The balance of trade accounts for "export of computer services," because of course it does, and the account is in deficit in spite of these, because of course it is. The insane thing is that you tried to offer this "insight" without even bothering to check!

> America does still manufacture a huge amount of products

US industrial (absolute, not per capita) production hasn't grown since 2007: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/INDPRO

But the population has increased by 13.5%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

It's one hell of a gamble to rely so much on software "products", while anything that software actually runs on is made in Asia. Building up a software industry will be a lot easier than it was to grown the industrial and tech ecosystem. And that ecosystem will give sweetheart deals to homegrown software, while extorting yours. Sorry, did I say "will"? I meant it's already doing so:

Apple CEO Tim Cook "secretly" signed an agreement worth more than $275 billion with Chinese officials, promising that Apple would help to develop China's economy and technological capabilities - https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/07/apple-ceo-tim-cook-secr...

An important point is that "capital" is essentially just another way of saying "investment". Investment is what creates opportunities and demand for labor. Strong demand for labor increases wages e.g. construction wages going through the roof because of data center investment.

If you disincentivize investment, economic surplus tends to shift toward rent-seeking behavior which creates relatively little labor demand. Many economies in Europe are poster children for this phenomenon. Ideally you want an economy that strongly incentives investment over rent-seeking.

Not if you make it extremely costly with tax policy and tariffs.

If that were seriously on the table, we could have just used the proceeds from having the world reserve currency to do that. Instead, their open plan for that national asset is to squander it.

In general, stop trying to steelman the looters. Sometimes a con artist is really just a con artist.

Capitalism is great as long as it works just for you. When others learn to play the game and even outrun you, it’s time to put the finger on the scales. Essence of the free market.

America can feed every person in the country easily, we import luxury goods cause we like coffee and out of season vegetables not because we’ve lost the production capability. If anything we are over subsidizing calories.

We also have enough nukes to glass the surface of the planet, enough firearms for every man woman and child to dual would them and 7x the rest of the worlds military.

The US’s people don’t need protection from other nations we need protection from each other.

Alienating every allied nation with tariffs that come out of nowhere will surely help you win wars.

1. What's up with this obsession to be a "real" power? Plenty of countries in the world do just fine actually avoiding confrontation and minding their business. We should get back at competing at sports, culture, scientific achievements. I can understand the vanity of politicians making up enemies for the sake of it, a bit less what should be an educated crowd here to fall for this narrative.

2. We're talking about the US, the last country on the planet to have to worry about wars. First because it's blessed by geography and separated by two oceans from anything relevant. The US has fought many wars. None of them on their soil since the war with Canada 200 years ago. Second because it is always the aggressor, not the victim. Always. Third, it's the last country on the planet that has to worry about feeding its citizens or having the capabilities to fight a war. Be real and serious. Either in conventional or non conventional wars the US can destroy everything on this planet multiple times over. Drop all of that insecurity.

3. Even more the trade surplus of countries like Germany, Italy. China or Japan isn't good. These countries are working their assess to send stuff abroad, and getting pieces of paper in exchange. Those pieces of paper won't magically materialize tanks, trucks, drones, ships and food in case of a sudden need.

Also, America has no advantage in services. Americans aren't any smarter than anyone else. America has a lot of land, highways, and infrastructure - that's actual advantage. So we're just letting that rot or selling it to overseas oligarchs.

You're conflating the goal with the approach. If the goal is to bring back or grow US manufacturing, the question is whether the current tariffs are an effective way to accomplish that relative to their trade offs. From the evidence so far, the historical research, and most economic analysis, the case doesn't look particularly strong. We haven't seen a meaningful revival in manufacturing employment, and even analyses that project some growth in manufacturing find that it comes with substantial costs elsewhere in the economy, including higher input and consumer prices, weaker growth in other sectors, and lower overall GDP.

This is a false dichotomy.

I personally believe that strategic tariffs should be used to protect our national interests, including providing meaningful employment.

This administration has no interest in strategic tariffs. Instead, they are made overbroad (50% on everything from Canada vs, say, cheap imported steel) and they are made and removed capriciously (tariffs on English whisky dropped after King Charles' visit to the White House).

If Trump really wanted to bring your dad's factory job back, he'd specifically target whatever industry he was working in AND ideally spend the tariff money boosting that industry. This is precisely the strategy countries like Japan used to reach first world status.

Instead Trump uses tariffs like a cudgel -- much closer to what the XKCD comic depicts. There is no chance his tariffs will lead to your father's factory ever being reopened, as that would require, at the bare minimum, a tariff that investors know will stay in place for years, as opposed to one that could be lifted with the visit of a charismatic member of nobility.