The context of my comment was a post about the US vs Bangladesh. In a relationship between a rich country that buys lots of stuff and a poor country which can't afford to buy much of anything but has available cheap labor, the competitive advantage model is, indeed, virtually as reliable as gravity.
Tariffs are a pushback, a way to protect domestic industries from getting gutted by those tactics.
Yeah, Bangladesh will surely destroy us if we don't destroy it first...
I know you understand this and I'm not going to talk to you as though you don't.
This is a negotiation and will have to play out. A month from now there should clarity on most everything, I expect.
It is not about Bangladesh "destroying us". And if you believe that, you're entirely missing the point (as is Koan).
The purpose is to get overall control of our trade deficits. There is no other motivation; it isn't about punishing anyone we do business with. It is an acknowledgement that the USA has lost its manufacturing base, and Trump's view is that manufacturing on some level is essential to our existence.
While we don't care so much about tariff revenue, we do care about jobs. When I was in college I dated a girl who worked at "the shirt factory". I used to give her a ride 8 miles to go to work in the next town, and go back to pick her up, on her work days. She made next to nothing. But, that income enabled her to get through school and become a Teacher of the Year sometime down the road. Try to find a small-town shirt factory these days. Yet, they used to be all over the place. You know the story.
Still, there are people today who need to work at shirt factories. They might end up graduating as Valedictorian. Or they may spend their life there like Norma Rae. But the jobs are still essential because the alternative is the public dole.
Not everyone can or wants to become a software engineer or physician. These are the people Trump is supporting with this measure.
Koan will never get this, but I think you can. |
