The USA has historically been afraid of imposing tariffs for fear the
other country will reciprocate. Since our balance of trade is so far
out of balance already and our exports do not begin to compare with
our imports, especially from China, I think that this fear is rather
out-of-date. Kinda like giving them favored nation trade status in
hopes that they will fix the stuff that should have been a pre-qual
for getting the status in the first place. What a joke!
OTOH, if we slap tariffs on Chinese imports, they are likely to
restrict our access to rare-earth elements, etc that we DO need. As
long as their currency has no official conversion rate to anyone
else's, there is a problem.
Personally, it is long past time to start using tariffs to protect
what industry we have left. In the event of a real war, how would we
survive? No industry means no way to protect yourself. Yeah, we have
made ourselves into a bit of a joke with politicians that cannot see
past re-election.
David L
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