I love buying cheap electronics on EBAY, but shouldn't we heavily tax imports from China to keep jobs here?

I'd like to hear both sides of this argument.

Its pretty much too late to save jobs in the US. The reason being that pretty much most of the worlds electronics are made in China. We would have to build factories, train workers, and find buyers. The US just doesn't have the resources or the will to do it.

In war one tactic used is to put up barriers to prevent the other country from trading. Taxing imports effectively does the same thing... it creates a barrier to restrict trade to us. We would be taking a tactic used in war (putting up a trade barrier around a country to prevent them from trading) and place a trade barrier on ourselves. It makes no sense to do this. If we want to keep jobs here we should open up foreign markets to sell our goods, therefore we need more free trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA. Removing barriers to trade allows our companies more opportunity to sell their goods and serevices, which create more jobs.

Another way to create more jobs is to lower the cost of capital... ie lowering capitial gains, dividend, and corporate taxes. Corporate taxes are the second highest in the devloped countries (send to Japan). Lower cost of capital means higher return, higher return, means more investment, more investment means more expanded business and startup ventures, this all translates more jobs and higher wages.