[rebuilder]

It doesn't benefit their employees, though, since consumer prices will rise as a result. As that happens, either the standard of living goes down, or wages go up, which raises consumer prices again.

So far, the wealth of the majority of western population has been based on cheap consumer goods. Those goods are cheap because the people making them have a lower standard of living than the people buying them. So if Trump reduces imports, that implies that to keep cheap goods, the standard of living for the portion of US population producing those goods must go down relative to the rest of the population.

Automation can alter that to a great extent, but the profits from that may just go to the owner class, not the workers.

[mirimir]

Maybe so. But there's also the issue of underemployment. It's a pretty good bet that the Americans who used to make steel and cars and stuff didn't earn more doing whatever they did after those jobs went south/overseas. And that's probably one of the reasons why they voted for Trump.

[problems]

Yeah, they were talking about this on Freakonomics yesterday - a lot of those people working steel or textiles wound up in low paying retail or service sector jobs.

Some of those jobs might come back. Maybe not as numerous due to automation and stuff, but it might be something at least.

Hmm, maybe I should switch to microcontroller programming...

[flukus]

If it's beneficial then why do we have to spend years negotiating complex trad deals instead of just lowering tariffs?

[problems]

Economists have for many years argued we should do just that.