Have sanctions been tried by any country?

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Wheelhouse

No country will do that.

China is the home of cheap labor, and not just for the US. There isn't a country in the world that's going to sanction China and piss off every industry in their nation.

Do other nations meet regularly with the Dalai Lama?

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Wheelhouse

Depends what you mean by "regularly".

Yes, other countries receive him as a leader...the Canadian parliament has even granted him honorary citizenship.
He lives in India because of the whole "exile" thing.

Other countries are more open and kinder to him than we are for sure.

and here's what he says about state visits and the Chinese:

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big hitter, the lama

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Okay good. This clears a lot up for me.

So now I ask, do you think the United States is in a strong enough position right now to cut diplomatic ties with China over this issue?

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Wheelhouse

I see no reason to cut diplomatic ties with China.

Removing most favored nation status would be a start however. They should have never been awarded that because of human rights issues just like Tibet.

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Didn't the United States decide against renewing this status after the Tiananmen Square incident?

I thought it had a huggeeee impact on the farmers in America, and that's why Clinton decided to reinstate it.

If that's the case, then why would now, in the middle of a recession, be a good time to do the same thing?

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Wheelhouse

To bring manufacturing jobs back home.
That's kind of a big part of our current situation.
It's ridiculous to think that the US and China are competing fairly when it comes to manufacturing costs, labor and safety.

We should repeal NAFTA while we're at it.

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How expensive would we have to make our tariffs in order to make it appealing for manufacturers to set up shop in the US?

Assuming the labor laws in China aren't so pro-big business that we could actually place tariffs on imported goods to persuade them, it would EVENTUALLY bring manufacturing jobs back to the states, but not immediately.

And during the time in limbo, the costs of these goods that our population relies on would be substantially increased.

Meanwhile, our farms are now producing so much corn, we're running out of things to do with it. If some of that doesn't go to China, how many farms are we going to lose?

Don't get me wrong, because I agree with you Cross. I've long been an advocate for reducing our foreign dependency.

But shouldn't we be holding off until we reach a market equilibrium? Shouldn't it be a gradual change?

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Wheelhouse

Am I completely off base here or does that make sense? I'm not trying to argue... I'm trying to learn.

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Wheelhouse

I have no idea...it would probably take the CBO to calculate that.

China doesn't enforce their labor laws...if a US firm is manufacturing in China, they pretty much have to do that themselves.
There are a couple excellent documentaries about this. The business ethics of using borderline slave labor and sweat shops.

I don't really see excess food production capacity as a problem.
Corn is special because of the politics and subsidies involved...but the fact is 50% of the food Americans eat comes from California, not Iowa.

It will be a gradual change anyway, why not start that change sooner rather than later?

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