r.m.anderson wrote:Foreign imported goods are going to go thru the atmosphere of rate hikes - tit for tat and vice versa.
Trade wars suck -- and especially so between countries that are more or less at economic parity -- and this is one that the USA cannot win for the USA cannot manufacture the basics it needs to run on (e.g. clothing, appliances, cars, &c) of which the vast bulk are now imported. Sure, the US produces "boutique items" (e.g. airliners and a dwindling amount of networking gear), but as far as industrial-level manufacturing for a mass market that could sustain the place in the face of an outright trade war (or boycott), that's all been sold overseas and the domestic infrastructure dismantled. The original machines have long since been sold off or scrapped, and it's likely the skills to rebuild and run such things are lost.
I am a big fan of free trade -- between countries at parity; it's where
third-world developing countries use their economic status to undercut the more developed countries that it gets very problematic.
I feel for the folks who drive imported cars; this fiasco is going to hurt, and hurt "big league". If a country doesn't make stuff of its own it's got no business imposing tax on incoming stuff that's a necessity. Of course it doesn't hurt the fat-cat in the slightest, but really hits the lower 95% of the population.