An economic known that is sadly lost on politicians has to do with the basic truth that if producers can’t sell to us, we can’t sell to them. Trade is all about products for products, so if we mindlessly put up barriers to foreign goods, we by extension erect barriers to the sale of U.S. produced goods to foreigners. The only closed economy is the world economy.
A logical corollary to the above is that if U.S. producers aren’t allowed to sell their product around the world, they logically can’t import global production. The confused protectionists (a redundancy, no doubt) in our midst would say the latter is a good deal, that imports hurt us. They couldn’t be more incorrect. Imports are the surest way for the individuals in a nation to improve themselves.
It’s not just that we export so that we can import. While the latter is a truism of the first order, the greatest aspect of imports is that they free us to do what we individually do best. When others are producing for us, we have time to do the work that most uniquely elevates our individual skills and intelligence. Translated, if I had to make the clothes I wear, grow and harvest the food I eat, build the shelter in which I sleep, and manufacture the computer on which I type, I would quickly die an unclothed, unfed, unsheltered and unemployed life. Imports strengthen us.
This is something to think about as the economic vandals inside the Biden administration place export controls on innovative U.S. corporations like Nvidia, Intel
Figure that the most valuable company in the world (Apple
Applied to AI and advanced computers, both have the promise to render every individual American exponentially more productive as mechanized thought and computation are married to human genius on the way to staggering productive leaps. In which case Raimondo’s justification for managed trade amounts to the Chinese are trying to better us through feverish production, but we’d prefer to remain mediocre.
Taking this further, it can’t be forgotten that Nvidia on its own is one of the most valuable companies in the world. Stop and think about that with China’s growing marketplace well in mind. As the global leader in artificial intelligence computing, it’s no reach to say that a not insignificant driver of its valuation is the expectation that its products will fuel the feverish advances taking place in countries like China. Nvidia, Intel and AMD have a chance to expand market share in a country economy that grows by the day, only for the Biden administration to step in the way.
Stating the obvious, the Biden administration’s export controls will weaken the U.S. by kneecapping some of its greatest companies, the damage will be compounded by further weakening born of a reduced ability to import, after which it can’t be shouted enough that trade is the most peaceful act in the world, and by extension the greatest foreign policy concept mankind has ever happened upon. Wrapping its thoughtless actions in “national security” sanctimony, the Biden administration will weaken a U.S. always and everywhere made stronger by imports, all the while reducing the cost of war between the U.S. and Chinese by suffocating the very trade that, for making war so expensive, renders it unlikely.
