America First-ism looks like it is backfiring — consider two manifestations of our anti-China tariffs

26 September 2018

If you cannot see into the undergrowth — maybe you better skip that walk through tiger territory

Nationalist emotion is a poor guide to sensible behavior.

President Trump's anti-China tariffs have resulted in two arguably predictable and representative consequences.

First:

China on Wednesday . . . announcing it would cut import tariffs on numerous non-American goods.

The cuts, most likely designed to protect Chinese consumers . . . go into effect on November 1.

The cuts in tariffs were expected to save Chinese consumers and businesses something in the order of 60 billion yuan ($8.7 billion), according to Reuters, which cites Chinese state radio.

[T]he move was also likely to act as an incentive to stop citizens from buying US goods. By cutting tariff levels on non-US goods while increasing them on American imports, China is effectively steering its consumers away from such items . . . .

In short, the Administration's tariff-boosting policy is (a) closing the Chinese market to American business and (b) encouraging Chinese consumers to substitute other nations' products for ours — over the punishing long term.

Second:

The head of Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce business, says he is canceling plans to bring 1 million jobs to the United States because of the ongoing trade war between the two countries.

Jack Ma said last year's promise to expand Alibaba's reach into the United States was based on "friendly China-U.S. cooperation, and the rational and objective premise of bilateral trade."

That 1 million anticipated jobs were expected to come . . . from allowing American businesses to tap into Alibaba's massive marketplace to make sales to Chinese consumers.

Even if that "one million jobs" projection is grossly inflated — because no one can know how effective Alibaba would have been, cross-culturally — that cancellation probably still constitutes a notable economic hit.

The moral? — America First-ism attracts a high proportion of emotionally driven blowhards

My point is not that internationalism, free trade, and capitalism are inherently good.

It is instead that — if one is going to modify an existing system — but without changing its greed-driven nature — one had better anticipate the relatively obvious consequences, which will unerringly bite one's brainless "ass" down the road.

I have seen nothing from American leadership, now or over decades, that leads me to think that it is capable of dealing with even a cleverly hostile twelve year old. Much less the reasonably competent technocrats, who lead the People's Republic of China.

Boorishly blundering American strength is not a virtue.

Instituting chaos, for its own sake, is not admirable.

PeteFree.com

America First-ism looks like it is backfiring — consider two manifestations of our anti-China tariffs