Originally Posted by sundialsvcs

But the point made in the video, that "oooh, oooh, we mustn't irritate China!," also needs to be re-visited. And maybe the first step would be to start closing those China-based manufactories and insist on constructing them within the United States. (Which you could do by imposing a tariff that starts small but escalates every six months, along with substantial tax-breaks and other incentives to re-activate the US's vast but moldering manufacturing infrastructure.) If you are no longer "blindly dependent on China" for the manufacture of ... well ... everything(!) ... then you have some maneuvering room. And, until you measurably do that, China will know that you're toothless.

This is what has baffled me for so long:

The USA simply thought that it found a way to lower labor costs and manufacturing costs, and it didn't mind removing its entire "physical fitness" and turning into the world's biggest couch potato. It now attracts foreign companies to build plants on American soil, while an American manufacturer wants to remove its plants to Mexico. Clearly, there is something drastically wrong with the incentive and tax structures here, and there has been for a very long time.

Even though people seem to squawk at the slogan, "America First!," and of course it is just a slogan, it nevertheless contains in it the crux of a very sound idea that I think every nation should be following. Your infrastructure, and your labor-force composed first of your citizens, should always be first in your decisions, actions and policies. And it should also be taken for granted that every other nation is doing the same thing. If people are "looking out for themselves first," they are thereby hedging their bets against silly situations like the one we have in China, where we literally cannot make, say, "that electronic gadget in your pocket" anywhere in the United States of America.

Originally Posted by Jeebizz

You can thumb your nose all you want at the One China Policy - but you have to then blame Nixon for that - though it would be better this way anyways, because if the US continued relations as Taiwan as the 'official' China - it is possible that the PRC would have outright said screw the status quo, and invade the island.

Originally Posted by hazel

While you lot are arguing about China, Putin has escalated the war in the Ukraine. Well, of course he would, now that he has a friend in the White House who won't oppose his ambitions. I don't think it was he who actually put Trump there but he's certainly going to take advantage of it.