Report Card for Donald Trump

[Eric the Green]

(12-22-2016, 02:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-21-2016, 07:54 AM)Odin Wrote: I was just reading yesterday that the Smoot-Hartley tariff cut US exports by 40% right when the US economy was going into the ditch. We are due for another recession right now, if Trump wants to own-goal the US economy by starting a trade war with China he's going to be as reviled as Hoover.

I'm a bit of a "protectionist" myself, but for me "protectionism" means negotiating fairer trade agreements rather than the hamfisted nationalist idiocy Trump is promoting that is about as stupid as the Smoot-Hartley tariff.

Tariffs are established to protect American based industries/businesses and the jobs associated with them. What happens to locally based American business that can't compete within the American market or industry that's flooded by cheap foreign competitors that manufacture cheaper goods? The business shuts down and never comes back again like what happened in the small town that my parents grew up in. The exports were down because American industries/business who are unable to compete here aren't going to be able to compete else where.

I'm not sure what you think I didn't get, but I and most Democrats including Sanders agree with you on this. Odin's point is also correct; a lot of job loss today is due to computer automation and robotics.

Which however also makes the Republican meme about self-reliance, work, anti-welfare and lower taxes out of date.

I don't trust Trump to do it right, given the people he has appointed. A good tariff policy would impose "border taxes" on those countries to which corporations outsource for cheap and unrestricted labor and try to sell their products back to us at prices that undercut American business and keep our wages and prices too low. On the other hand, those countries that have similar regulatory schemes and wage scales to ours, like Europe, could be free trade candidates. Tariffs that are either too high or too low are counter-productive.