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Edwin's avatar

It may be Trump is the one stopping all of this stuff, or at least what he can.

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Kitsune, Maskless Crusader.'s avatar

This just shows why T is where he is and those against him and his polices are not. What is left out here and everywhere I have read similar criticism of the tariffs are the reactions of the companies hit hard by the tariffs. They are not, as all these learned men and women claim, just taking them. The sources for what they are leaving out are far and wide so I can not list them here, perhaps I’ll start complaining a list, but in every direction, if we look, we can read of company after company announcing that they will begin manufacturing in the U.S. to avoid the tariffs. Some have already stopped production in Mexican a/o Canadian plants, others plan to expand their Stateside factories or build new ones. Others have announced large investments in the US.

Much is made of the US Stock Market’s recent decline. They forget that it was not long ago when Wall Street was doing well but Main Street shut down. As someone more astute than I pointed out, the decline in stock value of US companies due to the tariffs is proof positive that they are not making anything in the US, opting instead to use cheaper labor abroad with fewer health and safety protections for this work force.

Yes, the shuttering of plants in Canada and Mexico that produced to serve the US market is bad for those employees and those countries, but is great news for the US.

One of the interesting series of archeological finds gives us insight to where the U.S. was heading. Roman coinage has been found far and wide, yet little, if any non Roman currency has been found within the Roman Empire. As the Roman Empire grew, it, like the US, stopped making many things and imported what it wanted and maybe much of what it needed causing an out flow of gold and silver. Apparently, Roman did not export large quantities of goods that were desired or unique enough to offset this outflow of hard currency helping to lead to its economic decline and eventual downfall.

Why is it that the US is not allowed to produce what it needs and must buy from abroad while what little we do still make is artificially priced higher? A recent article I skimmed pointed out that a specific model of European car sold for close to $40,000 more in at least one city on the continent than it does in the US. I too have had experience with the shockingly high prices of Japanese goods in Japan compared to elsewhere. While times have sure changed, Japan is now THE cheap overseas destinations for tourists, something that still make me dizzy to say, hear, read or type, but it has always been this way.

In 1992 I first arrived in Japan to serve aboard one of our naval vessels home-ported in Yokosuka. I thought I would buy a Japanese camera here as surely it would be far less expensive than on base with its US prices, though minus sales tax. WRONG. The camera I priced on base was a Canon EOS with a lens kit carried a price tag of $535. USD. In the display window of the camera show basically across the street from the main gate was the same model. The price after exchanging currencies was $1,500, for the body alone. No batteries, no case, no strap, and, no lens. Later I would read how a camera store in Tokyo got in trouble for their trade practices. They discovered it was cheaper for them to buy Canon cameras retail in Singapore and ship them back to Japan for reresell than it was to buy them wholesale for the Canon plant across town. Canon got word and was not happy.

We are incredibly naive on the trade practices employed around the world. Trump is the opposite. He has been telling any who would listen about these for decades. We should shut up and let the man do what he does, this IS his area of expertise. All the expects on trade, finance and economics are no more knowledgeable than our medical experts have been shown to be with covid. All they are doing is trying to protect their shady revenue streams at our expense.

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