People just don’t understand trade. Canada is already free to trade anywhere if they could. Their best customer is the US. They will be hit extremely hard by tariffs the US will barely notice their retaliation. Trump did this before with China and the result was a huge increase in US companies/small businesses profits probably Canadian too while to this day China has never increased that market despite the tariffs being removed.

 

If you’re at a 100 billion deficit that’s 100 billion US money going out of the country. Thats Canadian money now. If the tariffs now mean US products are cheaper then that money stays in the aid helps US businesses not Canadian and increases tax revenues which could allow Trump to reduce taxes which ultimately means Americans are better off even if they’re paying more

 

Slightly higher prices but lower taxes and higher wages works out fine. UK has low wages, high taxes and high prices. That’s why it’s a mess right now. Once you’ve created a US customer base or got concessions then you drop the tariffs and suddenly you have all three, lower taxes, lower prices and higher wages.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

You trade with your nearest partner as the supply & shipping costs are lower. Hence why neighbours trade with each other as it's profitable for both unless someone cuts you a better deal. Canada & the US have a healthy trade relationship because the trade is relatively easy and it works both ways. Oh I don't know, if a country is strategic about this, say the EU, you could negotiate a deal with Canada which works for both parties. You know, it's why Brexit has been an absolute car crash and everything from Project Fear has been proven correct. Deciding to butcher the trade relationships with your allies and partners is a dumb move.

 

You're parroting the MAGA line from the Twitter echo chamber. If you think this reduces prices for the American consumer and they won't feel it, good luck with that. Complete fantasy stuff. In a trade war means nobody wins, expect the billionaires. Tariffs are well know to be inflationary and like I've said before and you've ignored is once the prices go up, they won't come down. America imports cheap oil from Canada, so even if America produces a lot of its food domestically, it increases the cost in the supply chain as energy & raw materials are purchased elsewhere.

 

I'm sure eventually all of the US, Mexico & Canada will work something out and Trump will proclaim a great victory, expect if you actually look at the details it's not. The one thing Trump and MAGA doesn't understand is having strong allies and courgagous friends is a great source of power in itself. They are relenquishing all soft power to China in the global stage.

Here’s the thing. If Tariffs didn’t work or were bad why did the Biden administration keep in place the tariffs he had with China? They were working that’s why. It is a gamble but everything is a gamble. Not having tariffs is a gamble too. You can slowly see more and more companies move out of the US to Mexico or Canada then import into the US and if you allow that over 10-15 years you end up losing 250+ billion a year in taxes. Thats what was happening before.

 

You're missing the point completely. China is different - ultimately from an economic point of view they are a threat to America. Through government subsidies & cheaper labour they can flood markets with cheaper imitations of goods, see their move in to telecomms with Huawei, their electric vehichles and all of the super low cost long haul flights and even now their ability to create cheaper imintations of AI chips which tanked the stock market recently. It's a move against a non-political ally where cheap often lower quality Chinese products are stopped. Canada & Mexico are political allies and work with America strategically in the world stage, as well as trading on lots of essential items to function (unlike Chinese products).

 

The US doesn't have the same manufactuing capabilities and it is also expensive for business to operate in due to the costs associated. Any attempt to bring manufacturing capacity back to the US will.. yep you guessed it, fill billionaire's pockets even more! As all those factories will be flooded through with automation. So unless America can find a way to tax robots, not sure where all this extra money is coming from.

It's the pain of increased prices and certain economic slowdown for no real good reason. Trump says he believes the pain is worth it, but there's not much evidence of the benefits...

 

Fentanyl is a pretense for the emergency introduction and dreams of American manufacturing returning to a former glory are just as dumb as every other time a president or candidate has brought it up in the past half-century, as Rooney says, the only people who can possibly benefit from this are business owners and billionaires with existing American infrastructure who'll start capturing the markets. Disaster capitalism rearing its head again. As with every nascent right-wing movement, it's not organic, it's not 'what the people want', it's a stooge saying things that are nice for people to hear until they win power and can start working in the interest of the capital class to make their bottom line go up at the expense of everyone else. Politics and economics has never been a zero-sum game, but these weapons treat it like one and make everyone else worse off if it puts them in a better position for even a short time.

