That's not really a compelling counterargument. The idea is that goods and services brought to market in the US are materially improving the lives of Americans. It doesn't matter really what the home state looks like. If it did, Americans would have never started importing Saudi oil. Or Rwandan tantalum for capacitors. Or Nestle chocolate, which is farmed by child slaves in the Ivory Coast. But don't worry, in 2019, they again, for about the 10th time, promised to stop using child slaves. [1]
This is basically America telling the world to accept American companies, no questions asked, no matter how big or manipulative. Criticizing other countries for their protectionist self-serving practices. And then literally the second a foreign product gets big and interesting enough forcing their sale to a US domestic entity. This is what America is complaining China does.
The worst part? Instead of trying to find some basis in law as one does in a rule-of-law jurisdiction, they just pulled out the national security™ ban-hammer, which cannot be challenged in a meaningful way. That's straight out of China's playbook. If rule of law is the china shop, national security justifications are the bull.
They just ceded the entirety of what was left of the high ground.
There are literally thousands of regulations limiting what we can import into the US, from drugs to protected wildlife to cuban cigars, including total embargos on particular companies and even countries. You're just cherry-picking of a few you want but don't see.
And by the way, the US govt certainly pushes for free trade, but that actually means implementation on a bilateral country-by-country basis (a couple dozen countries or so by now). The public is certainly never going to go for unilateral free trade with anyone who wants to sell anything. I'm sure that's true for almost every country.
This is basically America telling the world to accept American companies, no questions asked, no matter how big or manipulative. Criticizing other countries for their protectionist self-serving practices. And then literally the second a foreign product gets big and interesting enough forcing their sale to a US domestic entity. This is what America is complaining China does.
The worst part? Instead of trying to find some basis in law as one does in a rule-of-law jurisdiction, they just pulled out the national security™ ban-hammer, which cannot be challenged in a meaningful way. That's straight out of China's playbook. If rule of law is the china shop, national security justifications are the bull.
They just ceded the entirety of what was left of the high ground.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/business/hershe...