Tariffs are bad in general. But they do have some use.
They can be used short term in targeted ways to break another country’s industry or to build your own, but eventually if you want economic benefit from it you need the industry to be able to stand on its own.
Tariffs can also be used strategically to protect an industry that you may need in wartime but that would die out in your country in peacetime if unprotected.
Getting back to the first point, that’s basically trade warring. It’s the kind of thing that when it happens within a country prompts governments to create anti-trust laws. If you are going to go to war, you don’t want to have too many enemies. Trump should have picked one country, preferably not a friend, and laid out the cause of the war: you get rid of your tariffs or we’ll raise ours; you have a week. Trump did this with many countries all at once including some of America’s most important allies. That’s poor tactics.
The problem is the way tariffs are being used, not tariffs in general being good or bad.
What is the supposed goal of Trump’s tariffs? Bring industry back here.
What is the broader context? A world where complex global supply chains are involved in making most things for a variety of reasons – some good some bad. Most things aren’t simply made in one place like the the mid 20th century the romanticized post WWII factory job utopia he’s trying to evoke is based on. Which wasn’t actually that great for workers.
What is the effect of Trump’s tariffs in that context? Industry is afraid to do much of anything other than avoid the U.S. if they can, because of how erratic his on/off tariff threats are. Further countries are uniting against us economically, to avoid being too reliant on an unreliable country, in ways that may stagnate our economy.
Tariffs are useful as a means of addressing bad behavior or as a strategic tool of statecraft.
Blanket tariffs on everything only amounts to a tax that Congress did not vote for, on every single person in the US.
Half of the US is too poor to pay federal income taxes, but they’ll be paying full price for these taxes. Completely regressive.
This will amount to one of the greatest wealth transfers from the poor to the wealthy in the history of this country.
On top of that, Trump can use this an an excellent opportunity for grift, as the POTUS can create exclusions for individual companies that have paid enough tribute — er, I mean, are vital to the national interests, or the welfare of our citizens.
It’s all a shakedown.
And if he was really interested in bringing mfg back to the US, he’d have done infrastructure moves first, to ensure that all the supply chains that mfg needs existed as a pre-requisite.
Ask them if we can have universal healthcare, stricter gun regulation, more public transportation, and government subsidized childcare since other countries do it.
Then ask which developed nation has massive across the board tariffs?
Then ask if the trade deal with Mexico and Canada is so bad, why should the guy that negotiated it be in charge of US trade policy?
I mean, it’s not an easily dismissed point. In fact, I doubt most people were/are aware of the degree to which tariffs are already applied to American goods.
They’re fine in theory but there are so many better ways of helping America out that aren’t shooting itself in the face as much.
Tax Elon Musk and pay off student loans, tax Elon Musk and end homelessness, tax Elon Musk and make community college free, legislate for better union power.
Because a tariff is not really “on us”. It’s on their own importers who buy stuff… from us
So when the news says that like Mexico had a 10% tariff on auto parts from the US, that’s really short hand. What they are ACTUALLY saying is that Mexico imposes a tax of 10% on all DOMESTIC MEXICAN importers of US goods.
What that means is that the Mexican importers are worse off, as well as anyone who buys auto parts.
God it’s so frustrating because conservatives don’t seem to actually understand what a tariff is? Like… your WHOLE THING is lower taxes.
Regardless, tariffs are usually seen as a bad policy. This is largely because it serves to divert capital and labor away from areas where countries have a comparative advantage. Comparative advantage is rooted in the idea of differential opportunity costs. Namely, i have to give up more of something else in order to produce X amount of car parts. You have to give up less. If I specialize in goods where I have a lower opportunity cost (i.e. goods where I have to give up less) and you specialize in goods where you have to give up less, then we can produce more in total and trade our resulting surpluses. That’s it. That’s the basic logic.
Tariffs come along and throw a wrench in this by artificially distorting costs and thereby leading to inefficient allocations of labor and capital away from areas of comparative advantage leading to a lower level of total output. It harms you domestically to impose tariffs because it means your shit is more expensive. There are specific cases where you can make an argument for tariffs (for example, certain industries are critical for defense, and so even if the goods are more expensive access during times of conflict is more important in the long run). But by and large, specialization means you get more shit for lower costs.
