>"Security concerns" is an excuse for protectionism

Is protectionism really a bad thing, especially if it's in retaliation to chinese protectionism?

The rule of law in our own country is extremely important -- more important than any particular protectionist policy goal. The law does not give the president the power to unilaterally force the sale of assets for the purpose of protectionism. This is leaving aside whether protectionism is good or bad in any particular case. This is why I'm mainly interested in the real reasons why we took this action.

>The rule of law in our own country is extremely important -- more important than any particular protectionist policy goal. The law does not give the president the power to unilaterally force the sale of assets for the purpose of protectionism.

The president might not have the authority to force a sale, but he does have the authority to impose tariffs and maybe even ban it outright (embargos/quotas). At the end of the day the results are the same: you can either sell your US operations to a US company, or we can destroy your US market share by imposing tariffs and/or banning your product.

If the president wants to invoke that authority (assuming you are correct about its extent), then that's his right. What is not his right is to expropriate assets under false pretenses.

There's a pretty overwhelming consensus among economists that protectionism is indeed a bad thing.

Tit-for-tat protectionism is also known as a trade war, which is also generally considered to be negative for both parties.

>Tit-for-tat protectionism is also known as a trade war, which is also generally considered to be negative for both parties.

It is, but if you fail to retaliate you're basically advertising to other countries that they can impose protectionist measures, which benefit them and harm you. Did EU/Canada get flak for imposing retaliatory tariffs in response to trump's tarrifs?

Milton Friedman describes how tariffs only cost the imposing country here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkHdq_2EUk4

> There's a pretty overwhelming consensus among economists that protectionism is indeed a bad thing.

So we just let China copy our tech and sell it to us cheaper?

What happens to our workforce and salaries? The same thing that happened to factory workers?

I'm even more worried about their lack of free speech, rigid punishment/enforcement, and Orwellian tracking/social credit. We don't want those things here. But showing that they win makes it more likely to become pervasive.

Edit: Downvotes on everything critical of China.

> What happens to our workforce and salaries?

Ideally, people could work less and have the same standard of living, which is easier if things are cheaper.

If I was an evil wealthy person interested in perpetuating my position through controlling people, but slavery was outlawed, I'd design a system where work is overvalued so people will be too tired to participate in civic life.

I think the "copy our tech" angle is interesting from a legal standpoint. Patents and copyrights are a legal framework to prevent importation of infringed materials. I'm not sure the answer, but interesting problem none the less.

I think you don't understand that US bosses set US salaries, they are the ones choosing to not use US labor.

Unfortunately it’s up to both parties to avoid Tit-for-tat protectionism, a one sided trade war is over time the worst of all three options as there is no reason for the other party to stop. It’s the same reason WWII was less economicly expensive than the Cold War.

Economists, the famously recognized scientists! Meanwhile protectionism lifted china in less than 30 years to the level of a superpower.

China has a lower per capita GDP then Botswana and Iraq.[1] It's a superpower mainly because it has a huge population.

[1]: https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/

China restricted access to its markets from the onset. They forced foreign companies to operate JVs to access their market or labour and forced a lot of technology transfers. Their whole HSR industry was built on this model.

Protectionism works depending where your POV is from.

> There's a pretty overwhelming consensus among economists that protectionism is indeed a bad thing.

Economists are short-sighted there. Yes, economically, speaking in general protectionism is more harmful than not.

But things like selling essential companies, infrastructure or have foreign and possible hostile players in critical positions is risky.

Milton Friedman says it is a really bad thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkHdq_2EUk4

He talks more about it in the series, Free to Choose. I forget which video he does so, but all videos are fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcm84hKEpyZQfhxhVFB8r...

He doesn't seem to provide anything in the way of justification or evidence, other than same hand-wavy statement about them having to spend US dollars.

its a short clip to introduce the idea. He has plenty of writings on the subject. The reality is that they do have to spend US dollars. That's not in irrelevant detail.

https://www.amazon.com/Milton-Friedman/e/B000AQ23N6

"Security concerns" are security concerns with China. Anything else is naive.