On Sun, Jan 26, 2025 at 07:33 PM, Charlie wrote: > > If M.G. would read the essay to which I linked ( "Trade, Trump, and Us" at > > http://mltoday.com/article/trade-trump-and-us/ ), he would see (or more > likely, continue to distort) that the stand on tariffs there not only > speaks openly for the interest of the U.S. working class but also speaks > against the exploitation of workers in low-wage countries
Charlie claims he "speaks against the exploitation of workers in low wage countries" when he proposes that US tariffs be set impossibly high to prevent exports from those countries from entering the US. "A workers’ demand on trade is simple: a Wage Gap Tariff (WGT)”, he says, "a charge on imports equal to the gap between the wage paid the workers who made the product in China or wherever and the U.S. wage. If it took two hours to make the product, multiply the hourly wage gap by two, and that is the charge per item. A WGT tells businesses that it will not pay to bring in products whose principal market advantage is cheap labor.” The average US worker earns some 360% more than Chinese workers - about $58,000USD to approx. $16,000USD in yuan. So Charlie is right: A tariff reflecting that wage gap would indeed effectively restrict imports into the US, not only originating in China but from most everywhere else in the world where average wages lag significantly behind those in the US. Now all that remains for Charlie is to a) persuade US workers as well the global working class that exhorbitant US tariffs will contribute to ending their exploitation, and b) have them in turn persuade US capitalists reliant on lower-cost goods and services from China and elsewhere to prevail on the Trump administration to take a far more robust approach to tariff policy than it is presently entertaining. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34869): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34869 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110809626/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