There are legitimate points to raise about how the surpluses and costs of trade are distributed. Neoliberalism has been effectively free movement of capital while locking down labor and thereby allowing capital to seek out the most exploitable forms of labor. The benefits mainly accrue in the form of profits and lower consumer prices. Profits and the workers in industries with comparative advantage should be taxed more to allow for better transitional and support infrastructure or just to more broadly distribute the surpluses resulting from trade.
Tariffs are a bad way of doing that. They don’t really raise much revenue, what they do is distort capital and labor allocation to inefficient domestic industry as compared to industries with comparative advantages, thereby leading to lower overall output and people being worse off than they could be. They are a mostly bad policy. The tariffs aren’t “on us” they’re on domestic importers. That’s the key to remember.
The primary beneficiaries of tariffs are basically rent seekers, and that leads to a less efficient economy and a lot of unearned income. It’s the very thing conservatives claim to hate, some small interest fucking over everyone else so they can retain their position.
They wanted to replace taxing the rich with a 25% sales tax. It wasn’t popular. So they’re doing pretty the same thing with tarrifs…only idiots think it a good thing somehow sticking it to other countries that are supposedly cheating or whatever
Us raising tariffs in response to other countries tariffs just hurts both sides, doubly so.
And other countries tend to either default to WTO rules with us, or have specific targeted tariffs.
Nobody’s really arguing that there might be some specific targeted tariffs that Trump might be able to implement to useful effect.
They’re arguing against the blanket import tariffs he’s proposing. Because those are crippling to the US.
Conservatives act like tariffs are some sort of benefit to the US, which the US has been refraining from implementing because it’s so generous towards others. Nope, tariffs are an economic tool that cause the country that implements it a lot of damage.
Sometimes in some very specific circumstances the benefit outweighs the cost, but that is never the case for broad tariffs aimed at everything.
basically all of those countries are poorer than we are
Tariffs are a tax on imported goods designed to make those goods more expensive, so that imported goods don’t undercut goods produced in your country. Consumers pay more, but in theory it’s overall good because they are buying good from your country’s industry rather than another country’s industry.
Tariffs are stupid, however, if you don’t actually have that industry in your country – consumers will just pay higher prices for nothing. Or if you don’t have any real plan to create that industry. Or if your country actually has a ton of existing industries that rely on cheap imported goods and are doing just fine. Or if unemployment is low so you don’t really need to create a whole new basic manufacturing industry. Or if you do blanket tariffs on the entire world, which make everything more expensive and choke out trade while raising prices for local industries and consumers.
Tariffs are a tool, like a hammer. They can be used purposefully for a specific task. But you cannot build a house with only a hammer, and if you trying hammering everything you will just break stuff and build nothing.
You need to understand that arguing with them doesn’t work because they don’t come to conclusions by carefully weighing evidence and coming to an informed decision. They believe whatever they need to believe in the present moment to win the argument.
Rhetoric is a chess piece and they are laughing at us for taking them at their word.
We’re the consumers. When we are the ones buying the goods a tariff from either side will be paid by us. What you’re asking is if more US taxes are fine because other countries are already taxing us, too.
This is the only speech I go back to every single fucking time.
>In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.
We are the richest nation in the history of forever. The fact that we spend more on manufactured goods than other nations spend with us isn’t any more of a problem than me paying my landlord way more than they pay me, and all I get out of it is a place to live.
We also already had similar rules in place. But the correct answer is not to argue with conservatives or Republicans because you cannot change what they want.
They’re missing the point and yes, I have seen this argued.
They’re thinking of this in terms of “fairness” which is fucking stupid. You might as well say “that other country has a tax on its citizens for 20%. We should have that tax too.” That’s exactly what it is, but they’re too dumb to understand that.
We just need to keep hammering home that tariffs are sales tax. On us. They are sales tax on us. Trump is raising taxes on us.
How many people outside the Trump cult do they know of that think the tariffs are a good idea? Like the people who only care about money and are politically neutral?
EG – People like Buffett who liquidated almost everything and is talking about investing outside of US markets.
If this situation ever came up, I’d tell them that we don’t pay the tariffs that other countries impose on merchandise that is imported to their country, but WE DO pay the tariffs on merchandise imported to the United States. Do you want to pay more for everything? Or did you vote for Trump because he promised to lower prices?
