Loading ...What do you mean the US “surrendered” on trade? US Corporate interests got the trade terms they paid the US government to get for them. US manufacturers immediately closed down US production and slashed their labor costs by some 85%, buying products made in Mexico, China, and places with even cheaper labor, like Vietnam and Bangladesh.
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The US got exactly the terms we demanded and dictated.
Did you think those manufacturing jobs were going to come back? Sure, as soon as the US worker can live on about $5,000 a year, at current valuations. Or as soon as US Corporate interests agree to increase their labor costs by about 600%.
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Meanwhile the damage has been done. All that profit US companies earned got spent, by raising Executive Compensation to 250x-400x employee pay, buying back their own stock and other rat-holes. The US middle class is disappearing. The US consumer turns out to be the vanished middle-class employee, whodathunkit.
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So sure, let’s have some tariffs on imports. All that will do is further raise prices for the US consumer. Tariffs at these levels aren’t going to make up that 85% wage differential. Tariffs that would make up that gap would stop the US economy cold.