(07-02-2018 10:02 AM)Eldonabe Wrote:  The trade wars are about balance as much as they are about advantage. The US has been paying the piper for a long time and it is about time we leveled the paying field.
It all comes back to oil, and now that we can be fuel independent, we could shut off the import train and do just fine. We are now at a point where the world needs us to spend more than we need the world (first time in a very long time). So these companies and countries have to make a decision, reduce tariffs or bring the work here so their product can be made and sold here. Its a win/win for the US in the long run.

Bretton Woods wasn't just a currency regime. There were side deals, some unspoken. We needed the world for a different purpose--to support us in the Cold War. So we agreed to tilt the trade playing field in their favor, and to use our military to protect trade worldwide so they didn't have to rebuild theirs, in exchange for their agreement to fall in line behind us in the Cold War. Problem is, nobody planned on winning.

Ross Perot said something in 1992 that I had been saying for a while, "In the post-Cold-War era, economic power will be more important than military power." But we never shifted gears. We're still playing the world's policeman and drawing the ire of the likes of al-Qaeda and ISIS. And we're still giving the world the high side of a very unlevel trade playing field.

I've shared how I would go about it several times. See Post #15367739. Not the way Trump is doing it, at least not exactly.