[ryeats]

Would be more interesting if someone came at this debate from a game theory perspective with bad actors ignoring IP laws, manipulating currency values and implementing tariffs through policies that aren't directly taxing products but restricting who can play in markets. Yes tariffs are bad in a vacuum and I am not saying this article is false even when it's strawmanning some arguments to make it's case but it's seems a bit one sided and possibly nieve without including the context in which these policies are being made so I still remain on the fence as to whether tariffs can be used as leverage.

[schmidtleonard]

The "bad actor" strategy in question has been known for ages: it's called mercantilism. It's so old that it convinced Alexander Hamilton away from "free trade laa dee dah" so that he could enact the protectionism which eventually industrialized America.

More recently, China has been running the same playbook to great effect. It's really funny to watch the free trade crowd laud/fear the rise of China with one breath while calling the mercantilist playbook old and outdated with the next.

[FirmwareBurner]

> It's really funny to watch the free trade crowd laud/fear the rise of China with one breath while calling the mercantilist playbook old and outdated with the next.

"You dare use my own spells against me, Potter?!"

[rootjknak]

It mentions it in the article, which technically references Lighthizer's book passage:

" ‘A crucial mistake,’ according to Lighthizer, had been to let China into the WTO and treat it as just another country like America’s free-market allies. The result was that millions of well-paid jobs in US manufacturing disappeared, as more and more work was outsourced and offshored. "

A close examination of the passage appears to be correct: accordingly, China only met about 50% of the WTO entry requirement in the last 20 years. They were in essence, acting as a bad actor. Not only that, now they were seeking, prior to covid, to replace the current rule based trading system, with one where they got to have unlimited export to other countries, while the government suppressed wages and consumer spending internally, in order to strengthen the state. All other countries production be damned. The low wage low cost export would destroy all of the production capabilities in other countries.

And now with China openly claiming to Europe that Russia must not fail, they are blatant in their desire to destroy the western democracies, in support of authoritarian dictatorships in the world.

[grafmax]

Global North corporations actively lobbied for China’s membership in the WTO because expanding the labor pool would lead to higher profits at the expense of the working class, and they were right.

This has created a cascading effect: rising wealth inequality has fomented distrust in institutions; this in turn has manifested as right wing populism. It’s right wing populism that is dismantling western democracies, not China.

[FirmwareBurner]

>America’s free-market allies

No market is truly free. Once you have a free market it very quickly stops being free as dominant players monopolize it and shape the rules of the game causing the government to (sometimes) intervene to counter it and make it more fair, but it is never "free".

[walterbell]

(apologies to G. Michael Hopf)

  Free markets create strong companies.
  Strong companies create unfair markets.
  Unfair markets create strong governments.
  Strong governments create weak companies.
  Weak companies create free markets.

[potato3732842]

>dominant players monopolize it and shape the rules of the game causing the government to (sometimes) intervene to counter it and make it more fair

The dominant players shape it in large part by getting the government to intervene shaping rules to their benefit making it less fair. Naturally everyone with a brain hates this so there's a constant give take where the incumbent interests allow just enough competition, make the barriers to entry just barely surmountable that there's a strong enough trickle of new entrants that they can point and say "look, anyone can do it" and just enough idiots will believe it that they keep their heads.