[ENGNR]

Possibly true.

China has had net positive tariffs against the USA for decades though. Obama tried to use the WTO to label them as a currency manipulator. Trump tried some tariffs the first time around but they just raised theirs higher to keep the imbalance.

Not saying the current strategy is a good one. But America has lost the entire supply chain, racked up huge debts, and a dollar that encourages more and more consumption. Doesn't something have to happen eventually, before the problem gets worse?

[zmmmmm]

Sure, yes, the fact that the US now is in a weak position built up over decades is just the reality that has to be faced.

The path out of it is painful - starting with reducing US debt, and using a full complement of measures to diversify sources of goods and services (including bringing them domestically where it makes sense). It's something you do over a decade, in partnership with your allies, not a week on your own.

[re-thc]

> Sure, yes, the fact that the US now is in a weak position built up over decades is just the reality that has to be faced.

It's misinformation to say the US is in a weak position. It's not. It's just gone on to do other things. When we talk about these trade deficits do we include streaming services, television shows, films, games and whatever else?

> (including bringing them domestically where it makes sense)

It doesn't, that's the point. Would you rather have factories with workers below the minimum wage or industries like the NBA?

[leovingi]

> factories with workers below the minimum wage

China made that choice in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has progressed ever since and is now powerful enough to be able to stand up to the United States.

You have a warped view of what manufacturing is and how it can be built upon that is closer to children's cartoons than reality.

[re-thc]

> China made that choice in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has progressed ever since

So you're saying that China has grew out of manufacturing because a lot of it is moving out of China. In the same way the US has also moved out of manufacturing ages ago.

> is now powerful enough to be able to stand up to the United States

How do you conclude that the ONLY thing China did is manufacturing?

> You have a warped view of what manufacturing is

No, it goes to show you know very little about the world. It's not all just manufacturing. That's definitely not all that China does. If it was you wouldn't have to ban Huawei and Tiktok.

Do you know how many games come from China now? A lot of US and EU game studios are at least partly owned by Chinese companies e.g. Tencent.

[leovingi]

>China has grew out of manufacturing because a lot of it is moving out of China

China's Manufacturing Production [1] and Industrial Production has increased year-on-year for the past 10 years, excluding abnormal events such as Covid, so where are you getting your data? If you meant to say that they are transitioning to a higher level of manufacturing, instead of the sweatshops they were associated with in the 90s, this is true. But it was the low-level manufacturing that allowed them to build up both the capital and the skill necessary to advance further and further.

Hell, you've got a naval empire (the United States) that is currently unable to come even close to the Chinese ship-building capabilities - their output dwarfs the US by 232x [2]. It's not something that happened overnight and it's certainly not something that was strategically planned out 30 years ago - it is a slow process that started with low-level outsourcing and allowed China to grow into the behemoth it is today.

Sooner or later the US was going to have to deal with this fact and it seems like that time has come. Whether or not there's a plan, whether or not it will even work - I have no clue, you have no clue and neither does anyone on this forum.

Also, to counter another point you made - "When we talk about these trade deficits do we include streaming services, television shows, films, games and whatever else?" - you can't fight a war with an economy based on streaming services, TV shows and games.

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/china/manufacturing-production

[2] https://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/chinas-shipbuildi...

[re-thc]

> so where are you getting your data?

Is this how we came up with the "magical" tariffs formula? Look at some data, interpret it in a random way and off we go?

You don't say that [1] shows the average growth was 6.56% in China vs 9.28% in Vietnam [3] vs 10.33% in Bangladesh. So then relatively, it's not exactly "growing" is it?

If China was still explicitly growing manufacturing the numbers would be much higher. Is it actually focused on manufacturing or are there other triggers? E.g. US banned Huawei, so they had to go back home and manufacture. E.g. US is banning AI and other exports so China has to make their own. I'd say US is increasing China's manufacturing rather than China!

[3] https://tradingeconomics.com/vietnam/manufacturing-productio...

[4] https://tradingeconomics.com/bangladesh/manufacturing-produc...

[5] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/manufactu...

> Hell, you've got a naval empire (the United States) that is currently unable to come even close to the Chinese ship-building capabilities > Sooner or later the US was going to have to deal with this fact

Why? Does the UK need to deal with this "fact" too then? The US has a naval empire that the UK is no where close to in capabilities. Based on your logic, the EU would have to band together to revive the British empire and deal with the US?

I wouldn't want this. The US wouldn't want this either. So what fact is the issue?

[mdemare]

If you want less consumption, and pay off debt, maybe ... raise taxes?

[XajniN]

No one wants less consumption, you want to pay less taxes. The only way to reduce taxes is to reduce spending.

[ajross]

> Doesn't something have to happen eventually, before the problem gets worse?

The linked article is LITERALLY pointing out that the "something" you want to "happen" is in fact making exactly the problem you're talking about WORSE.

I don't get it, I just don't get it. We're all getting poorer, very rapidly, on every imaginable axis: higher domestic prices, lower international demand, higher interest rates (the linked article), lower asset valuation in US dollars, loser US dollar value globally. Literally everything is worse. And you're still digging for some kind of coin that might have some shine on the other side that you missed.

[pjc50]

> dollar that encourages more and more consumption

Under consumerist capitalism, more consumption is generally considered to be a good thing. See all the people complaining about the price of eggs under Biden. I wonder how they're doing.

The tariffs mean that Americans will be able to afford less stuff. That's the stated objective: buy more expensive American goods rather than cheaper imports. It remains to be seen how a country which got started around a riot against import taxes is going to handle this.