Your taxes technically don’t go up. But you sort of pay into the income tax system for workers/companies of the tariffed country. Also have no way to get refunds for any of it. And get taxed higher on the purchase.
I’d ask them to specify the countries, the goods, and the tariffs.
Tariffs can be a good thing when used in the right situation against the right countries against the right products.
But this? This… whatever lunacy Trump is doing? Only going to isolate us from allies and trading partners and will probably revert back to pre-trump tariff policies when he finally leaves office.
I say they can go fuck themselves. They are consistently wrong on everything just like they are wrong on this. I don’t argue with people who throw their hands up and say Jesus take the wheel. I do what I can to insure they can’t ever touch that wheel again. This is going to be a problem led by a dipshit who has no idea what he is doing.
It’s important to remember that conservatives don’t care about logic, evidence, or reason, and so your response will have no effect on them. Declaring their support for tariffs is a way for them to show loyalty to their in-group, not the expression of a deeply held set of beliefs or an economic philosophy developed through years of careful study. They just hear the (often incorrect) conclusion that dear leader has arrived at, then try to work backwards to reasoning which sounds like it could plausibly lead to that conclusion. Often they’re just repeating talking points they heard from Fox et al without understanding them. So you can demolish their argument – in this particular case, very easily since it’s very stupid – and it will have no effect on either their conclusions or the reasoning they use next time they talk about the topic. Saying these things is, for them, an expression of in-group loyalty, not the product of a consistent worldview.
That being said, this is a clear-as-day example of a logical fallacy known as “equivocation”. You take a bad idea (like building a wall across the entire southern border), then someone points out some of the problems with this idea (it’ll cost mind-blowing sums of money, have no meaningful effect on migration, cause massive environmental damage by blocking wildlife corridors, consume huge quantities of building materials that would be better used for useful projects, etc etc etc). Then you say, “well, sounds like stupid liberals are opposed to walls, but still they live in houses that are made of walls, checkmate, ath… I mean liberals”. But of course, the walls of your house are not a meaningful equivalent to a wall on the southern border. They both are described by the noun “wall”, but a wall of your house serves a useful function, is cheap relative to its usefulness, does not block wildlife corridors, etc etc etc etc. By treating dissimilar things as being similar based on some linguistic overlap, you get this kind of fatuous “gotcha moment” which immediately collapses the moment someone who isn’t a fellow partisan responds to it, which is part of the reason conservatives are so insistent on remaining in their walled gardens and not arguing with anyone outside of them.
The average tariff rate, globally, is 2.59%. Less than three percent.
“Therefore, charging our closest friends and allies a 25% tariff is a good idea”. This is just fucking stupid, isn’t it? Letting alone the fact that tariffs are primarily a penalty that you impose on consumers in your own country (rather than being levies on the foreign country, as Trump seems to continue to genuinely believe) there is no equivalence between nominal tariffs of 2 or 3 percent and slugging people with a 25% penalty. If you want that 2.59 percent to come down a bit, negotiate for it, no doubt you can get it down a little. But… Jesus, is anyone really stupid enough that they need this explained to them?
The issue for me isn’t necessarily that he’s tariffing these countries, but that he’s tariffing every import from these countries. Let me give you an example. One of the countries being tariffed is Brazil. They are the number one supplier of coffee beans in America. Technically speaking, we can grow coffee beans in America, but not even close to enough to supply the necessary amount of coffee beans needed, we just don’t have the climate for it. In economics, this is what’s called a competitive advantage. No amount of tariffs are going to change the amount of coffee beans we’re able to make. Since domestic product isn’t available in this case, distributors will be forced to still buy coffee beans from Brazil, even at the tariff enhanced price. Brazil has no reason to want the US to get rid of a tariff on coffee beans, since they know that american distributors don’t have any option but to continue buying from Brazil. That’s why you should be careful to not tariff items the other country has a competitive advantage in, but that’s what Trump is doing.
Listen, tariffs raise prices, that’s what they do. If a tariff is used correctly, that price increase can be worth it for the potential benefits. But in this case, the competitive advantage makes those benefits null and void. All you’re doing is making every Americans morning cup of joe more expensive for no significant benefit.
I say that moderate and soft-Protectionism is generally good because building our industry is more important than GDP or the stock market. Free Trade is a failed theory, and it’s time to toss Adam Smith in the dust heap of history with phlogiston and go back to the traditional Lincolnian Protectionism that built America.
