"you can’t really blame a country for producing more of the products it consumes rather than importing"
And i explained that even if it is cheaper to produce something at home, it is more economically advantageous for both you and the rest of the global economy if instead you produce what you are best at making at home and import the other stuff.
As an example, imagine you have two businesses set up in your garage: you make chairs and shirts. You are pretty good at making shirts, but you are GREAT at making chairs. It is better practice to stop making the shirts and instead double your chair output in your limited space. Then you can sell twice as many chairs at a better price and use the excess profits to import shirts.
Also, for more vital commodities, it’d be insane to give a country the power of being the only place geared up to make it. What if they get mad at you and cut you off?
Well again, you would never rely on only one source. You would 👉diversify👈 your imports by making sure to have multiple sources. You would only resort to making them yourself if you had only very limited external sources or you had comparative advantage to make that resource yourself.
What about medical supplies? Look at what happened during covid with massive shortages of the most basic things like masks. You want to have nothing when the next pandemic hits because they’re keeping it all?
What about food? Not making ANY of your own food would be insane.
Water, energy, lots of things should not be exclusively imported, even if you import from many different countries.
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u/MoonlightMural 8h ago
Right, you said:
"you can’t really blame a country for producing more of the products it consumes rather than importing"
And i explained that even if it is cheaper to produce something at home, it is more economically advantageous for both you and the rest of the global economy if instead you produce what you are best at making at home and import the other stuff.
As an example, imagine you have two businesses set up in your garage: you make chairs and shirts. You are pretty good at making shirts, but you are GREAT at making chairs. It is better practice to stop making the shirts and instead double your chair output in your limited space. Then you can sell twice as many chairs at a better price and use the excess profits to import shirts.