[Consultant32452]

It's too early to tell. Wars of any kind, including trade wars, are a short term cost hoping for a long term gain. If the Chinese economy is hurt more than the American economy that is one level of success. Then, if manufacturing moves back to the US and other Western hemisphere nations that's another level of success.

[dragontamer]

> If the Chinese economy is hurt more than the American economy that is one level of success

On the contrary, if the US economy was hurt, then its a failure. The point of "America First" is to care most about America, not about hurting others.

> Then, if manufacturing moves back to the US and other Western hemisphere nations that's another level of success.

No. The only success is if manufacturing moves back to the USA. For example, Ford moved to Mexico. This is NOT a win for USA.

[isoskeles]

The trade war, as far as I understand, started largely because companies were complaining about Intellectual Property being stolen. Although I figure the larger reason is China is a threat to American global influence, and we're trying to make sure we're the dominant country.

Regardless, I don't know how you quantify "if the US economy was hurt" in a consistent and accurate way. I'm sure some would want to use the S&P 500 or our GDP as a single measure. Neither of these things would immediately account for whether the obvious goal (not having IP stolen) or less obvious and quantifiable goal (dominance and global influence) are maintained, or suppose there's some other goal I don't know about, but it's more complex than saying we produced more value this year than last year.

I picture someone saying, "Look the S&P 500 went down, therefore the 'trade war' failed, see!" I'm not saying you would say that, I just think your definition, "if the US economy was hurt, then its a failure" leaves room for vague interpretation, where virtually any metric could be selected as proof of failure.

[dragontamer]

> The trade war, as far as I understand, started largely because companies were complaining about Intellectual Property being stolen.

The Midwest doesn't care about intellectual property rights. IP rights is mostly a west-coast (ie: Hollywood / Silicon Valley) thing. Ford and GM aren't the ones having their tech stolen by China... its Cisco and Apple who have to worry about that stuff.

Frankly: we all know why the trade war started. The trade war started because Mr. Trump got elected and ran on the platform of starting a trade war. Its that simple.

Now its up to the supporters of this platform to put up and explain to the rest of America the situation. Its been three years, and election year is next year. Its time to show off your results.

[pbourke]

> The Midwest doesn't care about intellectual property rights.

Are you sure about that? Have you asked John Deere, Spirit Aerospace, Cargill, ADM, Citadel Investments, ...?

[Consultant32452]

Basically any long term goal has short term costs. Building a new road costs money up front.

We don't want jobs just to come to the US. We want to help build the economies of the people scrambling across our border too. So jobs in Mexico is great, as long as there's also new jobs in the US.

[dragontamer]

> We don't want jobs just to come to the US

Yes we do. Full stop.

> We want to help build the economies of the people scrambling across our border too.

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_Air_Conditioner_move_t...

Carrier moving their jobs to Mexico was a key element of Trump's platform, and a major reason why Trump got elected. Trump's base does NOT want the jobs to move to Mexico.

[Consultant32452]

Note the timestamp, from all the way back during his campaign.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-01/trump-s-v...

>The Republican presidential nominee rolled out the new talking point during a surprise trip Wednesday to Mexico, and explained it further on Thursday. In his telling, a prosperous Mexico and Latin America means less illegal immigration to the U.S. and more markets for American exports.

[dragontamer]

Yes, and Carrier was also moving out of the USA into Mexico during his campaign.

Actions speak louder than words. What did Trump do when Carrier was moving to Mexico? No American is willing to give up jobs to Mexico. Period.

You can try to whitewash Trump's actions as much as you want, but the Carrier issue is done and dealt with.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/424078-trump-supporter-ey...

> A supporter of President Trump is considering moving his company's production headquarters to Mexico in an effort to avoid Trump's tariffs on Chinese imports, according to The New York Times.

...

> “I just feel so betrayed. If we fail because the company is being harmed by the government, that just makes me sick," he added, saying that he expects that his profits in 2019 will be cut in half because of the tariffs.

This is the actual politics of the people. Now go ask all your Trump supporter friends if this move was a "success" for Trump's tariffs, an intended result.

[Consultant32452]

Let's be clear about which groups of "jobs" we're talking about. Of course Trump and his base don't want the set of jobs already in America to leave America for any destination. Trump wanted to hold up Carrier as an example of keeping jobs in America and it was a failure.

There's another set of jobs which is the massive manufacturing base in China which provides goods for the US and elsewhere. We would like those jobs to come to the Western hemisphere, including and especially but not limited to the US.