The article and post I was responding to was specifically about jobs leaving the US for Mexico. A discussion about tax and trade policy which led to so many jobs going to China is also worthwhile, it just wasn't relevant to the article posted by the GP.

It was entirely relevant. In that case the story was about a bearing manufacturer being squeezed by competitors, and then trying to reduce costs by moving to Mexico. Those competitors are almost universally Chinese manufacturers. China has become dominant in steel and ores (raw and processed) of all sorts, and just about every manufactured good. For this submission -- dollar stores -- Chinese goods are the overwhelming bulk of the products.

To put it another way, manufacturers move to Mexico to compete with China, so enjoy those few remaining sales and white collar jobs because the alternative was the company disappearing. If that isn't enough they automate. And now China is automating to ensure they can't be out-automated.

This is actually a great point. And its something that's not exclusive to the US. Western European companies use low-cost labor provided in Eastern Europe to get many of the same advantages and compete with China (I was very surprised that the Nivea shaving cream I use is actually made in Poland!).

The US should embrace Mexico: the Mexican govt. is a close ally, its a source of low cost labor. US companies can continue their ownership/expertise and control over products manufactured in Mexico, while protecting their IP and such. Whereas with China it is a different story....

This is the whole point of the argument from the people in the rust belt. They don't want low cost labor. They want to be high cost labor. They were told that there would be a temporary adjustment period and that all those jobs would come back and it'd be great for them. Well, they've been waiting 30 years of free trade and globalism and they're still suffering. Everyone seems to be responding with all of these arguments about maximizing GDP or whatever, but that's not the only purpose of economic and trade policy.

> This is the whole point of the argument from the people in the rust belt. They don't want low cost labor. They want to be high cost labor.

I'm sorry, its just not a question of what someone wants. Of course they want to have their low-skilled, highly-paid jobs. But labor doesn't automatically go from low to high skilled: you have to proactively engage in training programs, you have to learn the skills that are relevant to the high skilled jobs. Which most of these people, it turns out, have not. And therefore they are left behind.

Those that have embraced the new reality and economy are flourishing like never before. So the promises were true. The quality of life has increased, cost of commodities has decreased. Its just that these people have not managed to participate. Whose fault is that?

And please don't argue for tariffs and such. Trade must go on if only for the security of the current world order. When trade stops, war begins, as Jack Ma has put so astutely.

That's an awfully generous way of describing what happened. Here's another way of looking at it. Wall Street took Main Street's good union jobs where workers had a stake in the value of production and sent them to desperate people in poorer countries with basically no worker or environmental protections.

>And please don't argue for tariffs and such. Trade must go on if only for the security of the current world order. When trade stops, war begins, as Jack Ma has put so astutely.

I don't support tariffs, but there's no need to extend to the level of ridiculousness. Trade with Mexico was happening before NAFTA and it would have continued without it. But that's irrelevant because that's not what I was proposing. Worker and environmental protections could be added and enforced without ending free trade. And changing our tax structure to be more weighed towards consumption than production couldn't even possibly be twisted to sound like it was referring to a tariff.

> Wall Street took Main Street's good union jobs where workers had a stake in the value of production and sent them to desperate people in poorer countries with basically no worker or environmental protections.

You cannot force other countries to enforce environmental and worker protections against their will. The US didn't have these before it became a developed economy. So its mighty rich of you to expect other countries to do so right away. OTOH, China, long a country without environmental protection, has started enforcing more and more rules now that it has capital and knowhow and is rapidly moving into renewables. Your argument using these points is a weird strawman.

> I don't support tariffs, but there's no need to extend to the level of ridiculousness. Trade with Mexico was happening before NAFTA and it would have continued without it. But that's irrelevant because that's not what I was proposing. Worker and environmental protections could be added and enforced without ending free trade. And changing our tax structure to be more weighed towards consumption than production couldn't even possibly be twisted to sound like it was referring to a tariff.

Your argument for this has already been debunked by Lazare. Please stop spreading your dangerous misinformation.

Of course you can't force another country to enact environmental and worker protections against their will. But our country also has its own free will.

>Your argument for this has already been debunked by Lazare.

No, Lazare did the same thing you did which is to play a game of bait and switch by arguing against a point I didn't make. I don't support tariffs, which you falsely accused me of, nor do I believe that putting economic pressure on Mexico to enforce worker and environmental protections would increase US GDP or other silly notions.

I doubt facts have much to do with the rhetoric. It is about having a tiny kernel of truth with lots of veiled racism.

Do you believe that Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama were being racist when they campaigned on a platform to renegotiate NAFTA?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsO_hL73fEM

No, because they werent simultaneously vilifing Mexicans. Context matters.