Could Similar Tariffs to Trump's Plan Fix an Australian Unemployment Problem?

As global trade dynamics shift, the dinner table conversation around tariffs has resurfaced.

What if Australia decided to implement tariffs on imported goods?

Manufacturing jobs have been hollowed out by successive governments, with many regional areas suffering the brunt of the Coalition's policies for advocating free trade. Over the past few decades, many aspects of our society have suffered some devolution with a large number of high paying jobs being shifted to low income countries.

Australia does not manufacture anything meaningful anymore. The jobs created would need to involve more than just assembling of products. Tesla is widely touted as being a car assembler, not a car manufacturer.

One of the side effects of tariffs could include a decrease in income taxes.

What types of jobs do you believe could be re-shored back into Australia? Would you consider working in those industries if they adhered to developed nation safety standards? This is crucial, as many industries are often reported in the media as being undesirable due to lax standards in lower-income countries. Surely, Australia could manufacture lithium batteries better than most countries they are currently being produced in.

Overall safety is improved as a net result. A net benefit to the global economy is created by utilising tariffs. Adam Smith's theories of a benefit to society only seem relevant if you suspend disbelief and do not price in the effect to workers, environment and other external costs. Globalisation has not worked. It has created a culture where people are Ice Cold to others, demeaning them in bad employment situations where they are exploited for a few dollars.

By bringing back jobs to Australia, it goes a long way to remediating this issue. Interest groups focus on sustainable this and sustainable that, but how about starting with locally produced goods?

Can Australia keep affording to run trade deficits with so many countries? Where are the good jobs? Sure, there are service jobs here and there but they are low paying jobs that cannot arguably sustain a family starting from nothing, in that you cannot actually afford a house with a backyard.

Comments

    • +1

      US Supreme Court stated in 2024 that any official action of the president is legal. So Trump and co making bank on insider trading would be perfectly legal.

      What's more, Trump publicly stated on Truth Social a few hours before the tariff backflip that it's a great time to buy shares, so anyone investigated over insider trading can simply point to the message and say they were following publicly available information.

      If insider trading occurred, it was executed brilliantly. That doesn't mean I don't find it disgusting, but such action is legal now.

      • of course the Trump stacked supreme court voted in favour. it's quite neat really, he has cemented his position and can do anything without challenge - he's always wanted to be a Putin or Xi and now he's got what he wanted

      • I hope this helps highlight to the many government boot lickers who hang around these forums that 'legal' does not always (and often doesn't) align with what is 'right' or 'ethical'.

  • Much of the world's economy is now services (software, call centres, accounting etc), not goods.

    These tariffs only apply to physical goods, not services. One hasn't heard anything from Trump about offshoring jobs in these sectors to places with lower cost labour.

    He's playing to blue collar workers, and exposing white collar workers to overseas competition.

    This may be because of who his constituency is?

    • You don't hear about that as the US actually makes a fortune from professional services industries. it is not an area they are struggling with, he doesn't care about the call centres etc, these are generally not profit centres and he cares about profits not jobs. Jobs BS just helps him get votes from the gullible.

    • . One hasn't heard anything from Trump about offshoring jobs in these sectors

      Lol, you mean your left wing media sources haven't told you this because it doesn't fit with the Orange Mad Bad rhetoric

      Here is him saying exactly that:
      https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/03/pres…
      https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-donald-j…

      He's playing to blue collar workers, and exposing white collar workers to overseas competition. This may be because of who his constituency is?

      Or maybe you are being played by media lies…

  • +1

    Does Australia have unemployment problem ? Last time I heard the RBA did not lower the interest rate because unemployment was below 4% which is too low.

  • if we had some industry that we think we'd have a long term competitive advantage in and it needs some training wheel to get up and running sure. But our domestic market isn't big enough anyway to support that, so subsidies would make more sense than tariffs so that it could scale globally.

    Also - I don't think Australians want to work in manufacturing. I'd prefer to work in marketing, R&D or some other value add industry.

    TSMC vs Nvidia. I'd prefer to be Nvidia.

  • People who don't want to work will remain unemployed, with or without tariffs.

    I recall the definition of 'full employment' as meaning that people who want a job can find one without having to search for too long, not zero unemployment.

  • +1

    Australian wages are too high. I don't think there's any reasonable way to manufacture most things in Australia. Do you have any idea how much a factory operator gets paid? It's truly stupid money. And then we don't have enough decent tradesmen, and the ones who we do have are too expensive.

    I remember when we used to look at contracts in the manufacturing space, it was a rough rule of thumb that Australian labour would be about 50% of the total contract, whereas Thailand for e.g would be around 10-15%

  • +1

    They need to fix the corrupt energy pricing in this country before they do anything.

  • +1

    no; We don't have any technologies here to support manufacturing. Companies manufacture in China not because it's cheap, but because it's available. India/Vietnam and Thailand are in some ways cheaper. Good luck trying to assemble a group of 50 electrical engineers in 2 weeks time in Australia. Good luck trying to setup a factory here. It's just impossible.

  • No brain, no gain!

  • +2

    OPs comment shows why a good education system is so critical

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