Agreed, and I’m a Trump supporter.
It is false and misleading to say we lose $500 billion to China every year. Our imports from China in 2015 totaled close to $500 Billion. He and the “trade deficit” folks call this a $500 billion LOSS. But of course it is not a loss because we traded dollars for goods.
Did I lose $100 when I bought my groceries the other day? Of course not. I got groceries for money. I didn’t LOSE when I paid for the groceries I needed. And what Trump is proposing is instead of me paying, say, $100 for goods from China, I’ll be forced to pay more, say, $200 for the same thing because of these tariffs (taxes) and protectionist measures.
Taxing imports to try to force companies to stay here doesn’t solve the problem. Everybody loses and the consumer now has to pay higher prices because the government has put a 35% tax on incoming goods.
Trump (and others) need to address the ROOT CAUSE of losing our businesses: the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. The federal government has created an unfriendly business environment in the U.S. with boneheaded policies like
- minimum wage
- taxes
- regulations
- federal protection of unions
Address THESE and business will WANT to return/stay because of cost benefits. Again, the issue is the unfriendly American business environment and weak American competitiveness caused by the skyrocketing costs of doing business due to FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE in the economy.
Let the voluntary cooperation of the market economy free of government interference work. Don’t layer more government interference upon that which is the root cause to begin with.
Yep, the populists want an easy solution though. They don’t want to address the underlying problems. However, tariffs won’t work as a “quick fix”. If the real causes that drive away business aren’t addressed, then tariffs would just add to our misery.