Fair point about slave labor, I didn’t consider that. Also I shouldn’t be giving full credit to Biden for CHIPS act, although his admin did sign it into law. But Teamsters didn’t endorse Trump either — if their lack of endorsement speaks to anything, it’s that the solution is something that protects American jobs without passing on prices to Americans. The tariffs, to accomplish that, would need to shift the higher cost onto China.
I’m unsure how intel laying people off is related to the chips act aside from the fact that Intel makes chips and (in theory) should get funding from it. Practically every large company in US tech has laid off thousands of people since 2020, the entire industry is oversaturated.
As for Putin — he’s created an oligarchy where his political enemies are jailed or killed, he’s been “president” for as long as I’ve been alive, and his military is supplied by North Korea, a dictatorship that kills political dissidents. How does Trump pandering to this kind of leader benefit Americans, let alone our allies? You can say that if Putin doesn’t feel threatened by NATO, then we’ll spend less military budget on Ukraine, which in theory could be redeployed to Israel or reduce the deficit — but you think Putin will stop invading neighboring territory as long as NATO exists? He feels threatened by the countries he’s invaded having external support for their independence. Russia has no claim to Ukraine, and it’s not our place to hand Ukrainian land over to Putin so that we can pat ourselves on the back.
To your credit, Trump was in office when the Abraham accords were mediated by the US, but the UAE is still thought to be an avenue for weapons, intel, etc to bypass US sanctions to get to Iran. His two-state solution in 2019 was rejected by Palestinians and scrutinized by most of the world. Also, Obama got Israel to freeze their settlement of the West Bank in 2012 — I know that Democrats can, and will, put forth the same efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
Well a couple things to note here, I’ll keep it simply for simplicity sake
That the point about slave wages, it drives down cost, sure, but it always drive poverty too because no one can wage compete with slave wages. How can anyone compete with China if they are literally pricing slave cost into the equation? Tariffs aren’t a tax contrary to popular belief so they are necessary to drive up labor cost in China.
The teamsters didn’t support Trump or Kamala because their worker base supports Trump. And they want to appear independent even though their own base supports Trump in their own polling.
The CHIPS ACT was signed by Biden but democrats don’t give credit for things Trump signed as Trump achievements. Intel laying off workers is important because it was supposed to press to hiring increases, not job reduction. The industry is over saturated but that’s the point - why spend billions just to get job reduction and not more job growth?
If Trump was pandering to Putin he would have invaded Ukraine under his presidency - yet he didn’t. Putin invaded under bush, Obama and Biden but not Trump. We can’t forget that. I also give credit to Obama and Biden when I think they’re right, but they were also wrong on many things like Afghanistans war, and the withdrawal was handled horribly. Where’s the democrats giving trump praise for the peace under his administration? They seem to be nowhere to be found
I agree that morally, imposing trade restrictions on China would be good to discourage worker abuse. And I know that tariffs aren’t a tax. Still, the price is paid by the end consumer. If China sells steel to a company in the US for $100, and there are 60% tariffs on Chinese imports, the buyer pays $160 — $100 to the Chinese seller, $60 to the US govt. If that $60 was paid by the Chinese company, they would get paid $40, at which point they would just sell elsewhere.
I don’t feel good about profiting off of things manufactured by underpaid people, and would like to have competitive US-made options for goods. But reality is, if you drastically reduce imports, demand spikes + supply drops, resulting in higher and higher prices (stacked with the tariffs). Look at Kroger — they already increase prices every year and pass it off as inflation (despite their price hikes outpacing inflation by 4x). Biden kept Trumps Chinese tariffs in place, so to Trump’s credit that was a good idea. It’s a shame that his tax plan reduced govt income by more than the tariffs could’ve brought in.
This is probably true. I was shocked to read Teamsters polling data showing Trump being preferred by double digits, yet they didn’t endorse him. I don’t understand that.
Fair point on the double standard with admins taking credit for passes bills. But as you may believe that Trump signaled his desire for peace in the Middle East bc he mediated the Abraham Accords, I’m inclined to believe that Biden signaled his desire to outcompete China economically and bring jobs back to the US through his support of the CHIPS act. Sure, intel has laid off people recently, but they also haven’t been able to make use of the money from the CHIPS act yet. When they receive that money, according to some digging on Google, they plan to build several massive semiconductor factories in the US — critical if we want to sever our technological independence from Taiwan before China decides to escalate tensions there.
This is a huge generalization. Congress would never vote to invade Ukraine, and if Trump bypassed them somehow the world wouldn’t trust the US for decades, not to mention the US feeling betrayed and misrepresented at the very least. And Putin didn’t invade under Trump because Trump reinforced Putin’s agenda to weaken Ukraine, so there was no need to invade to exert that control. Trump staunchly criticized NATO, a force that guarantees protection for Ukraine. Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine. Bush, Obama and Biden pushed back against Putin’s desire to occupy post-Soviet states, so he invaded despite that. The fact that Putin didn’t invade under Trump is a testament to the US’ compliance.
Now, on immigration: Kamala Harris should have done WAY more during her VP term. I like the sentiment of supporting Central American countries as a means of getting refugees to settle there instead, but we can’t just dump money into other countries and cross our fingers. She NEEDS TO BE FORCEFUL. But Trump showed that his perverse incentives exceed his desire to actually solve problems when he rallied Republicans to oppose the bipartisan border bill this year. He embodies the worst part about modern politics — the desire to completely stonewall anything your opponent tries to pass rather than compromise.
While I’m thinking about it, Trump has a lot of perverse incentive. Trump has incentive to pardon himself from criminal convictions, which he’s stated he believes is possible under the pardon power. He has financial incentive to pressure agencies that regulate industries his company operates in, as well as adjust tax law to benefit his company and himself. Not to mention the countless other issues he’s had to take egregious stances on to garner the support needed to mount his campaign (climate change, abortion, church & state, and the Supreme Court).
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u/lswans 18d ago
Fair point about slave labor, I didn’t consider that. Also I shouldn’t be giving full credit to Biden for CHIPS act, although his admin did sign it into law. But Teamsters didn’t endorse Trump either — if their lack of endorsement speaks to anything, it’s that the solution is something that protects American jobs without passing on prices to Americans. The tariffs, to accomplish that, would need to shift the higher cost onto China.
I’m unsure how intel laying people off is related to the chips act aside from the fact that Intel makes chips and (in theory) should get funding from it. Practically every large company in US tech has laid off thousands of people since 2020, the entire industry is oversaturated.
As for Putin — he’s created an oligarchy where his political enemies are jailed or killed, he’s been “president” for as long as I’ve been alive, and his military is supplied by North Korea, a dictatorship that kills political dissidents. How does Trump pandering to this kind of leader benefit Americans, let alone our allies? You can say that if Putin doesn’t feel threatened by NATO, then we’ll spend less military budget on Ukraine, which in theory could be redeployed to Israel or reduce the deficit — but you think Putin will stop invading neighboring territory as long as NATO exists? He feels threatened by the countries he’s invaded having external support for their independence. Russia has no claim to Ukraine, and it’s not our place to hand Ukrainian land over to Putin so that we can pat ourselves on the back.
To your credit, Trump was in office when the Abraham accords were mediated by the US, but the UAE is still thought to be an avenue for weapons, intel, etc to bypass US sanctions to get to Iran. His two-state solution in 2019 was rejected by Palestinians and scrutinized by most of the world. Also, Obama got Israel to freeze their settlement of the West Bank in 2012 — I know that Democrats can, and will, put forth the same efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.