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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

> in celebration of a great professional victory,

At first I was intrigued about why did that guy call all this industrial protectionism act as something "professional", afterwards I saw that he is an active part of the industrial defence complex (he's a National Security Council staffer), so that started to make a little bit more sense.

I'm wondering though for how long will the MIC ghouls continue to have the upper hand in this. There are huge opportunity costs to be paid by the side that goes all "Corn Law League" on something as fundamental to our age as grains were ~200 years ago, but, then again, when said pro-protectionism side also controls the media, which means no Cobden [1] to take it all down, the US could be in for the long-haul.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cobden

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Maybe this may help US manufacturers get better deals. But I see it as a side effect. The main effect is that we should not buy key communication equipment from a country we cannot trust. Its government can strongarm any of its business entities to comply with its orders, and these orders are not going to be friendly to the US.

It's a bit like buying communication equipment from the USSR. Maybe the equipment is fine! But accepting even such a thing as the US national emblem from the USSR proved to be... a decision detrimental to security [1].

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

> The main effect is that we should not buy key communication equipment from a country we cannot trust.

We should not buy anything that is internet connected from a country we cannot trust.

>We should not buy anything that is internet connected from a country we cannot trust.

We should not buy anything that has non-dumb components from a country we cannot trust.

We should not buy anything that is has high-performance materials that cannot be non-destructively tested from a country we cannot trust.

Overall, we should not be buying ANYTHING AT ALL from a country we cannot trust, as literally any trade merely supports their working against our well-being.

The grand experiment was done, and it failed miserably. We all thought that increased trade and information flow would bring free markets and democracy to the autocracies of the world. We could not have been more wrong — all we did was further empower expansionist/imperialist regimes. Russia is now waging a genocidal hot war in Europe and China is more actively threatening Taiwan than at any time in at least decades, and putting Uighurs in concentration camps - all funded by our purchasing. It is past time to embargo them.

> It is past time to embargo them.

Easier said than done when they are the dominant or at least major supplier of many strategic materials. It will take time to find economically viable alternative suppliers. Globalism is rapidly collapsing and China won’t for long be able to remain a reliable trading partner even if they desperately wanted to be, so we ought to be urgently securing sufficient alternative suppliers anyway.

Yes, definitely easier said than done.

That said, you are absolutely correct that it'll be a heavy lift to find alternate supplies of many materials and items.

That makes it no less necessary.

Germany had made apparently catastrophic reliance on Russian NatGas, and looked like a horrible winter. Yet they have extricated themselves within 10 months so much that even without that Russian supply, NatGas prices are actually falling going into winter.

It is necessary.

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