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

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

#231

Post by nottorp »

hnburnsy wrote: post #33

Current EU tariffs on US goods... Product Category Tariff Rate ----------------------------- -------------- Dairy Products (e.g., cheese, butter) Up to 50% Processed Foods (e.g., chocolate, confectionery) 30-40% Alcoholic Beverages (e.g., whiskey, bourbon) 25% Steel and Aluminum Products 25% Automobiles 10% Industrial Goods 5-10%

I wasn't touching the first two categories anyway, tariffs or no tariffs.

First one because I don't understand why i should risk a milk based product that has traveled for months across an ocean. Or even from another EU country, when I can buy stuff made in a 200 km radius around me.

Second one because afaik it's legal to call "chocolate" something that does not contain any actual cocoa in the US.

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

#232

Post by 0xy »

jbverschoor wrote: post #223

The whole table doesn't make sense. We (NL/EU) don't charge the US 39% to import . Apparently orange guy (not the Dutch) doesn't understand VAT rates. Car? max 4.5 + 21% VAT = 25%. But it simply doesn't matter bc we don't want their cars.. Except for thee Dodge RAM, which can be converted to a tax efficient company car (crazy).. What amazes me even more is that Elon doesn't seems to understand it either.

It doesn't make sense because you didn't read the original board. It clearly states 'including trade barriers'. You're attacking a strawman.

Countries, including the EU, like to have 'low tariffs' and then have sneaky backdoor taxes or outright bans on US goods through things like milk quotas (Canada), 'biosecurity' (Australia) or EU courts issuing spurious fines on US companies (based on vague laws that only get enforced against US companies, like DMA).

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

#233

Post by teruakohatu »

Animats wrote: post #186

Did the "de minimus" exemption on small packages from China go away, and are all those now going to have to go through customs clearance?

What will happen is the same as when my govt. added GST (sales tax) on all imports with no de minimus exception [1], the overseas retailers will agree to add it on at checkout so their packages will sail through customs.

From a practical perspective I can’t see any other way.

Closing the “GST loophole” as they called it didn’t help New Zealand retailers, but did increase tax revenue and raise prices for consumers.

[1] There is an exception if the retailer does less than a certain dollar figure of exports in total to New Zealand.

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

#234

Post by trallnag »

ringeryless wrote: post #205

No tariffs on Russia, interestingly enough. All actions by this administration point to Trump working in cahoots with Putin, which we were told was "a hoax". The White House dressing down of Zelensky, and this week Russias investment chief in the US, and just scads of obvious daily reminders that Trump has no bad words for his pal. Odd. Tariffs on our friends and allies while he speaks of dropping sanctions on Russia…

Countries like North Korea and Russia are already covered by sanctions

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

#235

Post by danpalmer »

iteratethis wrote: post #75

This won't bring home manufacturing but let's say that it will... The US doesn't have the people to do the actual manufacturing. I saw a video recently explaining how sectors like the military, construction and the automotive industry each have 100K+ positions that they are unable to fill. A return to manufacturing adds to that shortage. Apparently there's some 7 million young men of working age that are...missing in…

I heard a great story from a colleague that worked in fashion development in the UK. There's a big push for "Made in the UK" clothing and consumers associate it with quality, but the items are lower quality, because the UK lost its garment manufacturing skills 50+ years ago. Meanwhile Asia has gained those skills, so if you buy clothes from China they are likely higher quality than you'd get here and cheaper.

This is not always the case, Italy still makes high quality leather goods, Portugal is still making good shirts and trousers etc, but for the most part as economies have moved away from manufacturing into services they have lost the skills and to force manufacturing to happen there means accepting higher priced, lower quality products.

