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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

#271

Post by altacc »

new_user_final wrote: post #211

My understandings reading some comments. 1. Prices will increase 2. US will need to manufacture things and they will need a lots of workers. There will be shortage of workers because factory pays minimal wages. 3. Factories will have to offer higher amount of salary that will increase price Ultimately prices increases for everything and working class will suffer more.

More likely that prices will go up and wages will stay the same.

Factories take a long time to build and businesses know that Trump is erratic and therefore have no idea how long these tariffs will be in place for. So opening a totally new and otherwise unneeded factory is a big risk. (Some companies have made recent announcements about opening factories in the US but largely these factories were planned to meet existing marker needs, just not yet decided where they would be.)

The price of a product will only go down when the majority of demand can be met by tariff free means. Until then a US company will sell a product at the same price as the imported, tariffed product because that's what they do. Same happened during the recent inflationary spike. Businesses put prices up more than their costs went up as they had an excuse.

Large businesses hate putting up wages and the level of desperation in the US is such that there is a large pool of people to fill low paying factory jobs. The post-pandemic wage increases were noticeable for the opposition to them and that was a very short 12-18 month spike, with wage growth now back to normal.

Yes, either way, the working class, indeed the median American, suffer.

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

#272

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#273

Post by taspeotis »

thiht wrote: post #220
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...

Funny how Russia is absent from the list

They’re sanctioned up the wazoo

> U.S. total goods trade with Russia were an estimated $3.5 billion in 2024.

Among European Union members:

> The total bilateral trade in goods reached €851 billion in 2023.

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

#274

Post by vv_ »

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…

> The US doesn't have the people to do the actual manufacturing

The core issue is that, historically, experienced workers have passed down their knowledge to new generations, ensuring a steady accumulation of expertise. However, when factories close and seasoned workers retire or move to other fields without training successors, a vast amount of valuable knowledge is lost. Rebuilding this expertise is both difficult and time-consuming. Subsidies will be required to support local production - initially yielding lower-quality or significantly more expensive goods - until the Western world relearns how to manufacture at scale.

Furthermore, if you want to build something, you likely won’t do it by hand. You’ll need machines to automate the process or enable complex material operations. Rebuilding this capability from scratch will take time, as existing manufacturers lack the necessary capacity. Additionally, similar equipment is produced much more cheaply in China, creating another challenge that must be addressed. What’s likely to happen is that Chinese manufacturers will establish companies in the United States that replicate their production facilities elsewhere (e.g. mainland China). They’ll ship in parts, and final assembly will take place in the U.S. This approach allows them to bypass trade restrictions while maintaining cost advantages. I already know of several cases where this is happening.

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

#275

Post by rich_sasha »

olejorgenb wrote: post #72

Can someone explain if there's any logic at all to counting a countrys VAT as part of its tariffs? In my home country VAT is ultimately charged the end-customer and this happens regardless of the origin of the goods. How can this be a seen as a tariff? Besides, isn't the "Use tax" most(?) American states have more or less equivalent in function?

Well, they are saying, EU market is harder to operate in (because everyone pays VAT) than the US market (no VAT, also lower regulatory barriers it seems), and also EU firms have a "home advantage" benefit, for example the regulation is written for their benefit.

So US is easy to sell in for everyone, EU is "hard" to sell in for everyone, but maybe less so for EU car makers. So there is something to this argument, it's not entirely without merit.

Additionally, US car tariff used to be 2.5%, whereas EUs is 10%. The imbalance is short in justification, though across the board, EU and US charge each other similar tariff amounts altogether, so there are other areas where the US charges more.

Whether that justifies broad brush enormous tariffs in everything, and whether US does the same in other industries (defence for example) is an exercise I leave for the trader.

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

#276

Post by ReptileMan »

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…

Personally I think that their bet is - it will hurt US, but it will devastate EU and hurt China more than US. EU is fragile economically and political instability will follow if its economy crashes. Especially if US pushes OPEC to jack up the prices.

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

#277

Post by 55555 »

Factories are not coming back to the USA in large number, for a lot of reasons, at least not until full automation + tariffs makes them economical. But the biggest reason is that what's going to happen is that the average joe is going to suffer a bit, then will vote against these policies in the next election, and that's only 3.5 years away. If it takes a year to build a factory -- and frankly these tariffs could be adjusted again or removed in a few months -- and then they're likely to be fully removed in 3.5 years, I'm just not sure it makes sense to invest in a factory.

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

#278

Post by deadbabe »

TrackerFF wrote: post #62

From what I understand, de minimis exemption has also been removed. That is a huge, huge deal. It effectively means that all goods imported from China will be slapped with a 30% import tax, as soon as said goods arrive the US border / customs. Usually what happens then, is that the courier will pay that tax, and then bill the recipient later on - as well as charge some fee/fees for the work done. This is why in some…

Many of extra bills are absolutely not going to get paid.

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

#279

Post by drivebyhooting »

atoav wrote: post #198

I guess we Europeans have to get our stuff from elsewhere than a nation hostile to the world with an insane unpredictable leader. China may also be authoritarian, but at least they are stable. The coolest thing to read are american takes that are like "hey this might be benefiting us for that obscure reason", totally ignoring the fact that you betrayed your allies. Land of fhe free my ass. The only ideology the US ha…

You might enjoy your Chinese overlords more then. Time will tell.

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

#280

Post by intermerda »

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…

Well they can always go back to child labor like Florida is planning to - https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/25/business/florida-child-labor-...
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