I'm very much free trade and pro-globalization, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that a candidate for political office in country X should be most concerned about the overall welfare of the citizens of country X, then next for the non-citizen residents of country X, then non-citizen/non-residents last. We can argue how steep the dropoff should be, but I think most people would believe that the ordering is that one, with some possible ties.

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simonh 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Overall welfare is about more than just income though. It’s about national security, the cost of living, and the benefits of things like innovation, technology, culture.

Let’s look at US imports from China. Last year that was $462bn worth of goods. Suppose the development of China never happened and all those goods were manufactured in the USA instead. That’s impossible, the US doesn’t have tens of millions of industrial workers lying around spare to do those mostly low end, low value jobs and if it did they would cost more and the goods would all be much more expensive. So the cost of living would go up, the economy would less efficient because many workers would be doing lower value add jobs than they are now. The country would be much worse off overall. It would basically amount to enormous government subsidies and protections for vast swathes of lower value assembly work than what many people are doing now.

I support global trade because I think it’s best for the west. Not hyper-liberal ultra free market trade. Negotiated, rules based, moderately regulated trade and investment that is balanced to meet domestic and international needs.

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TheOtherHobbes 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Good news! Native USian developers will no longer be made unemployed by cheap immigrants.

Instead they'll be made unemployed by AI and a crashing tech economy.

But that isn't the point of this. It's leverage - much like the tariffs.

Big companies making significant donations to the Donald Trump Presidential Aggrandisement Fund will receive carve-outs and exclusions.

It's a grift, like everything else done by this benighted administration.

	▲	itake 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		its a common tactic for companies to force high paying employees to relocate to other offices, or leave... This could be a tactic to force lower end to go home and accept a lower salary at the same company for their same role. up or out. or in this cause, over or out...
	▲	cantor_S_drug 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		In the recent podcast Balaji said, both Red and Blue America will start hating Tech for distinct reasons. Red America will hate for H1Bs. Blue will hate for AI displacing high paying white collar jobs.
	▲	seanmcdirmid 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I hope you are right. If this is just grift...well...I guess the bar is still low but at least it isn't at the bottom.