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American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

kielinstitut.de

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Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#161

Post by mothballed »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #106
bartread wrote: post #56

I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…

A lot of Americans believed the guy they wanted to believe in, because they didn't want to believe the people they didn't want to believe in. You're assuming that modern politics across most of the World has something to do with rational, logical thought. Russia, China, Europe, the US, the Middle East - they are all in a quagmire of irrational fractures between the public and the political classes who want power/cont…

Well when we look at rational economic policies take a look at top ~10 in terms of GDP, purchase parity adjusted, per capita:

   monaco, liechtenstein, singapore, luxembourg, ireland, macau, qatar, bermuda, norway, switzerland
Monarchy: monaco, liechtenstein, qatar

One party state w/ elections: singapore, macau

direct democracy: switzerland

represented democracy: Norway, Bermuda, Ireland, Luxembourg

Multi-party representative democracy is less than half. And none of the top 3. An interesting, but uncomfortable, fact. The people are not good at picking economically rational leaders in adversarial elections.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#162

Post by virtualritz »

dfee wrote: post #17

Americans will rightly be suspicious when a think tank in Germany writes about tariff relief that benefits them. Of course, we should all be critical always – that's the first word in the term "critical thinking".

LGTM [1]

What source would you trust on this matter? Or rather: who has published something we could look at that contrasts these findings?

[1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/kiel-institute-for-the-world-...

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#163

Post by nutjob2 »

shaky-carrousel wrote: post #66

There's an entire world to trade with. If the Americans choose to shoot themselves in the foot, we won't be the ones paying for the bandage. Also, it's deeply naïve to assume tariffed countries would absorb the cost. Why would they? It's like going into a shop and asking for a discount because you just took out a loan. Why would the shop give you a discount for something you inflicted on yourself? And what makes you…

I bought a mini PC today. On the US website, it goes for $460, on the German website it goes for 360 euros or $420. But that price includes 20% tax so its actually $335.

Prices for the same product are about 37.5% higher in the US. It's nuts and the reverse of how it used to be not long ago.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#164

Post by MonkeyClub »

bartread wrote: post #56

I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…

> but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function.

Exactly: tariffs are taxes in another guise. They only serve to create an (artificial) price advantage of local over imported goods for as long as they're levied.

> What were you thinking? What was going through your heads? I'm genuinely curious.

I also can't fathom why the crowd (not just a HN subset) that was clamoring for tariffs thought it'd be anyone other than them shouldering the increase. Perhaps their influencers didn't spell it out for them?

Now everyone gets to pay more - and not just in the US.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#165

Post by fnands »

drstewart wrote: post #88

Has this institute done an analysis of the VAT own goal by Germany? What percentage is paid by EU Germans?

Also, you mean the VAT that was introduced into (West) Germany in *checks-notes* 1968?

I'm pretty sure someone has done an analysis on VAT since it was introduced 58 years ago...

It's a really destabilising policy as you can see.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#166

Post by andsoitis »

dominicrose wrote: post #149
bartread wrote: post #56

I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…

I'm not American but tariffs might be a way to "make America great again" because it makes it harder to trade with other countries. This means that it makes it relatively easier than before, to trade within the USA. Another effect is that it serves as a tax. Easy for me to say but I think Americans aren't taxed enough.

> I think Americans aren't taxed enough.

If tariffs are a tax on the consumer, then you probably think the tariffs are in fact good ("American's aren't taxed enough").

But I'm more curious about what makes you think Americans aren't taxed enough. Why do you say that and do you have something specific in mind?

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#167

Post by nathan_compton »

BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #121
PaulRobinson wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Americans believed the guy they wanted to believe in, because they didn't want to believe the people they didn't want to believe in. You're assuming that modern politics across most of the World has something to do with rational, logical thought. Russia, China, Europe, the US, the Middle East - they are all in a quagmire of irrational fractures between the public and the political classes who want power/cont…

[flagged]

I don't buy this - Harris had a big bump in the polls as soon as she entered the race and I think she could have won if she had offered voters anything. This bullshit that American's won't vote for a woman is just an excuse not to run women and to deflect blame towards a culture war issue and away from the fact that the democrats don't actually have popular policies.

I voted for Harris, I even canvased for her, but I think its a sexist oversimplification to suggest she lost because she is a woman. She lost because her campaign was lame.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#168

Post by kryogen1c »

Almost all the comments acting like this is some truth bombshell, like people in trumpistan all thought raising tariffs magically made the us economy better. This is a straw man, no?

Tariffs are a mid-long term strategy to encourage onshoring business, for reasons including military, national security, and political influence on foreign powers.

This is a complicated topic involving the global economy and evolving intercountry landscape. All these slam dunk takes are incomplete to the point of being wrong - and inflammatory.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#169

Post by _diyar »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #118

Well the purpose of the tariff is to control US Americans to rely less on foreign goods. So of course to control something you would enact policies that affect the thing you’re trying to control. If the importer took on most of the burden that would defeat the purpose of the tariff.

The report states that US customs revenue surged by $200Bn (of which the US consumer pays 96%). That does not breath confidence into the idea of lower reliance on foreign goods.

Re: American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

#170

Post by SilverElfin »

sensanaty wrote: post #13

Isn't this literally economics 101? How did we ever even end up imagining that tariffs are somehow paid by the exporter??

It is, but there has been lots of resistance to this understanding. Part of why is repeated lies. Bessent just the other day was going on about how tariffs are the “signature” economic policy of the administration. This is a person who was highly trusted on economic topics, now supporting anything Trump does blindly. Trump keeps saying things like “tariffs brings us trillions”, which is obviously false but a lot of his base accepts it as the truth. One reason why this works is the base has been told that news media lies to them and that only a few people in social media can be trusted.
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