Tarrif penalty on imports not manufactured to U.S regulations for polution, safety, child labor, etc

*Cause of US manufacturing decline* The US industrializing before other nations doesn"t change the argument. Europe industrialized first, but US industrialization was larger. Because of a close connection with Europe, the US learned from the pitfalls Europe had already experienced, especially preventing abusive labor practices. Because of cultural differences, the US doesn"t always have that connection with importing countries. US lack of competitiveness is due to US antipollution regulations and fair labor practices, including adequate safety, wages, and benefits. Not that the US should get rid of these regulations, but that the loss of manufacturing and lack of competitiveness has pushed the US backwards. As the US loses manufacturing, the antipollution laws related to manufacturing become ineffective as far as the world is concerned. US minimum wage laws mean nothing from the standpoint of manufacturing if those wages are non-competitive. The gap between the poor and wealthy in both the US and importing countries is widening with the loss in middle class. Most consumers don"t want to buy products manufactured by an abused labor force. The widening gap between the rich and poor is also occurring in China, where manufacturing is growing. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com...) Is this manufacturing growth overseas really benefiting those countries, or is it making US economics more like those countries? How will the US help those countries get over the pitfalls industrialized countries have already experienced? Robots reduce labor costs, but have no impact on pollution and increase energy usage. Not only is pollution during manufacturing an issue, pollution related to generating electricity increases. Tooling up with robots cost money and takes technical people to employ. When the US loses manufacturing, especially as corporate headquarters are lost, the US loses the technical support and manufacturing income to pay for developing robotic manufacturing. Robotics is an important development in manufacturing, but has not actually reduce the importance of cheap labor. A good example is the semiconductor industry, which has increased the use of robotics in manufacturing. Semiconductor manufacturing as moved increasingly to Taiwan and China. Even Japan, with its emphasis on robotics, is increasingly outsourcing semiconductor and electronics manufacturing to China. The semiconductor industry depends highly on chemicals and deals with their disposal. If not done properly, these chemicals are a pollution problem. Printed circuit board processing has also been automated with pick and place machines and solder reflow, but this manufacturing has also moved overseas and must deal with disposal of chemicals. The US cannot count on development of new products to keep manufacturing competitive. The loss in manufacturing is not only unskilled labor. Engineering and technical positions are also being outsourced to much lower salaries in China and India (http://www.eetimes.com...). This has also lowered engineering salaries in the US so that people trained to be engineers are turning elsewhere. "And, sadly, our top engineering graduates don"t always become engineers. They move into finance or management consulting " both of which pay far higher salaries than engineering. I have seen the dilemma that my engineering students at Duke University have faced. Do they take a job in civil engineering that pays $70,000, or join big Wall Street financial firm and make $120,000? With the hefty student loans that hang over their heads, most have made the financially sensible decision. In some years, half of our graduates have ended up taking jobs outside of engineering. Instead of developing new types of medical devices, renewable energy sources and ways to sustain the environment, my most brilliant students are designing new ways to help our investment banks engineer the financial system." (http://www.washingtonpost.com...) In other words, instead of engineering graduates developing innovative ideas that give people jobs, they are developing schemes to make rich people richer. The increasing cost of education versus the diminishing salaries for technical positions makes the payback for the cost of technical education questionable. The cost of an education in the US is increasing while the engineering salaries are not increasing if the jobs are even available. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com...) The current trend in the US is a rapid decline in technology and manufacturing competitiveness. *Harm caused by tariffs* A fixed indiscriminate tariff would be harmful, but the precedent of how the US has implemented tariff penalties prevents the harmful effects. An example of a tariff penalty is the penalty on Korean DRAM for price dumping. This case shows the US government considered the negative effects of the penalty and made a corresponding reduction in the penalty. The US government could use probation instead of a penalty when the importer is willing to make reasonable improvements with a monitored progress of those improvements over time. The purpose of the penalty is to improve competition, not to destroy it. As long as an importer achieved continuous improvements, they could remain under probation and not have the tariff penalty. Even if government corruption hides violations, employees are not silent. Examples are the employees at Foxconn (http://www.cnn.com..., http://www.cnet.com...) and the engineers in China and India. (http://www.eetimes.com...) When these voices get a hearing, they will be even more vocal. *Sales tax* Suddenly abolishing income tax to replace it completely with sales tax is not practical. The US would need a gradual transition from income tax to sales tax. The significant advantage of sales tax is it taxes both imported and domestic items evenly. The disadvantage of income tax is that it taxes domestic labor and not the labor to produce imported products. Another advantage of sales tax is no tax returns. This eliminates a source of tax fraud. It also makes taxes simpler for citizens who have less than a business mind. People auditing the response of the IRS to tax questions have noted that they get different answers from the IRS depending on who they get on the phone. If the IRS doesn"t have a consistent way of filling out tax returns, how can the US expect its citizens to have a consistent way of filling them out? A good beginning is the upper end of the sales tax, such as the federal 20% luxury tax previously implemented. This does not solely depend on the rich. While the rich tend to buy more expensive jewelry paying a higher tax, the rich aren"t the only ones buying jewelry and watches. What this does do is tax things people can live without. The US may also want to include electronics in the incremental start, maybe with a smaller percentage than 20%. *Conclusion* The current situation of manufacturing in the world demonstrates that the US cannot ignore the plight of manufacturing outside the US without it affecting US economics. Ignoring the situation minimizes US influence on world pollution. Allowing abusive labor practices has a backlash of making US labor costs non-competitive. Essentially, manufacturers with fair labor practices and good employee wages are losing out to those with unfair labor practices: paying their workers poorly and making huge profits. Is your solution to ignore this situation and let it eventually correct itself?