Comment by arrosenberg
7 days ago
> So, to anyone who disagrees with these measures, but agrees that these are issues we ought to solve, what would you propose?
Good faith negotiations with our allies and trading partners that creates a balance of trade and reduces wealth inequality in the west. I'm not opposed to the actual ideas being floated, but the people doing are are completely unserious and it's being implemented in a stupid nonsense way.
> Good faith negotiations with our allies and trading partners that creates a balance of trade and reduces wealth inequality in the west.
We can look at a 50+ year history of every major U.S. trade partner increasing their protectionist policies, largely targeting the U.S., while the U.S. allowed trade deficits to balloon out of control. I don't see evidence that this "good faith" approach you speak of has any viability at all. The global economy can't say with a straight face that it has been a fair trade partner with the United States. For the past 50+ years the U.S. market has been open for business for all global producers, but the same has been far from true for pretty much every major U.S. trade partner. You can't even operate a company in China without 50% Chinese ownership, for example. The global stance on trade has all but made this an inevitable outcome.
How do you feel about the trade deficit, in the other direction, in digital goods (Meta platforms, Amazon/AWS, Google, Apple, ...)?
We negotiated those deals, we aren’t the victims. Now we don’t like how a deal turned out so instead of renegotiating we are throwing a temper tantrum like we weren’t the ones who suggested it in the first place. It’s embarrassing to be represented like that, and it won’t work! We will wind up weaker than we started, I hope they prove me wrong.
The u.S. didn't negotiate protectionist policies against their own exports. Can you cite a single example of this?
A more charitable explanation is that the U.S. has been all in on globalization and free trade since the 1970s and the rest of the world took a protectionist stance in response. I'm sure the rest of the world had their reasons. But the U.S. does now, too. Globalization and free trade that only substantially flows in one direction simply is not sustainable.
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