People in China naturally assume that the products made in China are superior to products made anywhere else in the world. Isn't that the truth with Made in USA products? I rather purchase an American made product than a Chinese made product. Problem is that very little consumer products are made in the USA, and a lot of our fresh food comes from South America.
Last week on the news, they were talking about flowers coming from other countries. I am referring to decorative flowers for restaurants, weddings, funerals, etc. All those flowers were grown in the USA at one time, that is, until the congress lifted the tariffs on foreign grown flowers back in the 1970's. They can grow them for less, and ship them to the US now for less, and that is what put all the American flower growers out of business. Just one of many examples of how the Congress allowed other countries to flood our markets with cheap goods. This is why we don't make anything here in the USA any longer. We have become a service economy, rather than a manufacturing country. As a service economy, we are dependent on the rest of the world for our needs. At the beginning of the 2nd World War, we went from building 0 ships a week, to building 2 ships per week! Think we could do something like that today? We no longer have tradesmen that know how to operate lathes, etc., because many people don't want to get their hands dirty.
In 1896, the GOP platform pledged to "renew and emphasize our allegiance to the policy of protection, as the bulwark of American industrial independence, and the foundation of development and prosperity. This true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry. It puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer. It upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman."
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In his 1790
State of the Union Address, Washington justified his tariff policy for national security reasons:
quotes from Wikipedia.com