It's the pain of increased prices and certain economic slowdown for no real good reason. Trump says he believes the pain is worth it, but there's not much evidence of the benefits...

 

Fentanyl is a pretense for the emergency introduction and dreams of American manufacturing returning to a former glory are just as dumb as every other time a president or candidate has brought it up in the past half-century, as Rooney says, the only people who can possibly benefit from this are business owners and billionaires with existing American infrastructure who'll start capturing the markets. Disaster capitalism rearing its head again. As with every nascent right-wing movement, it's not organic, it's not 'what the people want', it's a stooge saying things that are nice for people to hear until they win power and can start working in the interest of the capital class to make their bottom line go up at the expense of everyone else. Politics and economics has never been a zero-sum game, but these weapons treat it like one and make everyone else worse off if it puts them in a better position for even a short time.

 

Plus, I can tell it's a dumb thing when my Twitter algorithm is full of people saying it's a dumb thing :lol: Idiots thinking America can just produce everything and there's no repecussions for them. Will be interesting to see how Wall Street reacts on Monday morning in the US. Can't wait for the US to start demanding everyone needs to buy US cars next, forgetting that outside of the US there is little to zero appettite for any US cars.

People just don’t understand trade. Canada is already free to trade anywhere if they could. Their best customer is the US. They will be hit extremely hard by tariffs the US will barely notice their retaliation. Trump did this before with China and the result was a huge increase in US companies/small businesses profits probably Canadian too while to this day China has never increased that market despite the tariffs being removed.

 

If you’re at a 100 billion deficit that’s 100 billion US money going out of the country. Thats Canadian money now. If the tariffs now mean US products are cheaper then that money stays in the aid helps US businesses not Canadian and increases tax revenues which could allow Trump to reduce taxes which ultimately means Americans are better off even if they’re paying more

 

Slightly higher prices but lower taxes and higher wages works out fine. UK has low wages, high taxes and high prices. That’s why it’s a mess right now. Once you’ve created a US customer base or got concessions then you drop the tariffs and suddenly you have all three, lower taxes, lower prices and higher wages.

 

Why do you keep parroting right wing talking points????

Id say to either of you two to explain why if it’s a dumb idiotic right wing former glory idea did Joe Biden not only keep the tariffs in place but INCREASE them https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/09/13/politics...ffs-biden-trump

 

Please explain? People get attached to normality too much that even when it doesn’t work(congress approval rating is like minus 80, populist people/parties are surging, everyone feels like they’re left behind) you should continue doing the same thing?

 

There are winners and losers. There are rich and poor. That’s just how the world works. You can’t all win. America was winning and China has overtaken them thanks to low labor and undercutting and other countries started doing the same thing so why wouldn’t you do something about that?

 

The arguments that it favours billionaires and the rich is very similar to people who are too heavily pro immigration and pretend it’s great for the economy when it’s actually great for billionaires and terrible wages of ordinary citizens who now have to work longer and harder for less and often struggle to get jobs they used to have. It’s just being too attached to an ideology instead of reacting to the current reality in front of you

Id say to either of you two to explain why if it’s a dumb idiotic right wing former glory idea did Joe Biden not only keep the tariffs in place but INCREASE them https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/09/13/politics...ffs-biden-trump

 

Please explain? People get attached to normality too much that even when it doesn’t work(congress approval rating is like minus 80, populist people/parties are surging, everyone feels like they’re left behind) you should continue doing the same thing?

 

There are winners and losers. There are rich and poor. That’s just how the world works. You can’t all win. America was winning and China has overtaken them thanks to low labor and undercutting and other countries started doing the same thing so why wouldn’t you do something about that?

 

The arguments that it favours billionaires and the rich is very similar to people who are too heavily pro immigration and pretend it’s great for the economy when it’s actually great for billionaires and terrible wages of ordinary citizens who now have to work longer and harder for less and often struggle to get jobs they used to have. It’s just being too attached to an ideology instead of reacting to the current reality in front of you

 

I think you miss the clear distinction as has already been mentioned of China (a major competitor) vs Mexico & Canada which are allies that share a good trading relationship with the US. Or did.

