Winners & Losers In The Trade War

[Swordsmyth]

The whole world is in a conspiracy against the god emperor.

That's actually pretty close to the truth.

[r3volution 3.0]

LOL

[Zippyjuan]

I've told you before, it included sovereignty destroying world government clauses.

If you want free trade, you need rules and a body to enforce those rules to ensure that trade remains free and fair and rule on disagreements. Otherwise, either side can do what they want and violate the free trade agreement. If that is what you mean by "sovereignty destroying clauses". Yes, it means you can't violate the treaty whenever you want to or it suits your fancy. It would have meant the lowest barriers to trade in modern history. Without enforcement, the agreement is worthless.

[TheCount]

That's actually pretty close to the truth.

It is the truth. The world is fundamentally math-based, and math is his enemy. Also facts. And logic.

[Swordsmyth]

If you want free trade, you need rules and a body to enforce those rules to ensure that trade remains free and fair and rule on disagreements. Otherwise, either side can do what they want and violate the free trade agreement. If that is what you mean by "sovereignty destroying clauses". Yes, it means you can't violate the treaty whenever you want to or it suits your fancy. It would have meant the lowest barriers to trade in modern history. Without enforcement, the agreement is worthless.

All you need is an agreement, if one side breaks it the other side can retaliate.

[Swordsmyth]

It is the truth. The world is fundamentally math-based, and math is his enemy. Also facts. And logic.

Those things are on Trump's side.

[Zippyjuan]

All you need is an agreement, if one side breaks it the other side can retaliate.

You can do that without an agreement. Why sign a free trade agreement? Just tariff each other into submission.

[Zippyjuan]

Those things are on Trump's side.

Trump has never let facts get in his way.

[spudea]

If you want free trade, you need rules and a body to enforce those rules to ensure that trade remains free and fair and rule on disagreements. Otherwise, either side can do what they want and violate the free trade agreement. If that is what you mean by "sovereignty destroying clauses". Yes, it means you can't violate the treaty whenever you want to or it suits your fancy. It would have meant the lowest barriers to trade in modern history. Without enforcement, the agreement is worthless.

now who is advocating for globalist managed trade? didn't you just read in this thread from @CCTelander how Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, and Ron Paul are against managed trade? Other countries should just follow their teachings because its the best thing for everyone right?

[CCTelander]

If you want free trade, you need rules and a body to enforce those rules to ensure that trade remains free and fair and rule on disagreements. Otherwise, either side can do what they want and violate the free trade agreement. If that is what you mean by "sovereignty destroying clauses". Yes, it means you can't violate the treaty whenever you want to or it suits your fancy. It would have meant the lowest barriers to trade in modern history. Without enforcement, the agreement is worthless.

What you describe is pretty much the exact opposite of free trade. All you need for real free trade is for government to get the hell out of it. Completely.

[CCTelander]

Those things are on Trump's side.

[Zippyjuan]

now who is advocating for globalist managed trade? didn't you just read in this thread from @CCTelander how Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, and Ron Paul are against managed trade? Other countries should just follow their teachings because its the best thing for everyone right?

They are also against tariffs.

[Zippyjuan]

What you describe is pretty much the exact opposite of free trade. All you need for real free trade is for government to get the hell out of it. Completely.

What do you do if the other side wants to aid their own businesses? Either through tax breaks, direct aid, or tariffs? They are a free country and should be able to do what they want to without us telling them what to do, right?

[Swordsmyth]

You can do that without an agreement. Why sign a free trade agreement? Just tariff each other into submission.

If they are willing to agree the tariffs aren't necessary and if the tariffs are required the agreement is the goal.

[Zippyjuan]

If they are willing to agree the tariffs aren't necessary and if the tariffs are required the agreement is the goal.

So Trump should have stuck with the proposed agreement instead of throwing it out and instituting more tariffs. They were willing to agree.

[Swordsmyth]

So Trump should have stuck with the proposed agreement instead of throwing it out and instituting more tariffs. They were willing to agree.

You know very well it was more than a simple agreement.

[Zippyjuan]

You know very well it was more than a simple agreement.

Trade agreements are by their very nature very complicated. Trade is not simple and the varieties of products is vast. Consider the simple sounding idea of a tariff on steel. Is that just raw steel or does it include refined steel? What about things made with steel? Does the tariff apply to them? If so, does it apply to just the percent of the item made from steel or the entire item? There are different types of steel. Does it apply to all of them? What if they buy the steel from you and make something from it? Is that exempt?

[spudea]

where's the resident anarchist that can tell us how governments shouldn't exist at all to impede voluntary exchange?

[Zippyjuan]

where's the resident anarchist that can tell us how governments shouldn't exist at all to impede voluntary exchange?

Tariffs are the government telling companies who they should and should not be trading with rather than letting them decide for themselves. They are the government picking winners and losers in the economy. Then consumers get to pay for that privilege with higher taxes and fewer jobs.

[spudea]

Tariffs are the government telling companies who they should and should not be trading with rather than letting them decide for themselves. They are the government picking winners and losers in the economy. Then consumers get to pay for that privilege with higher taxes and fewer jobs.

cool story tell that to the Chinese.

[Zippyjuan]

cool story tell that to the Chinese.

Should we allow another country tell the US how to treat our businesses? Should China allow the US to tell them how to treat their companies?

Our tariffs on steel help US companies which make steel but hurt US companies which use steel to produce products. The US government said that the steel industry should be subsidized by those other businesses and consumers to protect steel makers from the Chinese. (only about three percent of our imported steel came from China). All in the name of "national security".

[Swordsmyth]

Should we allow another country tell the US how to treat our businesses? Should China allow the US to tell them how to treat their companies?

We should if we want an agreement with them and they are telling us to treat them in a more liberty oriented fashion.

