The only lesson that will be learned is that it's important to be first in line with the Chinese. More toadying and privatization will ensue.

Ironically I think all the guys who fear-monger about us turning into a 3rd world country will be the ones advocating for the things we associate with 3rd world countries--in order to entice that manufacturing back

The double whammy of relying on China for your essential goods. Not only do you have to wait in line, but when you finally get it delivered the stuff is rubbish.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1...ical-equipment

But how does this change. Do you legislate that companies make medical supplies and medicine in North America?

Make it economically attractive to produce the stuff domestically. Just tariff the **** out of anything coming out of China.

Stop them and the greedy corporate leeches from profiting from defective goods produced with slave labor.

It's a common process across all industry. Offer a contract for X number of products. Producers bid with proposals for that contract. Government selects a bid that fits the best price, timeline, quality, etc from a domestic producer

If you have a contract in hand you have zero problems getting financing, equipment, staff, etc to fulfill that contract if needed. This doesn't mean that the government should rely solely on domestic products both short and long term but it can easily localize production. Highly competent and reputable companies will be lining up and slobbering all over themselves to win a government guaranteed contract on this scale

So do you thin Republicans will do that and tell the drug companies Yes you can make it cheaper in China but your going to build a plant and do it in the USA?

I big Republicans as they hold the senate and Presidency. The democrats are slavers to drug companies as well

Trump has been trying to do that ever since he came into office. That's what he ran on.

Pharma manufacturing is dominated by wealthy Western countries.
But at the moment China is already mass producing things needed for this pandemic for obvious reasons.

I would guess those stats come based on the nationality of the company and NOT where the actual manufacturing takes place.

So Pfizer drugs being manufactured in China or India would show up in the US portion of the map.

You are wrong. Drug manufacturing is very capital and IP intensive and that makes the manufacturing concentrated in the countries you see on the map, at least by $ value.

If we're talking about low value stuff and raw ingredients, China would have a bigger foot print but not as big as some would believe.

Slap a big fat tariff on any imports, making it profitable for whatever it is to be made in USA#9.

Nobody is going to invade China, but you'd have to think there will be some very significant blowback when all this is done.

Yeah, and you know what happened? All those things that got tarriffed are now made in the USA.

OH WAIT NO THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED. Any changes of sites of manufacturing were moves to Vietnam and other places in SE Asia, not to the USA.

yeah vietnam is loving the trade war

No he ran on that. He has put tariffs on everything and manufacturing hasn't come back

So, tariff them as well. Easy game.

I thought the tariffs already imposed were going to bring US companies running back in droves? Except that hasn't really materialized. They can still go to other places like SE Asia and Mexico. So, Tariffs for everybody? Once we stack all those angels on the head of that pin--we'd still be paying more for something everybody else gets for cheaper. And that brings us right back to those greedy corps again--no doubt being ran by some psycho right-winger using every tool at their disposal to pay slave-like wages and trying to chip away at things like environmental protections/attacking unions etc Sounds like heaven
Now you're just going to have to convince the guys like trump and his ceo buddies that already played everybody to play fair this time around--good luck.

Even if US supplied 100% of its domestic masks for the past ten years, there would still be acute shortages now without a big stockpile.

With a big stockpile, wherever the masks were manufactured, we’d be in better shape, to ramp up existing (or build from scratch even) production to meet demand.

A lot of the jobs people want to bring back no longer exist. Even in South and SE Asia the capital intensity of manufacturing is increasing significantly, making the cost of labor less relevant.

tried booking a low cost but decent hotel in beijing the other night, called about a dozen places and only one would accept foreigners

will likely be 100% welcome at the 4 and 5 star international brands though

xenophibism getting real right now - first time i've experienced the corona strain of it directly

Or now you're putting tariffs on literally every country, which, lol, you're just spiting your own people by making them pay more for everything.

The problem is the wealthy, neoliberal elite class (whom Wookie clearly advocates for) has so much $$ tied into having all our manufacturing and production done offshore that they will vigorously fight us moving essential manufacturing domestically.

That is why absolutely nothing will be done with respect to holding the CCP accountable for this, our relationship with China, or our outsourcing production and manufacturing. For the neoliberal elites, if the choice is between their money and American lives, their money is always going to come first.

Politically, this is also why all the focus of this is narrowly focused on Trump. Because the neoliberal elites dont want to actually undertake any of the structural changes that would be necessary to make our systems less fragile, as again it would cost them $$.

The reason nothing will be done is US is still a manufacturing powerhouse and much of our manufacturing is concentrated in higher value products.

Cheap consumer goods from overseas are most often cited but the impact is dispersed and relatively removed from the tariffs. What triggers backlash against tariffs is people losing their jobs because their firms shutter due to higher input prices.

Rick,
I hear the Chinese are kicking the Africans out of there apartments.

True?

no idea, not really going out and about and most africans are in the south

haven't heard that but periodic crackdowns against africans are common because literally walking down the street in any expat neighborhood you'll see a dozen black guys are 11 will be nigerians "saying hello my friend would you like some hash"

it's basically an assumption if you see a young black man outside in a bar district he's part of a nigerian cartel

for example, before the olympics they basically rounded up all the africans who couldn't prove legit employment and sent them home because they didn't want all the people flying in to be accosted once every 10 minutes with an offer for hash