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

#236

Post by photonios »

jbverschoor wrote: post #223

The whole table doesn't make sense. We (NL/EU) don't charge the US 39% to import . Apparently orange guy (not the Dutch) doesn't understand VAT rates. Car? max 4.5 + 21% VAT = 25%. But it simply doesn't matter bc we don't want their cars.. Except for thee Dodge RAM, which can be converted to a tax efficient company car (crazy).. What amazes me even more is that Elon doesn't seems to understand it either.

> Except for thee Dodge RAM, which can be converted to a tax efficient company car (crazy)

You can no longer do that since 1st of Jan 2025. The BPM discount for company cars was removed.

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

#237

Post by femto »

nullhole wrote: post #159
mcoliver wrote: post #92

Here's a csv and google sheet of the data. Turns out they aren't tariffs countries charge us. They are trade imbalance percentages. Unreal: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xK0OQ5VGl8JHmDSIgbXh... https://gist.github.com/mcoliver/69fe48d03c12388e29cc0cd87eb...

The bit I love is that countries with which the US has a trade surplus aren't getting the opposite of a tariff (a grant, I guess) on their imports to the US, they aren't getting zero tariffs on their imports to the US, they're getting 10% tariffs.

Heard Island and McDonald Islands, two Australian territories inhabited only by penguins, get singled out for a 10% tariff.

Norfolk Island, an Australian community of 3000 with no exports to the US, gets its own 29% tariff. They're expecting a tourism boost from the publicity.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/donald-trump...

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

#238

Post by darawk »

ggm wrote: post #87

I think a lot of people assume the economic consequences like these have not been understood by the WH. Although I don't like this administration I beg to differ: they know what's going to happen, and they expect the coming storm because they seek what follows. They want to repudiate foreign held debt, or devalue it, by revaluation of the USD and they will wear what they think of as a one time economic shock to get t…

This is a good take, but I think I can answer your question about the midterms. This is timed specifically for them. The drop we're seeing in markets right now isn't a pricing in of the tariffs, per se (at least, not yet), it's a pricing in of policy uncertainty that is going to lead to a near-term drop in investment.

However, because they are doing it so early, they will have time to recalibrate and bake in exemptions until the market / inflation is happy. Up to and including backing off of the policy entirely, if that ends up being necessary. As a political strategy, it is perfectly timed to allow Trump to "save the economy" from his own policies. This is true imo independently of what you may think about the policy as policy.

When it comes to the policy as such, recipirocal tariffs, conceptually, are designed to incentivize the overall global reduction in tariffs. So, as a headline, implementing "reciprocal tariffs" is actually favorable to free trade. However, there are some important details that they have fucked up, such as identifying tariffs with trade deficits in general, and in particular identifying them with trade deficits in goods only. That is really the component of the policy that doesn't make sense, and it is important.

Most likely, they will recalibrate and/or provide a lot of exemptions, particularly as the midterms approach. As a political tactic, I think it will work out fairly well, if they respond to the feedback appropriately - that's the big question though, and that uncertainty is the most significant reason for the market drop.

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

#239

Post by Havoc »

ggm wrote: post #87

I think a lot of people assume the economic consequences like these have not been understood by the WH. Although I don't like this administration I beg to differ: they know what's going to happen, and they expect the coming storm because they seek what follows. They want to repudiate foreign held debt, or devalue it, by revaluation of the USD and they will wear what they think of as a one time economic shock to get t…

Given everything recent I’d say competence in the WH is a stretch

The prez is literally holding up placards where half the numbers on it are mislabelled and they rest of the numbers are that mislabelled/misunderstood number divided by half

That sounds like garden variety incompetence to me not 5D chess

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

#240

Post by [deleted] »

Larrikin wrote: post #108

There's a lot of speculation that the Switch 2 would be atleast hundred dollars less without this nonsense. The Japan exclusive version of the Switch 2 seems to support this, with it's restrictions that insulate Japan, support the notion that English actually isn't needed in Japan (nor any other languages), by releasing a version of the Switch 2 that is far cheaper but only allows you to play games in Japanese.

[deleted]
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