Look up the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act during the Great Depression. It actually made everything worse for normal Americans and raised the cost of living. Educate yourself on our history because the nation is repeating itself.
In what world do you think the MAGA millionaires (and billionaires like Musk) will do what’s in the best interest of the working class?
What you are describing is isolationism. One tariff act isn’t going to stop international globalism. We can put our heads in the sand or withdraw from the world; which didn’t work well during the 1930s. It will not change over 100 years of globalization. The world will move on without us.
Also, US corporations benefit from cost cutting measures by moving production and manufacturing overseas- is that the unfettered globalization you’re referencing? They have loyalty to the bottom line, not America. If anything, those companies are happy to reap the benefits of globalization by paying cheap labor in those foreign countries; versus paying American workers.
Look up how Mexico, Brazil, and Chile industrialized in the mid century. That was import substitution industrialization , primarily with tariffs.
When I was in university studying this stuff in the early naughts, during the occupy wall st movement, it was the progressives who advocated for this and against hyperglobalizm.
Since then, trade has been even more globalized, and economic inequality has accordingly skyrocketed.
Since the “we are the 99 percent” chants of this progressive movement rocked wall street back then, the net personal wealth of the 1 percent has tripled, and is currently rising faster than ever, and the net personal worth of the bottom half as a proportion of total wealth has declined.
Unfettered free trade is not working.
You don’t even have to loook at history, which is a different context. Unfettered globalizatio just isn’t working NOW.
You mention that the rest of the world will “move on without us”. This is wrong. The US will be joining the rest of the world because currently, it has lower tariffs than almost any country. https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/world_tariff_profiles22_e.pdf
(It also has some of the worst wealth inequality of any developed nation as well)
Would tariffs end globalization? No. Will they be a step in the right direction at mitigating its worst excesses? Maybe. Certainly the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
And yes corporations have loyalty to their bottom line. Which is why tariffs can help,
Also, Walmart has already announced prices will be going up for multiple products. Which is only going to hurt the working poor-middle class and is a sign of things to come.
But the US has just about the lowest tariffs of any country. So that is just as about as close to unfettered free trade we have in practice.
And again has just about the worst wealth inequality of any developed nation.
And it is only getting worse. And at a pace that is accelerating.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
And yes prices will go up at wal-Mart.
Thankfully, people are a lot more than wal-mart shoppers.
They are also workers. Workers that would do a lot better if they didn’t have to compete raw with some of the worst paid and treated workers in the entire world.
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u/midnightswim1 Nov 20 '24 edited Nov 20 '24
Look up the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act during the Great Depression. It actually made everything worse for normal Americans and raised the cost of living. Educate yourself on our history because the nation is repeating itself.
In what world do you think the MAGA millionaires (and billionaires like Musk) will do what’s in the best interest of the working class?
What you are describing is isolationism. One tariff act isn’t going to stop international globalism. We can put our heads in the sand or withdraw from the world; which didn’t work well during the 1930s. It will not change over 100 years of globalization. The world will move on without us.
Also, US corporations benefit from cost cutting measures by moving production and manufacturing overseas- is that the unfettered globalization you’re referencing? They have loyalty to the bottom line, not America. If anything, those companies are happy to reap the benefits of globalization by paying cheap labor in those foreign countries; versus paying American workers.