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Originally Posted by 80stech
The dairy problem actually started with the US dumping milk into Canada. I have a few friends that were dairy farmers. I imagine there is more than you realize to most of those "everyone is ripping us off" stories. Automotive and unions is another one. Have you seen any of your documentaries on chicken??
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I agree. The US has historically levies just as many tariffs on other countries products as they have on ours. Sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes not. Unraveling these reasons, cause and effect, etc. can rapidly devolve into partisanship and recriminations. It’s clear to me though that populists use tariffs for votes primarily, as part of a broader message their base. Unfortunately this base doesn’t benefit in any way historically from specific tariffs, but that’s not the point of them historically, or now. Case in point, the US taxpayer had to bail out the US farmers (mostly Midwest) to the tune of over $60B during trump’s first trade war. Since amount this was roughly the same amount collected effectively from US consumers from the tariffs, the US consumers paid double for being stupid. If protecting our farmers was important, maybe we should have just given $60b to them and called it a better investment.
The US has levied a 14% tariff on Canadian lumber since the early 80s. US lumber imports from Canada however, have steadily grown to the point where now we import roughly half of our softwood demand from our former friend and ally to the north. The lumbar industry died in the US not because of Canadian trees, but because the majority of US voters decided the spotted owl and its fellow public land forest dwellers were not worth killing off in search of cheap wood. This is only one example of there being a much, much bigger picture to the tariff issue that populist politicians won’t, or can’t incorporate into thier thinking and arguments. And yes, Canada surely levies tariffs on specific US products as do many other countries.
Regardless of why though, it seems pretty clear that tariffs, don’t, and never have solved the broader economic imbalances that some politicians pandering to a base claim they will. But as a targeted solution to specific imbalances and hostile trade policies, national security concerns, or ironically to bolster a strong climate policy by making products produced in countries with little to no climate policies more expensive, they should be considered. I say ironically because this is exactly what the US does: we export our dirty work and then bitch about things being too expensive. We don’t want to see it being made by kids in smoggy places, but we certainly don’t want to pay more for it.
As far as the F-35 goes, I would cancel my orders too if I was a country being crapped on by the trump administration. There are excellent 4th and 4.5 gen fighters out there to bridge the gap and that are easily the match of Russian and Chinese planes, and it’s a horribly bloated, expensive and compromised program. That isn’t to say it’s not a great platform though, but this is what misguided, populist trade wars result in.
We never exported the F-22, for national security reasons, I’m skeptical that we will export its replacement. It’s tough enough for us to protect our national secrets here in the US, Signal chats notwithstanding!