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mhogers

The t-shirt metaphor is completely unjust - there is no value there for national security nor strategic autonomy.

Consider instead:

- Semiconductor low-end fabrication (Taiwan, Korea)

- Basic electronics: circuit boards, USB devices, .. (China)

- Auto parts (Mexico, China, Germany)

- Generic drugs (India, China)

The reality is that the US is not the ultimate global hegemon anymore and therefore offshoring industries cannot simply be viewed through an economic lens.

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What's funny is the tariffs announced a couple day sago explicitly excluded semi conductors and pharmaceuticals. We are literally about to tariff t-shirts but not those more strategic industries.

Because you need them, otherwise a car would cost you 3x.

Americans own too many cars as it is.

> What's funny is the tariffs announced a couple day sago explicitly excluded semi conductors and pharmaceuticals.

They're "excluded" because they're coming later. It was announced they'd be specific 1s in that area.

So basically, you want everyone to depend on you, but you want to depend on no one.

And if a more balanced trade relation arises, your current leadership is willing to destabilize the whole world, and threaten war.

China's playbook in a nutshell

>> the US is not the ultimate global hegemon anymore

The hegemon concept is also out of date. World trade is not dominated by countries but by multinationals. For instance, there are no real "US" car companies. There are a handful of huge conglomerates who can choose to operate wherever best suits their needs. These respond to edicts from individual countries but operate at a level above nation states.

This is why international cooperation on things like taxation or environmental protection is so important. And it is why petty bickering by individual nations will be so damaging.

That is the case for western economies. China controls nearly all levels of its supply chain. In the past, they didn't have the skills for design, but over time has gained that skill set (china now creates nearly a third of the worlds new engineers per year) and is now capable of designing and manufacturing world class products all in-house.

I guess the only exception is semi-conductors, but we all know they are desperately trying to remedy that.

And Chinese companies may soon have to evolve too should they want to remain competitive. Being at the behest of a single country is a weakness. A strong company is one that can shift between countries and therefore does not need to bend to their will. The largest Chinese companies will, one day soon, have to step away from Chinese government control.

Come on, did you see the trade for goods and services deficit with EU? It's ludicrous. But hey, the president decided to focus only on goods. Why not on everything? Because it's unjustified. He needs money. A lot. And throwing out accusations at other countries is the only way he can get out of it fine. If he had just set a 10-15% tax on all imports "just because" people would have never approved. Now, on the other hand, look at those unfair European, Canadians, Mexicans, ... penguins :)

I was thinking, the UK and EU should set extra taxes on US tech companies to offset the tariffs. don't even need to fix the amount - just tie it to whatever the tariffs are.

Sure, let's all lose our jobs, who needs them anyways...!

But then finally we proved Trump and all those evil Americans a point! *evil laughter...

We in EU could do that, if we dared investing in tech.

We all work for US tech companies, do we?

FWIW: acquiescing and becoming Trump's bitch won't save your jobs either. See Vietnam - they dropped tariffs on the US, and still got hit with the highest American tariffs - even higher than the EU that's threatening to retaliate.

Exactly. It should start with education. You guys don’t have nearly enough qualified people to take back these industries.

That’s why the logical thing to do is invest heavily in education.

Oh, wait.

> The t-shirt metaphor is completely unjust - there is no value there for national security nor strategic autonomy.

Buffet's article and Trump's tariffs reflected antipathy to net trade deficits. Not specific strategic concerns.

> The t-shirt metaphor is completely unjust - there is no value there for national security nor strategic autonomy.

And yet tariffs were put on countries where clothes are generally manufactured and imported into the US from, which is why companies like Nike got walloped on the stock market.

> The reality is that the US is not the ultimate global hegemon anymore and therefore offshoring industries cannot simply be viewed through an economic lens.

Trump et al put a 37% import tariff on Botswana. What national security interest is served by that?

Israel got a 17% tariff place on it, but Iran is part of the general 10% tariff list. If these are about national security, why does Israel have a higher number than Iran?

There are valid reasons for tariffs:

* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/when-are-tariffs-good

The universal tariffs that have been acted don't seem to have been done for those reasons.

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