No. American companies would still be allowed to sell to China. The constitution offers pretty much absolute protection when it comes to export tariffs.
That isn't the heart of the issue. The issue is US products being produced in China and sold in the US. We import > 500 billion from China and export under 130 billion to China.
>We import > 500 billion from China and export under 130 billion to China.
It's not so simple as, "Hey, lets pocket 500B - 130B = $370B and put it in the bank or spend in what we want".
First of all, prices will increase, and production will move to other countries.
If you ban imports from other countries, many things will become unaffordable to many people, which creates knock on effects. PCs and Smartphones getting more expensive means fewer people will use them, which means a smaller market for software. People will have less money to spend on, say, restaurants. People living off the $130B of exports will be out of jobs and some will go on unemployment and social welfare. Others will be hired with lesser pay, so will buy less. There will be so many knock on effects beyond this. Tesla is down 4% just today based on new tariffs announced by China for the future.
We are already paying new subsidies to farmers, from taxpayer money that can used to, say, build super fast trains in the US like China has.
> Tesla is down 4% just today based on new tariffs announced by China for the future.
The tariff is scheduled to take effect Dec 15th. Tesla will be producing cars locally in China by then, or within 30 days of then. I believe Tesla China sales have already slowed in anticipation of the lower cost locally produced version.
If anything, Tesla stands to gain from increased import tariffs from US->China.
There are also a lot of U.S. citizens who make a living working in roles that are part of that china->U.S. supply chain. Lots of potential unforeseen consequences that I'm not qualified to assess. But if you had an ideological desire to, for example, roll back a half century of increasing globalization in an attempt to bring back the halcyon days of stable, high paying U.S. manufacturing jobs then you might in your private views be willing to accept a couple of decades of suffering to get there. Of course you'd also have to believe that restoring U.S. manufacturing would bring back those production jobs, and not just sell a lot of robots.
$500B exported on behalf of American companies from China
$130B exported to China
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$370B where does this go?
Most of it goes to American controlled companies. A small amount goes to Chinese labor.