No it would not. In the long game we won. China’s stuff is being used first.
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They can destroy our economy, but the artistic spirit flourishes.
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Any sort of domestic content law would work. Many countries have used that approach. The first wave of Japanese automakers who built plants here, did so in expectation that the US would use that approach.
No, because the objective is to generate tariff revenue, to cover another big “JC” tax cut. A simple domestic content law would generate no revenue. Besides, the way Congress works, everyone would have an exemption, except the few would could not pay.
As noted before, all TIG has to do is stop agitating, and everyone will recover their footing. As observed in another thread: TIG clearly has a green light to go full bore white supremacist/Christian nationalist/police state, but the moment he starts really hurting the money interests, they jerk his chain. So now, electronics have a tariff exemption, probably followed by a moderate revenue tariff, the retaliatory tariffs, ex-China, are delayed, USMCA zone auto parts are on their way to an exemption for several years.
I am starting to think we are starting to get out of crazytown, when it comes to the economy.
Steve
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There is a gazillion tons of rare earth minerals all over the world. We have mines for them in West Texas and California, there are deposits in both North and South Carolina. There are rare earth minerals in Australia, in South America, in China and Russia. There are said to be several mines for them in Ukraine, among other places all over the globe.
The issue is REFINING them, which is a dirty, nasty business. China has all the refining capacity right now, because nobody else has wanted to do it and we were content to let China have it. (Literally all: Bloomberg estimates China has 99.6% of total refining capacity for REM.)
Oops. Orange Idiot didn’t figure they might hold them hostage to the stupidity of instant tariffs for everybody! It will take several years to get a rare earths refining infrastructure going in the US, meanwhile the Pentagon is dependent on the good graces of Xi to manufacture parts for our warplanes.
3D chess, I guess. Also a total wipeout, I know.
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No one 15 years ago would have guessed a guy who could not earn a college degree would be president.
Our dads did not put a wing on the school for you or anyone else here to graduate.
China has the largest amount of REM. Then countries like Vietnam, Brazil, Canada.
Greenland has very little. The US has very little. In concentration to make it economical to mine.
Brazil and Canada are getting into processing REM.
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China is the only country who can process heavy REEs. At some point we’ll have to develop that capability. That time was 15 years ago.
What can I say, I’m a sucker for the arts.
The policy goals are contradictory, that’s just one reason why they’re dumb. Also, our trade and soft power strategy is isolating the US. As my man Wonder Mike would say…
A-skiddlee bebop, we rock a scooby doo
And guess what, America, we don’t love you
Tariffs only work if our trading partners don’t shun us.
Can a zebra change its stripes?
China be like -
Everybody go, “Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn”
You see, if the US starts acting up, then we take their friends.
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I put my MBA hat on, and laid out the strategy, a few days ago:
1: impose tariffs that generate a lot of revenue.
2: us the revenue to offset another round of “JC” tax cuts, so the deficit hawks are satisfied.
3: as production is reshored, tariff revenue falls. To make up for the shortfall in revenue, more spending that benefits Proles is cut…because “must not raise taxes on the JCs”.
Encourage him to play more golf, anything to get him away from a TV camera. At the pump seal company, my boss routinely would get a project honked up, so he would drop it on my desk, and go visit a field rep for a week. One day, he commented to me how great it was having me in the department, because he could drop a trouble job on my desk, and never hear about it again. All I did to straighten out the “trouble job” was to not agitate, the way he did.
Steve
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Would that be Harry Truman? 
DB2
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The New Yorker has a good piece on this.
A link if that one is paywalled.
http://archive.today/vaTE8
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Thanks for sharing. Congo is a mess, the US striking a mineral deal will only make things worse. It could possibly escalate to US involvement in a regional war, against China.
Even if a deal is struck, what will the US do to refine Congolese minerals?
You may be correct about the strategy, there’s little chance that it will work as imagined. If the goal is to change the US from a consumer based economy to a manufacturer, that would take time. Also, as soon as the populace realizes their standard of living declining dramatically, they will not continue to go along.
Mike Tyson once said “Everyone hath a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.” Sometimes getting punched in the mouth reveals that someone doesn’t have a plan.
Our economic ship isn’t being steered by an MBA, we’ve got an AMB (American Man-Baby) at the helm.
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China asking Korea (not so nicely) to halt export of rare earth products to US defense firms.
China is working hard to make this trade war unsustainable.
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It’s easier to win a trade war if you’ve spent years and years preparing yourself for one. Much harder if you’ve spent a matter of weeks.
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Ayup. Another step in the US and China carving up the world into each country’s set of trade colonies.
Steve
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Along those lines, Spain announced plans to intensify relations with China. President Emmanuel Macron of France urged European companies to stop investing in the United States. The EU itself is sending a delegation to Beijing in July. Japan is also working to cut a deal with China.
Trump is giving them no choice. He targets US allies first before rivals. The only logical thing for them to do is cut deals that don’t involve the US.
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True dat.
Even if TFG reversed course today, lasting damage has been done.
Many people don’t realize how much effort is needed to create and maintain relationships of trust between trading partners. The Daily podcast today includes an Iowa soybean farmer, telling her story about trading with China. She talks about how long it took, and all the effort that went into building a trade relationship - Numerous trips to China, numerous trips for Chinese officials to the US. Some Chinese officials even living in the US to help facilitate agricultural trade.
The US has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted. Other countries won’t line up to trade with a scoundrel.
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Dear E,
China is worse than a scoundrel and they may well line up. We did and that is why China has pollution problems. We were a scoundrel in the first and last place. China was willing to be worse.
Electronics will be on the black-market.
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Oh good. The heads of state of all EU nations were waiting for Macron for next steps.
All of Europe is going through the difficult costly process of giving up — at least for a decade — on their long term friendship/partnership with the USA. Macron’s France is of the largest of the European states, and has a pre-eminent history and ongoing strength in diplomacy. This actually matters, not as diktat (more Trump’s attempted but clearly failing game, viz the news and multiple posts above) but as valuable for the expensive arduous complex task of building a NEW coalition of states without the USA to see the EU through the current crisis.
Regarding your sarcasm Macron stepping forward — perhaps you have not noticed the related calls from the President of the EU and the major political leaderships of UKofGB, Germany, Italy, the Scandinavians, Portugal and Spain? Hmmm?
I am now visiting in Spain where husband and I lived and worked for years, and I will mention that my colleagues and friends are politely expressing pain and outrage at the USA’s betrayal of promises and friends. And in bars people hearing my Mexican accent have (politely gently) asked if I understand why the USA has gone insane?