Id say to either of you two to explain why if it’s a dumb idiotic right wing former glory idea did Joe Biden not only keep the tariffs in place but INCREASE them https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/09/13/politics...ffs-biden-trump

 

Please explain? People get attached to normality too much that even when it doesn’t work(congress approval rating is like minus 80, populist people/parties are surging, everyone feels like they’re left behind) you should continue doing the same thing?

 

There are winners and losers. There are rich and poor. That’s just how the world works. You can’t all win. America was winning and China has overtaken them thanks to low labor and undercutting and other countries started doing the same thing so why wouldn’t you do something about that?

 

The arguments that it favours billionaires and the rich is very similar to people who are too heavily pro immigration and pretend it’s great for the economy when it’s actually great for billionaires and terrible wages of ordinary citizens who now have to work longer and harder for less and often struggle to get jobs they used to have. It’s just being too attached to an ideology instead of reacting to the current reality in front of you

 

I've already explained about China, that's completely different to Mexico & Canada. Tariffs are not going to grow the economy.

 

You've consumed way too much Twitter. If you can't see how this benefits the elite when they make a mint off the stock market crashes and hoovering it all up then I just don't get it. You mention populism and no hope, but these sorts of measures are not going to make anyone's lifes better, it will make them worse. And immigration is good, it's very basic economics. The idea that people can't get jobs because of immigration is absolutely laughable. Here's a thing, as much as I am a fan of capitalism, companies are so short term these days and at the behost of shareholders, so they end up making disasterous short term decisions and over paying dividends.

Neoliberal centrists like the Democratic Party are not immune to dumb right-wing ideas. In fact, they do sometimes continue them because nationalism is an easy answer. As Rooney said further up the thread, tariffs with China is one thing because they have the ability to overwhelm an American market, though long-term it does harm the growth of both countries as inevitably trade will occur and consumers on both sides will end up paying higher prices than they otherwise would - taxes by another name and regressive at that because they target consumers.

 

The thing is, yes, disapproval ratings have been disastrous under traditional centrist government, but Trumpism and right-wing populism has no answers or vacuous answers to any of the problems caused by such. The real problems are inequality and democratic deficits that have been done by years of lobbying and capitalist influence on American democratic systems, and because of their cronyist relations with billionaires, Trump and his Republicans will only accelerate such. That gives nothing to the people who are disapproving of American governments because it does nothing to affect their fundamental situations, poor personal economic stability and poor worker's rights. Tariffs are just one, very obvious, example of that because it directly jacks up prices for ordinary people and once it hits Trump will be despised, if the voters find out where it came from that is.

 

What would an ideal economic flow look like? Probably one where America is not absurdly rich compared to the rest of the world (and yet filled with inequality because that wealth is concentrated towards the top) such that people are dying to move there and trade there, because then there'd be less ability for American workers to be undercut by their bosses. A good American government would look outward and use its extraordinary wealth and power to fix the problems of its own people, and the world too.

 

Ironically this is such a bad economic decision, the world is too interconnected, that it may cause America to slow down towards that if it continues to play isolationist, but not in the ideal way where that wealth gets used for good, rather robber barons will ransack it and the wealth will evaporate. It's the new Gilded Age. Talking about winners and losers, this makes America a loser for not participating in the global stage.

 

On a theoretical level immigration is undeniably great for an economy and the deportations Trump's carrying out will also have a longer negative impact once the loss of those people is felt - but open borders is a target that requires a few prerequisites before it's a good idea, like decreasing the control of corporations to improve equality more generally over an economy, for one. It doesn't really affect inequality by itself and treating it as a panacea for such is the preserve of the racist.

or more simply put, deal with America being corporations in a trenchcoat to actually solve the many societal issues it has and don't hand over control to the guy who was already sitting at the head of said trenchcoat to fix it by making himself look tough and cynically playing to nationalist interests.

 

and then go read Marx or Keynes before getting sucked back into the news cycle about how Trump's really a manly man who's showing people how winners WIN

Id say to either of you two to explain why if it’s a dumb idiotic right wing former glory idea did Joe Biden not only keep the tariffs in place but INCREASE them https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/09/13/politics...ffs-biden-trump

 

Please explain? People get attached to normality too much that even when it doesn’t work(congress approval rating is like minus 80, populist people/parties are surging, everyone feels like they’re left behind) you should continue doing the same thing?

