Filling our landfills full of disposable products? Copying our IP? I love Aliexpress for some things, however we are subsidizing the shipping for most products on there with our tax dollars (This might change soon). $7 for me to ship a few states away, less that $1 for most Chinese products to US vis USPS. Even the Chinese don't trust most Chinese Products (Chinese Girlfriend).
> however we are subsidizing the shipping for most products on there with our tax dollars
I want to point out that international postal rates are determined by the UPU [1] which has existed since the late 1800s. It is not only Americans who are subsidizing shipping from China, most postal services in developed countries are paying to subsidize postal rates in less developed countries through the UPU.
The fact that this system can be abused isn't even a new debate, it was occurring well before Trump arrived [2].
One can argue whether the UPU has been too slow to reclassify China relative to their development. But I think at the time of the conception of the UPU, and for much of the 20th century, before electronic communications became cheap and ubiquitous, it did serve a useful purpose. I imagine the UPU helped make sending postal mail to people in developing countries within financial reach, and I would also think contributed toward the development of postal systems in some of these countries.
>Filling our landfills full of disposable products?
This is rampant capitalistic consumerism, nothing to do with China.
>Copying our IP?
Doesn't really matter. Who do IP's benefit? Not the consumer, only the already super wealthy. Hint: the very large majority of the world is not wealthy.
Taxes went up on products from Aliexpress. Shipping from China to USA is much more efficient than the other way around.
When I'm subsidizing health insurance, food stamps, and medicare on Walmart, Amazon, Starbucks, etc, to put billions more in Bezos pocket, I could care less about something that actually benefits lower income people with affordable products that would be well out of reach in USA. Raise wages and people who were using Aliexpress will start buying domestic.
> Who do IP's benefit? Not the consumer, only the already super wealthy. Hint: the very large majority of the world is not wealthy.
I'm no fan of copyright or software patents, but that's a bit too simple. Good R&D is complicated and favours highly educated/skilled workers. Even if you don't like companies, it's quite unfair that people who have have spent a long time becoming domain experts should lose their livelihood because of outside forces breaking the law - international law mind (AFAIK).
