7 Comments
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Paleo's avatar

You do know that real progressives don’t worship on the altar of free trade and Wall Street.

Expand full comment
Brad Warren's avatar

Real progressives certainly don't want to tank the global economy. There are smart ways to move toward a fairer trade policy; what Trump is doing ain't one of them.

Expand full comment
Zero Cool's avatar

I think deemphasizing these tariffs with smart regulation and closing the loopholes in the trade deals that corporations use to exploit to get cheap labor is better.

Expand full comment
Brad Warren's avatar

Yes, as well as simply embracing the reality that certain types of manufacturing are no longer feasible in the United States (and the types of manufacturing that ARE feasible generally don't require massive plants with thousands of workers). The 1950s are not coming back.

Expand full comment
Zero Cool's avatar

Technology has contributed a lot to this, especially with automation.

However, having to outsource to other countries for cheap labor is because of arrogant corporations. I have no problem with manufacturing evolving and creating more jobs in the process but not at the expense of labor having to see their jobs shipped overseas.

Expand full comment
michaelflutist's avatar

Those ways also involve negotiations, not absolutely harebrained sudden huge tariffs based on no kind of mathematical sense at all.

Expand full comment
Zero Cool's avatar

Yes. I remember in previous discussions you were talking about supporting tariffs up to a certain extent although I don't recall this was about impulsive acts.

Ever since the 1920's, the economy has become increasingly global. It's really hard to implement tariffs without potential adverse ramifications to the global economy unless as you point out there's more careful negotiations.

Also, with countries like Cuba that badly need trade to become more prosperous, it's bad optics.

Expand full comment
ErrorError