Of course there’s a single explanation: in a democracy, everyone gets a vote. Not ‘everyone’ knows enough about these subjects to understand why the experts are right. Moreover, in a representative democracy, there is a second layer where entrenched interests—who guard virtually everything you listed—get to bribe politicians to go against the preferences of their constituents.
I do have to ask about one issue on this list: regarding free trade. The argument has been made that China applies indirect tariffs to U.S. made goods. Specifically, by either (1) outright banning entire categories of good (no tariff, just ban) such as the Google App Store. (2) Subsidizing heavily companies making a competing product. So, for example, a U.S. smartphone chip vendor can technically sell their parts on the Chinese market without a tariff, but the Chinese domestic competitors to them get billions of dollars in subsidies and thus can price a comparable part for even less.
I don’t know how to deal with this other than the obvious, which is to fight China’s implicit tariffs with explicit tariffs. (which is what is being tried, albeit with a great deal of complaining)
I’m sure there are some hard cases wrt free trade, but we could move a long way towards much more free trade without worrying too much about the corner cases (i.e. allow tariffs on those cases).
Of course there’s a single explanation: in a democracy, everyone gets a vote. Not ‘everyone’ knows enough about these subjects to understand why the experts are right. Moreover, in a representative democracy, there is a second layer where entrenched interests—who guard virtually everything you listed—get to bribe politicians to go against the preferences of their constituents.
I do have to ask about one issue on this list: regarding free trade. The argument has been made that China applies indirect tariffs to U.S. made goods. Specifically, by either (1) outright banning entire categories of good (no tariff, just ban) such as the Google App Store. (2) Subsidizing heavily companies making a competing product. So, for example, a U.S. smartphone chip vendor can technically sell their parts on the Chinese market without a tariff, but the Chinese domestic competitors to them get billions of dollars in subsidies and thus can price a comparable part for even less.
I don’t know how to deal with this other than the obvious, which is to fight China’s implicit tariffs with explicit tariffs. (which is what is being tried, albeit with a great deal of complaining)
I’m sure there are some hard cases wrt free trade, but we could move a long way towards much more free trade without worrying too much about the corner cases (i.e. allow tariffs on those cases).
Yes but arguably this isn’t a corner case. It’s the majority of the trade that matters, to both the usa and china.