 

There are winners and losers. There are rich and poor. That’s just how the world works. You can’t all win. America was winning and China has overtaken them thanks to low labor and undercutting and other countries started doing the same thing so why wouldn’t you do something about that?

 

The arguments that it favours billionaires and the rich is very similar to people who are too heavily pro immigration and pretend it’s great for the economy when it’s actually great for billionaires and terrible wages of ordinary citizens who now have to work longer and harder for less and often struggle to get jobs they used to have. It’s just being too attached to an ideology instead of reacting to the current reality in front of you

I believe you meant to say 'white people' here.

 

Poor 'ordinary citizens' being shoved to the side by the evil immigrants taking their jobs. If that's correct, then MAYBE those ORDINARY CITIZENS should stop sitting on their asses and be BETTER at the jobs. There are winners and losers. There are rich and poor. That’s just how the world works. You can’t all win.

Neoliberal centrists like the Democratic Party are not immune to dumb right-wing ideas. In fact, they do sometimes continue them because nationalism is an easy answer. As Rooney said further up the thread, tariffs with China is one thing because they have the ability to overwhelm an American market, though long-term it does harm the growth of both countries as inevitably trade will occur and consumers on both sides will end up paying higher prices than they otherwise would - taxes by another name and regressive at that because they target consumers.

 

The thing is, yes, disapproval ratings have been disastrous under traditional centrist government, but Trumpism and right-wing populism has no answers or vacuous answers to any of the problems caused by such. The real problems are inequality and democratic deficits that have been done by years of lobbying and capitalist influence on American democratic systems, and because of their cronyist relations with billionaires, Trump and his Republicans will only accelerate such. That gives nothing to the people who are disapproving of American governments because it does nothing to affect their fundamental situations, poor personal economic stability and poor worker's rights. Tariffs are just one, very obvious, example of that because it directly jacks up prices for ordinary people and once it hits Trump will be despised, if the voters find out where it came from that is.

 

What would an ideal economic flow look like? Probably one where America is not absurdly rich compared to the rest of the world (and yet filled with inequality because that wealth is concentrated towards the top) such that people are dying to move there and trade there, because then there'd be less ability for American workers to be undercut by their bosses. A good American government would look outward and use its extraordinary wealth and power to fix the problems of its own people, and the world too.

 

Ironically this is such a bad economic decision, the world is too interconnected, that it may cause America to slow down towards that if it continues to play isolationist, but not in the ideal way where that wealth gets used for good, rather robber barons will ransack it and the wealth will evaporate. It's the new Gilded Age. Talking about winners and losers, this makes America a loser for not participating in the global stage.

 

On a theoretical level immigration is undeniably great for an economy and the deportations Trump's carrying out will also have a longer negative impact once the loss of those people is felt - but open borders is a target that requires a few prerequisites before it's a good idea, like decreasing the control of corporations to improve equality more generally over an economy, for one. It doesn't really affect inequality by itself and treating it as a panacea for such is the preserve of the racist.

 

It's such a bad economic decision (on Canada), that even economists who cannot ever agree on anything, all agree that it's a terrible idea :lol: It's honestly dumb. How long are we going to bet before it's reversed when MAGA realise they've truly ballsed up.

I believe you meant to say 'white people' here.

 

Poor 'ordinary citizens' being shoved to the side by the evil immigrants taking their jobs. If that's correct, then MAYBE those ORDINARY CITIZENS should stop sitting on their asses and be BETTER at the jobs. There are winners and losers. There are rich and poor. That’s just how the world works. You can’t all win.

 

I sort of wanted to further touch on that idea of Liam's, that the world is a zero-sum game with winners and losers, but I was writing too much. It's just quite obviously not true, and the international cooperation post-war should be a clear example of that, when the world moved from an anarchic zero-sum game of states to generally, improving living standards across the whole world. Some of that is free trade, some of that is most countries treating others as allies by default as opposed to an opponent, but an era of international liberalism is just better for everyone, more peace, greater economic outcomes, the ability to move towards socialism - no one gains from selfish desires in geopolitics.

