And that is absolutely a fair take. I too would prefer to buy European products, when they are available and especially for a reasonable price. The collective problem for all of the west is that we have sold our soul for the Chinese to improve our lives,
That never happened
to the point that we are now dependant on that nation.
A dependency that often amounts to “it would be inconvenient to do something else.”
A nation run by authoritarians, communists (though in name only), who are no doubt eyeing global domination at some point.
Yes, “communism with Chinese characteristics” is actually more like fascism. Some form of pseudo autonomous industry is allowed because it would require the rulers to do actual work to manage everything, but industry must be completely deprived of any sort of property rights for its supposed owners. The state is the owner, in terms of rights.
The idea of bringing back production and manufacturing from China to the US and Europe is something we should strive towards. I merely disagree with the way Trump is doing it, because I don't see how it really going to produce results. Instead, it just makes us all poorer.
Performing value added operations is where wealth COMES from. You don’t lose wealth from repatriating industry.
Imagine the model from the bottom up. Countries create wealth WITHOUT trade, by resource gathering and the transformation of resources into goods with value. The whole reason money was invented in the first place was to represent those goods and keep track of trade.
If your country is specifically lacking something, then try to trade something you’re NOT lacking for it.
What the Chinese model does is create the impression of scarcity by putting domestic manufacturing out of business, and then capital looks and thinks “it wouldn’t be profitable to do this while I’d be outcompeted by Chinese industry.” The message that comes out is “sorry, we’d lose money” but that’s illusory if you remember where wealth actually comes from. Put up the tariff and don’t let them fuck you, because you’re subjecting your entire system to net revenue loss as the outflow goes to China
Gdp figures, markets, all the normal shit you see on the news all carefully select the framing and perspective they want you to see. If you want to see the actual effect on YOU, look at something like home price to income ratio.
In 1980 in the US, the median household income was $20k and the median home price was $40k.
In 2025, the median household income is $80k, so it increased fourfold. The median home price is $400k, a tenfold increase.
How did importing Chinese shit help us?