I would ask them what they mean by « fine. » Will it be fine if we have to spend more on basic goods? Will it be fine if no one builds new factories in the US?
I tell them that they are vastly oversimplifying how economics and trade actually work in the real world to improve our quality of life.
The goal of international trade isn’t to achieve a zero-sum state where everything is “fair”.
The goal is to build and manage mutually beneficial relationships, give citizens efficient access to goods they need and want, and create opportunities to sell what they produce.
Trump is stuck in this 2D view of the world where he believes the singular purpose of the federal government is to “make money”, and undereducated conservatives are following him blindly into the abyss because they don’t know any better.
(READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND)
It’s literally so easy to understand. The tariffs on other countries right now are TARGETED TARIFFS this means they are on only one type of trade deal or item coming from a single corporation or all the corporations but only on that certain item. TARGETED TARIFFS are a great thing and help the business in the us when needed. Now please understand this Trumps Tariffs are ACROSS THE BOARD TARIFFS and are way higher than all target tariffs on any country. tariffing every single item that comes across a country defeats the whole point of what a tariff should do and simply just makes the buyer play more or causes inflation because the price is going up. In my personal opinion i think trump wants to scare other countries and make him look like a tough guy. Now the reason why the people have to pay for the tariff is because if an item is tariffed it is taxed over seas or over the boarder. That means it costs more for the company in the us to get it. So of course they are going to have to bring the price up so they don’t lose a bunch of money and profit. If you have any questions please ask.
Whether this is a fake tool to get people to beg for exceptions from the Trump regime for “favors” to Trump as some massive grift, or an actual policy we will see.
Viewing Tariffs as tit for tat zero sum tool for economic dominance is misguided.
If we issue a Tariff we pay more for goods that are imported. It’s again shifting the tax burden on the poor, and middle class who by percentage have more income affected than the wealthy who predominantly have wealth invested rather than wages that are spent.
If you think tariffs will bring back jobs that pay $.50 cent to $2 dollar an hour from Vietnam the economics still make no sense. How will such low paying jobs benefit us ?
Manufacturing jobs even with Tariffs are still likely to not shift those jobs here, and if they were shifted here would employ robots in a fully automated facility.
Complex manufacturing is what we’d want, those jobs justify high wages and are already in the USA. That’s what we want to hold onto and Tariffs just raise prices on those goods as well, since the components will be tariffed.
Tariffs are complicated, and the Trump Tariff policy does not address this.
We need to raise wages on the jobs we already have here!!!!
Not bring back jobs that are low wage jobs while simultaneously raising prices.
Fighting any effort to raise wages for the jobs that are here says everything about how this is going to work out for the average wage earner.
I don’t listen to conservatives. They haven’t said anything worth listening to in a lifetime, and their worldview largely consists of seeing what has worked and doing the exact opposite out of spite.
On tariffs, they arguing that the VAT is a tariff. That the trade deficit itself is a tariff.
They are just lying or willfully ignorant. Neither is worth responding to. The correct action for the left isn’t to persuade the right, it is to beat them and cripple their ability to gain power and destroy the country until they return to something resembling sanity.
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Because of that sign I am sure this is going to be a big talking point.
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When have conservatives ever used “other countries do X” as a reason for the US to do X?
Other countries have public health care.
Other countries have good public transportation.
Other countries have gun control.
I mean shit I’m sorry mister conservative, what exactly is the model high import tariff country you want to be like?
You don’t say anything, just wait a week and see how happy they are with the cost of goods.
I would need to analyze the tariffs a nation has on us vs those we have on them. I can’t really speak on this topic educatedky, but I feel most can’t.
>What do you say to conservatives who argue the tarrifs are fine because other countries have tarrifs on us?
Note: The question was what I would “say to conservatives”. If you don’t like Reagan, that’s fine. Conservatives do.
I say, “If other countries jumped off a bridge, would we jump off a bridge?”
Needless to say, conservatives love me.
I generally stop the conversation.
If they work I’m not against it on principle lmao. Problem is they don’t.
The American Way was the best way! We don’t need to look at what other countries do! America is not the same as Vietnam or Germany.
They’ve been running this line forever. Why isn’t it applicable to this?
Tariffs are bad in general. But they do have some use.
