Lutnick most certainly wasn't acting alone. The truth of the matter is that The neo-liberal project that hollowed out American business/manufacturing, the supported ruinous offshoring is composed of traitors to the American people on both sides of the aisle. They should all be prosecuted as such.
One at a time. Or one infractional group at a time at least. Otherwise you have too many rabbits and catch none.
[−]helsinkiandrew · 2026-11-15 Sun 14:59 UTC ·
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> The neo-liberal project that hollowed out American business/manufacturing, the supported ruinous offshoring is composed of traitors to the American people on both sides of the aisle. They should all be prosecuted as such.
Remember it was the American people that have been choosing the (cheaper) offshore manufactured products over the American made ones for decades. There are many products still made in America but in general people buy the cheaper ones made from abroad. And they buy more products - TVs, clothes, Barbie dolls because of it.
The American people purchase goods within the trade regime, they don't set the trade regime. The oligarchs and political "elite" set the trade regime for personal and politic benefit.
Clinton March 8th, 2000, Johns Hopkins SAIS
On manufacturing, after saying American companies would for the first time sell and distribute American-made products inside China, he adds that they could do it “without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China.”
On democracy, after noting that China is agreeing to more than buying American goods, he says “it is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values, economic freedom.”
The US didn’t need to support China joining the WTO and when it became clear that they were not being a good partner (keeping their domestic markets locked to outsiders, requiring tech and IP transfer, requiring domestic partners over 50%, violating international labor and environmental standards etc) they should have been expelled and their goods blocked from all markets that we could get to align.
That would have cut off a source of cheap production.
The lack of enforcement of the WTO agreement befuddles me. The result has been the polar opposite of these statements from President Clinton:
"Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world’s population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways," said Clinton. In a speech in 2000, Clinton reiterated his hopes:
For the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in America without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell through the Chinese government, or transfer valuable technology—for the first time. We’ll be able to export products without exporting jobs."
It's all about cui bono, and always has been. If enforcing the law would disrichen the rich, it won't happen.
[−]cmrdporcupine · 2026-11-15 Sun 15:46 UTC ·
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With the Trump regime there's been a rather explicit transition from a system of neo-liberal exploitation-with-rules to an out and out oligarchical / corrupt system more analogous to Putin's Russia than Clinton or Obama era US globalized capitalism.
It's .. yes ... worse. Before what you had was an unjust, exploitative, but relatively stable system of rules by which international capitalism operated and in which specific individuals were not allowed to dominate because there was a balancing act of corporate interests, sector by sector, corporation by corporation. If you (not you or I, but corporate entities etc) played by the rules, you might get a chance at the bat.
What's replaced it is outright graft. "Success" is determined by proximity to specific individuals. Success and growth of the overall system is no longer a goal. It's outright "might makes right" politics and what makes it far worse than what came before is not only is it unjust (just like before) for the little guys like you and me.. it is now inherently unstable and prone to collapse.
It's absolutely short termist and interested only in certain families and individuals and maybe sectors.
The people that should be prosecuted are the actual individuals involved.
Also, as a Canadian I'll just say... FUCK Lutnick in particular. Him and Bessent and the whole cabal have made explicit economic war against former "allies" in the name of their own enrichment. It is glorious that they have now have knives out for each other.
[−]themaninthedark · 2026-11-15 Sun 16:26 UTC ·
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Remember it was the American people who have been choosing to consume the (cheaper) food bathed in pesticides over the organic foods....
Remember it was the American people who have been choosing to use the (cheaper) gas with lead over the gas with out lead....
This take smacks of the 'learn to code' vibes that journalists were throwing around at blue collar workers only to cry about it being harassment when it was thrown at them.
Remember, the people who started buying cheap items from China were the same people who's jobs were being shipped to China. Kind of hard for you to afford the more expensive items when you don't have a job or you have switched from a good paying job to a low wage one.
not saying it’s necessarily a good thing but offshoring and financialization enabled American companies like Apple to retain a much larger chunk of profits and return more wealth to shareholders, who in turn recycled that money back into American assets, lowered cost of capital, raised valuations, funded startups that raised tech salaries and pulled global talent at the expense of other countries
In an alternate universe, keeping manufacturing industries and jobs onshore would likely have come at the expense of American dominance and high salaries in tech, and higher cost consumer goods - probably not a huge deal to most people
> but offshoring and financialization enabled American companies like Apple to retain a much larger chunk of profits and return more wealth to shareholders, who in turn recycled that money back into American assets, lowered cost of capital, raised valuations, funded startups that raised tech salaries and pulled global talent at the expense of other countries
So trickle down, but it only helps a small number of people in a handful of coastal cities? And imports people into the US to then take work from citizens?
