[Teever]

The current president has payed lip service to reshoring and revitalizing domestic industry but what have the results been?

There's been no significant antitrust actions or a focus on white-collar crimes. These are critical in stopping bad actors in American society from accruing more resources and power.

There's been no real investment in education or industrial capacity that would enable the US begin to compete with China in green technology and manufacturing automation.

There's no cohesive and consistent plan to encourage domestic manufacturing, it's just these nonsensical on again, off again tariff announcements that absolutely destroy the ability for anyone in industry to make long-term plans.

Talk is cheap. What's needed is a systemic, sustained effort and we’re not seeing it in America.

[BobbyJo]

I mean, i wouldn't call 300% increase in collected tariffs and a tax break for onshore capital investment lip service...

[os2warpman]

Tariffs are not now, have never, and will never lead to an increase in domestic production.

They only lead to higher costs and/or a festering, shambling corpse of domestic production that is a shell of its former self.

The US has done this multiple times already and the result is always the same.

Numerous countries have done this and the result is always the same.

The results, everywhere, every time, forever, are always the same.

Higher prices, stagnant markets, eroding capabilities, higher and higher tariffs and/or subsidies to keep it all propped up.

[BobbyJo]

> Tariffs are not now, have never, and will never lead to an increase in domestic production.

I disagree. Its a pretty straightforward market force.

> The US has done this multiple times already and the result is always the same.

Personally, I don't buy the argument that "it didn't work 100 years ago, so it can't work today." The circumstances are entirely different. The global economy is entirely different. The US's role in the world is entirely different. We are also not in the middle of a great depression, which I imagine would also affect the outcome.

> The results, everywhere, every time, forever, are always the same.

In 2018 the US instituted steel tariffs and it increased domestic steel manufacturing.

[bigbadfeline]

> I disagree. Its [tariffs] a pretty straightforward market force.

By themselves, tariffs do not and cannot provide assurance of any outcome, they can only amplify the effects of the other economic policies in force at the moment.

As for the current policies, the effects are clear - further monopolization, inflation, lower standard of living and asset trickle up (more like waterfall to the sky), combined with circus politics, phony heroics, wars and empty promises.

That might be positive for some but certainly not for the majority.

[wpm]

I'd call the first part utterly counter-productive and stupid.

The fact that he just signed a bill utterly decimating the last important work done in this country also runs counter to the idea that he's doing fuck all about it.

And, the example completely ignores the conversation part of the OOP. The last 40-50 years of neoliberal drunken greed by the people at the top isn't going to be suddenly reversed for the next fifty years. There are few ways of reversing that. All, uncomfortable.

[BobbyJo]

> I'd call the first part utterly counter-productive and stupid.

I don't think there is a better method of onshoring than tariffs, personally. You change the cost of offshoring and see what the market does. IMO its the least complicated and most capital efficient way of doing it. That being said, changing the tariffs every week kills most of the benefit of that simplicity.

> The fact that he just signed a bill utterly decimating the last important work done in this country

What work is that?

[ben_w]

Tariffs are a demand-side change, there's also subsidies for supply-side.

But the manner in which they were done shows a lack of planning. Whatever it is you want to on-shore (or prevent from being off-shored), tariff that, but not the economic inputs to make that.

Want to make more EVs domestically? Don't tariff electric motors. Want to make more electric motors domestically? Don't tariff bolts, insulated wire, or high performance permanent magnets. Want to make more high performance permanent magnets domestically? Don't tariff neodymium.

If you tariff everything, you're putting off manufacturing that depends on anything.

[BobbyJo]

> Tariffs are a demand-side change, there's also subsidies for supply-side.

Yes, but subsidies are typically more complex to implement than tariffs. Imports are already controlled via customs, so you're piggybacking off existing oversight. New subsidies require entirely new oversight.

> Whatever it is you want to on-shore (or prevent from being off-shored), tariff that, but not the economic inputs to make that.

Why? Its impossible to account for second order effects beforehand IMO. I think its way better just to put up flat tariff, see what's working and what isn't and adjust from there.

I don't think this admin is doing tariffs correctly, but I welcome the added incentive for domestic manufacturing and mining.

[philwelch]

I’m not pleased with Trump’s trade policies either but your central claim was that nobody is willing to address the issue at all, and that’s simply not true. You, me, and Trump all probably mutually disagree with each other’s preferred solutions, but we aren’t in denial about the problem itself. It is one of the most widely discussed economic and national security issues we have if not the most.

[Teever]

It was not my intent to have a conversation about whether or not someone can believe Donald Trump and whether or not his rhetoric matches his intentions. That conversation is played out and not productive. You simply can't and it simply doesn't.

I am not optimistic that the systemic solutions to the problems that I'm talking about are going to come from anyone in American politics and it is obvious to me that American hegemony is waning with little hope of it returning.

I worry about what this means for the future of democracy if a country run by an autocrat becomes the dominant power.

[philwelch]

> I am not optimistic that the systemic solutions to the problems that I'm talking about are going to come from anyone in American politics

As I said, I think we probably both disagree with each other and Trump about what those solutions are. But what you said was that no one in American politics is willing to even acknowledge the problem in the first place, and that was false.