Let's ignore whether we'll actually get there, that's a very deep question and entirely theoretical for now.
If we could snap our fingers and domestically produce most or all of our own products, would you not prefer that?
If we could snap our fingers and domestically produce most or all of our own products, would you not prefer that?
> If we could snap our fingers and domestically produce most or all of our own products, would you not prefer that?
Yeah, then every city could be like SF or LA or NYC.
But it's not even worth it as a thought exercise because it completely ignores reality. The reason I live in NJ and pay high taxes is because this is where the high paying jobs and good schools are. Cottontown, Alabama theoretically could be a financial capitol of the world and if you want to base your position on that, then you should probably re-examine your position.
No, I would not prefer that. A robust distributed system is less likely to crumble under local pressures. A blight could more easily sweep through a single nation and take out a staple crop or two, where it'd be impossible for that to happen globally. You can't spin up additional global trade quickly after you've shut it down, which could lead to people starving in America. I like systems that can't fail. That's especially true when that system is how I'm able to eat food.
Global trade isn't a security issue, national or otherwise. We don't increase safety or stability by reducing sources of consumables.
Edit; super timely example because this isn't an unlikely hypothetical: egg availability due to bird flu.
I'm not the person you asked, but I would definitely not prefer that. Trade & economic dependencies prevent wars. Wars are really, really bad things.
I could have sworn they were bad wars when they were happening ("No blood for oil"?), but opinions on that seem to have shifted all of a sudden for some reason.
Its a lose-lose proposition.
Also a world trading with each other is a world disincentivized from war with each other.
Maybe that's fine, maybe its not, but its not as simple as trade makes everyone better off.
But the current administration is itself actively opposed to worker or environmental protections, and the result of the current tariffs will just be that the poor people overseas end up even more impoverished and still lacking in protections.
That's definitely happening, but there are other possible reasons. For example a good could be more efficiently grown or produced in a country because of geographical reasons.
Also, from a pragmatic standpoint, it is simply not the case that all wages and wealth across the countries of the world are equal. Maybe that could be a goal but is anyone talking about that? Either way, it does not follow that the workers in that country are necessarily exploited when paid lower wages compared to the importing country, unless we are using different definitions.
This is not to mention that untargeted tariffs can increase the cost of living _for no gain at all_. If Germany manufacturers some specialty tool (not with slave labor, I would hope!), and no US manufacturer wants to make it, then I suddenly have to pay X% more for no reason at all.
Producing the same good in the US, at anywhere near the same price, requires automation or prison labor (legal slavery in the US) and likely won't result in more manufacturing jobs and likely won't result in higher wages for workers. Florida's approach here is child labor, which is both exploitative and cheap.
This can easily be overdone. If you stop doing business with poorer people, you all but guarantee that they stay poor. Counter-productive to say the least.
In my lifetime, I saw a lot of countries grow at least somewhat wealthy from extensive commercial contact with the West, including mine (Czechia).
Or can hire some child labor in Florida since they already changed the laws there.
Environmental concerns would actually fit the bill too, if one is willing to consider externalized costs. Its easy to ignore mining damage in other countries and all the oil burned shipping over the oceans. When that all happens at home people would more acutely feel the costs and may be more likely to fix it.
describe how a entirely domestic food chain would be more resilient than one that is global?
Self reliance is a defective meme that breaks down once you want anything other than individual survival. Dependence on a community allows humans to specialize. Humans being able to specialize is the only reason this comment, or this thread exists. More simply, not just the Internet, but modern life couldn't exist without it.
Once you acknowledge that interdependency is a reasonable trade-off for the other nice things about life. A simple infection no longer being a death sentence is a nice thing we've commoditized reasonably well. The only question is, how do you build a robust and resilient system?
Having your government depend on foreign cloud and software was always a bad idea in my opinion, but IT security is not high on the list of the people that make decisions.
Russia depended on Europe, but got wiser after 2014 and certainly after 2022. To the point of having it's own Linux distribution (which I ridiculed along with everyone, and now it turns out they were right). Geopolitics change, friends become enemies and enemies become friends. Barring a civil war, a country will never refuse to work with itself, so it's the most reliable partner possible.
Russia is a bad example, they're doing stupid shit, the same as the US. Hurting itself in it's confusion. But I guess it's a fair point, if you're willing to cut off your own feet, you don't need to depend on importing shoes. And it might make sense to build exclusively domestic leg stub sock factories, given the rest of the globe doesn't want to cut off it's own feet.
I wouldn't actually suggest that as something the us should strive to emulate.
Autarky is very bad.
If someone only cares about price, quantity, or some specific measure of quality certainly domestic production is limiting.
You'd want domestic production for other goals like self reliance, sustainability, or resilience.
2. Have you seen what the current US administrations is doing to allies at the moment? (the million threats to Greenland/Denmark, Canada, etc).
This is basic fucking common sense: I'm good at some things and other people are good at other things. We each specialize in the things we're best at, and everyone ends up better off.
It's a bad idea for the same reason.