My only complaint with China's intellectual property theft is that they don't share. It's my genuine belief that the vast majority of intellectual property own

My only complaint with China's intellectual property theft is that they don't share. It's my genuine belief that the vast majority of intellectual property ownership is purely to draw a moat around a country's oligarchs. Copyright does not protect creators and patents do not protect inventors[0]. Trump's thinking is: - America used to have lots of tariffs in the 70s, and lots of jobs in the 70s, - But we got rid of the tariffs and the jobs moved, - So if I put the tariffs back the jobs will come back! Problem is, we're not in the same market we were in the 70s, and all those tariffs risk turning us into Brazil. More specifically the reason why the intellectual property system we have is fucked is because it's designed to let corporations move jobs to foreign countries while still maintaining maximum control over the end result. It's designed to facilitate neocolonialism. The "open and balanced" global market you're decrying was, until recently, heavily tilted to favor American ownership over everything. China and Mexico are there to castrate the unions: if you don't work for peanuts, we move the work to another country that will, and we don't worry about any of the business risk that entails because WIPO and Berne ensure none of the goods the other country makes get to compete with us unless we put our stamp on it. You know what would really break this system? If China, Canada, or some other country were to junk WIPO and DMCA 1201 and start up a national lab to develop and distribute jailbreaks for shitty disposable American tech. Practically speaking, America can't stop knowledge from entering the country, and it would spur a huge explosion of new American businesses to fix the shit our own oligarchs broke. In a world where you can't rely on intellectual property bullshit, outsourcing becomes a crapshoot, and it makes a lot more sense to pay workers what they're worth and focus on automation instead. [0] Yes, they can and have been used by creators in the past, but that's not what the system does today.