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Marian L Tupy's avatar

Yes, Timothy. Marian Tupy was full of crap on purpose. He was playing the devil's advocate to keep the conversation interesting. Sincerely, Marian Tupy

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Tim Becker's avatar

Well stated. Good points. But does not address the situation. Other countries are applying their thumb on the scale of "fair" trade. Either manipulating their currancy or, in China's case, not charging VAT on exports. Not charging VAT on exports provides a 16-25% cost advantage that changes the ecomonic equations and results. How should this inequity be addressed/ resolved? Thanks, Tim

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J.K. Lund's avatar

VAT is similar to a sales tax. The US doesn't charge a sales tax on products sold abroad either. How is that any different from China/Europe?

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James Chapman's avatar

Absolute rubbish !!

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Roderick McLeod's avatar

In the example re Columbian coffee, the follow-up question that should have been asked is: why does Columbia even need to impose a tariff on American coffee?

What hasn’t been addressed in many of these discussions is the historical aspect of why tariffs arise in the first place: the need to protect nascent or favored industries. And why such tariffs have been allowed to increase overtime?

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Timothy Schewe's avatar

If we apply Occam's razor, the simple answer is that Marian Turpy is full of crap! And knows it.

Surely, he can see the point of threatening tariffs is to have those countries imposing ruinous tariffs on us reduce them. Besides that, encouraging the onshoring of strategic manufacturing is a good thing. Let’s use steel as an example. Europe, Japan, and Canada supply us with steel. Terrific. In case of a world war, we do not have the domestic capacity to meet our needs. Europe and Japan will probably (hopefully) need all of their production to fulfill their needs, and even if not, shipping will be out of the question, and airlifting steel won't work. Canada can’t provide the necessary quantities and doesn’t have a military capable of protecting its factories. Nor does Europe or Japan. So, we damn well better have a sufficient domestic capacity. Besides, steel ain’t t-shirts.

I’m tempted to go on for several pages, but fortunately, I have more important demands on my time. Was I in a worse mood, I’d be insulted.

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