|
Yakk is of course correct, losing food, defense companies etc is a sure way to lose your independence, sure you might seem to be fine but being heavily depenedent on other countries for basic supplies and hardware ensures that they have you on a leash.
The question of causing hardship is not really there, many of these countries could maintain an agricultural base of their own however our cheaper grains etc are bought in, much like America/Britain and Chinese electronic goods, we are losing a lot of our ability to produce equipment. Its shooting yourself in the food for a short term gain, most people will do it rather than taking the long view for ourselves and future generations.
Allowing third world countries to compete lowers the ability of developed countries to compete, look at China, people willing to work for far less than US workers, doing longer shifts and more dangerous work (less safety conscious, people are cheap). The US basically cannot compete against the Chinese for producing goods because the associated costs are higher. Of course this sounds wrong, suppressing people is wrong however to allow yourself to be undercut at everyturn also spells suicide for the developed nations... we need to find a middle ground where we have something to ensure that we do not become purely dependent (imagine if Iran provided 50+% of the US grain supplies, would the US be as stringent in looking for weapons etc if you knew that you could easily have a major food supply problem?).
|