Comment by conductr
4 days ago
I believe as a US citizen I have no say in how they make these decisions so this thought exercise is pointless. We all structure our governments differently and so compete globally with differing rules, I only care about how we do it here in the US. At times, what we do may be in reaction to others, but how we do it needs to be agreed upon here at home and for that we have a Constitution that gives this power to congress not the executive. I'm glad the court got it right, it's a glimmer of hope that the constitution still has some meaning.
The entire point of the WTO was that countries can cooperate globally to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers, so it does matter what you think of other countries' decisions.
Not how they make them, as in who is responsible within their government or whatever the might have
I propose an idea that complete lack of protectionism (subsidies, tariffs, quotas) should not be the goal.
If we (countries) all are fully open, then we are fully globalised, and likely overall prices are lowest. (that is good)
But such system is fragile and very “shockable”, it entirely depends on stable shipping numbers and stable inter country agreements, both of which can be easily sabotaged (various motivations and agendas; just in 6 years: covid, Trump, Yemen Houthies)
Not implementable, but fun idea: protectionism based on distance, even within a country. E.g. supermarket must buy 10% of its apples from within 100km, 20% from within 1000km, 40% from within 10000km. (It does have numerous problems, feel free to identify them in comments)