Replies

Tariffs would punish our manufacturing by making components more expensive for us than our competition. Our competition could easily underprice us driving our maufacturing out of business.

Nonsense. You make a tacit assumption based upon the continuation of outsourcing, the very same outsourcing that is destroying "our manufacturing." The truth is that "our competition" does not honor intellectual property and does not honor product safety laws and therefore they are at an unfair advantage yet again above and beyond being able to capitalize upon near-slave wages as well. This is untenable, clearly.

The purpose of the tariff would be to fund the Federal government and to remove the onus of punitive taxation from the backs of individuals and businesses in the United States in toto. Additionally, it would serve to remove the handicap suffered by domestic manufacturers due to the aforementioned near-slave wages in communist nations and the third world.

"Components" were manufactured here and will be again, so that's a canard. "Free Trade" was and is a leftist Trojan Horse. Free trade has meant the de facto opening the US market to every communist and tinpot dictator, decimating domestic manufacturing nearly across the board and utterly destroying it in some sectors. Where is the complementary market for US goods in these nations? There is none or next to it and you know that.

The fat profits derived from offshoring are winding down, face it, whether we alter our trade policy or tax structure or not, those near-slave wages of your dreams are rising. You can only race to the bottom for so long before you actually hit bottom. We've hit it. "Our" economy is in a shambles. Unemployment is at a rate unseen since the Great Depression.< > It's time to undo the idiocy.

Like it or not this isn't 1776. The world has went through an industrial revolution. Some countries are better at maufacturing certain things than others and so can do it cheaper. I would rather buy components and raw materials from other countries and put out a finished product than redirect those that are currently building a finished product and send tham back to building components. Let the market decide. Eliminate the corporate tax and all other taxes and fees except for a 10% income tax, a land acreage tax, loser pays court costs, and perhaps some infrastructure fees. Do these four things and there would be no need for trade wars or trade deals. We would have the most efficient system in the world. Our natural abilities would determine where we would excel and it would be aircraft, autos, manufacturing machinery, and other high-end products.

Charge our companies 25% extra due to a tariff and and we would lose our manufacturing due to our competition underpricing us by 25%. Liberals love tariffs because they are taxes and they help communist China and hurt America.