[Porsche-O-Phile]

I knew Smoot Hawley would come into this. The world has changed. We import FAR more from China than they import from us. Also, the stuff China imports from us is far more necessary than what we import from them (food, mostly). This was not the case in the 1930s with Britain and other European countries targeted as part of S-H. It was much more of a tit-for-tat policy then with both sides having a lot of exposure to necessity (food) exports.

It is likely that as a result of imposing huge tariffs on Chinese produced goods that (yes) it would piss them off and (yes) it would result in a dramatic decline in the flow of Chinese stuff to our shores. Prices would go through the roof in the short term (spike) then gradually decline a bit over several months as U.S. manufacturing ramped up.

Pros: help the long-term problems (too much consumption of too much crap, too much focus on price point only consumerism, etc.), encourage domestic production, etc.

Cons: torpedo the very fragile U.S. economy. This is a bad time to be doing it (but is it going to be better anytime soon?)

As an initial reaction I have to say I'm all for it. It's something that would hurt China a hell of a lot more than it would hurt us, although I'm a little reluctant because it WILL hurt us at a very, very vulnerable time. However, things might very well only get worse here at home, meaning the best time to act is now.

For one I'd love to see the USA tell the WTO to go F itself with a chainsaw and see us start doing what's in OUR interests, rather than what's in the interest of every other puppet government and banana republic around the globe. The Chinese have been playing us for idiots and I'd have no problem with us deciding to take the gloves off and show them that we won't be knocked off our perch as the world's superpower so willingly. Far better to go down fighting than willingly surrender... And there's a chance we might not lose that fight as well.

The side benefits of a resurgence of American manufacturing and (hopefully) a return of people to trades (which I'm sure is not overlooked by the O.P. and his well-known affiliations) isn't necessarily a bad thing either. I find it laughable that every "C" student in America thinks they can - and that it's best for them to - go waltz through a college education and be entitled to a six-figure job spitting out TPS reports or doing "solutions consulting" or other meaningless crap (poorly at that) rather than pursuing a rewarding career as a tradesperson, helping shore up our manufacturing base and contributing something meaningful to society.

Of course you'd get pushback from the multi-billion dollar college student loan industry and the associated univesity machinery connected to it whose job it is to simply spit out degrees in exchange for lots of big checks, but it's time we dismissed the notion of a 100% (or nearly 100%) "service economy" as being even remotely sustainable too.