Trump ( in second clip) is asked if Apple will build plants to make Iphones here... and trump says "oh they can, they can... a lot of it is so computerized... these plants are amazing... if you look at they can do that"
That gives the entire ball game away.
Yes, Apple could build Iphone plants here... but to make the Iphones affordable to the vast majority of consumers, they would have to be made in fully autonomous factories, just as Trump says... fully autonomous might mean a few employees... or almost none at all.
But if the plants ( all the plants that make things ) are fully automated with AI and robots ( screwing in those tiny screws ), yes, that gets the costs down to what we pay now... but it will NOT bring jobs back. Not like the 1960s with thousands of workers going to work everyday in a single factory making cars.. or washing machines.
Trump keeps saying the tariffs will bring jobs back and rebuild the middle class... but even HE now says that won't happen... IF the companies build plants in the USA they will be "so computerized" that no jobs will be created here. Not a single net new job.
Then he says that tariffs will make the nations that "took the jobs from us" pay the tariffs... so much so that we can consider eliminating income tax!!! Except that tariffs will absolutely NOT do that... we will pay the tariffs for those goods that we buy from the places that make them... only with these ridiculous new tariffs, we won't buy them unless we absolutely have to... and many of us, still working the day shift at McDonalds, will not be able to AFFORD the post tariff prices for even a cell phone ( financed now but at $2000 post tariff, even on a payment plan, can we really afford to buy them working the same jobs we have NOW? )
The logic fails in every way you look at it.
Tariffs will NEVER bring good paying factory jobs back to the USA. Never ( except in small targeted markets for specific goods ).
Tariffs ARE a VAT tax ( or regressive tax ) on the goods being purchased... and high tariffs will make many products too expensive for most Americans.
So... consumerism drives the world economy. not labor, not capital, consumer demand and cheap products. Tariffs will kill this economy and not replace it with anything better or cheaper or with more jobs... not to mention that it will not significantly increase the amount of money the US Treasury collects to pay the government bills.
This is a one way ticket to another great depression.
The only people that benefit... and only in the short term... is the ownership class that uses the PROJECTIONS on tariff revenues as an argument to further reduce their tax burden. Those projections will never materialize.
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