So you advocate a different type of battle plan. Fine.

China dumps through other countries. Do I agree on XYZ tarriff? Not necessarily. But I do not think China is a friend, China is an open economy or China is to be treated kindly.

And while we are demonizing Russia, China is building islands, enhancing their military and experience economy with stolen IP and research and becoming a menace.

Trump, as usual, is 90% correct, just off on the execution. Cohen did his job, tax cuts are solid, now its time for him to go back to enjoying the “free market” aka accepting pay for play and other forms of government goodies.

Read the last 4 issues of the economist to see globalists waking up to the last 3 presidents failed policies towards China.

BTW - for everyone who thinks building a wall is a joke, Pakistan is building a wall in Waziristan to stop the Jihadists from coming in from the ungoverned Afghan provinces.

woke

You should learn to get to the point.

No where in my post did I support steel or aluminum sanctions. I simply said that China is not a free economy or our friend. And Trump is correct generally on this topic, but wrong specifically.

We are in economic war with China. There actions are aggressive towards their neighbors. Inviting them into the WTO was a mistake and Trump is rightfully calling attention to them.

As for the steel and aluminum tariffs, it’s probably a play to get better NAFTA terms under the guise of China. In fact, these emergency tariffs needed an economic war declaration to happen, something you couldn’t get with Canada.

And who cares what “conservatives” said or think. Trump is a populist. Nothing conservative about him.

Schreckstoff:

It wasn't long ago that conservatives were righteously decrying the government's role in picking the economy's winners and losers. These policies heap windfall on the 140,000 thousand employees of the steel-producing industries at the potential expense of 300 million U.S. consumers and the 6.5 million employees in the steel-consuming industries. It defies the principles at the heart of conservatism.

Right on all points, but we conservatives still do oppose idiotic tariffs.

Bingo. China takes our jobs and never buys our shit. They lure companies to their soil by providing spave labor and law environmental laws. In exchange Americans lose their jobs and the Chinese simply steal their IP.

This has little to do with China. China isn't even in the top 10 sources of steel imports. If you want to go after China, there are a million other ways that are way more rational than going after steel imports.

Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, India (in that order) are the top import sources of steel.

This is where you libertarians part ways with reality. Free trade is good and Trump's tariffs are asinine and counterproductive and do little, if anything, to hurt China, but to not acknowledge that China is a bad actor in trade is to ignore reality. China is one of the most abusive trade partners in the world. Not only are they abusive in trade, but they have made it increasingly difficult for the U.S. to realize the silver lining of a trade deficit, which is an investment surplus, because China has instituted oppressive controls on foreign investment. Chinese investors have to literally sneak money out of China to invest overseas. China is bad all around.

You really need to just add your rejection of the nation state and borders.

Everything you’re talking about sounds nice, and might be, but when you have voting citizens demanding their elected officials serve citizens, you can’t pretend like the one way street economic relationship we have with China will not be the focus of their ire.

Your opinion isn’t supported by history, reality or even most business leaders.

You're really eating up the neocon BS. The last thing this country needs is more shitty quality (not high quality) shit, just because it's cheap.

The last 100 years of economics is entirely based on the premise that MORE = BETTER, but psychology of human behavior, as well as behavioral economics, has started to push back against this idea. It's simply a false premise. There are significant diminishing returns to having more and more shit, and that's not what makes a developed nation better off. People are more than BEEP BOOP robotic consumers.

Esuric:

TNA:

We are absolutely at war with China. They steal our IP and military secrets. They steal our jobs without allowing free trade. They fight our economic and political agenda everywhere and Xi now wants to be president forever.

You can't "steal jobs." Jobs aren't property that belong to anyone. Labor is a resource that the market directs to its most warranted uses. Many of those uses, in particular industries, is in China. This is called comparative advantage and it promotes national and global economic growth. Yes, Chinese companies "steal technology." But so do American, German, Brazilian, Japanese companies etc. They rip each other off, poach talent, etc. Welcome to competition.

TNA:

Please tell me why we value “free” trade with China so much?

Fuck off Cohen. Thanks for the tax cuts. Hit the bricks.

Because, as consumers, we get high quality goods at super cheap prices. That's why we buy them. And, as producers, we get access to super cheap credit (i.e., the current account deficit shows up as a capital account surplus which provides excess funds to our capital markets, pushing down yields and stimulating US investment).

So just because China fucks over their own people with oppressive protectionist policies doesn't mean we have to as well. We didn't do it when Japan was the boogey man and it worked out fantastically for us (and not so much for them).

People don't understand that the capital account balance does more damage than the protectionist schemes China has in place. In fact, China's protectionist schemes are in place to hurt households in favor of industry. Wages are low, unemployment is high, and the average networth of Chinese people is mere pennies.

If you look at other developed countries like Japan or in Europe, they don't allow China to flood their accounts with easy capital. It's because cheap credit fuels growth in America instead of low unemployment and higher savings. The capital account surplus here is directly related to the account deficit.

If you implement protectionist policies, the only thing that will happen is the world becomes more divided, but even more importantly, households will feel more burdened, and I would assume people will take on more debt or otherwise savings will drop.