> The US economy "floating on military strength"??
Yes, it's our military strength that makes investors trust our currency and allows us to maintain the world's largest trade deficit. Not just our own, but the weapons we provide to friendly governments (mostly dictators) around the world.
The rest? You're just ignoring the possibility of either sanctions being imposed on us (cutting off the free trade which, I agree, increases standard of living while it lasts) or fighting a major war (in WW2 the entire civilian production capacity was redirected to the military, a limited "strategic capability" will not be sufficient).
In fact, even the recent (very limited) war in Ukraine was more than our current production capacity for ammo could handle.
> Yes, the US is still the second largest producer of civilian vehicles
Isn't that mostly for internal sales? The US export some civilian vehicles, that's true. But my impression is that much of the local production is due to threatening and begging in exchange for somewhat less difficulty for selling within the US. So, "competitive" would be arguable.
I'll concede that recent years have shown that stockpile and production capability in particular for ammo is low for an era where - after all - there are circumstance where a lot of ammunition gets expended fast. And THAT very much won't be solved through tariffs. Not even for guidance electronics.
Yes, the US is still the second largest producer of civilian vehicles, although I admit, I didn't realize how far ahead China already was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_motor_veh...
> The US economy "floating on military strength"??
Yes, it's our military strength that makes investors trust our currency and allows us to maintain the world's largest trade deficit. Not just our own, but the weapons we provide to friendly governments (mostly dictators) around the world.
The rest? You're just ignoring the possibility of either sanctions being imposed on us (cutting off the free trade which, I agree, increases standard of living while it lasts) or fighting a major war (in WW2 the entire civilian production capacity was redirected to the military, a limited "strategic capability" will not be sufficient).
In fact, even the recent (very limited) war in Ukraine was more than our current production capacity for ammo could handle.