RE: What about all those Americans who lost their jobs because the US companies decided it would be cheaper to off-shore?
I’m not sure if I get this reasoning. If our purpose is to always help workers keep the jobs that they currently have, then it can be argued that all new technology should not progress because doing so will necessarily make old skills obsolete.
Think of all the switchboard operators, stagecoach drivers, slide rule, calculator makers and even Fortran programmers who have lost their jobs because new technology replaced them all.
The argument that making things in China will cause jobs to be lost here in the USA applies as well to jobs that will be lost in New York because factories have moved to say, Georgia or Tennessee. Is New York going to put a tax on products made in Georgia or Tennessee?
Also, it has been said that even if China were to increase her tariffs against US goods and even if tariffs were put on Chinese goods, American businesses can MOVE THEIR FACTORIES to other countries like Vietnam, Thailand, India or the Philippines.
Well if they did this, how is this going to restore jobs lost in the USA unless we demand that these countries pay the same benefits and wages that we pay our workers?
First, we don't have free and fair trade with China or most of the world. It is not a level playing field.
Second, you need to analyze why US firms relocated overseas in the first place. Lower labor costs, less regulation, lower taxes, etc. play a role. The US must create a more friendly environment for business. Trump is doing that with the lowering of the corporate tax rate, cutting regulations, lowering energy costs, etc. We also have the advantages of dependable property rights, stable government, an educated work force, etc.
Third, tariffs work. When the US implemented the so-called chicken tax (25 percent tariff on light trucks imposed in 1964 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken), it resulted to this day in the moving a European car manufacturers to the US to make light trucks and SUVs. There is a reason why BMW, Mercedes, Toyota, etc. have major production facilities in the US. The message: Relocate to the US and avoid the tariffs. The fallacy of NAFTA resulted in an outflow of automotive jobs to Mexico and Canada where cars were made and then shipped for sale into the US without any tariffs.
Some of the most prosperous times in US history came during times of tariffs. The US is the most lucrative and largest export markets in the world. We have all the leverage when it comes to dictating terms on who gets access to that market. Until Trump arrived, we didn't use that leverage and instead allowed the world to take advantage of our very low tariffs while they protected access to their own markets thru high tariffs and other trade barriers.
China will have real political problems if they lose access to our markets. They are far more dependent upon exports than we are. Their loss of jobs would be catastrophic.
So basically, you’re saying, “Learn to code.”
Seriously, you paint with way to wide a brush.
There are certainly important industries a nation needs to keep in an uncertain world. Steel and iron manufacturing, ship-building, aircraft manufacturing, certain high-tech electronics, etc.
Strategically, what would happen if we went to war with China, and all of these industries were outsourced?
Plus, it is important to keep Americans working. Ideally, those jobs would be high-tech, state-of-the-art, and well-paying. However, the system we had under Obama was way to far to the opposite end, and as he said “Those manufacturing jobs are never coming back.”
Well, under Trump, Obama was proved wrong.