Emerje wrote:Dr. Caelus wrote:william-james88 wrote:I never really thought it was about manufacturing jobs since US unemployment is low and most americans preffer working in the service sector. The initial narrative coming from Trump was that tariffs would help fund and enrich the US government.
The right seems convinced that there are American citizens clamoring to work in U.S. factories, while no one on the right actually seems to want one of those jobs. I incessantly hear, "Bring those jobs back to America," but I don't know if I've ever heard it from someone actually unemployed.
Largely, I'd say the argument is either made in bad faith, or it's made with the implied evaluation that many jobs Americans currently hold should be eliminated, so that the bodies can be reallocated to factory work.
What got a good laugh out of me was when a Republican pundit proudly exclaimed on TV that they're going to (paraphrasing, can't find the clip I saw on YouTube) "bring manufacturing jobs back to America and we're going to automate them!" Oops! Said the quite part out loud. It was never about jobs, it's about control and not understanding that a lot of manufacturing is very specialized and can't be automated. Action figures are essentially hand made, they can't make a specialized machine for every single figure ever made. The molding can be automated to a point, but the assembly, painting and packaging is all done by hand.
They also don't understand that even if we move electronics production to the US we don't have the natural resources to do it to scale. China owns the majority the resources, quality silicon especially. By comparison the US produced 310 thousand metric tons of silicon in 2022, which sounds like a lot, that's 310,000 elephants or 6 Titanics. But that's only enough to make us the 5th highest producer behind Norway, Brazil, Russia and China. On the other hand China produced 6 million metric tons in 2022. But that's not all, China bought up the mining rights in a bunch of other countries, too, including Brazil, it's virtually impossible for us to produce more silicon than we already have. And that's just the one resource. For example the vast majority of the world's lithium comes from Australia. And yet we'd rather alienate countries than work with them because the people in power don't understand that we're at our limits. However, there is one
virtually untapped country that's full of resources used in chip manufacturing that I'm sure the Trump administration is frothing at the mouth for the chance to strip mine.
Emerje
Europe won't even import U.S.meat,
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5364940/chlorinated-chicken-trump-tariffs-uk-euNot a new revelation.
It will be an uphill battle to import any U.S. manufactured good.
Now, I have capitulated this for along time, but the effort taken to try to advance this optic is mind blowing.
I didn't quote you to scathe, but to iterate the U.S.is not an exporter,but an importer..
"I believe" the U.S. is planning to isolate like WW2 Germany and industrialize and wage economical and physical war against the rest of the world, unfortunately. Our aggression towards Iran(weakest and equally the strongest, of adversaries) is a result of current administrative desires to flex a power move.(I'm not afraid of nuclear weapons)
Current attempts to strengthen relations with nations like North Korea, Russia and other authoritarian govts is not unwarranted, but is misguided since the U.S.is supposed to advance Democracy and not Autocracy.
I could go on, but I want to say it seems current U.S.policy is less about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and more about one individuals view of existence.
The toys that we love as adults, I'm confident 99% on this site are, are endangered regardless of any tariff imposed
