In 2010, China weaponized rare earths against Japan.
Last week Trump said, Nobody has ever seen anything like this.... But he says this a lot. What it really means is, don't blame him for screwing up.
Somebody wasn't paying attention. And unfortunately for the USA, somebody started a trade war without being adequately prepared or fully considering the repercussions.
Now somebody is most likely going to have to surrender and declare victory.
2000 - Yikes, why is everything all of a sudden made in China!?
2010 - I guess we don't have any options, there isn't a single one made in the USA, I guess we're doing this - let's hope there's no lead in it
2020 - OH CRAP WE CAN'T GET ANYTHING - WE SHOULD MANUFACTURE LOCALLY
2023 - OH we can get our Cheap Chinese Crap again built with slave labor
2024 - Global awareness that most things made in china are made with slave labor
2025 - Global TDS over tariffs to try to rebuild American manufactoring so we don't repeat the cycle and support slave labor and help create new American jobs.
Tariffs don't rebuild manufacturing capacity. All US citizens participate in a free market, as long as foreign labor is cheaper then American businesses have no incentive to participate in the economy. This happened when automotive assembly lines left for Mexico, when EUV lithography went to Taiwan, and to hundreds of other postwar industries that cannot support themselves without invasive and overreaching wartime subsidies.
Anyone can look at the graph and say for themselves that pivoting to manufacturing would kill the American economy as it has lived since the Reagan administration. It genuinely makes more sense for the US government to pay out-of-pocket for factories like China does, rather than applying tariffs that punish the economy for making smart and profitable decisions.
> All US citizens participate in a free market, as long as foreign labor is cheaper then American businesses have no incentive to participate in the economy.
You just said it right there, a great argument to make the tariffs match what is required to allow US Citizens to compete with global slave labor prices - OR block all products built with slave labor.
Sounds like a communist planned economy, to me. Why can't Americans vote with their dollar? Nobody should be forced to pay higher prices for everyday goods simply because American businesses are apathetic. It's the economy, stupid.
If we're going to play the "authoritarian economics" card, it makes much more sense to start building what you want now. The game of hot potato trying to make Intel worthy of Apple's business is a waste of American taxpayer dollars that could be going towards a nationalized fab that doesn't suck Satan's ballsack. It's a national embarrassment now that SMIC can beat American-owned fabs on transistor density and yield.
Last week Trump said, Nobody has ever seen anything like this.... But he says this a lot. What it really means is, don't blame him for screwing up.
Somebody wasn't paying attention. And unfortunately for the USA, somebody started a trade war without being adequately prepared or fully considering the repercussions.
Now somebody is most likely going to have to surrender and declare victory.