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Ask HN: Do the tarrifs impact software/SaaS? If so, how?

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Re: Ask HN: Do the tarrifs impact software/SaaS? If so, how?

#51

Post by scarface_74 »

bradac56 wrote: post #50
scarface_74 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought conservatives thought that the drug problem was because people stopped going to church, lack of personal responsibility and “absentee fathers”? Or is the causation different now because it is affecting “rural America” and not the “inner city”?

Nothing quite like good old Liberal racism to make yourself feel better huh?

I’m more calling out conservative hypocrisy.

What ever happened to “personal responsibility”, “not blaming others for your position in life” and “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”?

Re: Ask HN: Do the tarrifs impact software/SaaS? If so, how?

#52

Post by owenversteeg »

qwytw wrote: post #42
owenversteeg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware that the US did this before (weighted mean tariffs >doubled in Trump’s first term) and it worked well enough that the Biden administration kept the tariffs and even increased some? You may want to take a look at a graph of US imports by year or tariff revenue by year to see your “very significant” decrease in revenue (hint: it kept going up…) I don’t claim that it is entirely independent of tariff rates…

> Are you aware that the US did this before No because it wasn't even remotely the same. In 2022 the average tariff on Chinese imports was 2.86%, 0.01% on Mexican goods and 0.12% on Canadian goods. Besides that the first term tariffs were targeted and not applied universally to all imports. That "great/fantastic deal"(USMCA) that Trump "negotiated" back in his first term kept most trade with Mexico and Canada more or…

>it wasn't even remotely the same

I think everyone can agree that in both 2018 and 2025: 1) Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on major trade partners - among which China, Mexico and Canada; 2) most media predicted a large-scale disaster; 3) large parts of the tariffs were later cancelled entirely, delayed, or scaled back.

I'm not sure what part of that "isn't even remotely the same." You highlight the low average tariff rates by country despite the (large) first Trump tariffs. This is _exactly_ my point: when you account for all exemptions, changes, agreements, rerouting of trade etc, the marquee double-digit numbers shrink dramatically.

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As for the exact number, obviously it is impossible to know, and there are many ways to measure it. It's not uncommon for two estimates of tariff revenue, both calculated in honest ways, to be widely at odds. This is one reason why I qualified my numbers as "very rough", but I did lay out my reasoning above. To make it simple: most groups (CRFB, Tax Foundation, etc) estimated the tariffs we were discussing (China +10, Canada/Mexico +25) to sit - very roughly - at 100B of revenue raised plus or minus a few tens of billions. Current US tariff revenue is approximately 100B. So, in other words, we're talking about an approximate doubling of mean tariffs, which stand at around 1.5-2% today depending on who you ask and how it is measured.

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