Is that true? Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs), attempting to tighten immigration, lowering taxes on repatriation of cash. Those are all pro worker.
Not neccessarily.
> Increased tariffs, renegotiated trade deals (increased tariffs)
Given the current situation where most production is offshored, this only hurts consumers in the short and middle term as there literally is no production capacity for most of the stuff that is produced in China (and other offshore countries), so the tariffs will be passed on 1:1 to consumers. To properly incentivize local production, tariffs would have to be so high that sum(offshore cost + tariffs) at least equals sum(cost of local production + extra cost of compliance with environmental regulation).
> attempting to tighten immigration
Did you ever look at which jobs have the most demand for immigrant (both legal and illegal) labor? It's mostly back-breaking labor: farms, hotels and bars, construction sites, medical (nurses and their unqualified helper staff). If tighter immigration would work out to help local workers, then Germany would not face a severe shortage of nurses or of farm workers or the UK a shortage of just about anything. The farmers complain "we can't get local labor as they're unwilling/unproductive or don't apply at all", but they never bothered to rise wages and working conditions (have you ever seen reports about what they call "housing" for the Romanian and other Eastern European slave workers?)... in the end, the "(illegal) immigration is killing our jobs" whine is only bullshit, it's underpayment that kills the jobs.
> lowering taxes on repatriation of cash
The mega-rich don't use that cash even when it is repatriated, at least not in ways that benefit the employees who made the riches in the first place! The only way I'd accept tax lowerings on cash repatriation is when said cash is at least partially redistributed to the employees.
I disagree. Almost anything made overseas can be made in the US, it's vast place. If you raise tariffs, that's going to hurt the largest international corporations and stimulate the local small to medium sized companies. Prices for goods would go up, but so would the demand for labor. Also, goods would be of higher quality and there would be less disposable consumer-culture, a win for everyone.
> Did you ever look at which jobs have the most demand for immigrant
Yes, I have. These 'back-breaking' labor jobs are also the most underpaid.
> it's underpayment that kills the jobs
I don't see how you can fail to realize the two are intimately related.
No it cannot, at least not in the foreseeable future as even for something as stupid and simple as a McDonalds Happy Meal throwaway toy there is no domestic supply chain in the US or most other Western countries. Corona makes rebuilding that supply chain even more impractical as you would need many, many dozens of billions of dollars (or euros) as an upfront investment and still thanks to higher labor costs and cost of compliance with regulations (environmental and labor) this won't be competitive for a long time.
> If you raise tariffs, that's going to hurt the largest international corporations and stimulate the local small to medium sized companies
Most "large international companies" are US-based. Also, large corporations can choose to at least partially suck up tariffs (either by cross-subsidizing or by cutting profit margins) and make up the loss by scale, while a small/medium trade company cannot easily do that.
That's true, but no rational economist or politician believes that tariffs are here to stay. They're a reflection of Trump's ideas rather than a recognized modern economic policy. Even then, Trump's goal was to combat China's policies, not create a long term system of import and export taxes to protect American workers.
As a result, there hasn't been significant industrial investment in the US. That's one of the problems we've had with Covid: the PPE, medications, and ventilators are all manufactured overseas. We've had to retool our auto manufacturers to spin up ventilator production. You'd be crazy to invest in US manufacturing since the tariffs look about as permanent as a White House press secretary. You know you'll be undercut and put out of business in just a few years.
Lastly, the repatriation of cash was a loss for everyone - companies that skirted tax laws got a gift in being able to reclaim a lot of cash they had been unable to access due to dodging taxes while also paying a much reduced rate... And I think that action happening again so soon is just a clear signal to companies to avoid actually bringing any money into the country until they can get a tax holiday to get it in for free - it's like your kid eating the cookie jar and you saying "Well, I'm going to dock your allowance thirty percent this week... And I will refill the cookie jar but don't do that again!" - we rewarded these companies for skirting tax laws by letting them skirt some more tax laws while wagging a finger and saying "Naughty naughty!"
If it's legal, it's not skirting the law.
> both sides of the aisle have been anti-labor
No argument here. But if we're comparing the current administration to (recent) previous, it's an improvement.
Has anything he's done for workers also disadvantaged his rich donors?
