The examples of nontariff "cheating" cited by Navarro included Chinese products routed through Vietnam, intellectual property theft and a value-added tax.
This is why these “zero for zero” offers are going to go absolutely nowhere.
By their own admission, the administration is simply inventing these numbers for “tariffs applied against the US”. What they are, in actually, is the US trade deficit against that country as a percentage.
But the thing is, you’re never going see an even trade balance between the US and Vietnam while still having trade between those countries, because nothing made in the US is affordable to the average person living in Vietnam.
The only way to get that fictional “tariffs applied against the US” number down to zero is for Vietnam to stop all exports to the US. That means that a whole lot of clothes, electronics and other consumer goods will need to be made in the US instead of being made in Vietnam.
No version of this works out well for Vietnam, and even for the US it either involves prices increasing to reflect the higher average wages and cost of living in the US, or US wages decreasing to the point where you’ve basically got all these goods being made by utterly impoverished workers in American sweat shops.
I’m not going to say that American consumers exploiting poorer Vietnamese workers to subsidize their own cost of living is a morally good system, but it sure is one that was working pretty well for the average American consumer.
I can’t stress to you enough how little this distinction matters to the rest of the world.
America elected Trump. Again. Knowing exactly who he was, and what he would do, because it’s just more of what he did the first time.
We don’t really care which specific Americans are to blame for that. The existence of good Americans is as meaningful to us as the existence of good cops.
This is why the relationship between America and its allies is never going to be the same again. We can’t trust you. Sure, maybe in four years Trump will be gone. Maybe he won’t. But, to paraphrase a French senator, we can’t put our security in the hands of a bunch of voters in Wisconsin every four years.
America held a trusted place in the world. That can’t happen anymore, because the American people have proven themselves incapable of living up to that trust.
I think the countries that are making “deals” are just agreeing to buying a shitload of some market commodity like LNG. If you need energy anyway, it’s a pretty easy way to adjust the “imbalance” obviously that won’t work for every country.
This is why these “zero for zero” offers are going to go absolutely nowhere.
By their own admission, the administration is simply inventing these numbers for “tariffs applied against the US”. What they are, in actually, is the US trade deficit against that country as a percentage.
But the thing is, you’re never going see an even trade balance between the US and Vietnam while still having trade between those countries, because nothing made in the US is affordable to the average person living in Vietnam.
The only way to get that fictional “tariffs applied against the US” number down to zero is for Vietnam to stop all exports to the US. That means that a whole lot of clothes, electronics and other consumer goods will need to be made in the US instead of being made in Vietnam.
No version of this works out well for Vietnam, and even for the US it either involves prices increasing to reflect the higher average wages and cost of living in the US, or US wages decreasing to the point where you’ve basically got all these goods being made by utterly impoverished workers in American sweat shops.
I’m not going to say that American consumers exploiting poorer Vietnamese workers to subsidize their own cost of living is a morally good system, but it sure is one that was working pretty well for the average American consumer.
This, 100%. Some sane analysis of US idiocy.
Some sane analysis of MAGA idiocy.
I can’t stress to you enough how little this distinction matters to the rest of the world.
America elected Trump. Again. Knowing exactly who he was, and what he would do, because it’s just more of what he did the first time.
We don’t really care which specific Americans are to blame for that. The existence of good Americans is as meaningful to us as the existence of good cops.
This is why the relationship between America and its allies is never going to be the same again. We can’t trust you. Sure, maybe in four years Trump will be gone. Maybe he won’t. But, to paraphrase a French senator, we can’t put our security in the hands of a bunch of voters in Wisconsin every four years.
America held a trusted place in the world. That can’t happen anymore, because the American people have proven themselves incapable of living up to that trust.
At this moment, on a geopolitical scale, the two are synonymous.
The distinction only matters to those of us unfortunate enough to be in the US right now.
I think the countries that are making “deals” are just agreeing to buying a shitload of some market commodity like LNG. If you need energy anyway, it’s a pretty easy way to adjust the “imbalance” obviously that won’t work for every country.
Wait until he demands equality on things like chocolate and coffee.
“Uh sir, we can’t grow cocoa in the US.”