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Originally Posted by phoenix
Even if tariffs go on all chinese imports 500b at 25% is a small piece of our total gdp and much falls on non necessity items. If walmart raises prices on chinese goods people wont buy . And you are correct manufacturers are moving suppliers to places like Viet Nam the problem is logistics . What they move will unlikely ever go back . Chine will not change practices because they want to be nice. This has gone on for 30 years . We export 100b to them and import 500b from them. They have an incentive to settle but time will tell
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I look at this as a quasi gamble on the part of the US negotiators which is quite simple, if the China will not play ball make it financially toxic to manufacture things there and thus that manufacturing goes elsewhere, ideally back to the US. If China starts to shed copious amounts of manufacturing capacity that *may* get their attention. This will take time and the groundwork being put in place to put pressure on them needs to remain in place. Does no good if after Trump leaves office the next president doesn't keep the pressure on. The years and years of finger wagging, soap box lamenting and all talk no action has gotten us nowhere. It's about time something is being attempted, even if it's not perfect in every aspect.
Overall this is long overdue. Consumers may complain that prices may go up a bit as a result, but ideally if the US can recover some of this capacity that's not a bad thing. I never quite understood the concept of relinquishing the ability to manufacture things to an adversary. That puts us in a really difficult position if or when that relationship sours, considering they are not exactly friendly in the first place. The theft of IP is also a huge deal and anyone who doesn't think that they are using this to their advantage for nefarious purposes is simply naïve.