They can be used short term in targeted ways to break another country’s industry or to build your own, but eventually if you want economic benefit from it you need the industry to be able to stand on its own.
Tariffs can also be used strategically to protect an industry that you may need in wartime but that would die out in your country in peacetime if unprotected.
Getting back to the first point, that’s basically trade warring. It’s the kind of thing that when it happens within a country prompts governments to create anti-trust laws. If you are going to go to war, you don’t want to have too many enemies. Trump should have picked one country, preferably not a friend, and laid out the cause of the war: you get rid of your tariffs or we’ll raise ours; you have a week. Trump did this with many countries all at once including some of America’s most important allies. That’s poor tactics.
The problem is the way tariffs are being used, not tariffs in general being good or bad.
What is the supposed goal of Trump’s tariffs? Bring industry back here.
What is the broader context? A world where complex global supply chains are involved in making most things for a variety of reasons – some good some bad. Most things aren’t simply made in one place like the the mid 20th century the romanticized post WWII factory job utopia he’s trying to evoke is based on. Which wasn’t actually that great for workers.
What is the effect of Trump’s tariffs in that context? Industry is afraid to do much of anything other than avoid the U.S. if they can, because of how erratic his on/off tariff threats are. Further countries are uniting against us economically, to avoid being too reliant on an unreliable country, in ways that may stagnate our economy.
Tariffs are useful as a means of addressing bad behavior or as a strategic tool of statecraft.
Blanket tariffs on everything only amounts to a tax that Congress did not vote for, on every single person in the US.
Half of the US is too poor to pay federal income taxes, but they’ll be paying full price for these taxes. Completely regressive.
This will amount to one of the greatest wealth transfers from the poor to the wealthy in the history of this country.
On top of that, Trump can use this an an excellent opportunity for grift, as the POTUS can create exclusions for individual companies that have paid enough tribute — er, I mean, are vital to the national interests, or the welfare of our citizens.
It’s all a shakedown.
And if he was really interested in bringing mfg back to the US, he’d have done infrastructure moves first, to ensure that all the supply chains that mfg needs existed as a pre-requisite.
It’s all a shakedown.
Same thing they do: just call them economically illiterate, tell them to read their Thomas Sowell and see what they say then.
Ask them if we can have universal healthcare, stricter gun regulation, more public transportation, and government subsidized childcare since other countries do it.
Then ask which developed nation has massive across the board tariffs?
Then ask if the trade deal with Mexico and Canada is so bad, why should the guy that negotiated it be in charge of US trade policy?
Do you know what sanctions are? Why would we do to ourselves in peacetime that which our enemies do to us in wartime?
I mean, it’s not an easily dismissed point. In fact, I doubt most people were/are aware of the degree to which tariffs are already applied to American goods.
“Bless your heart”
They’re fine in theory but there are so many better ways of helping America out that aren’t shooting itself in the face as much.
Tax Elon Musk and pay off student loans, tax Elon Musk and end homelessness, tax Elon Musk and make community college free, legislate for better union power.
It is… frustrating
Because a tariff is not really “on us”. It’s on their own importers who buy stuff… from us
So when the news says that like Mexico had a 10% tariff on auto parts from the US, that’s really short hand. What they are ACTUALLY saying is that Mexico imposes a tax of 10% on all DOMESTIC MEXICAN importers of US goods.
What that means is that the Mexican importers are worse off, as well as anyone who buys auto parts.
God it’s so frustrating because conservatives don’t seem to actually understand what a tariff is? Like… your WHOLE THING is lower taxes.
Regardless, tariffs are usually seen as a bad policy. This is largely because it serves to divert capital and labor away from areas where countries have a comparative advantage. Comparative advantage is rooted in the idea of differential opportunity costs. Namely, i have to give up more of something else in order to produce X amount of car parts. You have to give up less. If I specialize in goods where I have a lower opportunity cost (i.e. goods where I have to give up less) and you specialize in goods where you have to give up less, then we can produce more in total and trade our resulting surpluses. That’s it. That’s the basic logic.
Tariffs come along and throw a wrench in this by artificially distorting costs and thereby leading to inefficient allocations of labor and capital away from areas of comparative advantage leading to a lower level of total output. It harms you domestically to impose tariffs because it means your shit is more expensive. There are specific cases where you can make an argument for tariffs (for example, certain industries are critical for defense, and so even if the goods are more expensive access during times of conflict is more important in the long run). But by and large, specialization means you get more shit for lower costs.
