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Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

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Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#111

Post by rstuart4133 »

aborsy wrote: post #51
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #7

As I recently wrote on Cowen's blog, a lot of the electorate doesn't know how tariffs work. Say I manufacture a widget in [country]. At present, there is no manufacturer of that widget in the USA. We export to the USA, and now the US importer or distributor pays a ~25% tariff on the declared value to Fedgov. Then that US importer or distributor receives the widgets and sells them. Because its margin is down, it raise…

[country] may have no other place to sell to, at least immediately, and at the same transportation cost. Moreover, unlike US, [country] may not have diversified its trade. The US may be able to control inflation like last time, by buying some of these goods from elsewhere and through interest rates etc.

Maybe. And maybe it goes in reverse, like it did the the China vs Australia trade war. China was the big boy in that dispute, and it's Australia's biggest trading partner by country. It wasn't pleasant for either side, but in the end Australia diversified much faster the China.

Interestingly, Australia didn't retaliate against China. We keep buying the Chinese stuff at the usual cheap prices, and found other markets for our goods they banned. China paid more, or did without. So we didn't have any leverage, but China normalised trade with Australia after a while anyway.

I have no idea which way it will go here, but "USA big, Canada little, so USA wins" isn't a foregone conclusion.

Perhaps the most nimble nation wins. The most nimble nation usually isn't the one putting up trade barriers and antagonising neighbours and friends. I reckon you'll know the outcome by the end of Trump's term, if it said term doesn't continue forever.

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#112

Post by 3vidence »

dang wrote: post #93
3vidence wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

No personal attacks, please, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You're right I apologize felt overly emotional about that comment.

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#113

Post by timeon »

dismalaf wrote: post #107
tokioyoyo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair, apologies for having a knee-jerk reaction to it. It just sucks to scroll a tiny bit on forums and get bombarded with pure hate. I understand that it doesn’t represent the majority, but makes you scratch your head and think why so many level headed people are willing to throw away trust that was built throughout decades. Like I get the whole America First approach, and understand the desire to build out the manu…

To be fair Canada and most of the EU haven't come close to fulfillment our NATO requirements since, well, ever. For better or worse most of the free world freeloads off the US' security shield. Canada is especially egregious, where we have a bunch of tariffs and regulations protecting certain Canadian corporations while expecting the US to protect us and buy our products. All the while smugly criticizing them for it.

> To be fair Canada and most of the EU haven't come close to fulfillment our NATO requirements since, well, ever. For better or worse most of the free world freeloads off the US' security shield.

USA is only country that used article 5. Other NATO countries served USA til now not other way around. But it seems that this will end soon. At least in EU, where pro-Russian parties are gaining power.

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#114

Post by School-Cotton »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #98
School-Cotton wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn’t. The vast majority of Americans don’t hate Canadians. You don’t need a popular referendum to set tariffs, the president can just do it. One of the many downsides of electing a crazy person as president.

Fair, apologies for having a knee-jerk reaction to it. It just sucks to scroll a tiny bit on forums and get bombarded with pure hate. I understand that it doesn’t represent the majority, but makes you scratch your head and think why so many level headed people are willing to throw away trust that was built throughout decades. Like I get the whole America First approach, and understand the desire to build out the manu…

What forums are you on where you’re reading pure hate for Canadians?

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#115

Post by almatabata »

llm_nerd wrote: post #70
Gunnerhead wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nukes for everyone yay! Hey Georgia is also under Russian threat, why don’t they also get a nuke or two? Then maybe their neighbor Armenia will think to themselves “why not me, I’m also under threat by an ex-Soviet country”? Then maybe Azerbaijan, then Turkey, then Saudi Arabia, everyone gets a nuke, I freaking love it! Then maybe other countries that got invaded by a bigger power like maybe Vietnam? Iraq? Why not!

I mean...why not? What moral right does the US have to nuclear weapons that others don't? US exceptionalism? Just looking at what is happening in the US right now -- an astonishingly corrupt banana republic increasingly led by an insane Christian nationalist movement that bizarrely doesn't seem to understand a thing about Christ's teachings -- I have more faith in North Korea's management of nuclear weapons than the…

That is assuming everyone has a working survival instinct. Religious fanatics notoriously do not have this instinct. You just need one country with a religious fanatic at its head, who thinks that it is better we all go to heaven than to let evil win, and boom.

Now you can you argue the current US president is a fanatic if you want. But I do not see how adding more bombs to more countries reduces the odds of nuclear warfare in the future.

The current equilibrium has worked well enough. I do not see why we need to hand over nuclear weapons to countries currently embroiled in bloody civil wars.

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#116

Post by wampwamp »

halostatue wrote: post #100
laverya wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I've been seeing is people saying that Canada is the source for most fentanyl coming into the US, not Mexico. (This is also the US's stated reason for tariffs on Canada)

I don't know where you've seen that, because not even the professional liars at the DEA claim that.

