Posted on 05/12/2019 12:02:27 PM PDT by Innovative
I’m a free-trader and I hate tariffs — which are consumer taxes — but if ever there were a right time to impose punitive tariffs, it is now, and it is against China. President Trump is on the side of the angels on this one, and this is the right moment to shut down China’s abusive trade practices forever.
Start with the basic facts: The average tariff that we imposed on China when Trump entered the White House was about 4 percent. China’s tariffs on us were about 10 percent and, even when including the 10 percent tariff that Trump first imposed on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports in 2018, our tariffs were still lower than theirs. So the playing field is not level and is especially tilted against us, given that Beijing’s non-tariff barriers in China can make it prohibitively expensive to do business there. We have an open market competing against the world’s second-largest economy whose doors are slammed shut.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
We still should not let China totally take advantage of us and destroy the US economy.
I like Moore, but there is no such thing as free trade.
There are good trade deals and bad trade deals.
I’m for good trade deals.
I love the idea of voluntary taxes.
If someone really wants Chinese goods, why not support our government off that?
Tariffs encourage building up local business while penalizing goods from elsewhere.
Someone who gets worked up over Trump’s tariffs, without mentioning China’s tariffs on our goods, is not honest.
Free trade? WTF is “free trade?” Nothing is free. If people are talking about equalizing tariffs, then the topic is FAIR trade.
I’m a Friedman free-market economist...one of the few who taught at the University level. However, I am making an exception here for the same reasons listed here, but would also like to mention that China subsidizes its shipping costs for Chinese producers. Also, the burden on a tariff increase depends upon the elasticities of supply and demand. The more elastic the demand, the greatest is the burden born by the producer. Likewise for supply. The people arguing against the tariffs want you to think you’ll pay the entire cost of the tariff. Not true. Indeed, substitutes are available for many Chinese products, so most of any tariff is pushed onto the Chinese producer.
While I am not sure of this, my guess is that the demand for our products is more inelastic, which means the burden also falls harder on the Chinese for our imported products.
To the extent that domestic prices do rise, that should induce more domestic production of those goods. On balance, I’m going against my usual position of free markets, mainly to send a message.
Yup. Good trade deals could or would be considered FAIR trade. “Free trade” is a BS term.
China will always cheat. China will always have tariffs on our products. So we have no free trade now, nor will we ever have free trade with China. We need to have nice high tariffs on all Chinese goods coming to America. It has three great affects. One, is that it lowers our debt. Two, is that it lowers the money that China has to spend on Armies, and Islands, and pollution. And third, it helps countries that are actually third world. China is not a a third world country. China has more billionaires than we do. In some cases it may bring jobs back here. But if not, they will go to friendlier countries than China.
Either they do not understand or not considered the terms: “reciprocal” and “reciprocity.”
The tariffs of Chinese goods could come off practically overnight.
But the Chinese do NOT agree to the rules by which this may be done in an expeditious manner. First, a little quid pro quo. So far, the US has been paying much too great a price, in terms of draining our resources and handicapping ourselves, in return for what have been voluminous quantities of goods of indifferent quality, but cheap, doncha know. And secondly, China has been hiding behind this facade of “emerging nation” now, for what, some four decades or more? They have built their factories and infrastructure as much on simply STEALING our technology, as from their own bootstrap efforts. They look over the products being set up to be manufactured within China, then promptly reverse-engineer them and sell as their own, without compensation to the innovators elsewhere (it is not only from the US they steal technology, just ask the Germans).
Time for the Chinese to get out there and play by the big-boy rules.
I would have to ask Mr. Moore why he hates tariffs and why he says he favors the free market economy which means essentially no government interference.
People who talk about “a level playing field” are talking about government attempting to control supply and demand - certainly not the free market and the quickest way to shortages and a tanked economy.
while I’m happy fair trade seems to be coming about, I have but one concern; that it’s being done too much, too fast.
It could cause an unnecessary shock to the system. I’d have raised the tariffs, say %5 per year until the playing field was level, even advantageous!
Sometimes doing something gradually makes sense, but sometimes it would just mean you have to keep continue to fight the same battle.
And maybe this will make China wake up and become more reasonable to come up with a reasonable solution for both countries.
“Why free-traders and all Americans should back Trump on China policy”
Why free-traders and all Americans should back Trump on EVERYTHING!
fixed it.
Maybe because China is not interested in free trade but only in the communist party rule “trade”....
bUt tAriffs bAd, nO oNe eVer mAde mOney pRotecting bOrders , iNdustry and pAtents!!!
Good post, but I have a question for you: Is there a single country anywhere that does NOT subsidize its own industries?
Thanks for the informed contributions.
China has a near monopoly on certain rare earths which are used for cell phones. I wonder if therefore the price of new cell phones will go up significantly...
“While I am not sure of this, my guess is that the demand for our products is more inelastic, which means the burden also falls harder on the Chinese for our imported products.”
That would be my guess too. It would be interesting to track down more concrete answers...
I love the idea of voluntary taxes.
If someone really wants Chinese goods, why not support our government off that?
Tariffs encourage building up local business while penalizing goods from elsewhere.
**********************************
Please remember that these are tariffs against A SINGLE COUNTRY...CHINA. Goods currently produced and exported to us from China can be produced in many other countries and exported here. Once companies make the investment needed to (for example) move production to Vietnam. That production will NOT later be moved back to China. This in itself will economically weaken China and IMHO that is a good thing.
It depends on what you mean by subsidize. Is tax-loss carry-forward subsidizing? It accelerated depreciation subsidizing? Then, yeah, everybody gets it.
You understand, of course, that a manufacturing facility built in Vietnam is almost certainly going to have CHINESE ownership.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.