Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#41

Post by wyldfire » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

ashelmire wrote: post #27

mindthegap wrote: post #5

> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

There are probably a few ways the president could do it unilaterally, legally: 1) Raise tariffs to absurd levels (like, 10000% tax on anything from China). 2) Some sort of national defense justification. He could probably put all employees, companies, and executives on terrorism or customs watch lists and make life difficult for them. 3) Use existing sanctions on other nations as a way to forbid doing business with v…

> that would, presumably, be illegal:

It's not worth enumerating the illegal things that the President can do. It's not bounded by anything.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#42

Post by kombucha11 » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

bazooka_penguin wrote: post #25

umvi wrote: post #3

It's hard to just pick up and switch when you are so entrenched. That said, I would love if more US companies built stuff here in the US. Yeah, prices might be a little higher, but at least we aren't exploiting the labor of vulnerable people in foreign countries anymore.

I think pollution is a bigger problem. Even some runoff causes nation wide attention and scandals in the public eye.

That's my question: do the people that want 100pc of the manufacturing to come back to the US have a plan for the inevitable ecological fallout? When we outsourced production to China we also outsourced the pollution produced by that manufacturing.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#43

Post by umvi » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

justaguyhere wrote: post #35

mindthegap wrote: post #5

> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

The other weird thing politicians do is add the word "great" to everything - great state, great company, great nation, great this, great that... to the point that the effectiveness of the word is lost.

Lots of politicians/governments do this as some form of self-congratulatory propaganda, maybe?

Notice how any country with the words "democratic" or "republic" in the name are actually dictatorships? And it's an extra tyrannical dictatorship if it has both.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#44

Post by tibbydudeza » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

Well it makes about as much sense as buying Greenland. Good luck with that ... my money is on China.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#45

Post by coliveira » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #15

mindthegap wrote: post #5

> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

No, he cannot, but he can say whatever he likes, as we've seen. The constitution enables the institution of arbitrary import tariffs, but it offers absolute protection to American companies. Neither the president nor Congress is legally allowed to tax exports (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5)

This is not "absolute protection". American companies import much more than they export, so if he can't do whatever he wants to imports, there is no economic freedom.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#46

Post by jhallenworld » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

I suspect this plays quite well in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. That's the only thing he's going to care about.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#47

Post by thrill » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:55 PM UTC

cronix wrote: post #34

mindthegap wrote: post #5

> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

"immediately start looking" does not equal "ordering companies home."

"hereby ordered" = "hereby ordered"

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#48

Post by mythrwy » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #17

hello_1234 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he can set 25% tariff on everything imported from China, what's stopping him from setting 2500% tariff on everything? Wouldn't that effectively and immediately stop all trade with China?

No. American companies would still be allowed to sell to China. The constitution offers pretty much absolute protection when it comes to export tariffs.

There are regulated exports though which could be expanded easily enough I'd imagine if it came to it.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#49

Post by bitwize » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

justaguyhere wrote: post #35

mindthegap wrote: post #5

> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

The other weird thing politicians do is add the word "great" to everything - great state, great company, great nation, great this, great that... to the point that the effectiveness of the word is lost.

Government has asserted its own greatness since antiquity; consider how we address kings as "Your Majesty". Sometimes, the claim that the local government is great was encoded into law as required to be acknowledged as fact. In monarchies of the past (and sometimes of the present) denying the King's majesty was a serious crime called lese majesty.

Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs

#50

Post by coliveira » Fri, Aug 23, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

openasocket wrote: post #21

mindthegap wrote: post #5

> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.

No, it's not a thing. Generally speaking, the president can't do much here besides ask companies to do this. There might be some ways he could force companies to no longer do business with China, like declare sanctions against China, but they would be on shaky legal grounds. And by shaky legal grounds, I mean guaranteed to be challenged in court and go all the way to the Supreme Court.

> can't do much here besides ask companies to do this

Incorrect, the president controls the defense apparatus, which can label any country they wish a "threat to national security", which according to laws enacted since 9/11 can prevent American companies to do business with other countries. In the post 9/11, trumpian world, economic freedom depends on the mood of the president.