Trade wars would make sense if it were two well-armed manufacturing powers, but the US showed up at a knife fight with a tuba. The problem isn't that people ar

Trade wars would make sense if it were two well-armed manufacturing powers, but the US showed up at a knife fight with a tuba. The problem isn't that people are saying "I'll buy the $2.50 Chinese widget over the $4.00 American one", which you might be able to steer by taxing the import highly enough. It's that there is nobody domestic manufacturing the $4.00 widget in the first place. Nobody's going to wait three years for you to build the factory.