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The only trade deficits that matter are ones that create security dependency. Biden recognized that at the tail end of COVID and that's why they onshored chip m

The only trade deficits that matter are ones that create security dependency. Biden recognized that at the tail end of COVID and that's why they onshored chip manufacturing because so much modern tech needs chips. In world wars, America never wanted to stop being militarily capable so they spend almost a trillion ensuring there's no deficits of the ability to wage war. No one in government prior to trump was operating under the idea that all deficits are ok. Strategic deficits are bad. Now all deficits are bad, which is not the case, at all. America would not suffer any reasonable damage having a coffee bean deficit. Or a tea deficit. Or beer deficit. The terms of the current regimes debate is simply trying to use the word tariff in place of national sales tax and corrupting it as a Nazi isolationism tool.

rayiner 2y ago
> The only trade deficits that matter are ones that create security dependency Most of the trade deficits create a security dependency, because you need to secure the entire supply and skill chain. Prior to World War II, the U.S. had largely demobilized its military. But the U.S. built the world’s largest military virtually overnight thanks to its industrial capacity. At one point a Ford factory was churning out one B24 bomber every hour: https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94614-how-fords-willow-run-assembly-plant-helped-win-world-war-ii https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94614-how-fords-willow-.... Doing something like that requires a depth of capability the U.S. no longer possesses, but China does. To build warplanes you need, for example, aluminum and titanium machinists. Where are they? In China making Macbook cases. China has 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the U.S.: https://www.csis.org/analysis/threat-chinas-shipbuilding-empire https://www.csis.org/analysis/threat-chinas-shipbuilding-emp.... Or if you think the future of warfare is drones instead of planes and ships, guess who makes all the drones?
- cyanydeez 2y ago
  None of those things are addressed by blanket tariffs. You need to define "most of the trade deficits". Start with the island of penguins, and go up.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    That’s bikeshedding from people who tried to give us the TPP.

rayiner 2y ago

> The only trade deficits that matter are ones that create security dependency Most of the trade deficits create a security dependency, because you need to secure the entire supply and skill chain. Prior to World War II, the U.S. had largely demobilized its military. But the U.S. built the world’s largest military virtually overnight thanks to its industrial capacity. At one point a Ford factory was churning out one B24 bomber every hour: https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94614-how-fords-willow-run-assembly-plant-helped-win-world-war-ii https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/94614-how-fords-willow-.... Doing something like that requires a depth of capability the U.S. no longer possesses, but China does. To build warplanes you need, for example, aluminum and titanium machinists. Where are they? In China making Macbook cases. China has 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the U.S.: https://www.csis.org/analysis/threat-chinas-shipbuilding-empire https://www.csis.org/analysis/threat-chinas-shipbuilding-emp.... Or if you think the future of warfare is drones instead of planes and ships, guess who makes all the drones?

cyanydeez 2y ago
None of those things are addressed by blanket tariffs. You need to define "most of the trade deficits". Start with the island of penguins, and go up.
- rayiner 2y ago
  That’s bikeshedding from people who tried to give us the TPP.