|
I don't think you can bring back a job of let's say a woman sewing shoes together for Nike in Bangladesh for $1 per day.
even when you set their tax rate to 0% - which is what they probably pay already right now
now you could tax them with 35% - which makes a $100 pair cost $135 - but do Americans really have a homemade alternative with the same "coolness" factor or would they rather still buy Nike?
Let's say Nike decides to bring back a part of their production back to the US to circumvent the border tax - does anyone think 100 Bangladeshi women would be replaced with 100 Americans?
Or would Nike invest in automation - which is too expensive to replace $1 workers in Bangladesh but in the US...
And what about the rest of the world that does not charge a 35% border tax and still pays only $100 for the pair - would American consumer just accept that?
Or what happens when the EU, China etc say: fuck that, now we charge 35% on everything made by Americans. (and we do have alternatives for almost everything America sells)
Another example:
Right now Boeing and Airbus compete head to head - countries like China are their biggest markets. Now imagine suddenly Boeing becomes 35% more expensive cause China is pissed and puts up a border tax in return. I hear the champagne popping at Airbus headquarters already.
it's too late, nobody is going to bring any jobs back to any places that multiply productions costs - because the world has developed and you have more than 4-5 civilized nations you can sell to.
If the US market shrinks due to higher sales prices because of border tax, many companies will be able to gain market share in other markets to compansate that cause their american competition will get taxed out of those markets.
So basically: The rest of the world shrugs their shoulders and the US will end up with the same or less amount of jobs and $1 dollar shops being renamed to $5 dollar shops.
|