If "American made" equated to quality, there would be less of an issue with paying more. Cars are a prime example. When Japanese cars showed up in America in the 70's, they were laughed at. Now, it's American cars that are laughed at as Japanese quality just keeps going and going and going...Actually, we have used tariffs and decided that they often caused more problems than they fixed.So, instead you want Chinese businesses to benefit at the expense of American workers and Chinese citizens who breath that crap?
American consumers won't die if they have slightly less cheap crap to buy.
American workers would benefit greatly from having more manufacturing jobs back in this country.
China has been fucking US and deserves to get the short end of the stick for a couple of decades.
Agreed, we should all be buying American, but of course, we already know that.
But.......we don't. We don't care about those manufacturing jobs you mentioned. We don't care about putting Americans out of work. We don't care about how low wages are or will go.
The solution (according to you) is force Americans to buy American. Is that what this country is all about?
And what about our Chinese exports? Think they won't tax our goods coming into their country as retaliation?
My earlier point is that Americans will find a way to get cheaper goods. The internet will be the most valuable tool for such people. In short, I don't think your tariff idea will work. Just ask GW when he taxed imported steel when he was President.
That fact that a population will operate differently than the rules that they want enforced is an interesting fact of mass psychology.
But it does not take away from
1. The fact that Trade Policy is a normal basic government function.
2. That the Chinese are using "Free Trade" to screw US.
3. That we can and should, imo, craft policy to benefit American workers at the expense of CHinese business and government, and to a lesser and short term extent, the American Consumer.
4. The internet is not magic. If large loophole develop that are hindering a popular and beneficial policy, those loopholes can be dealt with as they develop.
How? More money that the federal government would have to borrow? More bureaucracies to deal with the new problems we created? More laws as if we don't have enough already? Maybe even more inmates in our already over-crowded prions?
The problem with the left is they believe that their solutions never have ramifications. They never have a negative side to them--only positive.
You accomplish nothing by solving one problem only to replace that problem with a half-dozen new problems. All that really happened is a trade off.
If an American can go to Walmart today and pay $100.00 for seven items of merchandise, that same consumer may only be able to buy four items of merchandise if they were forced to buy more expensive merchandise. After all, most Americans do live on a budget.
Okay, so what? So what means less work for those shelf stockers. So what means less cashiers needed to check people out. So what means less work for the warehouse people and truck drivers.
You simply can't look at one side of the coin when trying to come up with a solution to a problem. There are (in most cases) many sides; sides that you don't even want to consider.
If tariffs were the solution to our problems, don't you think we would have used tariffs long, long ago?
Correct. Like I said, GW tried it again and it created more problems than solved.
I think that if I were running for President, it might be a good policy to have more obvious identification on American made products. You know, like a big flag on the packaging of the product or something.
After all, when was the last time you went shopping and searched the carton to see where it was made? Probably never--just like most of us.
Our focus is on price and price only. If you have two big-screen televisions you may want to buy, both have the exact same features, are you going to buy the American television set for $1,800, or are you going to buy the foreign made set for $1,300? Chances are you will by the $1,300 set and never even look where it was manufactured.