I see you ignored the point of not repeating the 2020 global supply disaster on critical goods. This leads me to believe you are not interested in debating in good faith.
You also ignored the point about American youth having no future prospects because we sacrificed stability for convenience. That cost goes far beyond your petty concerns over taxes.
Your analogy about hospitals isn't comparable. Hospitals aren't being offshored or imported from geopolitical rivals or frenemies with a record of hostile trade practices. We’re not slapping tariffs on harmless competition, we're correcting decades of offshoring that gutted decades of American industry. Tariffs aren’t about what's the most efficient solution. They’re about taking a dramatic step toward regaining economic independence. You can worship at the altar of cheap goods if you want, but don’t pretend that altar is free. 2020 proved the price of economic dependence is steep, and next time, it won’t just be toilet paper, microchips, or necessary pharmaceuticals that’s missing.
I did not see that point relevant to the discussion, because you have not explained how the disaster could have been avoided with a different set of policies. Unless the US market fully closed itself from the rest of the world, a global epidemic of that scale was bound to lead to serious shortages everywhere.
The "petty concerns" are for freedom of the individual from tyranny of others who raid his land once a year to collect a tribute. I could not care less about amorphous groups such as "American youth". Point at a particular young American, and you will see someone who has to spend insane amounts of money to just to go a university, because the government has taken over the education industry. Maybe you can find consolation in the belief that if the US government did not run education, then the Chinese government would - but I do not hold the belief that only such possibilities exist.
Your main concern seems to be "stability", but how is it measured? There is perfect stability in North Korea: things are perpetually miserable - is that what you would prefer? Stability is stagnation. Proactive, enterpreneurial people will take potential shortages into account and correct for them. But people who rely on scoundrels like Trump to fix their business, who believe that he will bail them out if things get hot, or prevent things from getting hot in the first place - well, these people will one day find themselves without inventory.
I know a lady owning a large souvenir store in Virginia, and most of her inventory is from China - but she also constantly negotiates with suppliers from India, Korea, Mexico and so on. That is what a good enterpreneur does: he diversifies and expands, planning for contingencies. Many Americans seem to not want to bother with that: they want the government to tell them who to buy or not buy from. Well, I do not see why I should be prevented from running my business the way I want to run it because of their laziness. I think that the primary role of any government is to hurt excellent people so that mediocre and lousy people feel better about themselves.
