You think exactly like Alfonso Nunez de Castro:
"Let London manufacture those fine fabrics of hers to her heart's content; let Holland her chambrays; Florence her cloth; the Indies their beaver and vicuna; Milan her brocade, Italy and Flanders their linens...so long as our capital can enjoy them; the only thing it proves is that all nations train their journeymen for Madrid, and that Madrid is the queen of Parliaments, for all the world serves her and she serves nobody."
(Prominent Spanish official - Alfonso Nunez de Castro in 1675)
Reading all posts with interest.
We make lots of stuff. We make construction equipment and airplanes for example. True, we don't make shoes or textiles.
So explain to me why making shoes and textiles is so essential to our national prestige and our economic success that we should tax people who produce construction equipment and airplanes to subsidize people who produce shoes and t-shirts.