I do understand that, but that’s just life. If countries don’t take a long term view and build up their own capacity, but instead just buy the cheapest stuff right now, that won’t be ideal for them. But the solution isn’t to try to dictate other countries’ domestic economic policy, that can’t possibly work. Even if China changes its policy on this matter those countries would still have to spend the exact same amount of money to build their own manufacturing base. Tariff imports a little bit if you have to, but most importantly put that money into actually building domestic capacity for the most important things. This is just the USA trying to put off doing that because the neoliberals are addicted to sucking everyone else dry through finance capitalism and manufacturing isn’t as profitable as tech-IP rent seeking.
I think you underestimate just how effective economy of scale is. Labour is also a relatively small portion of manufacturing costs.
I do understand that, but that’s just life. If countries don’t take a long term view and build up their own capacity, but instead just buy the cheapest stuff right now, that won’t be ideal for them. But the solution isn’t to try to dictate other countries’ domestic economic policy, that can’t possibly work. Even if China changes its policy on this matter those countries would still have to spend the exact same amount of money to build their own manufacturing base. Tariff imports a little bit if you have to, but most importantly put that money into actually building domestic capacity for the most important things. This is just the USA trying to put off doing that because the neoliberals are addicted to sucking everyone else dry through finance capitalism and manufacturing isn’t as profitable as tech-IP rent seeking.