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Literally like 99.9% of all economists who don't work for the Trump administration would disagree with this, and 100% of the ones who study the effects of inter
by Matticus_Rex 7y ago
Literally like 99.9% of all economists who don't work for the Trump administration would disagree with this, and 100% of the ones who study the effects of international trade.
- 55555 7y agoI don't think you are right but if you are then I don't think those economists are right. There is a balance to strike. If your country is behind them protectionism can be powerful.
- Matticus_Rex 7y agoLet me illustrate: My consulting company does business in China, and when we do, we (out of self-interest, since we don't speak Chinese and it's hard to do logistics without that) partner with Chinese companies. My company has some of the leading experts in a very niche thing. In the current state, the companies we partner with get to learn from us and gain expertise. The alternative if protectionist policies stop us from doing business in China isn't for those people to become experts on their own -- that's not possible. The alternative is for them either not to gain expertise at all or to have to get it in a more difficult and expensive way. Protectionism can benefit a fledgling industry (not a whole country) in the short term in a limited set of cases (at the expense of dragging down the rest of the economy), but in most cases the protected industry is going to fall behind even more without the information transfer that comes from business leaders doing business there.
- bananabreakfast 7y agoYes, of course. Your protectionist and nationalist knee-jerk reaction and gut feeling is certainly more trustworthy than all of the world's economists.