There are legitimate points to raise about how the surpluses and costs of trade are distributed. Neoliberalism has been effectively free movement of capital while locking down labor and thereby allowing capital to seek out the most exploitable forms of labor. The benefits mainly accrue in the form of profits and lower consumer prices. Profits and the workers in industries with comparative advantage should be taxed more to allow for better transitional and support infrastructure or just to more broadly distribute the surpluses resulting from trade.
Tariffs are a bad way of doing that. They don’t really raise much revenue, what they do is distort capital and labor allocation to inefficient domestic industry as compared to industries with comparative advantages, thereby leading to lower overall output and people being worse off than they could be. They are a mostly bad policy. The tariffs aren’t “on us” they’re on domestic importers. That’s the key to remember.
The primary beneficiaries of tariffs are basically rent seekers, and that leads to a less efficient economy and a lot of unearned income. It’s the very thing conservatives claim to hate, some small interest fucking over everyone else so they can retain their position.
They wanted to replace taxing the rich with a 25% sales tax. It wasn’t popular. So they’re doing pretty the same thing with tarrifs…only idiots think it a good thing somehow sticking it to other countries that are supposedly cheating or whatever
Other countries have socialized medicine.
Most countries are worse off than the US.
Us raising tariffs in response to other countries tariffs just hurts both sides, doubly so.
And other countries tend to either default to WTO rules with us, or have specific targeted tariffs.
Nobody’s really arguing that there might be some specific targeted tariffs that Trump might be able to implement to useful effect.
They’re arguing against the blanket import tariffs he’s proposing. Because those are crippling to the US.
Conservatives act like tariffs are some sort of benefit to the US, which the US has been refraining from implementing because it’s so generous towards others. Nope, tariffs are an economic tool that cause the country that implements it a lot of damage.
Sometimes in some very specific circumstances the benefit outweighs the cost, but that is never the case for broad tariffs aimed at everything.
basically all of those countries are poorer than we are
Tariffs are a tax on imported goods designed to make those goods more expensive, so that imported goods don’t undercut goods produced in your country. Consumers pay more, but in theory it’s overall good because they are buying good from your country’s industry rather than another country’s industry.
Tariffs are stupid, however, if you don’t actually have that industry in your country – consumers will just pay higher prices for nothing. Or if you don’t have any real plan to create that industry. Or if your country actually has a ton of existing industries that rely on cheap imported goods and are doing just fine. Or if unemployment is low so you don’t really need to create a whole new basic manufacturing industry. Or if you do blanket tariffs on the entire world, which make everything more expensive and choke out trade while raising prices for local industries and consumers.
Tariffs are a tool, like a hammer. They can be used purposefully for a specific task. But you cannot build a house with only a hammer, and if you trying hammering everything you will just break stuff and build nothing.
The tooth fairy doesn’t pay tariffs. It’s the consumers that do. And a tariff is a tax.
I think the richest and most powerful country in the world shouldn’t try to copy the economic policies of poorer, weaker nations.
Why would I bother saying anything to someone like that?
I would ask them how many of those countries are as rich as America
You need to understand that arguing with them doesn’t work because they don’t come to conclusions by carefully weighing evidence and coming to an informed decision. They believe whatever they need to believe in the present moment to win the argument.
Rhetoric is a chess piece and they are laughing at us for taking them at their word.
https://youtu.be/xMabpBvtXr4?si=e2aQNOF_D33HrKL–
We’re the consumers. When we are the ones buying the goods a tariff from either side will be paid by us. What you’re asking is if more US taxes are fine because other countries are already taxing us, too.
This is the only speech I go back to every single fucking time.
>In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression.
I ask them to describe the tariffs other countries had on us, to compare. They never know, at least not anything accurate.
We are the richest nation in the history of forever. The fact that we spend more on manufactured goods than other nations spend with us isn’t any more of a problem than me paying my landlord way more than they pay me, and all I get out of it is a place to live.
“You’re a fucking moron”
We also already had similar rules in place. But the correct answer is not to argue with conservatives or Republicans because you cannot change what they want.
They’re missing the point and yes, I have seen this argued.
