Not sure if you've noticed, but manufacturing is starting to come back in the US. Industrial automation and skilled trades jobs are starting to be a thing again. These are solid middle class jobs that often dont require a degree. Its coming at the expense of some pain in other areas, but it might be an overall positive.
The path we were on was not sustainable. The US lost a LOT of capability over the last 20 years. Getting that back is critical and will not be painless.
My understanding is that most of the really good paying manufacturing jobs aren't coming back; the manufacturing that is coming back is non-union and pays worse than a union job (and much worse, say, than the better IT jobs that don't require a degree.)
I personally think it's super weird that people (especially in the USA) seem to think that manufacturing jobs are inherently better than other jobs, when my impression is that most of the pay advantages are simply that it is a class of jobs that unionized while it was in high demand, preserving some of the benefits of being a high demand job through a time when demand had fallen.
I don’t think they’re inherently better, but I do think the person who invents the next big thing will necessarily be a person who knows how to manufacture the current big thing, so the more people we have who know how to do that, the more likely we are to lead the next wave.
but in return, the US gained a lot of cheap goods. Cheap goods which then increased profits for businesses.
Unfortunately, the lower working class is unable to reap this reward.
If manufacturing and industry returned, it may mean that cost of goods would become more expensive, and it can slow the economic expansion of the US. Whether you see this as a good outcome or not depends on your personal ideals however.
citation needed...
My understanding was that US manufacturing output has been steadily growing (even if employment has been falling) for all of that time.
https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1250...
Sure, all of that can be turned around, but the trend is toward losing capability to do advanced things.
Fundamentally it's time to wake to the fact that the CCP views the very existence of Liberal Democracies as a threat to itself [1]. It will work to undermind or extinguish then where ever it can. Facing the Soviet Union had a cost. Facing Nazi Germany had a cost. And facing the CCP will have a cost.
so you are saying that a trade war is successful if there are fewer barriers at the end than at the beginning? That's a reasonable definition, but that would benefit both parties, so it still doesn't really show a "winner"
> And facing the CCP will have a cost.
But if you define a successful trade war as one where there are fewer barriers to trade at the end than at the beginning, that will benefit both parties.
I mean, one could argue that free trade (well, more trade) is going to make your society more free in general, is going to introduce more ideas and things like that, I suppose, and you could also argue that trading more with a country makes it less likely you will go to war with them, but these things aren't really about crushing your competitor.
One who would argue something like that in the face of the decidedly not free CCP run society that is modern China is fooling themselves. And their mode of operation is most certainly about crushing competitors.
That's what I mean by trade spreading ideas. These people clearly have learned a lot from American culture (and I have learned a lot from them) - I personally think that when trying to get things done, the more people you have from different backgrounds, the more different ideas you have, and the more likely you are to come up with a good solution.
(And further, this trade war, as I understand it, isn't about talking the CCP into treating it's citizens better, it's about tariffs and subsidies, matters with far less moral force.)
As for the free trade question, China has a higher mean tariff rate ~2% more, which is comparable to other developing countries. But viewing "free trade" in tariff lens doesn't present the whole picture. In terms of trade barriers US has more protectionist measures than China [1]. Go look up a list of WTO complaints to see who the largest free trade abuser is, a good visualizer [2]:
>China was involved in 63 disputes with 9 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 2001 through 2018. China has been the complainant 20 times and the respondent 43 times.
VS
>United States was involved in 275 disputes with 42 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 1995 through 2018. The United States has been the complainant 123 times and the respondent 152 times.
Or look up some US Chamber of Commerce surveys, Latest U.S. China Business Council's (USCBC) survey tldr was basically US companies overwhelmingly convinced Chinese companies receive (alleged) unfair state subsidies but they don't care because even with the tradewar, 97% of respondents said their China operations were profitable which is UP from 85% in 2015. Overall, business in China is good, select industries face more barriers than others (some technology, many financial services), industries with the loudest lobbying groups that skew the narrative.
[1] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/pub...
[2] https://chinapower.csis.org/china-world-trade-organization-w...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/08/30/us-compani...
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_maps_e.ht...
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/dispu_maps_e.ht...
That's not to say Chinese markets aren't protectionist, every country is, with the harshest measures reserved for strategically important industries, typically with extremely well funded and loud lobbying groups. A handful of large companies complain about tech transfer, but relative to all sectors their concerns are marginal - latest American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai poll of US companies on top priorities for current trade talks and 0.4% of respondents thinks force tech transfer is an important issue. But those 0.4% of companies encompass strategic industries with disproportionate geopolitical ramifications, so their concerns are magnified for IR theater to distort the narrative. There's a reason the pivot to Asia and the narrative against Chinese development started when Made in China 2025 was announced to supplant western dominance in key high tech fields. It's unserious to rationalize US actions against China to preserving free trade - it's more geopolitical maneuvering to protect US industries, as others have mentioned it's the same story behind Japan with Plaza Accord that also targeted West Germany.
In 2005, in roughly the middle of the timeframe, the US economy was almost 6 times the size of China's.
Maybe you could expand on why you don't think claims should scale with the size of the economy, since you seemed to ignore the suggestion of normalizing for that.
>The EU was involved in 184 disputes with 27 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 1995 through 2018. The European Union has been the complainant 99 times and the respondent 85 times.
VS
>United States was involved in 275 disputes with 42 Economies from the time it acceded to the WTO in 1995 through 2018. The United States has been the complainant 123 times and the respondent 152 times.
If you want to consider the scale of economy, then also factor in that US is one of the least trade-dependent developed economies in the world, i.e. trade-GDP is very low. Comparison of OECD countries including EU [1], US trades (low end estimate) half as much as EU, which makes the number of US disputes even more disproportional relative to unit of trade. Or the fact that US as a country somehow lodged more complaints than all EU members with their wildly disparate interests.
[1] https://data.oecd.org/trade/trade-in-goods-and-services.htm