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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

#241
post #152

[flagged]

https://x.com/yishan/status/1906592890845028405

This whole thread is gold. People just casually discussing why it is necessary for America to enslave the world AND it is beneficial for the world. The color revolutions were successful in other countries until the DeepState decided to bring that "social engineering technology" to home. Somehow people think they can contain such moral corruption just as plasma is contained using electromagnetic coils in fusion reactors.

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

#242
White collar jobs will be destroyed by AI/AGI. But the US workforce consists of a large portion of white collar workers.

To replace the coming destruction of white collar jobs, manufacturing and industry jobs must be brought back, along with new resource collection initiatives (e.g. mining). They will be needed anyhow to build robots, drones, and other machines to compete with China and India, technologically and militarily.

Globalization will be effectively dead, remaining trust in the petrodollar will be destroyed, therefore so will Pax Americana. Expect more wars.

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

#243
Maybe if the US would clean up their production to what people actually want to buy it would help.

EU does not just randomly target US products. No EU company would be allowed to sell food with the same processes (GMO, prohibited additives, medication traces, ...)

The US is just running into these restrictions more than others because of their (lack of) health and safety standards being at odds with other markets.

So, if the tarrifs lead to the world actually being able to buy something produced in the US with the dollars they were forced to accept, something real besides war equipment and (stale) IP bits, the problem would sort itself.

At least the EU has discovered 'sovereignty', after ignoring it to the hilt for the last 55 years. Ringing up the concept even a year ago was at best met with a shrug and more often with a 'conspiracy theory' label. Sadly I don't even think they mean it, but I would be pleasantly surprised.

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

#244

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 don't know that I agree with this. The US is too large a market to ignore, and this is effectively raising the profit margin for local production. Foreign companies will either move some portion of manufacturing to the US (for the domestic market), or cede the market completely, and I don't know that they're prepared to do that (well, maybe Chinese ones are). Factories have a long lead time, so even if this is abolished at the end of his term, they'll be locked in with sunk capital costs. The main reasons not to do this are a) abandoning the market, as mentioned, or b) you think you can hold out long enough until the political landscape changes.

If the people aren't there, wages will rise until they show up. Most labor shortages aren't an actual shortage of labor, unless you genuinely can't produce that skillset domestically, or your labor market is so tight that no one is unemployed; rather, they're a shortage of wages. Pay enough, and someone will do the job. This is especially true for low-skilled work. There is not, and never will be, a shortage of cleaners, for example, because anyone can do it, so as long as there are unemployed people and the wages are good enough, someone will do the work.

And even if these jobs aren't in running these factories, they've still got to be built. Money is a powerful motivator, so I have no doubt they will. Companies will bleed because of this, but there are clear benefits for the US working class even if they're paying more. The gamble is obviously that the benefits outweigh the negatives of higher prices overall. Modern economics says no, but modern economics also believes in service-based economies, and that countries should only produce what they're good at, which, eventually, becomes a repudiation of the nation state. No country wants to buy bullets from an enemy, even if they're cheaper, and the web of infrastructure and industry necessary to maintain a defense industry mandates that at some point, you abandon the theory. Which is to say: I don't know, but I'm also skeptical that economists do.

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

#245
post #175

for starters, countries will sell to the UK , which will resell to the US at the lowest tarriff rate. Great for the UK, but stupid. I try to sympathize with trump's deglobalization agenda but it is probably exactly what it seems to be : a colossal stupidity.

Just shipping goods through the UK does not make them UK-origin. They have to have a "substantial transformation".

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

#246
post #22

Inheriting a strong economy beating all expectations that was just about to end its fight with inflation and burning it all away in a pump and dump crypto scheme fashion, while doing nothing (or even working to expand) unprecedented wealth inequality. Good luck, going to need it. The world reserve currency status is faltering, and so will the benefits it allowed US economy.

The US economy was not strong in 2024. Cost of living was literally the most important election issue, and it is what decided the election undoubtedly.

It's partially because elites said 'the economy is great! look at my stocks!' while consumer goods had increased in price by 100% or more in only 4 years.

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

#247
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…

> What amazes me is the timing: the midterms will hit while the bottom is still chugging along.

I think Trump is getting unpopular actions out of the way quickly, perhaps planning to announce an income tax reduction later to save the midterm elections.

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

#248
If we could manage the country using HN experts, we'd be incredibly prosperous. People here know so much more than the actual professionals in the government.

Only a few people pointed out the obvious. Trump aims to bring everyone to table to renegotiate global commerce. Every country's economic strategy today is to have positive trade with the US and that is unsustainable.

A risky tactic, but refreshing after decades of the old tired policies that brought us the collapse of parts of US manufacturing and so much pain during COVID due to a complete dependence on foreign suppliers for... Well, everything.

I don't know if this will work. But I know what we had before wasn't working. We'll see.

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

#249
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…

The weighted average of the new U.S. tariffs will be 29% it seems. Maybe they know the consequences, but to give you a idea... it was 1.5% before. The new ones will be equivalent to Brazilian tariffs in 1989 before opening the economy (31%, data from World Bank). Now, Brazilian tariffs, which have one if the most closed economies, by weighted average, is 7%. China, have 2.2%. The United States will be an autarchy, si…

>The United States will be an autarchy, similar to how LaTam was in the 70's, when tried this exact idea. The tariffs being as high instantly, will impact the economy, later, the country will probably grow, which is what they expect, but this is not a productive grow. Because your new factories now are not competing with external products, so your productivity go down, this means real income will also go down.

If what you say is true, tarrifs should not exist in any country. And yet, most countries are using tarrifs.

What if a particular country is using dumping and sell at prices so low, it will kill a particular industry? And after they kill it, they start jacking prices at unseen levels and you will have to pay because you don't have a choice?

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

#250
post #21

How did the value added tax (which is paid by all companies including domestic ones) become the same as import duty? The only way that you can make that tariffs charged to the USA is the level Trump claims (ie. 39% in the EU) is if you include VAT.

Not if you include trade barriers like the DMA, a law which is used to milk US technology companies through vague court rulings with arbitrary fines.

The EU is the undisputed king of vague laws that are applied principally to competitors with arbitrary fines.

How do you implement GDPR? Don't ask us, but if you violate it watch out!

How do you comply with DMA? Don't ask us, but if you violate it watch out!

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