Economy & Business The Trade War Is Smart Geopolitics By Nicholas Phillips September 5, 2019 5:08

[TomSea]

Economy & Business   
The Trade War Is Smart Geopolitics
By Nicholas Phillips    September 5, 2019 5:08 PM

The president’s China tariffs may inflict short-term pain on American consumers, but it’s a small price to pay to combat an existential threat to the U.S.

When President Trump first took office, American tariffs on Chinese imports stood at 3.1 percent, little more than a barnacle on the hull of a $600 billion trading relationship. After the latest round of tariffs took effect on Sunday, that number stood at 21.2 percent, and if the next round is implemented on schedule, it will soon reach 30 percent. Economists and business leaders used to nervously reassure themselves that China tariffs were a temporary negotiating tactic to get President Xi to make concessions in a future trade agreement, but the truth is emerging that trade war is the new normal. The Trump administration has ceased talk of soybean-purchase agreements and begun talk of “decoupling.”

Trump’s decision to change our posture toward China from free trade to trade war is one of the most significant policy shifts in recent American history — and one of the most misunderstood.

Free-trade advocates tend to think of tariffs as misbegotten economic policy, intended to give the American economy a leg up by protecting domestic businesses from Chinese competition. They point to data indicating that tariffs are injuring the American economy more than they are helping it, notably by increasing prices. Americans for Tax Reform has protested that China tariffs “harm American companies and consumers who rely on low-priced products to run their businesses and budget their households.” The George W. Bush Institute has claimed that when consumers have to pay more for products, “the nation is less prosperous.” Thomas Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, announced his opposition to trade war with China by noting that tariffs are “taxes paid for by American families and American businesses.”

Read more at: https://www.realclearmarkets.com/2019/09/06/president_trump039s_trade_war_is_smart_geopolitics_226390.html

[truth_seeker]

Long term benefit, versus short term comfort.

A grand scheme would be to helpin Central America to become a low cost labor substitute for China.

China is not  trustworthy, considering their murder of our people with Fentanyl, and theft of our intellectual property.