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Politics - US Politics |OT| - View Post

SanAndreasX on 08 April 2025
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the-pi-guy said:
SanAndreasX said:

Really doubt.

What conservatives don’t seem to grasp is that the 1950s aren’t coming back, nor are the conditions of a war torn world where North America was largely spared and made money off of arms and food sales. 

Europe and Asia are no longer in ruins from World War II.

China has emerged from 150 years of Western imperialism and civil wars whose belligerents were often used as Westetn proxies.

India is no longer yoked to the British Empire. 

Japan produces cars people want that are better built than anything Ford or GM make. Ford and GM are heavily dependent on bulky, clunky trucks like the F-Series and the Silverado. 

Thanks to the Green Revolution, China and India can meet a signifucant proportion of their food needs. It used to be a talking point that the Soviet Union was dependent on American farmers for grain imports. Russia and the UK are now the biggest grain exporters. Brazil, Australia, and the EU are major beef exporters. The EU supplies much of China’s pork, but China has been working on meeting its own demand.

These tariffs aren’t going to get American products on shelves in Europe and Asia. They’re only going to result in fewer, more expensive, and lower quality products on American shelves. 

Well, Trump's not trying to take them back to the 1950's, he's trying to take them back to the Gilded Age.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-has-touted-gilded-age-tariffs-an-era-which-saw-industrial-growth-together-with-poverty

"“We were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. That’s when we were a tariff country. And then they went to an income tax concept,” Trump said days after taking office. “It’s fine. It’s OK. But it would have been very much better.”"

"Trump says high tariffs and low interest rates, like those the U.S. had after the Civil War, can hastily pay down today’s federal debt and fatten government coffers while boosting domestic manufacturers and enticing foreign producers to move to the U.S."

And again, the world was a very different place in 1870, one where China was being stripped for parts by European and American great powers and India was being pillaged by the British.