If an American manufacturer moves to China they must give the communist government 51%
ownership of the factory. Plus share all of the intellectual property used to make the product.
Not true. The Chinese do require joint ventures with Chinese companies. And with a few industries like distilleries, printing, airplane manufacture, etc., they limit foreign ownership to minority status. But any requirement to share intellectual property is negotiated with the American companies. The problem here is that the American companies are too stupid and too shortsighted that they cannot see beyond the profits they'll reap four quarters into the future - totally oblivious to the fact that for their new factory, someone else in China built 20 more exactly like it.
I just dealt with this situation with a company that makes catalysts. They are now building a plant in China - effectively teaching the Chinese how to manufacture their catalyst. And they are fools for doing so, because five years from now this factory (as well as their factories in the US) will be competing against the 20 new Chinese factories. Because in that Asian culture, stealing intellectual property is considered "good business". And we know this, yet we keep giving it all away.
It is our own damn fault. Our short term greed is our demise. It has nothing to do with tariffs. It is just the way China does business. And American companies are stupid as hell to play along.
So what can the government do? First of all,
STOP TAXING MONEY THAT IS EARNED OVERSEAS!!!!! If companies like GM that are making HUGE profits in China were allowed to bring that money back into the US without penalty, then we could modernize here and maintain a competitive advantage. But our country penalizes companies for bringing that wealth back home. So what does GM do? They keep investing that money overseas, helping China out even more.
The key is to get rid of taxes - not to invent new ones.
They are doing to us, what we did to England in the late 1800s,
early 1900's.
In the late 1800's, tiny England was kicking our ass in industrial output.
Spain made the same mistake back in the 1600's.
Spain was running hefty trade surpluses in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Now throw in the fact that a top goal China has is to replace the US as the dominate power in the
Pacific and in become obvious that our trade policy with China is insane.
China's goal is to dominate Asia. And if it takes 500 years for them to do that, they are OK with it.
However, the Chinese government's attempts at picking its own winners and losers is backfiring on them big time, just like it did with Japan. Their steel industry is now overproducing, and they are selling steel at a loss within their own country. (And no, they can't make that up in volume.)
Now if you deem this a matter of national security, then by all means shut off trade with China just as we have with Cuba and North Korea. But do not for even a second pretend that placing a tariff on steel and aluminum is going to fix this. And do not pretend either that America's economic might will improve. It won't. Everyone's standard of living will go down.
FYI, I have come to the conclusion that they are a lot of libertarians posting here. Libertarians are
pretty much brain dead when it comes to dealing with reality. And they have an unpleasant habit
of being "my way or the highway people". They lack the ability of seeing any world view other than
their own.
I can't speak for others, but this poster has asked you repeatedly to show how a tax increase is going to improve our economy. Nothing libertarian about it. It is a simple question of economics. Because it didn't make sense when Obama said it. And it doesn't make sense when you say it either.