And even that is no longer really happening (except for the importing people to take work from citizens), and hasn't for a few years now (not sure if you've seen the tech job market at the moment). Yes, there was a brief period of time that a few technologists were making 6 figures starting..
Apple has a 21% global smartphone market share. If the US has an unhealthy dependency on a single smartphone manufacturer, then perhaps something should be done about that?
If Apple truly has become a critical part of the nation's infrastructure and is "too big to fail", then why hasn't it been nationalized yet? The nation's safety depends on it!
IMHO the country was more stable when economic growth was more evenly distributed among the states. It is impossible to imagine Cupertino voting for a wreckless wildcard like Trump; this indicates how wide the disparity is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump got a majority of the Cupertino vote in 2024. It’s heavily Chinese, and for some reason, he has a lot of support among the Chinese community. Maybe because he’s been funneling GPUs to the CCP?
Just as long as we don't give a pass to those who might loudly complain about this, while just flagrantly looting in different ways (eg Grump himself). At this point I think most people recognize the original decades-old problem even if we disagree on specifics. The real difficulty is that the political banner of opposition to neoliberalism has also been captured by that same class of shot-term anti-patriotic looter, merely running a different/newer con job.
Like in 2026, we don't really need to worry about domestic industries and production lines getting shipping to China. That has basically run its course, and while it would be great to work on rebuilding our industries, nobody really has a plan for doing that beyond hopium. The active attack we do need to worry about is further destruction of what still remains of the decentralized US economy, in favor of rolling up ever more activity into megacorps (through high prices on energy and raw goods, open political favoritism, continued regulatory capture, etc).
> The real difficulty is that the political banner of opposition to neoliberalism has also been captured by that same class of shot-term anti-patriotic looter, merely running a different/newer con job.
Agreed. They need to go as well.
> What we do need to worry about is further destruction of what still remains of the decentralized US economy, in favor of rolling up ever more activity into megacorps (through high prices on energy and raw goods, open political favoritism, continued regulatory capture, etc).
Sure, but we also need to do our own infrastructure buildup, offshoring hasn't run it's course, we still have places all over the country with no real economic prospects. There has to be something for that alongside bringing the megacorps to heel.
> offshoring hasn't run it's course, we still have places all over the country with no real economic prospects
This doesn't follow. By "run its course", I mean that most labor-intensive-manufacturing has already been dismantled and shipped away, apart from a few strategic / protected industries (eg military industrial complex, vehicles). Like show me an industry that is still working to carry out offshoring plans in 2026.
> we also need to do our own infrastructure buildup ... we still have places all over the country with no real economic prospects
This does follow, and I agree. I'd say the best recent attempts were things like the Infrastructure and Jobs Act (direct spending on infrastructure), Inflation Reduction Act (subsidies creating jobs installing renewable energy), CHIPS act (direct subsidy to one quasi-strategic industry).
My criticism came from how the Grump "plan" is to simply keep turning up the economic pain until most of us are poor and desperate enough to compete with Chinese factory workers, and how this nonsense has now used up all the air in the room. Tariffs would have worked 30 years ago, at this point they're closing the barn door after the horse ran away, went to college, settled down, and had kids.
Remember it was the American people that have been choosing the (cheaper) offshore manufactured products over the American made ones for decades. There are many products still made in America but in general people buy the cheaper ones made from abroad. And they buy more products - TVs, clothes, Barbie dolls because of it.
Who exactly should be prosecuted?
Clinton March 8th, 2000, Johns Hopkins SAIS
On manufacturing, after saying American companies would for the first time sell and distribute American-made products inside China, he adds that they could do it “without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China.”
On democracy, after noting that China is agreeing to more than buying American goods, he says “it is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values, economic freedom.”
