5 ms·

I think it was obvious when they used national security concerns to put tariffs on aluminum and steel from Canada.

Waterluvian 7y ago
I can kind of understand it if you consider having a stable, strong steel and aluminum industry a national security issue. Say Canada pulls an Uber and just drives all US forges out of business with Uber cheap metals. Though I doubt we have thay much production capacity to actually put the US at risk.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  What gets me is the hypocrisy of the US. If it's a US industry/company under threat then it's a national security issue. If a foreign country has any protectionist policies, then they're communists and subject to sanctions and/or invasion and/or having their government toppled. I guess it's pretty straightforwardly self-serving, but surely all the other countries' economy's who get carelessly trashed constitute a bigger national security issue!
  - saiya-jin 7y ago
    What gets me even more is how little common folks in US seem to care/understand that days of US being beacon of light, democracy and freedom are long gone and world in many places has overtook them. Quality of life (often even for top 1%) is not there anymore in many important aspects (at least those for me). There are still many great things going on / coming from there, but increasing number of matters are not and often just a sad story. The blonde guy's whims don't help at all. He pisses off practically everybody (apart from authoritative power grabbing figures), since his actions propagate on all of us eventually, never in good ways. Maybe common folks don't travel (far) to understand, watch only Fox News or... just don't care. It feels good to be raised and constantly told how special and better you are, when reality is often... not.
    - shameshame 7y ago
      Your analysis of American politics makes it sound like the entire voting block of US adults supports these policies, wanted this man as president, and watches Fox News. Fact of the matter is 3 million more people voted for the other candidate but this guy won on a technicality. The majority of Americans do not support these policies but our representative election processes are designed to prevent simple majority rule. Couple this with a legislative branch that cedes authority to the executive over the course of decades in the name of political expedience and we are where we are today.
      - Fjolsvith 7y ago
        I would argue that nowadays it could be framed as a "minority of Americans". [1] 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/upshot/trump-approval-rating-rise.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/upshot/trump-approval-rat...
  - close04 7y ago
    They do it because the people who vote for them eat it up. Politics is basically the "science" of hypocrisy. All you need is an easily impressionable audience, ideally with plenty of preconceived notions. https://i.redd.it/gye28fevde011.jpg https://i.redd.it/gye28fevde011.jpg
  - makomk 7y ago
    I think the mistake you're making is that the protectionist policies of (say) the US and China are not remotely comparable. In particular, the whole reason the US needs steel and aluminium tariffs is that China has used protectionism and state subsidies to build a steel and aluminium industry so far in excess of what the country consumes that the surplus has tanked global prices. This is pretty much unprecidented. The US is not the only country that objects to this; the EU wanted to put tariffs on China a few years earlier but they couldn't agree on which goods the tariffs should apply to.
drak0n1c 7y ago
Even if Canada is not likely to become an enemy, their metal industry could dissipate due to any number of other causes (just like how ours has dissipated). It's like using software dependencies - in the long term it can be better to cultivate your in-house engineers and their packages even when popular well-maintained libraries are out there.
- tareqak 7y ago
  If protectionism is good, then why did the world move away from it when it did? I ask this question in good faith: global trade definitely has its downsides, but one positive aspect it has is that reduces the probability of armed conflict taking place between countries trading with one another. All else being equal, waging war on a customer deprives one of their business, and waging war on a supplier deprives one of that source of supplies. To your point, cultivating your in-house engineers on a given project means that those engineers are tied up in that endeavour as opposed to working on something that has a higher return on investment.

I can kind of understand it if you consider having a stable, strong steel and aluminum industry a national security issue. Say Canada pulls an Uber and just drives all US forges out of business with Uber cheap metals. Though I doubt we have thay much production capacity to actually put the US at risk.

nicoburns 7y ago
What gets me is the hypocrisy of the US. If it's a US industry/company under threat then it's a national security issue. If a foreign country has any protectionist policies, then they're communists and subject to sanctions and/or invasion and/or having their government toppled. I guess it's pretty straightforwardly self-serving, but surely all the other countries' economy's who get carelessly trashed constitute a bigger national security issue!
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  What gets me even more is how little common folks in US seem to care/understand that days of US being beacon of light, democracy and freedom are long gone and world in many places has overtook them. Quality of life (often even for top 1%) is not there anymore in many important aspects (at least those for me). There are still many great things going on / coming from there, but increasing number of matters are not and often just a sad story. The blonde guy's whims don't help at all. He pisses off practically everybody (apart from authoritative power grabbing figures), since his actions propagate on all of us eventually, never in good ways. Maybe common folks don't travel (far) to understand, watch only Fox News or... just don't care. It feels good to be raised and constantly told how special and better you are, when reality is often... not.
  - shameshame 7y ago
    Your analysis of American politics makes it sound like the entire voting block of US adults supports these policies, wanted this man as president, and watches Fox News. Fact of the matter is 3 million more people voted for the other candidate but this guy won on a technicality. The majority of Americans do not support these policies but our representative election processes are designed to prevent simple majority rule. Couple this with a legislative branch that cedes authority to the executive over the course of decades in the name of political expedience and we are where we are today.
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      I would argue that nowadays it could be framed as a "minority of Americans". [1] 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/upshot/trump-approval-rating-rise.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/upshot/trump-approval-rat...
- close04 7y ago
  They do it because the people who vote for them eat it up. Politics is basically the "science" of hypocrisy. All you need is an easily impressionable audience, ideally with plenty of preconceived notions. https://i.redd.it/gye28fevde011.jpg https://i.redd.it/gye28fevde011.jpg
- makomk 7y ago
  I think the mistake you're making is that the protectionist policies of (say) the US and China are not remotely comparable. In particular, the whole reason the US needs steel and aluminium tariffs is that China has used protectionism and state subsidies to build a steel and aluminium industry so far in excess of what the country consumes that the surplus has tanked global prices. This is pretty much unprecidented. The US is not the only country that objects to this; the EU wanted to put tariffs on China a few years earlier but they couldn't agree on which goods the tariffs should apply to.

drak0n1c 7y ago

Even if Canada is not likely to become an enemy, their metal industry could dissipate due to any number of other causes (just like how ours has dissipated). It's like using software dependencies - in the long term it can be better to cultivate your in-house engineers and their packages even when popular well-maintained libraries are out there.

tareqak 7y ago
If protectionism is good, then why did the world move away from it when it did? I ask this question in good faith: global trade definitely has its downsides, but one positive aspect it has is that reduces the probability of armed conflict taking place between countries trading with one another. All else being equal, waging war on a customer deprives one of their business, and waging war on a supplier deprives one of that source of supplies. To your point, cultivating your in-house engineers on a given project means that those engineers are tied up in that endeavour as opposed to working on something that has a higher return on investment.