 

Trump's immediate withdrawal from the WHO is underrated as a bad decision. Increasing the number of international maps where the US is the only country not signed up to a treaty will just worsen American lives for whatever it affects, in this case health outcomes, and impede progress on the initiatives that the rest of the international community needs America for.

His approval rating in one poll is 47% approval 48% disapproval. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/ja...approval-rating They call that an historic low but it’s not bad really especially with all the manufactured hysteria. It’s 3% higher than he was in 2016. In context Starmer is 21% approval and 65% disapproval. So Trump is doing okay when you look at it like that.

 

Curious what you mean by manufactured hysteria.

Also kind of curious why your default position seems to be defending Trump. The leader of a nation you don't even live in.

Also kind of curious why your default position seems to be defending Trump. The leader of a nation you don't even live in.

 

But remember, he's not right wing!! :rofl:

Also kind of curious why your default position seems to be defending Trump. The leader of a nation you don't even live in.

 

Im not pro or anti-Trump I like his pro-Crypto stance and anti-war instincts

 

Curious what you mean by manufactured hysteria.

 

Maybe I use TikTok too much but every 10th video is someone acting like it’s nazi germany again because of misinformation about ICE raiding schools and nursing homes. The deportations are nothing new and not even that huge in number as Democrats have been saying themselves

 

@1885023609871106126

 

I've already explained about China, that's completely different to Mexico & Canada. Tariffs are not going to grow the economy.

 

You've consumed way too much Twitter. If you can't see how this benefits the elite when they make a mint off the stock market crashes and hoovering it all up then I just don't get it. You mention populism and no hope, but these sorts of measures are not going to make anyone's lifes better, it will make them worse. And immigration is good, it's very basic economics. The idea that people can't get jobs because of immigration is absolutely laughable. Here's a thing, as much as I am a fan of capitalism, companies are so short term these days and at the behost of shareholders, so they end up making disasterous short term decisions and over paying dividends.

 

It’s just too basic to think in these terms. Immigration being good is for the birds. Immigration can be good it can be bad. The numbers, the people, the timing, the necessity it all matters.

 

The US had a huge combination of immigration both legal and illegal decimating wages while losing thousands of jobs to Mexico, China, Canada and thousands of companies leaving the country. This led to a wave of unemployed people, depression, people getting addicted to opioids and essentially mass towns and cities that used to be hubs of certain industries look like wastelands with drug addicts all over the streets.

 

There is a solution that has worked before to reverse this trend and make American small businesses and companies thrive again and you think it’s a ploy to crash the stock market. When the stock market crashes ultimately it’s rich people who lose the most. Nobody has to sell. If you’re sure it’s going to recover then you won’t lose a dime.

 

The good thing about this is time will tell but I really don’t get the textbook thinking when it hasn’t been working in reality for a substantial amount of time.

 

Neoliberal centrists like the Democratic Party are not immune to dumb right-wing ideas. In fact, they do sometimes continue them because nationalism is an easy answer. As Rooney said further up the thread, tariffs with China is one thing because they have the ability to overwhelm an American market, though long-term it does harm the growth of both countries as inevitably trade will occur and consumers on both sides will end up paying higher prices than they otherwise would - taxes by another name and regressive at that because they target consumers.

 

The thing is, yes, disapproval ratings have been disastrous under traditional centrist government, but Trumpism and right-wing populism has no answers or vacuous answers to any of the problems caused by such. The real problems are inequality and democratic deficits that have been done by years of lobbying and capitalist influence on American democratic systems, and because of their cronyist relations with billionaires, Trump and his Republicans will only accelerate such. That gives nothing to the people who are disapproving of American governments because it does nothing to affect their fundamental situations, poor personal economic stability and poor worker's rights. Tariffs are just one, very obvious, example of that because it directly jacks up prices for ordinary people and once it hits Trump will be despised, if the voters find out where it came from that is.

 

What would an ideal economic flow look like? Probably one where America is not absurdly rich compared to the rest of the world (and yet filled with inequality because that wealth is concentrated towards the top) such that people are dying to move there and trade there, because then there'd be less ability for American workers to be undercut by their bosses. A good American government would look outward and use its extraordinary wealth and power to fix the problems of its own people, and the world too.

