Posted on 02/19/2025 5:10:55 PM PST by RandFan
@RandPaul
A few people may have noticed that I resisted an enthusiastic endorsement of Donald Trump during the election.
But now, I’m amazed by the Trump cabinet (many of whom I would have picked).
I love his message to the Ukrainian warmongers, and along with his DOGE initiative shows I was wrong to withhold my endorsement.
So today, admittedly a little tardy, I give Donald Trump my enthusiastic endorsement!
(Too little too late some will say, but, you know, it is sincere, there is that.)
Don’t expect this endorsement to be fawning.
I still think tariffs are a terrible idea, but Dios Mio, what courage, what tenacity.
Go @realDonaldTrump Go!
(Excerpt) Read more at x.com ...
“ I love his message to the Ukrainian warmongers, and along with his DOGE initiative shows I was wrong to withhold my endorsement.”
Takes a Big Man to admit that he was wrong. He didn’t have to.
Well done Senator.👍🇺🇸
“Rand is great...”
Agree, it is always CLASSY to admit a mistake, particularly when no one even remembers what it was about.
Tariffs are a version of the “Fair Tax”....
Long TDS runs deep in many GOPeers.
Hawley has a small judgemental problem. He’s working with Dick Durbin on something. Durbin is the biggest lying Senator. Worse than Schumer.
Dear Rand,
I think Libertarians are terrible.
I guess some people are too stupid to get tariffs. You are Free Traitor™ gloBULList to the core. Try to look at a history book for once. In there yo will find the USA's last golden age (late 19th and early 20th century) featured NO INCOME TAX and HIGH, HIGH IMPORT TARIFFS....
The USA is on a trajectory to lose all manufacturing to the rest of the world. Tariffs are the only way to stop that. You are another myopic greedy Free Traitor™ and as such you should < expletive deleted > .
Answer:
The United States is the largest importer of pharmaceutical products in the world, importing $168 billion worth of pharmaceuticals in 20222. However, China is the leading source for U.S. pharmaceutical imports measured by weight, accounting for 23% of total pharma imports1. The vast majority of brand-name prescription drugs sold in U.S. pharmacies are made overseas and imported by their marketers4.
Nice - he makes the team stronger...
I also like hearing Rand’s father’s perspective from time to time.
Oh, you should have heard him back in the day. He was talking about all this modern day quackery before it was cool.
Indeed! he was quite prophetic.
“So how does the USA fight a major war when it can’t even make it’s own drugs?”
Drugs are made from chemicals. The chemical industry was also decimated during the great globalization manufacturing outsourcing binge from 1990 to 2010. Even if we returned pharma production to the USA, we’d still be buying the chemicals from China. Lesson learned, once highly developed integrated supply chains are disrupted, they cannot easily be rebuilt.
During the 35 year period from the devastation of the Civil War in 1865 to 1900 the United States became the greatest industrial power on the planet. By 1940 the US manufacturing supply chains were so highly developed US factories were able to be converted to war production in a period of months and by 1945 were turning out enough incredible number of planes, ships, tanks, rifles and munitions to supply the US military and the militaries of the allied nations.
The basic requirements for human life are food, clothing and shelter. In modern societies add energy (electricity, vehicle fuels, heating) to the list of necessities. In 1945 the United States was more than self sufficient in supplying all of the necessities to its people. Today we are not self sufficient in any of the requirements to sustain life and our civilization.
Notably clothing manufacturing was the first supply chain to leave the domestic economy. China targeted the textile and apparel industry first because it employs so many people and China had billions to employ. US trade negotiators willingly gave up the textile/apparel industry by dropping tariffs and quotas in the 1990’s. The Chinese government loaned money to build textile and apparel factories at 0% interest and gave a 15% export credit for every dollar exported to the US. This is what the Bush and Clinton administration negotiators considered to be a “fair” free market trading relationship.
Losing the textile and apparel business had critical downstream impacts the free trader politicians and bureaucrats didn’t consider. The textile industry was the largest consumer of nylon in the country. Once textiles were gone, there was no longer enough demand for US nylon to support the nylon factories. Nylon is a strategic material with many military and industrial applications. Textiles were also a major consumer of polyester.
Then there were the social costs of losing the clothing industry. Most apparel and textile production was in small towns in southern states. As the factories closed there were no jobs for the workers. The local businesses reliant on the payrolls of the textile and apparel factory workers closed. Tax revenue declined in the communities while crime and drug addiction increased. The social and economic fallout was significant.
Also, consider that if China cut off Asian shipping to the US in a lengthy conventional war, the United States would be unable to clothe the military alone, much less the civilian population.
The demise of textiles were followed by other industries. As those industries fell, one by one, the demand for the steel, aluminum, plastics, copper, and lumber used in the manufacturing of products being offshored also declined to the point where it became unprofitable to support the underlying industries.
China strategically laid out a 20 year plan to decimate the greatest industrial infrastructure on the planet. They mapped out the downstream impacts and manipulated US trade negotiators to allow them to unravel entire supply chains. Our trade negotiators naively thought they were just outsourcing t-shirts and toasters. They didn’t recognize that they were also outsourcing the chemical, steel, and other critical industries. Or perhaps they were complicit with the dismantling of US industry.
Ironically the US trade negotiators claimed they were trading the manufacturing industries of the past for the high tech industries of the future. Yet today the manufacturing of computers, high end electronic equipment, and “chips” mostly takes place in Asia. Our consumer and industrial products, including the smart phones we carry, are not made in America.
To bring pharmaceutical production back to America, it will be necessary to rebuild the chemical industry. Since pharmaceuticals by themselves don’t create enough demand to support a chemical industry, it will be necessary to also recreate other manufacturing businesses using chemicals. Reindustrialization won’t just happen with a few government incentives to build a few factories. Just as the end-to-end supply chains were dismantled over a period of 20 years, a similar plan is needed to reestablish those supply chains.
Tariffs are a major part of the rebuilding of supply chains. In 1865 Great Britain and other European nations were the industrial powers. From 1865 to 1900 the United States imposed the highest tariffs in its history on European manufactured products. Instead of providing tax subsidies or grants for companies to build a few factories which might not survive, the tariffs were a significant economic incentive for investment in end-to-end supply chains. The tariff prevented European suppliers from destroying the business of a new US factory through temporary price cuts. A 35 year protective tariff made it more economical to produce the goods in the USA over time and therefore resulted in the required investment in supply chains and entire industries.
Reestablishing industrial independence is as critical for our nation’s survival as energy independence. Our policy makers are going to have to stop thinking about the Smoot Hawley Tariff of 1930, and instead think about the policies that allowed the US to become a great industrial power from 1865 to 1900. Also think about the Chinese road from 1990 to 2010. Without high tariffs there will be no rejuvenation of America as an industrial power.
Great post.
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