Live data from Hacker News

US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

bloomberg.com

111–120 of 193 posts

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week. If you want to incentive domestic reindustrialization, you do it with things like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS act or the "Green New Deal" where congress lays out clear sets of rules in law with a mixture of tax incentives, loan programs and spending to give investors a…

>No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week. Apple: $500M over four years including a facility in Houston opening next year Chobani: $1.7B for new facilities in Idaho and NY J&J: $55B over four years into new facilities, a 25% increase over previous Honda: moving 100% of Civic hybrid hatchback production to the US Hyun…

We’ve already seen what TSMC’s promises of investment are actually worth, in Wisconsin.

Hedge your bets on these…

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Core CPI continues to print lower than street expectations, for five consecutive months now. Far lower than what the Fed is concerned about, and certainly leagues lower than what the consumer expects. Haven't a ton of the tariffs been delayed? To what extent have they actually been in effect?

https://www.tradecomplianceresourcehub.com/2025/07/22/trump-...

The baseline 10% reciprocal tariff rate remains in effect for all, while many of the bigger country-specific tariffs are paused until Aug 1.

China has special tariffs that stack with that 10%: Section 301 (up to 25%) + Fentanyl tariff (20%).

In addition, worldwide tariffs impacting steel & aluminum (50%) as well as autos and auto parts (25%) are in effect.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're effectively saying humanity replaced monarchies with a global (often faceless) ruling class.

Yup, that's it. The analysis fits. Brexit helped push the UK on the same path.

>Brexit helped push the UK on the same path.

The EU has mastered the "global (often faceless) ruling class". No Brexit needed for that one.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

== hints at pressure on corporate margins.== And if those hints become reality, might prices rise to re-increase margins? Do you make the same argument about the corporate income tax being absorbed by companies? Or do you assume that tax makes its way to consumers through price increases? What about increases in the minimum wage?

They are reality (OP says GM took a $1B hit), and no, they aren't

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#116

Everyone focusing on consumer prices. But tariffs also function to incentivize domestic reindustrialization, which has huge national security implications. You see this clearly in the venture space as increased investment interest in hardtech and manufacturing. It's great that the federal government is looking long term again.

No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week. If you want to incentive domestic reindustrialization, you do it with things like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS act or the "Green New Deal" where congress lays out clear sets of rules in law with a mixture of tax incentives, loan programs and spending to give investors a…

They change week to week, but they're consistently an order of magnitude above where they were.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oversimplified (and naive) response has been that prices will go up, but the shift to domestic production and consumption will in turn increase household incomes, and that will (hand-wavingly) balance out.

Do you have any resources for other solutions for improving American manufacturing capability? I'm ignorant to most of this but I'm interested in what solutions people have proposed.

You generally need to subsidize too, and if you look at the real industrial powerhouses like China or Germany you'll see deep government involvement in things like "ensuring super cheap energy for industry" and "removing red tape" that we're not really tackling.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#118
post #28

Crazy that one of the major policy initiatives of the all Republican/Maga government is to impose a huge consumer tax increase. Maybe calling these "import taxes" instead of "tarrifs" would help emphasize that to the average voter?

[flagged]

> The tariffs are paid by the foreign producers, not consumers.

The tariffs are being paid by domestic companies, not foreign producers. There is literally no way for a foreign producer to pay a U.S. tariff as the tariff is charged to the importer before the good is released by Customs.

The impacts of the tariffs are domestic. If consumer prices are not increased, then profits, investment, or expenses (including salary, benefits, etc) will be decreased. The money has to come from somewhere inside the U.S.

This is the entire point of a tariff, historically and as expressed by this administration. It is not to source foreign tax revenue, it is to create intentional domestic pain as a means toward implementing a top-down industrial policy. “Make it here or I will hurt you” is the overt message from the President.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week. Apple: $500M over four years including a facility in Houston opening next year Chobani: $1.7B for new facilities in Idaho and NY J&J: $55B over four years into new facilities, a 25% increase over previous Honda: moving 100% of Civic hybrid hatchback production to the US Hyun…

We’ve already seen what TSMC’s promises of investment are actually worth, in Wisconsin. Hedge your bets on these…

For every failed attempt like Wisconsin, you have equally successful industrial policies like Arizona and Texas in semiconductors. They are also Republican states like WI, but had better managed industrial policy teams.

A lot of the investments listed by OP were also thanks to CHIPS and IRA, but the tariffs have acted as the stick to force the Capex realized from CHIPS and IRA remains in the US.

Even China has been leveraging a similar strategy to force it's own manufacturers like BYD and CATL or foreign manufacturers like Foxconn to keep bleeding edge manufacturing within China by using a mix of export controls and revoking passports of Chinese nationals abroad.

> TSMC’s

That was Foxconn, not TSMC.

Also, Foxconn is an assembler, not a high value manufacturer.

Re: US companies, consumers are paying for tariffs, not foreign firms

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week. If you want to incentive domestic reindustrialization, you do it with things like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS act or the "Green New Deal" where congress lays out clear sets of rules in law with a mixture of tax incentives, loan programs and spending to give investors a…

>No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week. Apple: $500M over four years including a facility in Houston opening next year Chobani: $1.7B for new facilities in Idaho and NY J&J: $55B over four years into new facilities, a 25% increase over previous Honda: moving 100% of Civic hybrid hatchback production to the US Hyun…

I don't know anything particular about the others, but Apple has been investing at least that much in increasing US production for many years now, and Chobani, AFAIK, has never had significant non-US facilities (and started in NYS—in fact, its first plant is less than 20 minutes' drive from where I work).

Given that, I question how many of these are actually caused by the tariffs.

Post reply on HN