That would have cut off a source of cheap production.
"Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world’s population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways," said Clinton. In a speech in 2000, Clinton reiterated his hopes:
For the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in America without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell through the Chinese government, or transfer valuable technology—for the first time. We’ll be able to export products without exporting jobs."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93China_Re...
It's .. yes ... worse. Before what you had was an unjust, exploitative, but relatively stable system of rules by which international capitalism operated and in which specific individuals were not allowed to dominate because there was a balancing act of corporate interests, sector by sector, corporation by corporation. If you (not you or I, but corporate entities etc) played by the rules, you might get a chance at the bat.
What's replaced it is outright graft. "Success" is determined by proximity to specific individuals. Success and growth of the overall system is no longer a goal. It's outright "might makes right" politics and what makes it far worse than what came before is not only is it unjust (just like before) for the little guys like you and me.. it is now inherently unstable and prone to collapse.
It's absolutely short termist and interested only in certain families and individuals and maybe sectors.
The people that should be prosecuted are the actual individuals involved.
Also, as a Canadian I'll just say... FUCK Lutnick in particular. Him and Bessent and the whole cabal have made explicit economic war against former "allies" in the name of their own enrichment. It is glorious that they have now have knives out for each other.
Remember it was the American people who have been choosing to use the (cheaper) gas with lead over the gas with out lead....
This take smacks of the 'learn to code' vibes that journalists were throwing around at blue collar workers only to cry about it being harassment when it was thrown at them.
Remember, the people who started buying cheap items from China were the same people who's jobs were being shipped to China. Kind of hard for you to afford the more expensive items when you don't have a job or you have switched from a good paying job to a low wage one.
In an alternate universe, keeping manufacturing industries and jobs onshore would likely have come at the expense of American dominance and high salaries in tech, and higher cost consumer goods - probably not a huge deal to most people
So trickle down, but it only helps a small number of people in a handful of coastal cities? And imports people into the US to then take work from citizens?
And even that is no longer really happening (except for the importing people to take work from citizens), and hasn't for a few years now (not sure if you've seen the tech job market at the moment). Yes, there was a brief period of time that a few technologists were making 6 figures starting..
Ban iPhone imports for 6 months and see if it only helps a "small number of people in a handful of coastal cities"
If Apple truly has become a critical part of the nation's infrastructure and is "too big to fail", then why hasn't it been nationalized yet? The nation's safety depends on it!
Cupertino was +44 for Harris in 2024
https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2024-general/ssov/pres-...
Like in 2026, we don't really need to worry about domestic industries and production lines getting shipping to China. That has basically run its course, and while it would be great to work on rebuilding our industries, nobody really has a plan for doing that beyond hopium. The active attack we do need to worry about is further destruction of what still remains of the decentralized US economy, in favor of rolling up ever more activity into megacorps (through high prices on energy and raw goods, open political favoritism, continued regulatory capture, etc).
Agreed. They need to go as well.
> What we do need to worry about is further destruction of what still remains of the decentralized US economy, in favor of rolling up ever more activity into megacorps (through high prices on energy and raw goods, open political favoritism, continued regulatory capture, etc).
Sure, but we also need to do our own infrastructure buildup, offshoring hasn't run it's course, we still have places all over the country with no real economic prospects. There has to be something for that alongside bringing the megacorps to heel.
This doesn't follow. By "run its course", I mean that most labor-intensive-manufacturing has already been dismantled and shipped away, apart from a few strategic / protected industries (eg military industrial complex, vehicles). Like show me an industry that is still working to carry out offshoring plans in 2026.
> we also need to do our own infrastructure buildup ... we still have places all over the country with no real economic prospects
This does follow, and I agree. I'd say the best recent attempts were things like the Infrastructure and Jobs Act (direct spending on infrastructure), Inflation Reduction Act (subsidies creating jobs installing renewable energy), CHIPS act (direct subsidy to one quasi-strategic industry).
My criticism came from how the Grump "plan" is to simply keep turning up the economic pain until most of us are poor and desperate enough to compete with Chinese factory workers, and how this nonsense has now used up all the air in the room. Tariffs would have worked 30 years ago, at this point they're closing the barn door after the horse ran away, went to college, settled down, and had kids.