 

Ironically this is such a bad economic decision, the world is too interconnected, that it may cause America to slow down towards that if it continues to play isolationist, but not in the ideal way where that wealth gets used for good, rather robber barons will ransack it and the wealth will evaporate. It's the new Gilded Age. Talking about winners and losers, this makes America a loser for not participating in the global stage.

 

On a theoretical level immigration is undeniably great for an economy and the deportations Trump's carrying out will also have a longer negative impact once the loss of those people is felt - but open borders is a target that requires a few prerequisites before it's a good idea, like decreasing the control of corporations to improve equality more generally over an economy, for one. It doesn't really affect inequality by itself and treating it as a panacea for such is the preserve of the racist.

 

Would you class unions as neoliberal centrists? They overwhelmingly approved of the previous ones and the new ones. In fact that was partly why the Democrats continued them. It’s a lot easier to concede they continued them and then increased them because they worked and improved the US economy than claim they did it to sustain a rush of nationalism. Tariffs are an extremely useful tool and I’m getting the vibe a lot of people are opposed to them on ideological grounds since the arguments are not adding up. If you have a huge trade deficit you’re not going to lose. Ultimately you’d rather a citizen buy from a business in your country for a little more than feed another countries slave labor practices and that country benefit from the transaction. The US would not have tariffs with the UK because it wouldn’t benefit them. The whole point is it will with these three countries.

 

You can’t say they have no answers when this is an answer one that has already proven to work. You just don’t like the answer and you’re prejudging the outcome. I think there is a very good chance that American businesses will begin to thrive thanks to these tariffs. Inequality has increased tenfold in the last 30 years and that’s primarily under these supposedly great trade deals and immigration that is great for everyone apparently.

 

Maybe you think the US is absurdly rich but another term is they’re winners in the world of winners and losers and it’s in their prerogative to stay that way not slowly just become like the UK did.

 

So you wouldn’t deport illegal immigrants? Hence giving huge incentives for everybody on that side of the Atlantic in poor countries to come to the US? You think that makes sense? Or do you just assume that immigration is undeniably good full stop. So why not 30 million? Is that really remotely sensible? It’s just not serious. There are many ways to frame the issue. Ultimately it’s about logic. Illegal immigration is just dangerous on many levels. So you want to deter people from doing that, the best deterrent is deportation. Legal immigration is a whole other issue but again it’s only good in sustainable numbers that benefit your country. It’s not good if you’re targeting people for the same jobs as your own citizens can do because they’ll do it for a lot less. That’s just decreasing wages and benefitting the richest people.

 

or more simply put, deal with America being corporations in a trenchcoat to actually solve the many societal issues it has and don't hand over control to the guy who was already sitting at the head of said trenchcoat to fix it by making himself look tough and cynically playing to nationalist interests.

 

and then go read Marx or Keynes before getting sucked back into the news cycle about how Trump's really a manly man who's showing people how winners WIN

 

Marx the bible the founding fathers. Same stuff for different people. You have to adapt to what’s happening now not hold on to rigidly to defunct ideologies.

 

I you meant to say 'white people' here.

 

Poor 'ordinary citizens' being shoved to the side by the evil immigrants taking their jobs. If that's correct, then MAYBE those ORDINARY CITIZENS should stop sitting on their asses and be BETTER at the jobs. There are winners and losers. There are rich and poor. That’s just how the world works. You can’t all win.

 

That’s a pretty bad faith stereotypical take.

 

So I’ll give you some examples since maybe you just deal in stereotypes and haven’t experienced detail before.

 

If you have a rich country where wages are high let’s say a painter and decorator + a plumber both earn 3-5k a week. Suddenly anyone in the world is competing with them because you have unlimited immigration. Now hundreds of others are willing to do their job but for 1k a week. The original painter & plumber now have to work for 20% of what they used to earn, if they can even find work anymore. That’s not an ideal situation.

 

If we focus on the US the H-1B visas are a good example.

 

You have a cyber security job worth usually 250k a year. You have numerous Americans qualified for the job. Instead the owner of the company exploits the H-1B visa and hires someone from India on 75k a year to do the job. Not only has this job now not gone to a citizen but the market has been decreased.

