That is not a counter-example to anything AFAICT. We didn't have a 'protectionist' President. We had an incompetent President, who faked to be a protectionist.
A real data point would be this:
The US had a decent economy when we had high import duties.
Why is the US passing stimulus packages if it’s going so well?
(To further my point was that growth a hang over from the globalist President? Or a result of the protectionist one? Did it continue throughout the 4 years? I already know the answer, but just pointing out the flaw in your point for you so you don’t need to find it)
Could we get some citations to back this up? It seems too soon to even evaluate all of the effects of the (soon to be) previous administrations policies.
But as a discussion point, Trump moved to end the postal subsidies China enjoyed which made it cheaper for us to have something shipped from there than to buy locally. How does this hurt the US?
Imagine a world where China and the U.S. were on better terms, start of the health crisis China helped provide huge amounts Of PPE required. Drs and epidemiologists from China with experience could have helped drs in the US. Instead they were coming off the back of a trade war over soy beans and hiding information from each other.
Globalisation has effects that expand beyond the economy.
As for citations: the US has just passed the second, largest stimulus package in its history beating or the first from a couple of months back. Are we’re ignoring this gorilla so much that people need citations?
I'm going to push back on the tenuous link between the US being protectionist and the stimulus package. It's not like protectionist policies directly led to the economic problems the US - and a lot of the world - are experiencing thus requiring the stimulus package.
Your argument is that if the trade war didn't happen China would have been far more likely to help us. That's not an unreasonable argument but even if they did do that how would that have prevented the economic damages caused by all of the lockdowns the US - and China - went through?
A reasonable argument could also be made that even if the trade war didn't happen China would not have done what you described anyway. China and the US have always had a tumultuous relationship. Plus let's not forget the panicked free-for-all when it came to PPE during the early days of the pandemic which many, many countries participated in.
So I would say the US's bungled response to the early days of the pandemic are what lead to the stimulus package, not any sort of protectionist policies. If the US were on better terms with China perhaps it would have been slightly less severe due to Chinese supplied masks during the shortage and all that; but given how difficult its been to make people wear masks in general I'm not so sure.
The trade war didn't improve the US economy. COVID actually squeezed the Stockmarket up (as interest rates hit 0 or negative) from stimulus (around the world).
I think you are probably right that it wasn't protectionist policies directly. But the US governments "Me, and Mine" (America First) approach has wilfully ignored good advice, policy and approach that has lead to its current situation.
It wasn't a bungled response to early days... it's consistent bungling from the first day until right this minute. (A pandemic with no generally available vaccine, wide spread infection, and no nationally coordinated mitigation = bungling, whatever excuses you make about US gov structure etc...).
China and US have always had a tumultuous relationship exactly because they don't try to resolve it, they see each other as rivals, and a threat.
To me it's two fold: - The US would not have a relationship say similar to Britain/US because of the fundamental differences and problems with CCP's behavior - Vis a vis the CCP's habitual covering up of anything embarrassing and Xi's / CCPs singular focus on maintaining and growing their own power. see COVID, SARs and the many examples from business to free speech & 'press.'
It's circularly not possible.
CCPs behavior must fundamentally change, (or scarily the US becomes like CCP)
The hiding was squarely on CCP. Maybe you could argue if COVID popped up in US first it would have been the same.
But if the tables were turned I don't believe there would be any attempts to hide facts and not offer support beyond Trump's own incompetence and pathological personality disorder wishing it would 'magically go away' so he could get elected again.
--
And to the parent parent there are plenty of facts both ways but it's impossible to separate effects of policy from the HUGE negative pain caused by Trump's abdication of responsibility. Trump has undeniably left us in a horrible place, far greater than any gains from policy.
I'm happy to criticise china for the things it could do better:
- It's fast approach to full blown dictatorship, the death of the party, the rise of Xi
- Or its suppression/persecution of people actually trying to improve things for the Chinese people (Wuhan reporters, Rights activists etc)
But "Forced labour"... while developed nations like the US have prison labour? Persecution of Uighers, while Guantanamo is still a thing. Fix the things in your own back yard, which you have control over then from the moral high ground try and fix further abroad, otherwise no one (including the Chinese) pay no attention to what they see as just agg-prop. HN loves to jump on the latest china bashing and just make excuses/justifications US based domestic problems
A couple Trump political appointees attempted to do that. The system worked and the US didn't jail the NYTimes and the press for reporting the facts. Their stupidly half assed political crap didn't work and they lost the election.
I wouldn't call Xi incompetent but instead scarily so. The power of Trump versus Xi & CCP are not even in the same ballpark
It's pointless to engage but sometimes I can't help it
No mention of the bombings, the mass killing events, the huge domestic terrorism issue it has caused China for the last 20 years. Instead we just get reports of China "randomly" persecuting these people for seemingly no reason.
When you have people showing up at one of the largest train stations[0] in the country openly representing an ethnic minority and randomly stabbing men, woman and children of Han decent... what is the correct government response?
This isn't even the debate that we have. We don't ask this question at all, we instead publish photos of prisons, and reeducation camps, but no one ever seems to ask "Why is china doing this?" because the assumption that Western Media would like you to make is "Because they are just evil communists".
It would be like reporting on Guantanamo as an "off shore prison where America kidnaps people from foreign countries and keeps them there for no reason, most have never even been the the US" --- There would be uproar if news was reported that way. But when it's China, everyone is happy to have their blinders on, and not understand or explore the full context of a difficult issue.
[0] https://time.com/88941/not-again-knife-attack-at-train-stati...
And despite those numbers the US isn't rounding up millions of our own citizens into 're-education camps.' I'm sure the 'whatabout' is the stupid wars in the middle east which are undoubtedly horrible and should fairly be condemned (and definitely are). But the US is not waging an ethnic genocide on our own citizens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Terrorist_i... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...
So what are they suppose to do though, if they have a state of their country trying to seperate and harming civilians to do it?
Xi thinks forced re-education and subjugation is the answer. Historically, other countries have taken that approach as well.
Like I said economies develop, China should improve its workers rights laws, and slowly it has and will.
We should avoid and remove slavery. Agree.
But using developing countries as an example of why developed countries should be more protectionist at exactly the point in time where the US tried that and lost out on almost every front is insane and disconnected from reality
Working conditions in a lot of Chinese companies are terrible in comparison to US/EU counterparts. Any evidence you need is just look at how much a Chinese company will change things if they hire a "westerner" (just for that westerner mind you)... It's ridiculous, China can and should do better.
Those Chinese peasants will become the US problem (see the rise of China in the last 50 years).
Those Chinese corporations are what made “your life the best” with your cheap cars, electronics.
Your point sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it.
Are you saying poverty is less important than workers rights?
Economies develop. This is part of it. You’ve just had a “protectionist” President, US is worse off by almost every measure... as a counter example to your “protectionism is needed”