The hypocrisy knows no limits. The apparent richest country in the world with some of the richest men in the world enslave their workers by refusing to pay them a livable wage. Nothing so blind as a double standard.

The comparison is between the cost of labour in China and in Australia and America. That's it. If Australia and America want to retain/regain their industries, they have to protect them. Manufacturing is not just about growth; it's about security. Heavy manufacturers can switch to producing armaments. The day will come when the closing down of our motor manufacturing (helped though it had to be) will be bitterly regretted. The same thing applies to pharmaceuticals, much of which now comes from Communist China. Trade routes get blocked, people die.

40,000-50,000 jobs were lost when car making ceased. About one third of them never worked again.

All this talk about tariffs putting prices up sounds convincing until you realise that you have to pay more to live in the sort of country we want - the sort Australia used to be until China was foolishly allowed to enter the WTO by Bill Clinton and George W Bush. Any chance there is to break the WTO rules China will be on it - and get away with doing so.

For a country that's ideal population was 13 million, it is now 28 million. Almost 700,000 of them are unemployed, and we are still bringing people in, most of them are unskilled, although 70% of ‘spots’ are reserved for people with skills. Of course, apart from ‘professionals’, there's not much left in Australia requiring any skills that the 700,000 couldn't do.

Australia must be as self-sufficient as it was at the time that several generations now have not been taught about. That means backing away from China, having fewer, but smarter people. Australia is sinking fast. There's not much time left.

Aries54,

Sorry, but your post is yet another one that has no relevance to the subject of ‘the politics of tariffs’.

I'm amazed that anyone, particularly his critics, would believe Donald Trump cares about the pay and conditions of Chinese workers or anyone else's. He wants the business back that China's low labour costs have taken off America.

You can't say that your “richest men in the world” ‘enslave’ people when they actually pay them. Slaves don't get paid.

You might think that what they are paid is not a “liveable wage”, but that's just an opinion. Millions of people live on a minimum wage because it's all they can get.

But, that's not the subject of this thread.

Americas biggest trading partner is Mexico, from where the US imports $540 billion annually, mainly cars, car parts, machinery and pharmaceutics from cheap labour factories. Mexico imports about $328 billion in US goods. Factory workers in Mexico are paid less than $10,000 USD p/a. Trump doesn't need to look as far as China for slave labour, they're right there on his door step. Plus 4 million Mexicans working illegally in America.

Fancy. All those "slaves" actually getting paid money. Things have improved. Slaves used to get nothing but their food and and shelter, and a jolly good belting if they didn't work hard enough.

I’m sorry ttbn, you seem to have missed the whole point of my post which was to point out the hypocrisy of the USA imposing tariffs on other countries because they use slave labour. Completely in line with the topic of this thread. You and I may disagree about the definition of a slave, and that’s fine. But please, don’t be blind sided by the double standards of the current USA president.