 

I sort of wanted to further touch on that idea of Liam's, that the world is a zero-sum game with winners and losers, but I was writing too much. It's just quite obviously not true, and the international cooperation post-war should be a clear example of that, when the world moved from an anarchic zero-sum game of states to generally, improving living standards across the whole world. Some of that is free trade, some of that is most countries treating others as allies by default as opposed to an opponent, but an era of international liberalism is just better for everyone, more peace, greater economic outcomes, the ability to move towards socialism - no one gains from selfish desires in geopolitics.

 

Throughout all of human history there has been winners and losers. Until this very day. There has always been rich and poor. What makes you think it’s not true?

 

I think people object because it just sounds rude but it’s just observational reality. In almost everything this is the case. There aren’t millions of 500k a year jobs out there. Some people are going to be working minimum wage and some much higher. Some countries will be extremely rich and some pretty poor. Is that not just obvious.

 

The problem often with the leftist view is it often comes across or works in reality as a race to the bottom. Instead of making your country richer and better. Instead of keeping wages high for your citizens. It’s this faux moral bravado and ultimately everyone is just unhappy with the outcome.

 

Of course everyone wants better relations and so forth but we’re just talking in terms of the trade war the US was becoming weaker and less wealthy and others more wealthy and stronger at their expense hence it’s in their interest to put a stop to that

Edited February 3Feb 3 by Liam sota

But surely if you love capitalism so much and socialism won’t work you’ll understand tariffs are the last resort of late stage capitalism. And that it’s natural for America to be overtaken by another economy like China in this instance. Just like Britain 100 years ago.

I'm not blanket against tariffs per se, Keynes, who I respect as an economist more than Marx honestly, advocated for them to build up domestic industry, but that itself was a different time and more clearly an economic tenet that doesn't apply today, the parts of their ideologies I think work today is what I hold onto. Marx was generally in favour of free trade while the capitalist system lasted, as it would improve development and therefore bring conditions closer to socialism, and I don't see how that doesn't still apply today.

 

But I am against high blanket tariffs, which is Trump's proposal. Some goods aren't made in the US, some goods cross the border a lot, even on those goods where it 'benefits American industry' this actually tends to just distort capitalism by denying the cheaper option to consumers and permanently raising prices. End result all-around is that prices rise and most people do not benefit, they get hit where it hurts. Maybe I am 'prejudging the outcome', but this is an idea so economically illiterate no credible economists are supporting it and I find it really hard to see how it can possibly make most Americans better off.

 

Anyway, tariffs on the EU coming soon and maybe the UK will escape because we've been good and Trump's been charmed by Starmer. This unpredictability isn't a good thing for anyone.

 

Throughout all of human history there has been winners and losers. Until this very day. There has always been rich and poor. What makes you think it’s not true?

 

I think people object because it just sounds rude but it’s just observational reality. In almost everything this is the case. There aren’t millions of 500k a year jobs out there. Some people are going to be working minimum wage and some much higher. Some countries will be extremely rich and some pretty poor. Is that not just obvious.

 

The problem often with the leftist view is it often comes across or works in reality as a race to the bottom. Instead of making your country richer and better. Instead of keeping wages high for your citizens. It’s this faux moral bravado and ultimately everyone is just unhappy with the outcome.

 

Of course everyone wants better relations and so forth but we’re just talking in terms of the trade war the US was becoming weaker and less wealthy and others more wealthy and stronger at their expense hence it’s in their interest to put a stop to that

 

I'm speaking in part prescriptivist, but that's because when nations and people do act that way, it's not a race to the bottom at all, it tends to improve outcomes for everyone. That's what I mean about it not being a zero-sum game, every ideology, across the board, has worked better when in international cooperation and seeking to expand their influence across the globe. The better societies we have don't focus on obscene wealth like that and instead make sure everyone has a base standard of living, and guess what, they're also not obsessed with individual winners and losers like America is.

 

The trade war won't make America compete. Untargeted as it is, it will end up just uniting the globe against America. Also neither was America becoming less wealthy, its economy has been doing really good up to now, and making other countries wealthy actually solves a lot of your other problems in far more humane fashions.