Rules and Regulations

[Red Arrow]

Bombs?  Where did that come from??

Just to get your attention that our ability to enforce our morals on others has limitations.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Just to get your attention that our ability to enforce our morals on others has limitations.

That's why we have the 'media' to bring these things to light so we can choose to protest by our purchasing or not.

[nathanm]

In a better world, we could tell the offending countries to keep their products until they shaped up.  Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in.

No, we do in fact live in a world where that's possible. Tariffs are not a difficult concept. Our government has proven itself fairly adept at levying and collecting them in the past. Free trade should be free, so long as we're all competing on a level playing field. Since we're not, it seems reasonable to me to enact measures to bring the cost of imported goods to a point that accounts for the difference in rules like child labor and environmental regulations.

If companies still feel like they can make more money making stuff overseas using factories with lax labor rules and environmental standards, even with tariffs, so be it. At least we'll have the funds available to ameliorate the damage they are causing to our economy and our world by doing so.

[Red Arrow]

No, we do in fact live in a world where that's possible. Tariffs are not a difficult concept. Our government has proven itself fairly adept at levying and collecting them in the past.

The US Government does not have a monopoly on collecting tariffs. Other countries could impose tariffs on our exports in retaliation.  Prices for everything would go up and nothing would get fixed.  If not a direct tariff, it may be a tax to bring our products into compliance with another country's laws and regulations.  I believe the Japanese did (maybe still do) that to US manufactured cars.  I believe it may have been the VAT in Germany but I was surprised to see Corvettes and Camaros on sale there in 1995.  Why would anyone want a Vette or Camaro when there were Porches, and tricked out BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and others available.  The price of a Camaro was about $40,000 when converted from Deutsch Marks (before Euros).  Gas was equivalent to about $4/gal.  I also noted that I paid less for my 540 here than I would have in Germany when converting the DM price to $ in 1995.  I think the conversion rate was about 1.6 in our favor at the time but I'm not sure of the exact number.