I have been warning for decades that America’s naivete in foreign trade was only bound to hurt us badly, and it has.
Watching our own manufacturing sector suffer at the hands of cheap foreign labor has been painful to watch, but not as painful as watching the dolts who have occupied our White House and halls of Congress over the past thirty years do nothing about it.
They only made it worse. While We the People have been transferring our wealth to the Japanese and Chinese, crippling our own manufacturing base in the process, our globalist leaders in Washington since Bush the Elder have been busy transferring more of our wealth and jobs and tax base to Mexico with NAFTA. Brilliant!
Finally, we have a leader in the White House who is saying “ENOUGH!”
From NTK
“When you’re already $500 Billion DOWN, you can’t lose!” President Trump tweeted about the U.S. trade deficit with China this week, and the president is certainly holding to that sentiment. Trump set the stakes sky high with a new proposal of $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods.
The president previously hit the Chinese with a $50 billion tariff, and it appeared that Beijing backed down, only imposing a $3 billion import tax on American goods. But China eventually matched the United States with $50 billion in tariffs.
Trump wasn’t bluffing though, upping the ante.
BREAKING: Trump asks U.S. trade representative to consider $100 billion in additional tariffs against China as dispute escalates.
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 5, 2018
Incorrect! Tariffs stimulate domestic manufacturing, resulting in higher wages, more jobs for Americans, thus more tax revenue. THAT is the purpose of import tariffs. This is a game the Chinese cannot win…. https://t.co/jIfN7rs2sm
— Thomas Madison…. I follow back! (@tmadison200) April 7, 2018
Given the huge trade deficit the United States has with China, the Chinese may not be able to respond in kind, according to Bloomberg:
Now that U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a review of measures on $100 billion of additional Chinese goods, China will have to get creative to keep up the like-for-like rhetoric. There aren’t enough American goods imports to target; of course, China could still take other measures — like curbing package tours or student transfers to the U.S., or steps against American companies’ operations in China.
Even if China was able to engineer a response, Trump would still have billions in Chinese imports to target.