A "super lab" that used "cartel" processes was discovered in Canada a few months ago with almost 100 million[0] lethal doses of Fentanyl. It was only 11 miles from the border. The group was linked to a Khalistani transnational crime network; the same group of people (Punjabis) have also taken over our trucking industry[1]. Our border is the longest undefended border in the world and Canada is now taking in more than 1.5 million people per year[2], not including the 5 million on 'temporary permits'[3], mostly from India and China[4] and mostly un-vetted[5]. They get H2B visas with their Canadian passports and can travel across the border with ease. 1 billion doses worth of precursor chemicals were found in the port of Vancouver over a period of just 3 months last year[6], all coming from China. Halting immigration and shutting off the precursor chemical supply from China via the port Vancouver is all my clown show of government had to do to avoid this trade war. Stopping the flow of these brutal new drugs will do more to save both our economies than any amount of 'USA owned' tar sand ever could.

[0] https://bc-cb.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=2087... [1] https://thecanadianbazaar.com/how-punjabis-came-to-dominate-... [2] https://www.meansandways.ca/news-articles/chart-of-the-day-c... [3] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/migrate/millions-of... [4] https://youtu.be/bg3psxZ_pRg?si=GLSJdquqF4WQgcNt&t=441 [5] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/terror-suspect-enter... [6] https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/enough-precursor-ch...

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#117

Post by dismalaf »

timeon wrote: post #113
dismalaf wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair Canada and most of the EU haven't come close to fulfillment our NATO requirements since, well, ever. For better or worse most of the free world freeloads off the US' security shield. Canada is especially egregious, where we have a bunch of tariffs and regulations protecting certain Canadian corporations while expecting the US to protect us and buy our products. All the while smugly criticizing them for it.

> To be fair Canada and most of the EU haven't come close to fulfillment our NATO requirements since, well, ever. For better or worse most of the free world freeloads off the US' security shield. USA is only country that used article 5. Other NATO countries served USA til now not other way around. But it seems that this will end soon. At least in EU, where pro-Russian parties are gaining power.

The threat of article 5 is powerful... It's the only thing that's prevented Russia from rolling through the Baltics.

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#118

Post by Grosvenor »

Gunnerhead wrote: post #45
Grosvenor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could start a joint nuclear program with Ukraine. Canada has the Canadian shield which is rich in Uranium. Both Canada and Ukraine get nukes (Ukraine has a bridge that needs blowing up), Ukraine gets safety, Canada gets huge reputation gains in trade with Ukraine. NB: Ukraine will be the fastest growing western economy post war for at least a decade or two.

Nukes for everyone yay! Hey Georgia is also under Russian threat, why don’t they also get a nuke or two? Then maybe their neighbor Armenia will think to themselves “why not me, I’m also under threat by an ex-Soviet country”? Then maybe Azerbaijan, then Turkey, then Saudi Arabia, everyone gets a nuke, I freaking love it! Then maybe other countries that got invaded by a bigger power like maybe Vietnam? Iraq? Why not!

That's the direction things are going, yes. It's being made clear that the old rules no longer apply, and that might makes right. What's more mightier than a nuke?

Would Ukraine have been invaded if it had nukes? Unlikely.

Will trump invade Canada? The odds are >0%, so nukes are pretty good defense mechanism.

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#119

Post by themacguffinman »

dutchbookmaker wrote: post #66
llm_nerd wrote: post #3

Canada was specifically warned not to retaliate in any manner, which is basically an acknowledgement that Canada has some powerful levers. This is farcical and of course Canada is going to retaliate. The $450B of American goods sold to Canada is going to collapse. The F35 purchase will be cancelled. Various other projects with the US will be abandoned. Oil will be export tariffed. Every American service -- Netflix, D…

The figures I have seen in a trade war with Canada is Canada causes a -.2% hit to US GDP while Canada gets a -2% hit. That is not going to work for Canada. These aren't abuses of power though. We just largely got use to the president not trying to do all that much. Obama issued 275 executive orders and Franklin Roosevelt issued 3721. Calvin Coolidge issued 1203. I think all the presidents during my lifetime combined…

It's likely that Canada will target exports from Trump-supporting states, which is a strategy that seems to have worked before. It may not have a large impact on the whole US economy but it can concentrate the pain to optimize the political impact.

Re: Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China

#120

Post by dinkumthinkum »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #7

As I recently wrote on Cowen's blog, a lot of the electorate doesn't know how tariffs work. Say I manufacture a widget in [country]. At present, there is no manufacturer of that widget in the USA. We export to the USA, and now the US importer or distributor pays a ~25% tariff on the declared value to Fedgov. Then that US importer or distributor receives the widgets and sells them. Because its margin is down, it raise…

So, when Trump threatened Columbia with up to 50% tariffs, did the cost of coffee go up for the consumer, or is it about to, or did the Columbian president offer his presidential plane to pick-up people?
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