Like the point of his tariffs were “unfair trade practices” but if every import is tariffed at 10% then that doesn’t increase competition right? Other countries won’t have to pay the price bc competition hasn’t changed, everything’s just 10% more expensive (so they can make the consumer pay)? I get their”point” was to incentivize “buying American” but so much of American manufacturing relies on intermediate goods that will be more expensive, & there’s no exceptions for countries that are “fair”
I know there are some specific larger tariffs but this doesn’t rlly punish anyone? We’re punishing the entire world for unfair trade practices? Doesn’t this make it obvious that it’s not about supporting American manufacturing?
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Like the point of his tariffs were “unfair trade practices” but if every import is tariffed at 10% then that doesn’t increase competition right? Other countries won’t have to pay the price bc competition hasn’t changed, everything’s just 10% more expensive (so they can make the consumer pay)? I get their”point” was to incentivize “buying American” but so much of American manufacturing relies on intermediate goods that will be more expensive, & there’s no exceptions for countries that are “fair”
I know there are some specific larger tariffs but this doesn’t rlly punish anyone? We’re punishing the entire world for unfair trade practices? Doesn’t this make it obvious that it’s not about supporting American manufacturing?
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The problem here isn’t even necessarily the tariffs but the lack of planning and foresight. The lack of preparation and coordination. The lack of rational thought beyond need to find some way to offset tax cuts for the ultra wealthy.
China had (and still has) substantial tariffs on many goods and strictly controls what’s allowed into its markets. And they created and executed on plans that they showed to the public every few years on how they were going to make Chinese industry outcompete the foreigners. And now and for a while they’ve been doing that.
In America, you have once market leaders massive companies with lots of infrastructure and people stagnating and spending their cash on stock buybacks and CEO pay packages and to consulting firms to justify low wages and layoffs despite under steady demand.
We just don’t do industrial planning the way China does. And now we all are pikachu-faced about the results.
And frankly this is why communist China with mixed parts of socialism and capitalism is kicking our butts on nearly everything but shitcoins.
Other countries don’t pay the price regardless. Tariffs are a tax we pay on products from that country.
So in theory this gives every American made product a 10% price advantage, except…
A) every American company except maybe Arizona tea will just raise their prices to match.
B) even “American made” goods are dependent on imported materials which will now be more expensive.
C) we already know how to bring manufacturing back home without screwing the economy, see the chips act.
In practice all this will accomplish is making living even more expensive for the average American. You thought the post covid inflation was rough? Buckle up.
Why are you thinking this through like a rational person? The people who implemented this aren’t rational people. You need to think irrationally for this to make sense.
It will definitely raise all prices.
LOL, look at this guy trying to apply logic or reason to any of this.
Don’t try to apply actual economic sense to any of this. It is lunacy.
The specifics of what is going to happen is going to be very complicated because each country is going to react differently. But broadly speaking countries will impose retaliatory tariffs and US consumers will pay higher prices for everything and US exports will be less competitive in the world market.
None of it makes any sense, it’s all completely incoherent. What’s more, the Europeans are planning their retaliation in a FAR smarter manner. They are taking advantage of asymmetries in what kinds of businesses the U.S. has vs Europe to apply tariffs that hurt us badly, but can’t be effectively turned around on them.
Yes, supply chains are globalized and it’s literally impossible to source all manufacturing inputs domestically. So what happens is manufacturers raise prices to pass it on to the consumer.
Additionally, if you’re a domestic maker and suddenly your foreign competition has a 25% price increase, why wouldn’t you raise prices say 20%? Otherwise you’d be leaving money on the table.
And the 2nd order stupid comes in when we consider competitiveness of US exports. Manufacturers will be facing a double whammy of higher prices on inputs, and retaliatory tariffs on what they export.
I mean just look at this to understand how much sheer stupidity is determining these decisions within Trump’s administration. It’s fucking farcical:
(link not allowed here sorry, you’ll have to google)
> Alan Cole (@AlanMCole) on X
> I can confirm I’ve replicated the CEA calculation for the so-called “tariffs charged to the USA” on these charts. It is the Census FT900 trade data, exhibit 4, for year 2024, and the formula is MAX(10%,(imports-exports)/imports) per-country on a customs basis. (566 kB)
There is absolutely no real economic analysis going into this policy.
Edit:
Amy Hoy on Bluesky just posted screenshots showing ChatGPT responds with exactly this formula. Does that mean they got it from GPT? Maybe? Or considering who controls GPT, perhaps it’s the other direction and they put a canned response in anticipation of people asking this? I don’t know.
They could tax the corporations that outsource jobs overseas, and tax the rich, but no. They chose to raise a nation wide de facto sales tax on the poor and middle class.
The tariffs are idiotic and are more than likely going to trigger a recession, but that’s what over half the country wanted whether they realize it or not.
It changes competitiveness in terms of corporations competing to charge us the most!