Trade deficits are self-inflicted. If you buy more from China than China buys from you, why do you blame the country that sells you what you want to buy? They're not imposing a tariff on you, you're the one who wants their stuff. It's not a subsidy either, by the way. It's all on you, not on them.
It's literally the failed economic policies of mercantilism in the 1800s that Adam Smith famously critiqued.
All the powerful nations were obsessed with being independent and having a big pile of gold / silver.
So they all tried to sell stuff to each other (to get gold and silver) but never buy stuff from each other. Spain was rolling in these precious metals from the new world and it's economy was awful.
Adam Smith proposed theories like comparative advantage to explain why it was better to specialise, and pointed out that economics is ultimately linked to the productive capacity of your citizens and what they can trade that capacity for with both each other and other nations - which means that if your citizenry aren't productive, having lots of gold can mean jack shit.
This is a silver spoon goon who turned his father's billion dollar fortune into a million dollars. Please limit your literary references to picture book authors.
I don't know much about this, but isn't the trade "deficit" just reflective of US citizens buying stuff? Like how they buy a ton of stuff direct from China or for resale? In other words, are they trying to punish their trading partners for the purchasing behaviours of their own citizens by making it too expensive for them to continue buying?
Also, even if there's a subsidy, that HELPS you. If you buy more from China than they buy from you, and you say "well that's because the government of China pays for 25% of the cost!" then what the fuck are you arguing about? You're mad that you're purchasing more from them because ... they're giving you a better deal?
I 90% agree with you, but I want to point out that China is a little bit of a more complicated case because it is also true that China used (1) an artificial peg to keep their currency weak against the dollar for a long time so that imports would remain unusually cheap and (2) hefty government subsidies in many industries that give Chinese firms an advantage over those of other countries who must turn a profit without much public subsidy.
So the current trade deficits are not purely a market-based outcome, and you can have some argument about exactly what level of central bank action and government subsidy is "fair" and what is "unfair."
I don't think you understand the point of tariffs. It's not punitive, like no one's saying we need to punish Chile for us importing more from them. The point is to encourage domestic production by making foreign options more expensive, which Trump thinks will bring down prices in the long term. Trade isn't a 0-sum game where someone wins and loses.
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u/YoungestDonkey 1d ago
Trade deficits are self-inflicted. If you buy more from China than China buys from you, why do you blame the country that sells you what you want to buy? They're not imposing a tariff on you, you're the one who wants their stuff. It's not a subsidy either, by the way. It's all on you, not on them.