As a disclaimer, I do NOT believe this is the strategy if for no other reason than it has not remotely been articulated by anyone in charge of policy.
I can think of one possible way these tariffs could end up being a major net positive for the US. The coming of AI/Automation.
When, inevitably, flesh & blood workers are going to be generally replaced, we will NEED the factories that produce the goods to be domestic so that the companies making the money (and paying the eventually higher corporate taxes) are here. This is going to be necessary because when the Great Worker ReplacementTM comes, UBI will be coming with it. Well, UBI and a creativity/arts/service based human economy.
When will that day be? No clue. I don't even imagine it'll be in most of our lifetimes. But it will come. And we'll need the factories here for it to work. And when it happens, the only trade deals that will be important internationally will be for raw materials/resources because labor costs will become a relative non-issue when measuring the productivity of robots to people.
So, even though I have zero expectation that this is what's actually happening, President Trump could continue to live his charmed life and end up being right for the wrong reason.
"Hey Siri, remind me of this post sometime in 30 years."
I can think of one possible way these tariffs could end up being a major net positive for the US. The coming of AI/Automation.
When, inevitably, flesh & blood workers are going to be generally replaced, we will NEED the factories that produce the goods to be domestic so that the companies making the money (and paying the eventually higher corporate taxes) are here. This is going to be necessary because when the Great Worker ReplacementTM comes, UBI will be coming with it. Well, UBI and a creativity/arts/service based human economy.
When will that day be? No clue. I don't even imagine it'll be in most of our lifetimes. But it will come. And we'll need the factories here for it to work. And when it happens, the only trade deals that will be important internationally will be for raw materials/resources because labor costs will become a relative non-issue when measuring the productivity of robots to people.
So, even though I have zero expectation that this is what's actually happening, President Trump could continue to live his charmed life and end up being right for the wrong reason.
"Hey Siri, remind me of this post sometime in 30 years."
