The Resistance and tariffs fake news

About two weeks ago, the Donut Twitter corner of The Resistance was lamenting Dress Barn going out of business, and following on the footsteps of Payless Shoes — and some were blaming Trump's tariffs on China.

This is fake news, of course. China is the leading importer of apparel to the US, but with a plurality of less than 30 percent.

It's also callous, and finally, it's blame shifting. Let's tackle all three, as they're interrelated, especially the first two.

Yes, a fair amount of imported clothes and shoes are made in China. But, in most cases, even more is made outside China, in places like Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Honduras, Cambodia etc. Specifically, countries 2-7 combined top China. So, Trump's tariffs wars have not driven either store out of business. And, let's take women's, or men's, walking shoes. (Hold on to that order.)

Would you pay $54.99 instead of $49.99 at Payless, rather than $64.99 for American made? Many of you would.

Plus, the first Donut Twitterer I saw claimed this was a war specifically on women. Really? Last time I checked, men wore shoes, too, even if we're not overwhelmed by capitalist fashion brainwashing to buy 15 pairs. That's on you. Men also wear clothing (we hope) last I checked.

Second, all of those countries I listed have poor labor rights. (Not that Trump cares about that. He just hates free or even fair trade. Goods could be made in Canada and especially if they were old-time manufactured objects, he'd still hate them.)

But, Donut Twitter, especially those of you who are political insiders? You haven't cared about labor rights, or pollution safeguards for the 25 years since the Slickster got you to sign off on NAFTA. So, put your hands down again.

Finally, are you really buying stuff at Dress Barn? And I mean you individually.

Maybe you went to the Big Yellow A.

So, blame Jeff Bezos.

Then blame yourself.

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Sadly, without neoliberals of the Resistance doing an ounce of introspection, Trump has given real tariff new stupidity news with his 5 percent until you stop the migration threat. That's just after he cut some Mexican, and Canadian, tariffs to try to get the Senate to pass NAFTA 2.0, aka USMCA.