They’re thinking of this in terms of “fairness” which is fucking stupid. You might as well say “that other country has a tax on its citizens for 20%. We should have that tax too.” That’s exactly what it is, but they’re too dumb to understand that.
We just need to keep hammering home that tariffs are sales tax. On us. They are sales tax on us. Trump is raising taxes on us.
How many people outside the Trump cult do they know of that think the tariffs are a good idea? Like the people who only care about money and are politically neutral?
EG – People like Buffett who liquidated almost everything and is talking about investing outside of US markets.
My response is How much did you spend on groceries this week versus last week
If this situation ever came up, I’d tell them that we don’t pay the tariffs that other countries impose on merchandise that is imported to their country, but WE DO pay the tariffs on merchandise imported to the United States. Do you want to pay more for everything? Or did you vote for Trump because he promised to lower prices?
I just had a bit of a realization about tariffs.
Your taxes technically don’t go up. But you sort of pay into the income tax system for workers/companies of the tariffed country. Also have no way to get refunds for any of it. And get taxed higher on the purchase.
It’s 100% anti American consumer/citizen
I’d ask them to specify the countries, the goods, and the tariffs.
Tariffs can be a good thing when used in the right situation against the right countries against the right products.
But this? This… whatever lunacy Trump is doing? Only going to isolate us from allies and trading partners and will probably revert back to pre-trump tariff policies when he finally leaves office.
“I didn’t realize that our economy flourished when we went tit for tat. Can you show me in history when that has profited anyone?”
I say they can go fuck themselves. They are consistently wrong on everything just like they are wrong on this. I don’t argue with people who throw their hands up and say Jesus take the wheel. I do what I can to insure they can’t ever touch that wheel again. This is going to be a problem led by a dipshit who has no idea what he is doing.
It’s important to remember that conservatives don’t care about logic, evidence, or reason, and so your response will have no effect on them. Declaring their support for tariffs is a way for them to show loyalty to their in-group, not the expression of a deeply held set of beliefs or an economic philosophy developed through years of careful study. They just hear the (often incorrect) conclusion that dear leader has arrived at, then try to work backwards to reasoning which sounds like it could plausibly lead to that conclusion. Often they’re just repeating talking points they heard from Fox et al without understanding them. So you can demolish their argument – in this particular case, very easily since it’s very stupid – and it will have no effect on either their conclusions or the reasoning they use next time they talk about the topic. Saying these things is, for them, an expression of in-group loyalty, not the product of a consistent worldview.
That being said, this is a clear-as-day example of a logical fallacy known as “equivocation”. You take a bad idea (like building a wall across the entire southern border), then someone points out some of the problems with this idea (it’ll cost mind-blowing sums of money, have no meaningful effect on migration, cause massive environmental damage by blocking wildlife corridors, consume huge quantities of building materials that would be better used for useful projects, etc etc etc). Then you say, “well, sounds like stupid liberals are opposed to walls, but still they live in houses that are made of walls, checkmate, ath… I mean liberals”. But of course, the walls of your house are not a meaningful equivalent to a wall on the southern border. They both are described by the noun “wall”, but a wall of your house serves a useful function, is cheap relative to its usefulness, does not block wildlife corridors, etc etc etc etc. By treating dissimilar things as being similar based on some linguistic overlap, you get this kind of fatuous “gotcha moment” which immediately collapses the moment someone who isn’t a fellow partisan responds to it, which is part of the reason conservatives are so insistent on remaining in their walled gardens and not arguing with anyone outside of them.
The average tariff rate, globally, is 2.59%. Less than three percent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tariff_rate
“Therefore, charging our closest friends and allies a 25% tariff is a good idea”. This is just fucking stupid, isn’t it? Letting alone the fact that tariffs are primarily a penalty that you impose on consumers in your own country (rather than being levies on the foreign country, as Trump seems to continue to genuinely believe) there is no equivalence between nominal tariffs of 2 or 3 percent and slugging people with a 25% penalty. If you want that 2.59 percent to come down a bit, negotiate for it, no doubt you can get it down a little. But… Jesus, is anyone really stupid enough that they need this explained to them?