Our tariffs on steel help US companies which make steel but hurt US companies which use steel to produce products. The US government said that the steel industry should be subsidized by those other businesses and consumers to protect steel makers from the Chinese. (only about three percent of our imported steel came from China).

Chinese steel is routed through other countries so that useful idiots like you can spout that 3% number, their dumping in other countries also causes those other countries to dump their steel on our market as well.

[Zippyjuan]

We should if we want an agreement with them and they are telling us to treat them in a more liberty oriented fashion.



Chinese steel is routed through other countries so that useful idiots like you can spout that 3% number, their dumping in other countries also causes those other countries to dump their steel on our market as well.

Which other countries?

[Swordsmyth]

Which other countries?

Canada and Mexico are two of them, NAFTA made it easier.

[Zippyjuan]

Canada and Mexico are two of them, NAFTA made it easier.

Canada gets hardly any steel from China. Actually they get most of their imports from us. Same thing for Mexico. China supplies them with four percent of their steel imports- the US gives them 36%.



Who does China export their steel to?

[r3volution 3.0]

dump

verb

to satisfy my consumers better than I can, such as to prompt me to lobby the state for subsidies.

[Swordsmyth]

verb

to satisfy my consumers better than I can, such as to prompt me to lobby the state for subsidies.

[nobody's_hero]

Devil's advocate:

What if tariffs actually work? What if economic think-tanks based all their negative opinions on tariffs purely on theories that were formulated in a vacuum that doesn't exist in the real world?


Americans seem more motivated to work harder and achieve more today than I've ever seen in my life. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the endless supply of people who will work for peanuts is no longer factoring into the equation. This isn't just "protectionism" for big business. Average Americans are benefiting as well. There's a massive attitude shift. Almost like a 'Fk' it, we'll go it alone' 'can and will do' sort of attitude. It beats the hell out of giving up and sitting on a couch at home living on food stamps and credit card debt, which seems to have been what we've been groomed to believe and expect. I see a build-up of character once again. The easy path, of course, is to just continue to live on cheap labor and nothing changes. There's no reason to open your own business when you can just keep finding people who are more desperate than you to see how much you can get with your allowance.


I'm keeping an open mind, that tariffs might actually work and we've been fed a bowl of lies that was so appetizing even free-marketers lined up for a serving. I would be curious to see who is proven correct in a world where we wake up tomorrow and no governments exist and we can finally see how a global economy works without any government at all. Since that's not likely to happen, trial and error is the order of the day.

One thing I've been thinking about lately is the southern democrat attitude towards tariffs in the antebellum days. I'm not drawing the correlation to villainize people. But, I'm gonna pose a question: Could an economic system based on slavery and an endless quest to find cheaper and cheaper labor survive with tariffs? Or, if the south had supported tariffs, would people who had been settling for a minimum eventually be running their own businesses as well, like those in the North? (even if, with the help of government intervention —horrific thought I suppose). I'm not really wording that the best way but I just woke up and haven't had my coffee yet. Hopefully you can kind of see the question I'm posing there. What if, it was a bunch of lies? If they were wrong on the issue of slavery, could they have also been wrong on the issue of tariffs?

I expect to be challenged on this post. What I lack are facts—which I acknowledge, but really what I'm posing here is more an alternative theory to "tariffs are bad", just to provoke thought. Take it as an opinion, at best.

[Swordsmyth]

Devil's advocate:

What if tariffs actually work? What if economic think-tanks based all their negative opinions on tariffs purely on theories that were formulated in a vacuum that doesn't exist in the real world?


Americans seem more motivated to work harder and achieve more today than I've ever seen in my life. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the endless supply of people who will work for peanuts is no longer factoring into the equation. This isn't just "protectionism" for big business. Average Americans are benefiting as well. There's a massive attitude shift. Almost like a 'Fk' it, we'll go it alone' 'can and will do' sort of attitude. It beats the hell out of giving up and sitting on a couch at home living on food stamps and credit card debt, which seems to have been what we've been groomed to believe and expect. I see a build-up of character once again. The easy path, of course, is to just continue to live on cheap labor and nothing changes. There's no reason to open your own business when you can just keep finding people who are more desperate than you to see how much you can get with your allowance.


I'm keeping an open mind, that tariffs might actually work and we've been fed a bowl of lies that was so appetizing even free-marketers lined up for a serving. I would be curious to see who is proven correct in a world where we wake up tomorrow and no governments exist and we can finally see how a global economy works without any government at all. Since that's not likely to happen, trial and error is the order of the day.

One thing I've been thinking about lately is the southern democrat attitude towards tariffs in the antebellum days. I'm not drawing the correlation to villainize people. But, I'm gonna pose a question: Could an economic system based on slavery and an endless quest to find cheaper and cheaper labor survive with tariffs? Or, if the south had supported tariffs, would people who had been settling for a minimum eventually be running their own businesses as well, like those in the North? (even if, with the help of government intervention —horrific thought I suppose). I'm not really wording that the best way but I just woke up and haven't had my coffee yet. Hopefully you can kind of see the question I'm posing there. What if, it was a bunch of lies? If they were wrong on the issue of slavery, could they have also been wrong on the issue of tariffs?

I expect to be challenged on this post. What I lack are facts—which I acknowledge, but really what I'm posing here is more an alternative theory to "tariffs are bad", just to provoke thought. Take it as an opinion, at best.

I believe in low tariffs in an ideal world but we don't live in an ideal world and it will take fighting back in the trade wars to possibly get closer to one.

[Krugminator2]

What do you do if the other side wants to aid their own businesses? Either through tax breaks, direct aid, or tariffs? They are a free country and should be able to do what they want to without us telling them what to do, right?

Yes?

And what do you mean by aid their own businesses? Tariffs hurt their countries businesses on net.