(I haven't read the thread, mea culpa. So, if I repeat what has already been said, hear that I confirm)
The answer is easy: Yes.
The cost of transport, even if certain goods from the end of the planet are sold cheaper than those produced locally (these costs are simply carried elsewhere: social cost, relocation and slavery, environmental cost, etc.), remains a cost invariably linked to the distance of the transport. The very low price of oil as an important source of energy led to believe that the cost of transport had decreased so much that it had become a trivial fact to transport from the other side of the globe what is in front of us but that we export to the other end of the globe.
Why ? Because some people think that the larger the mass of cash that moves, the larger the margins. It is true but it is true as much for the seller as for the buyer, as much for the import as the export, as much for the profits as the losses! So what is the use if, at counting, the difference remains the same? Spend, play with big bundles? It's absurd.
So obviously, whatever the accounting manipulations say, the shortest, the least expensive.
In these times of speculative barbarism, favoring internal trade has an enormous advantage: it feeds the economy to which this trade belongs. It therefore benefits from a single currency (no speculation on prices and strategic manipulation of currencies) and is the main player, therefore the regulator of the economy it feeds (no juicy and exterminating speculation on the stock exchange international).
Nor should we forget the cost of public bodies regulating, regulating, commissioning, etc. supposed to report the most objective information to managers on imported products. When you buy your neighbor a product of his own production, whether it is butter or a solar panel, you just have to go to his place to have the most objective information (from your point of view
) on quality or any other criteria. You no longer need the advice oriented (necessarily since from his point of view
) a third.
Same for repair / maintenance costs.
The same goes for complaints and against scams. The EU lays down more silly regulations than the others, all the more silly since China being outside the EU has nothing to shake and can sell us any shit without anyone to prevent it. Legally there is no photo, so try to attack a Chinese manufacturer because there is cesium137 in your prepared dish of lacquered duck!
In short, there is so much reason to think that it is progress to admit one's mistakes that one could simply say that it is a matter of common sense.
"If you are not careful, the newspapers will eventually make you hate the oppressed and the oppressors worship. "
Malcolm X