Recently, I was in Germany (I live in Baltimore, MD) and was pleasantly surprised that a lot of goods are made in Germany. It is hard to find anything in our stores that isn't made in China.
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Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
61–70 of 115 posts
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#62It'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.
>but at least we aren't exploiting the labor of vulnerable people in foreign countries anymore Well, they will be jobless now.
But people in other countries would have those jobs available, which is just as good.
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
"hereby ordered" = "hereby ordered"
"hereby ordered" means exactly nothing without legal authority behind it. The President can't just "order" companies to randomly do things. I mean, he can, but they don't have to comply, and there's no legal penalty if they don't.
It still carries a lot of weight if the president says something like this. Legal or not. And since it doesn't seem to be legal it is actually worse that the head of a country uses this sort of language.
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it was feasible for companies to manufacture in the US they would. Effectively blocking China without a concomitant investment in US manufacturing is a lose/lose situation.
Of course it’s feasible . It’s just marginally more expensive. A combination of tighter labor, environment, and safety regulations, and a higher cost of living. The tariffs are exactly what will spur the investment in US manufacturing, and the marginal benefit of manufacturing in China and then shipping the end product halfway around the world eroded away.
For certain definitions of “marginally,” I suppose. And keep in mind many of the more complex things manufactured in China are done so from components themselves manufactured in China or elsewhere in east Asia, so either those would also have to be manufactured here, or they’d have to be imported, and we’re back where we started. And so on all the way down to the raw materials.
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#65It'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.
My biggest concern right now with China trade, aside from their abysmal environmental standards is that they are actively committing ethnic cleansing[1]. It baffles me how little attention this gets.
To the point of exploitation, why not use tariffs as a way to enforce standards AND protect economic interests? Instead of targeting specific countries, it could be a points based system where "Long hours without overtime?" +5%, "Poor safety standards" +10%, and so on. Not to say the US is necessarily perfect here, but as far as I can tell, it's a long way ahead of the typical places it outsources production to. Enforcement might be hard, but any resistance to inspection etc. could be met with automatic application of the suspected tariff.
This seems like it would satisfy the goal of advancing human rights, but also give a more incentive to just hire workers in the developed countries.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#66Well it makes about as much sense as buying Greenland. Good luck with that ... my money is on China.
If it was actually possible to buy Greenland, for say $50 billion, it would be an incredible deal for the US.
It has rare earth deposits, but more importantly as the Arctic undergoes drastic climate changes—particularly in the availability of shipping lanes—it becomes increasingly strategically significant.
Importantly, Greenland is a net economic loss to Denmark of about $500 million per year, so it would be saving Denmark a great deal of money to let the US take it off their hands.
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#67> “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.
> Is that a thing in the US?
In that “Donald Trump being President and saying whatever he wants” is a thing in the US, yes.
> Can the president (legally) order companies "home"?
There may be statutory bases on which the President could adopt emergency sanctions which would have that effect (but probably not that effect alone), but a tweet simply ordering the companies to behave a certain way certainly is not, even if such authority exists, a valid way of invoking it.
> Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.
Donald Trump's statements often have no recognizable relationship to the legal powers of the Presidency, and often aren't, even when superficially announcing substantive action, even followed up with by any action by the administration (whether such action would or would not be within the law), or are followed up with action that is very different in substance than the statement would suggest.
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it was feasible for companies to manufacture in the US they would. Effectively blocking China without a concomitant investment in US manufacturing is a lose/lose situation.
Of course it’s feasible . It’s just marginally more expensive. A combination of tighter labor, environment, and safety regulations, and a higher cost of living. The tariffs are exactly what will spur the investment in US manufacturing, and the marginal benefit of manufacturing in China and then shipping the end product halfway around the world eroded away.
More likely the tariffs (and currency manipulation by the Chinese) will just result in other Asian nations ramping up their factory creation. I know my company (we make toys and games) will be looking at Vietnam and a few other South East Asian nations before looking at home. I think you're greatly underplaying things when you say "marginal" benefit here. There's no way my company could employ as many office workers if we had to employ American factory workers instead of Chinese factory labor.
This isn't an A or B only choice. There's so many other options than US or China. And it's not just labor/safety, it's building an actual factory (which takes huge time and money commitments) which might be less viable in about 17 months if Trump and his protectionist policy aren't still in office.
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#69Earlier 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 because China will continue to devalue the Yuan like they have been, negating much of the tariff effect. The only solution, and a much "simpler" one (because it does not involve myriad scrutiny of which products to apply tariffs to and how much, etc.) is devaluation of the dollar. We've been here before, where US domestic manufacturing faced pressures as dollar was too strong. The Plaza Accord [0] involved Germany…
All of this to please the absurd nature of a single person.
Re: Trump orders U.S. firms out of China after Beijing sets new tariffs
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely not. It's not remotely a thing, and would not withstand any scrutiny whatsoever.
Except that it is happening right now, and I don't see politicians doing anything substantial to stop it.
There's nothing to stop. Trump no more has the authority to order U.S. businesses around than you or I.
He's an authoritarian thug who still doesn't know how governing works.