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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Stopping the flow of Chinese products, often made with child or forced labor, is a good thing: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-o.... Weren’t we upset about the Uyghurs five minutes ago?

Trade with China is bad. It means a race to the bottom with a foreign country that doesn’t have our labor protections or environmental laws, and whose “comparative advantage” is cheaper labor. This was a widely accepted belief among the left until recently: https://youtu.be/kHRZnz5oHsE?si=A3QViVdPHISAP6qI. It’s insane to give up on beliefs-especially when you’re right—because you’re mad the “wrong people” have finally come around to agreeing with you!

What would the tariffs be if you made them only high enough to offset China’s looser regulation and cheaper labor? The current tariffs probably are in the same ballpark.

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Stopping the flow entirely would collapse western society as we would have no access to technology. I don't think anyone sane disagrees the geopolitical impact of dependence on China is a bad thing, but the mechanism by which this flow of goods is being disrupted is going to have a very negative impact on people's quality of life.

>Stopping the flow entirely would collapse western society as we would have no access to technology.

That is a wild exaggeration!

(Not that I want the flow to stop.)

I don't think anyone is advocating for incentivizing forced/child labour.

Given that the ILAB link you posted itself is maintained by EO 13126 signed by the Clinton Administration, I think there can be nuance in the discussion around whether or not the blanket application of certain foreign policy instruments is the right way to induce a change in the domestic policy of another country to solve the problem of bad labour practices.

We can do this without it becoming an argument about whether trade is "good" or "bad" depending on what "side" you are on.

The Republican party is eagerly dismantling labor protections and environmental regulations as fast as it cand in as many jurisdictions as it can.

I remember you used to complain about the degree of corruption in your country of origin and contrast it unfavorably with the solid institutions and procedural safeguards in the US. How times have changed.

China is not only cheaper but in many cases better at manufacturing.

I sometimes deal with a Canadian vs a Chinese supplier for a component of a consumer product, and the difference in customer service, quality, and speed is stark. AND it’s cheaper. The only issue from a logistics point of view is that China is far and shipping is slow.

Is Canadian quality bad? As a European I don't have much experience with stuff made in Canada, I think. At least I can't think of any...

No it's usually great, for the things that are usually made here.

But the item I in question is low-cost and plastic.

There are other, higher-margin things we buy from Canadians and the experience is very different. But these aren't the things people typically want to onshore with tariffs.

If it was only China being tariffed, instead of including all the allies we need to stand against China, you would start to have a point. If they were based on something other than a 1600s child king's understanding of trade balance, maybe focused on particular kinds of manufacturing, or even just explicitly based on morals instead of this fantasy of manufacturing returning to the US, you would have a point. But none of those things are true. Trump is at best a stopped clock with gears poking out through the casing.

That might all be true, but Trump is also the only one in decades to move the needle in the direction it needs to go. Even Obama was pushing us in the direction of even more free trade with TPP.

Perhaps so, but that doesn’t mean he’s free from criticism. It’s important not just to fix problems, but also make sure you don’t break other things that were previously working when you do. We don’t applaud the plumber who successfully unclogs a drain and then causes a catastrophic water leak in the fixture.

No points for messing up evey single detail, not to mention discrediting the idea with his abominable implementation. It will most likely have the opposite of the (ostensible) intended effect. Most people don't want to make multi-year investments in manufacturing in a country run by a mad king who has already changed the policy multiple times. And again, China is the only part that I can agree is even vaguely in the right direction. Tariffing Europe was profoundly self-defeating.

> It means a race to the bottom with a foreign country that doesn’t have our labor protections or environmental laws

But even then "better labor laws" or "stronger environmental protections" aren't among the demands being made to China.

This is so disingenuous a defense of the circus going on right now for so many reasons.

First of all, nobody in the current administration would give a shit if somehow China made a deal. The Tariffs would go back down again. The Tariffs are not contingent upon good labor laws in China or anything like that. Like seriously. Yes, the left wants better labor power and yes the left continues to understand that offshoring reduces labor power. But Trump et al are not credible as champions of the working man and this policy is not even really directed that way.

Second, even if this were a policy goal, going about it this way is, and I really can't put this any other way, fucking stupid. Even your dumbest leftist can understand that if you want to make changes to your economy you do so with some lead time and in such a way as to, you know, not empty shelves and drive up costs for the regular working people.

By all means, we should pursue a humanist trade policy that pressures developing countries to improve labor rules, human rights, democracy, etc. But to characterize this present circumstance as that is ridiculous.

> By all means, we should pursue a humanist trade policy that pressures developing countries to improve labor rules, human rights, democracy, etc. But to characterize this present circumstance as that is ridiculous.

But nobody besides Trump is going to do that, because everyone is addicted to the short term boosts of free trade. Obama talked a big game and then in office became a free trader that was pushing TPP before Trump killed it.

The reason Trump happened is because the grownups have been rowing in the wrong direction for 40 years.

"We have to like Trump throwing a tantrum and fucking everything up because liberal politicians suck." is such an incredibly lame rhetorical thing. We don't have to like it, we don't have to pretend "maybe its good?"

Trump clearly has zero interest in the human rights of people who are not American, and even Americans don't seem to rate too high if they don't support him. Just because liberal politicians did too much free trade we do not have to pretend like this is a good policy or that Trump cares about International Labor.

One of the main points of TPP was to put pressure on China. Trump killing it helped China.

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