Live data from Hacker News

US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

bbc.com

51–60 of 1001 posts

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#52
post #2

25% on South Korea, 32% on Taiwan, 36% on Thailand, 46% on Vietnam What a massive and moronic blow to our soft power.

>25% on South Korea, 32% on Taiwan, 36% on Thailand, 46% on Vietnam

Harley Davidson moved some of its production to Thailand in 2018 to avoid a 31% tariff the EU had on US manufactured motorcycles, announced in 2024 it was moving more production there, and prior to today had plans to sell the Thailand produced bikes back into the US, as the US had a 0% tariff on bikes. Not surprisingly Thailand has a 60% tariff on imported motorcycles.

This tariff jumping is real. I guess we will see how it works out for the US.

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#53
post #44

Would be good to know - Who are the people coming up with these specific rates? How are they modeling this system?

I am certain they didn't use any liberal math or science or history to arrive at these numbers. It's all just made up by incompetent yes men.

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#54

As someone interested in "curious discussion", what are some of the positives we can take away from this? Is this a new standard for economic policy?

I can't think of any positives.

Trump is saying the positives are the it will force companies to build stuff in the US, thus increasing our domestic manufacturing and increasing jobs. I don't see that happening in a significant way, but who knows?

But if that does happen, then the huge amount of revenue that Trump thinks is going to come to the government's coffers won't happen, and that revenue is meant to offset some of the tax breaks for the wealthy, so we're kinda screwed either way.

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#55

Trump is going for a 1-2 punch. First tariffs and then tax cuts to soften the blow of price increases. It also puts republicans in a choke hold to force the tax cut legislation through, because the fallout of tariffs with no tax cuts would be a death knell for the party. Maybe in a sim city game this would balance out, but it's a tall order for a real world scenario. Prepare for a bumpy road ahead.

It’s all a grift for the wealthy anyway. He doesn’t care about the hurting 50k a year worker. Low income MAGA voters are just fodder for Trump to enrich himself and the wealthy around him.

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#56
The exemptions...

>Some goods will not be subject to the Reciprocal Tariff. These include: (1) articles subject to 50 USC 1702(b); (2) steel/aluminum articles and autos/auto parts already subject to Section 232 tariffs; (3) copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber articles; (4) all articles that may become subject to future Section 232 tariffs; (5) bullion; and (6) energy and other certain minerals that are not available in the United States.

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#57
Americans have been hurt for 50 years … yes manufacturing going overseas was a huge change and many administrations didn’t do enough to help affected workers. Buuuuuut - placing tariffs on our allies that will likely lead to a recession makes no sense.

Devaluing the dollar and subsidizing production in the US makes far more sense.

But I’m not an economist or anything.

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#58
post #50

I don’t buy the blanket statement that the consumer always pays the tariff. It depends on what alternative companies have. If a company can purchase the same clothing from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Mexican vendors, a tax on China only could make the Chinese vendors lower the price or risk losing the business. However, a blanket tax on every country, regardless of available alternatives, would leave businesses with fewe…

For taxes to work in raising money, they have to be paid. So, if the goal is to make revenue from the taxes, then raising costs is expected?

If the goal is to incentivize alternatives, then the tax has to be such that it raises the price above the gap there now. So, even if you do drive people to an alternative source, the new price will be higher than the old. (Unless the thought is that people were choosing to not buy the cheaper source to begin with?)

I suppose you can argue that some suppliers have such a margin that the tax could be an effort to get them to cut into that? I have not seen evidence that that is the case?

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#59

[flagged]

> tariff on our closest allies

I saw that your president said:

> “We imported $3b of Australian beef last year alone… they won’t take any of our beef because they don’t want it to affect their farmers.”

Just FYI, the reason we don't import much beef is because we have about as many cows as we do people here :)

Re: US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU

#60

As someone interested in "curious discussion", what are some of the positives we can take away from this? Is this a new standard for economic policy?

Well it's positive for various countries that benefit from an end to US dominance over the world. :p

So for the US itself? The theory would be that the tariffs will increase US manufacturing sector. But the cold hard truth is that it isn't the 1830s anymore and last time tariffs were tried happened to line up exactly with the Great Depression.

Even an competent administration would have great difficulty making tariffs to restore manufacturing work in the US, if that is even at all possible. It fails because other countries just put the same tariffs back on the US.

So with the Trump's administration some kinda of serious economy meltdown is almost certainly the result.

Post reply on HN