Fair Trade

[level_head]

Can we fix trade imbalances by enacting punitive tariffs against companies and countries? These are excerpts from a conversation on Citizen Tom’s blog. My counterpart here is not a bad person, but I certainly disagree that tariffs are the answer to trade imbalances, and I said so…

To the idea that “[t]he government did allow to US manufacturing

Comments

[harvey_rrit]

There's another lesson of history seldom mentioned even by conservatives

[level_head]

You're describing China, of course, whose PRC owns much of the industry we deal with. Free trade does not mean writing the PRC a letter enabling them to visit and inspect our missile bases, as Bill Clinton did when he needed campaign cash in 1995.

I was involved, peripherally, in that transfer of missile guidance technology back then: I was one of the customers for whom the Long March III satellite with the Loral payload was being launched, and I'd had dinner with Bernie Schwartz, CEO of Loral, not long before that. Shortly thereafter, to stop the federal investigation, Schwartz became the largest donor to a presidential re-election campaign in history.

Here is an article from the time that so benignly describes all these doings as "just coincidence." Later, once Bush took over and the investigation restarted, Loral plead guilty to the technology transfer to China and was let off with a $20m fine

[ext_1399643]

Thanks for the link.

As I see it, complex trade agreements and tariff barriers stem from the need to for control. Unfortunately, people often think we can control things we cannot control. Given too much power, politicians will pervert even the best intentions.

With respect to your debate with your counterpart on my post, here is the comment I left.

The basic reason we have a constitutional republic is that we cannot trust either our leadership or each other. Therefore, as much as possible we refrain from the use of coercion against each other

[rowyn]

I don't know how anyone can seriously think that tariffs could 'benefit both sides'. Tariffs are inevitably about punishing the companies/people of the country you impose them upon. One must, at a minimum, believe that the people/companies of foreign nations deserve less than one's own. I guess you get to that by believe the other nations have some unfair advantage which tariffs will magically fix. Blah.

[level_head]

My opponent in this correspondence has promised to expand upon the reasoning behind these ideas, and demonstrate to me that I am incorrect. We shall see.

===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle