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Muslims?

Uuum, what have the Chinese nationals to do with their asshole government? They are not their government. It's like punishing you for the murderings by the US Army in in Afghanistan and Iraq. Wouldn't you feel unfairly treated?

Perhaps they even go to American schools to *avoid* "their" government.

It's people with your mindset that create hatred against a whole nation for the fault of a few.

This is typical protectionist crap. Sorry, but you may be right about businesses thinking short term, but if America starts banning foreign nationals from its schools, and slapping tariffs on foreign imports, how does that make America any better than China?

And for the record, America DOES still slap tariffs on foreign imports into this country. Usually at the behest of the powerful lobbies. Ever look at things like sugar and wheat imports? Both have either rather large tariffs, or just subsidies for the domestic industry. Why? Because the industry lobbies for those products demanded it. And it has caused a lot of friction with America's trading partners.

Hell, I remember a 'free trade' agreement a few years ago with Australia where not only did America put tariffs on Australian wheat imports (because of pressure from the US wheat lobby), they also insisted as part of their free trade deal that Australia adopt something similar to the DMCA as part of the deal - at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA. So if you really believe America has been doing other countries a favor in it's trading practices (Food for Oil anyone? Or how about withholding aid money, which is supposed to be completely unrelated to trade), then you're deluded.

In short, protectionism is bad no matter what. Now whether China is banning these exports because it truly doesn't have enough to satisfy domestic demand, and thus can't afford to supply foreign demand, or they're trying to use this threat to gain more concessions from the international community is irrelevant. Instituting protectionist policies won't help Sino-American relations, and considering, as you have said, America relies so heavily on China for it's manufacturing of almost everything we buy, America just can't afford to ruin it's relationship with yet another country, especially one it relies so heavily on.

America used to be able to take the high moral ground, and used to be viewed in a generally favorable light in the world. It's America's own greed and arrogance (not to mention going around the world like a bull in a china shop sticking it's nose in everyone else's business) that has tarnished this reputation. The election of Obama has actually started to repair this a little, but only when America starts playing fair with the rest of the world again (ie. treating other countries as equals, as opposed to approaching each trade deal as a "we want this, give it to us or else you're not our friend anymore!" deal) will it actually gain respect again. You seem quick to cry 'foul!' when another country starts using the same tactics America has been using for decades against America. You (ie. America) wrote these new trading rules, don't be surprised when someone else plays by them.

Ok, mister xenophobe.

Why shouldn't China be entitled to use its own resources to build out its own economy? China has a horrible standard of living for the amount of production present in the country and the pollution that goes along with it. I hope they use it all for domestic green energy projects, because frankly they need it more than we do where going "green" is more a luxury than anything. Building green jobs here with our own rare earths is entirely possible considering we have far more known rare earth ore deposits than they do. So what exactly are you complaining about, that we can't rape their country for all the resources? They have a billion people and it is highly unlikely they will ever have the same standard of living as the US in our lifetime but the very least we could do is not bitch and moan every time China does something nice for its own citizens.

You know, I would rather deport people like you than hard working or studying immigrants. Why don't you all go down to the south of the US and secede, this time the rest of us northern folk won't stop you. Well considering there is hardly any natural resources in the south besides coal and oil you can all have your coal power plants and big trucks and you won't need to worry about new-fangled technologies irritating you. You can all live gloriously embittered lives scapegoating the rest of the world for your problems as you walk around yelling in the swamps, marshes and hurricane-prone areas of the gulf states like some sort of swamp curmudgeon. You could yourself America for Americans only or something. Build yourself a Lou Dobbsian wall around your entire country to keep Yankees and Mexicans out. Give all those janitorial, landscaping and construction jobs back to Americans because we all know how much Americans love doing menial labor for low wages without health insurance. Right, mister xenophobe?

1. Pollution is a serious issue, but so are economic issues. Kill the new energy bill before it gets implemented. Instead put in a TRUE cap/tax. We need to put in a cap on our CO2, and then put in a tax on ALL GOODS (local and imported). It should be based on the pollution that comes from the areas that the good was made from. That means that each country has a sliding scale based on CO2, and ideally the pollutions such as SO2, Mercury, etc. To implement this all at once would hurt the world. Instead, create a max of say 2-3% and than slowly raise that several percent each year. That gives each nation the opportunity to change (including America).
2. Drop the MFN for all nations. Nearly all the countries that are part of that were for political reasons only. That needs to be stopped. Instead, create a new MFN and set up the conditions in which ALL NATIONS that meet it would get it. It should be a limited set of conditions.
   • freely traded money (EUdollar is freely traded; Yuens -> dollar is fixed).
   • Free trade. Not sure exactly HOW free, but most if not all goods should be allowed to move back and forth. Exceptions should be made for certain goods. For example, NAFTA was overall good. It has helped Mexico and Canada.
   • A minimum standard of an environmental condition. That would prevent countries from subsidizing the goods by degrading the world. Personally, I would prefer Canada as minimum. MUCH cleaner than most. We would probably just use ours though.
   • A minimum wage and labor condition.
   • A minimum education condition (such as requiring all children in school up to a certain age), etc.

   If we do the above, then there will be no real need for free trade acts. What is really needed is to make certain that we avoid exceptions. There are a number of countries that we allow to have one-way trade with us and do little to nothing to help those countries.

If the above is done by the west, it would bring up conditions all over the world. EU has talked about doing Free Trade agreements with Latin America, but they want to use it to push better conditions for the citizens. I have to say that it is not a bad idea, but I think the above is even better.