Riddle me this — When an American purchases an Apple Computer, it does not represent the U.S. Congress’ trading with the Chinese government. It represents an American citizen’s engaging in peaceable, voluntary exchange, through intermediaries, with a Chinese computer assembler. When voluntary exchange occurs, it means that both parties are better off in their own estimation — not Trump’s estimation or Dell’s estimation. I’d like to hear the moral case for third-party interference with such an exchange.
And think about it, by trying to save jobs for one industry, have you ever considered the increased prices that flow on to consumers ( yes, AMERICAN CONSUMERS ) causing them to have less money in their pockets?
Let’s delve a bit into the politics of trade tariffs. Whom do we see spending the most resources lobbying for tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum? Is it American users of steel and aluminum, such as Harley-Davidson and John Deere? Or is it United States Steel Corp. and Alcoa?
Of course it’s U.S. Steel and Alcoa. They benefit from tariffs by being able to sell their products at higher prices. Harley-Davidson and John Deere lose by having to pay higher prices for their inputs, steel and aluminum, and their customers lose by having to pay higher product prices.
The ruse used to promote producer interests through tariff policy is concern about our large trade deficit. It’s true that we have a large current account trade deficit. However, that’s matched EXACTLY BY A LARGE CAPITAL ACCOUNT SURPLUS.
Translated, that means Americans buy more goods from other countries than they buy from us; that’s our current account deficit. But other countries find our investment climate attractive and invest more in the U.S. than we invest in other countries; that’s our CAPITAL ACCOUNT SURPLUS.
Have you ever wondered why foreigners (yes, Chinese included) are willing to invest far more money in NY, Texas and California than they are willing to invest in Argentina and Venezuela?
Do you think it’s because they like North Americans better than they like South Americans? No. We’ve always had an attractive investment climate, and we’ve had current account deficits and capital account surpluses throughout most of our nation’s history. In fact, the only time we had a sustained current account trade surplus was during the Great Depression, when we had a surplus in nine out of 10 years, with 1936 being the lone exception.
Don't even go there. You have absolutely no Constitutional right to free trade with any foreign entity what so ever. Actually the opposite is true. So get over it.
The good news is you do have the right to free trade between the many states and with citizens of the USA, inside the USA, which should be enough for any Patriot to make a buck.