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Any conversation about trade imbalance is silly if you only look at goods and ignore services. In New Zealand as a purchaser of a lot of US services and few US
by robocat 1y ago
Any conversation about trade imbalance is silly if you only look at goods and ignore services.
In New Zealand as a purchaser of a lot of US services and few US goods, I can see why countries want to create tariffs against US services.
- Workaccount2 1y agoServices are white collar and goods are blue collar. Trump was elected by blue collar workers and his plan reflects that.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoHis trade deficit calculations also reflects this, and he gets pissed off when someone like Canada or the EU call him out on it. Canada’s digital services tax modeled after Europe, for example, was a non-starter for the Trump admin even though he didn’t bother to include services in his trade deficit calculations.
- robocat 1y agoFine: just don't write economic arguments if that is what you want to say. Blue Collar workers: ~ 30–35% of working population. Policy that screws your country and the other 2/3rds of the population is bad. I do think a country needs a manufacturing base if it wants to support a military without getting pwned.
- ponector 1y agoWorld police is also not an argument anymore. Noone has faith into current US administration. They simply can walk away from their allies or even stub into their back.