Galt's Gulch

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  • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 2 months ago
    I think it is extremely short-sighted to give one's enemies the wherewithal to initiate one's own obliteration. That is what I believe past US trade policy with China was doing. It's all virtue signalling to me to say that one believes in free trade but that free trade is taking place with a nation openly hostile to reciprocation. It isn't free trade unless both sides are playing by the same rules. Just because China is able to exploit its workers (and I'm not foreign to this as my father arranged outsourced manufacturing deals in China), subsidize its industries, and manipulate its currency to favor its own policies doesn't mean we should ever have granted them Most Favored Nation trade status. It is a suicidal policy in the long-term. And that doesn't even go into China's cyber-warfare or its IP theft through espionage and coercion.

    I agree completely with President Trump's actions toward China. I fully endorse his efforts to level the playing field via punitive trade tariffs. And I hope he is re-elected so that he can continue to pressure the Chinese into a more honest policy. (Ultimately, I hope China's people revolt and replace their tyrannical government with a true free-market republic, but I digress.)
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  • Posted by mshupe 5 years, 2 months ago
    Isn't Trump lying, even though he believes it, when he says we've lost $500 billion to China as if America has written a check and received nothing in return? Trump's rhetoric, but not your article, implies that nothing of value was received. And as I understand, a big part of the Austrian argument is the capital account. As we all know, double entry accounting transformed the world, and Trump's current account deficit is only one half of the ledger.
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    • Posted by WDonway 5 years, 2 months ago
      Yeah, not possible to estimate accurately losses from using U.S. patents and copyrights without payment, forcing companies to "share" technology, and subsidizing exports to the U.S. I see estimates that Chinese tariffs on American goods are roughly 3X U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. But, clearly, there has been a tsunami of Chinese goods sweeping America and consumers have "voted" that they love the quality and price. We have gotten a lot from China. Trump very systematically warned China of the possible consequences and waited for them to respond, which they never did. And, yes, the position of the Mises Institute is strongly and consistently that the best policy for any nation is unilateral free trade, no matter what their trading partners do. And that treaties won by negotiation or trade war are virtually useless. Having said this, my point is the article was that Trump's policy toward China, and his "order" to businesses, do not amount to "fascism."
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      • Posted by exceller 5 years, 2 months ago
        "Trump's policy toward China, and his "order" to businesses, do not amount to "fascism."

        Certainly not.

        The left bakes its anti-Trump hatred into tree words: racist, liar and fascist.

        Once these are dubbed on anything he does/says, he becomes the enemy, according to the left.

        Anybody who falls for that is pushing the socialist/communist agenda mindlessly.
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        • Posted by WDonway 5 years, 2 months ago
          Something LIKE "Trump Derangement Syndrome" actually exists, I think. It is a cognitive-emotional disordering of thinking. And it probably is kin to other such disorders: a defense against anxiety.
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          • Posted by WDonway 5 years, 2 months ago
            Of course, we cannot use this as a valid counterargument to dismiss Trump critics. But to some extent we can save ourselves trouble by identifying it at work and not bothering to answer an attack on Trump as a "dictator" or "white nationalist."
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    • Posted by EdGoldstein 5 years, 2 months ago
      500 Billion does not begin to state how much China has been given by the US govt. China owns over a trillion in US Treasuries, they bought with what US companies gave them. The debt payments on those treasuries pays for most of China's military budget.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 2 months ago
      trump is playing politics. He is wrong about china stealing 500 billion a year. We have gotten goods that we ordered, and at prices much lower than if we made the stuff here in the USA.

      What he doesnt like is that the chinese took the profits and built up their country so as to wage war with the west. So we DID shoot ourselves in the foot. China has waged one war after another for 2000 years, whether to capture other territories or to engage in civil wars within china.

      Given their current tendencies, we should NOT be trading with them. Trump is right about that part.

      He is using tariffs to encourge us NOT to buy from china. What he should do is lay out the reasons for not buying chinese stuff, but NOT put in tariffs that WE pay (The chinese dont pay tariffs on stuff WE buy from them).
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 5 years, 2 months ago
    Nixon and Kissinger knew what they were doing when they approached China, offering trade. They knew how seductive the profitable results would be, and hoped it would spur an evolution to a less autocratic opponent. Of course the deal wasn't fair, because China had nothing but cheap labor to offer, but that wasn't the objective. The Nixonian approach succeeded, partly, as China became wealthier, thanks to the lopsided deals we continued to make, but the transition to a less autocratic state fell short.

    Trump, as a businessman, recognized how out of kilter the trade deals were, especially now that China was no longer the poor little sister needing our help, and he notified the Chinese it was time to grow up. To the Chinese, it was like Daddy Warbucks had kicked them off his lap, unexpectedly.

    What did we gain for our (apparently) unappreciated largesse, and what did we lose? The flood of cheap products from China put many luxuries in the affordable range of most of the American population, and it gave us a big market for our produce and raw materials. In exchange we lost much of our manufacturing capability and gave away much of our intellectual property. Without Trump's intervention, how much more would we have lost?
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 5 years, 2 months ago
    I am not a fan of doing business with China, any more than I would do business with a guy in town that actively seeks to subordinate me.

    China is attempting to take over Asia, and to actively press their totalitarian oligarchy on the world. This is not subtle,

    The only real question is "How best to resist this?" It is too late not to have subsidized their economic/manufacturing engine to become successful. We did so to improve our standard of living, without considering (or ignoring) what they will do with this engine when it gets in full swing.
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