American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by kaicianflone » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

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…

The incidence result isn’t surprising, but incidence alone isn’t a full policy critique. Consumers bear most taxes in general: corporate, VAT, payroll, etc.

The real distinction is that tariffs are conditional. Currently, firms can avoid them by changing sourcing. That makes them more behavior-shaping than revenue maximizing.

Given that the U.S. never reversed the TCJA corporate cuts from 2020-2024, tariffs are one of the few active levers currently increasing the marginal cost of offshore supply chains.

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

#212

Post by bparsons » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

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…

Things aren't perfect in a lot of countries, but what is happening in the US right now is absolutely unique. Things are careening out of control, and the political system seems completely incapable of getting a handle on it.

Most people I speak to in Canada, Europe and Central America seem perplexed why Americans they know do not seem more alarmed.

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

#213

Post by mothballed » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:50 PM UTC

nathan_compton wrote: post #167

BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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…

Harris was shitcanned post haste when she actually primaried, so the party already knew she was non-viable. She got put in as VP as the best token non-white woman from a large population state they could shove in there and then Democrats got caught with their pants down because they hid Biden's physical state past the point they could have an actual primary to vet the proper candidate.

The fact Biden said he wouldn't back out then suddenly did at the 11th hour made the whole thing far more bizarre and was a massive erosion of confidence in any semblance of a plan for the presidency by the Democratic Party. I ended up voting for a 3rd party because both campaigns were run so horribly to the point I couldn't even imagine either side managing a mayor's office let alone the country.

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

#214

Post by BanAntiVaxxers » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

nathan_compton wrote: post #167

BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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…

She’s known to own firearms. I wonder what would happen if one of these Democrat candidates released a video like “A girl and her Glock: Kamala goes John Wick”.

Similarly, AOC should visit the south, eat some grits, volunteer with some Black churches, and do a little skeet shooting with some good ole boys.

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

#215

Post by rafterydj » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #110

agumonkey wrote: post #49

The issue is that the USA are in 100% post truth and 0% of the recent potus voters are able to reflect on economic policies level-headed.

I think it's the opposite. These were announced 9 months ago and none of the doomsday predictions have come to pass. There's been major impact to some things but for the most part the economy has hummed along without a blip. Certainly not the everything in Walmart is going to get 34% prognostications that some were making: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43561253

What are you saying? "None of the doomsday predictions have come to pass." -> nothing is wrong and the USA is fine

"There's been major impact to some things" -> so bad things have happened

"but for the most part the economy has hummed along without a blip." -> so despite bad things happening, just plug your ears and sing loudly?

As for prices in Walmart, they HAVE gone up. Several companies have had press releases stating they need to increase prices because of tariffs:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/31/trump-tariffs-here-are-the-r...

"Retailers like Costco and Best Buy said they have already raised some prices, while Walmart, Target and Macy's plan to follow suit"

I'll be the first to say that given the circumstances our underlying economy and people have held up better than complete collapse. But you can't pretend this is not happening.

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

#216

Post by youngtaff » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

PaulRobinson wrote: post #116

hirako2000 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't US specific and what goes into people's head is what propaganda wants it to be. Economics tell people the clear impact, but it doesn't make the news. We get fed with whatever the political influencers decide to tell us. Did the brits expect the consequence of brexit? No but that's because they deemed whatever the news said to be unreliable on this topic. Which for once happened to be true.

Actually, it's pretty clear to those who have been paying attention that the main influence that swung the polls by about 4% from Remain to Leave in the last 2 days was a £10m advertising campaign on Facebook packed with lies, paid for by a Brexiteer who can't quite explain to the Electoral Commission where that money came from, but it did seem to just "appear" a few days after he allegedly met with the Russian ambas…

There's also the unpublished report into Russian interference with the Brexit referendum and UK politics

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

#217

Post by gopher_space » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

omneity wrote: post #182

mothballed wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 represen…

Also worth noticing the size of these countries. Mostly on the small/tiny side, besides Norway (an oil exporter) and Ireland (a corporate tax haven) Perhaps making good economic decisions grows exponentially in difficulty with the population size, especially for “conventional” economies that do not have another cash cow.

I can’t help but notice the absence of a “how shitty is this country for the average person” dimension.

E.g. which of these countries has any kind of youth culture to speak of?

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

#218

Post by lingrush4 » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

lobsterthief wrote: post #159

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".

As an American, I wasn’t suspicious at all. I don’t know anyone personally who I think would be, either. Your comment serves nothing but to suggest anew that Americans _should_ be suspicious. Either that was your aim to begin with or you’re okay with that result.

[flagged]

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

#219

Post by carefulfungi » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:51 PM UTC

SauntSolaire wrote: post #92

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??

I understood part of the point of the tariffs as encouraging on-shore production of some items by increasing the price of their imported counterparts. Such protectionist practices were used by China to bootstrap their own automobile industry, before they became competitive in the global market. Of course, China had surplus capacity of untapped cheap labor, which America does not. Barring an evolution in automated man…

I don’t think the evidence supports this. This was the marketing of tarifs. But the reality is rates have been changed rapidly, added, dropped - this is just leverage Trump is using to exert his will. Whether it is Greenland, defense spending by NATO, whims of narcissism, or kickback deal making (like NVIDIA or Intel). There is little evidence this policy is designed to increase US manufacturing.

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

#220

Post by andy_ppp » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

The point of taxing goods made elsewhere is to make building equivalent goods in your local economy competitive for locals to purchase. I am pretty sure they are not putting a tax on EUV Lithography machines from ASML or at least you can have an exception if you bow down to the king...

How did the US become this insane this fast - I'm not even against tariffs but you need to decide which industries to use them on e.g. steel, drones, maybe electric vehicles - blanket tariffs by a mad king are really difficult to fathom. When will congress wake up and will it be too late?