If it were wages alone, then no one would manufacture cars in the United States or Britain. This is not the case at all; the reason being is productivity is key.
Second, even in the United States, capitalism went through the phase that China is going through now - it was just 100 years ago, in the era of sweatshops. The economic growth in China indicates that wage differentials will erode - this is already happening in India
In any event, you are not presenting an adequate argument for statism in the form of tarrifs, nor are you saying how corruption could be prevented by various companies bidding for the government's assistance. And often times they don't help.
Ivan
I seriously doubt that sugar tarriffs were responsible for all those moves. Those companies are using the tarriffs as an excuse to move to cheap labor.
This is not the case at all; the reason being is productivity is key.
If this were true, then no one would ever leave the U.S. since we are the most productive nation on the planet. Per the BLS.
They don't have ths stats for places like Mexico and Argentina but I think it's safe to say that we far outproduce them. So, to say that the cost of sugar tarriffs offset and in fact make it more profitable to move to places like Argentina and Mexico and disregard the labor cost savings is disingenous.