• rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Tariffs in some sense are a counterweight to exploitative factories in China, Bangladesh, etc. If we think about worker rights, then that’s it, worker rights are being defended when workers in USA are pulling their weight too to fight for their rights in industries where it’s actually hard, not pretending that imported goods come from some black box.

    I don’t know how these tariffs are supposed to work, of course. With steel or with manufacturing there’s no real problem in replacing import with domestic production. It’s a bit Soviet-style, but if it doesn’t devolve into hard protectionism, then OK. Fabs - something really space-age for consumer hardware is, ahem, an enormous undertaking for a decade at least, but controllers for cars and elevators and talking toys - much easier.

    Why did I say that in a thread about internet-connected toys …

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 day ago

      I don’t know how these tariffs are supposed to work

      You’re overqualified then.

      They are not meant to work. It’s just something to threaten other countries with, it isn’t a sound economic policy, it’s the political equivalent of holding your breath so you’ll be allowed more candy.