user28282912

Because every single foreign government hacks every other foreign government every single chance they get. If I get any say in the matter I’d rather keep my list of enemies as small as possible(aka only the US government). Most rational people would agree with that. At least you have some say in accountability for the US government, in theory at least.

I feel like every time this topic comes up people forget all of this and also forget that China’s energy, automotive, literally every industry in China is controlled by PRC/CCP, 100%. Even the US/China joint ventures have to follow rules laid out by the PRC/CCP.

The logistics accolade that you mention here is wartime logistics. That is ability to get the bullets and bandages to the places and people that need them all in a timely manner. The US is good at this because we have bases and transport logistics everywhere.

Military supply chain logistics(multiple sources for stuff, supposedly US companies…) is absolutely a consideration as well but this concept has been hallowed out over time. What used to be locally sourced materials and manufacturing by American companies is now much more dependent on overseas labor/materials. These ‘American’ companies might have corporate offices here and the c-levels, marketing/sales teams live here but all of the actual product is sourced/made in Mexico, Canada, China, India, Vietnam, etc. There are definitely specific industries like aerospace that still make a lot of stuff here but that is a small fraction of the larger whole.

Everyone seems to have thought that is was a great idea to let pretty much every core manufacturing competency die in the US over the last 30 years or so. How’s that working out for us now?

The blame is at least as old as Reagan, really accelerated with Clinton (NAFTA, China entering the WTO) and only got worse from there.

As much as I hate to admit it, tariffs are the answer. I also think that it’s important to understand that Trump’s tariffs exist only for extortion and bribes that benefit him personally. Tariffs can be used to encourage domestic production of goods and services that are clearly not something that we want to depend on other countries for merely for the sake of enriching the same circle of already rich assholes in perpetuity. Rich assholes would just have to keep resorting to pumping up immigration to suppress wages for these domestic goods, like they have always done for hundreds of years at this point.