The issue for me isn’t necessarily that he’s tariffing these countries, but that he’s tariffing every import from these countries. Let me give you an example. One of the countries being tariffed is Brazil. They are the number one supplier of coffee beans in America. Technically speaking, we can grow coffee beans in America, but not even close to enough to supply the necessary amount of coffee beans needed, we just don’t have the climate for it. In economics, this is what’s called a competitive advantage. No amount of tariffs are going to change the amount of coffee beans we’re able to make. Since domestic product isn’t available in this case, distributors will be forced to still buy coffee beans from Brazil, even at the tariff enhanced price. Brazil has no reason to want the US to get rid of a tariff on coffee beans, since they know that american distributors don’t have any option but to continue buying from Brazil. That’s why you should be careful to not tariff items the other country has a competitive advantage in, but that’s what Trump is doing.
Listen, tariffs raise prices, that’s what they do. If a tariff is used correctly, that price increase can be worth it for the potential benefits. But in this case, the competitive advantage makes those benefits null and void. All you’re doing is making every Americans morning cup of joe more expensive for no significant benefit.
I say that moderate and soft-Protectionism is generally good because building our industry is more important than GDP or the stock market. Free Trade is a failed theory, and it’s time to toss Adam Smith in the dust heap of history with phlogiston and go back to the traditional Lincolnian Protectionism that built America.
I would ask them what they mean by « fine. » Will it be fine if we have to spend more on basic goods? Will it be fine if no one builds new factories in the US?
I tell them that they are vastly oversimplifying how economics and trade actually work in the real world to improve our quality of life.
The goal of international trade isn’t to achieve a zero-sum state where everything is “fair”.
The goal is to build and manage mutually beneficial relationships, give citizens efficient access to goods they need and want, and create opportunities to sell what they produce.
Trump is stuck in this 2D view of the world where he believes the singular purpose of the federal government is to “make money”, and undereducated conservatives are following him blindly into the abyss because they don’t know any better.
(READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND)
It’s literally so easy to understand. The tariffs on other countries right now are TARGETED TARIFFS this means they are on only one type of trade deal or item coming from a single corporation or all the corporations but only on that certain item. TARGETED TARIFFS are a great thing and help the business in the us when needed. Now please understand this Trumps Tariffs are ACROSS THE BOARD TARIFFS and are way higher than all target tariffs on any country. tariffing every single item that comes across a country defeats the whole point of what a tariff should do and simply just makes the buyer play more or causes inflation because the price is going up. In my personal opinion i think trump wants to scare other countries and make him look like a tough guy. Now the reason why the people have to pay for the tariff is because if an item is tariffed it is taxed over seas or over the boarder. That means it costs more for the company in the us to get it. So of course they are going to have to bring the price up so they don’t lose a bunch of money and profit. If you have any questions please ask.
Whether this is a fake tool to get people to beg for exceptions from the Trump regime for “favors” to Trump as some massive grift, or an actual policy we will see.
Viewing Tariffs as tit for tat zero sum tool for economic dominance is misguided.
If we issue a Tariff we pay more for goods that are imported. It’s again shifting the tax burden on the poor, and middle class who by percentage have more income affected than the wealthy who predominantly have wealth invested rather than wages that are spent.
If you think tariffs will bring back jobs that pay $.50 cent to $2 dollar an hour from Vietnam the economics still make no sense. How will such low paying jobs benefit us ?
Manufacturing jobs even with Tariffs are still likely to not shift those jobs here, and if they were shifted here would employ robots in a fully automated facility.
Complex manufacturing is what we’d want, those jobs justify high wages and are already in the USA. That’s what we want to hold onto and Tariffs just raise prices on those goods as well, since the components will be tariffed.
Tariffs are complicated, and the Trump Tariff policy does not address this.
We need to raise wages on the jobs we already have here!!!!
Not bring back jobs that are low wage jobs while simultaneously raising prices.
Fighting any effort to raise wages for the jobs that are here says everything about how this is going to work out for the average wage earner.
Lying liars lie.
I don’t listen to conservatives. They haven’t said anything worth listening to in a lifetime, and their worldview largely consists of seeing what has worked and doing the exact opposite out of spite.
On tariffs, they arguing that the VAT is a tariff. That the trade deficit itself is a tariff.
They are just lying or willfully ignorant. Neither is worth responding to. The correct action for the left isn’t to persuade the right, it is to beat them and cripple their ability to gain power and destroy the country until they return to something resembling sanity.