alt Hacker NewsEvery side benefits from a trade. That's why the trade is made. The US is able to afford a trader imbalance because the USD is the world's reserve currency. Other countries are subsidizing our trade imbalance. It's a huge win for the US.
Tariffs will not bring back manufacturing. They increase prices of inputs, reduce incentive for competitiveness and invite retaliation. Look how well tariffs have worked for Brazil and Argentina or for the US under Smoot Hawley.
> The US is able to afford a trader imbalance because the USD is the world's reserve currency. Other countries are subsidizing our trade imbalance. It's a huge win for the US.
The geopolitical calculations regarding China and the socioeconomic conditions of working class people in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States would beg to differ.
You need to have at least some control of your own manufacturing destiny for national security reasons, and you need somewhere for people with a high school diploma to work or they start dying deaths of despair.