Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 1001 posts

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

#311

Post by vkou »

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…

> Maybe by 2027?

Why on earth would you spend millions and billions of dollars on investing into a ROI-10-year factory, when a cheeseburger overdose or, heaven forbid, the Dems winning another election will take that investment and turn it straight into the toilet?

Not to mention that you'll be locked out of the world's markets, thanks to reciprocal tariffs.

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

#312

Post by testrun »

hayst4ck wrote: post #297

The golden prize for America's enemies is to remove the US dollar as a global reserve currency. Since trade is conducted largely in USD, that means other governments must purchase USD to trade. This is the core of trade deficits. Foreign countries buy US dollars so they can trade with other people. That guarantees the deficit since they give us something in exchange for USD, which they do not then spend on goods we m…

This is a decapitation strike (Timothy Snyder: Decapitation Strike -- https://archive.is/1xkxK) on America by our enemies.

This was done by Trump, nobody else.

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

#313

Post by CapricornNoble »

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…

> totally ignoring the fact that you betrayed your allies

The US is following the example of its mentor, the UK. Perfidious Albion allied with the Germans and Russians to fight the French (Napoleonic Wars), then allied with the French and Russians to fight the Germans (WW1 & WW2), then allied with the French and Germans to counter the Russians (Cold War). Great powers don't have permanent friends, nor do they have permanent enemies, they only have permanent interests. Europeans were simply naive[0], thinking they were the equals of the world's hyperpower for some reason, just because our post-WW2 dealings were executed with substantially more carrot than stick. It's just normalcy bias. Somehow Europe didn't think they would ever end up like the South Vietnamese, the Hmong, the Kurds (against Saddam, in 1991[1]), the Afghans, the Kurds again (against the Turks[2]), and now the Ukrainians. Some argue there is more than a bit of latent racism involved, not expecting the White People Countries to be abused by the Empire the same way Brown People Countries are.[3]

> If the US was a kid it wouldn't invite others over because it wants to eat the birthday cake alone.

This is why I often state that Woodrow Wilson is the worst President in American history. Besides shackling us with both the Federal Reserve Banking System and Federal Income Tax, he dragged us into Europe's internecine bloodshed and normalized that interventionism despite Americans largely being comfortable with sticking to our own hemisphere. In 1913, the US already had the world's largest GDP, with a GDP per capita roughly equal to Imperial Germany and about 75% of the UK's (assuming Copilot isn't lying to me on this data). Imports were only 4% of GDP compared to 15% in 2023. I think the wealthy elite who are siding with Trump are charting a plan to return the US to the same kind of domestically-focused economy, but we don't have the sort of natural resources nor human capital to ensure a decent quality of life on a short timeframe (or perhaps even a longer one) given the "shock treatment" that they are implementing.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh1zmDi0qN0

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Iraqi_uprisings#U.S._radi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Claw_(2019%E2%80%932...

[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/1/covering-ukraine...

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

#314

Post by blux »

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.

Seems he is using trade deficit percentages in his chart instead of tariff percentages ... :/

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

#315

Post by csantini »

hayst4ck wrote: post #297

The golden prize for America's enemies is to remove the US dollar as a global reserve currency. Since trade is conducted largely in USD, that means other governments must purchase USD to trade. This is the core of trade deficits. Foreign countries buy US dollars so they can trade with other people. That guarantees the deficit since they give us something in exchange for USD, which they do not then spend on goods we m…

It's typical Empire Hubris: thinking you can get away with anything because you are special.

Trump doesn't really know what he's doing. He surrounded himself with yes-men that know perfectly not to contradict him.

The global Dollar order was built to American advantage. Trump is dismantling it for no reason. If the dollar order crumbles, the US will discover it has much lower productivity.

There is no American exceptionalism: it's just Dollar exceptionalism. No Dollar, no exceptionalism.

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

#316

Post by banqjls »

brabel wrote: post #158
phillipseamore wrote: post #90

A blanket 10% minimum tariff is a great excuse for any local US manufacturing to increase their prices. I used to live in a country with heavy tariffs, every time tariffs were raised the local producers increased prices to be just below the imports. Even after the tariffs were abolished the prices (on local and imports) never really lowered in any significant way.

That always seems to happen with this sort of protections. It's like when the government tries to incentivize people to buy electric cars by paying 25% of it (example from the climate bonus in Sweden, which was given for years), but what happens is that buyers actually end up paying just maybe 5% less as the car companies now can increase their prices and still sell the cars they produce while making more money.

That this would happen is evident to everybody with a minimum knowledge of economics. It’s the same reason UBI won’t work because it would make prices skyrocket.

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

#317

Post by ianpurton »

jameslk wrote: post #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 mil…

In your scenario white collar jobs will be destroyed globally.

So effectively you would be paying people to work in manufacturing even though it's no longer necessary.

You may as well pay a basic income instead.

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

#318

Post by anoncow »

hayst4ck wrote: post #297

The golden prize for America's enemies is to remove the US dollar as a global reserve currency. Since trade is conducted largely in USD, that means other governments must purchase USD to trade. This is the core of trade deficits. Foreign countries buy US dollars so they can trade with other people. That guarantees the deficit since they give us something in exchange for USD, which they do not then spend on goods we m…

Time to learn Mandarin

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

#319

Post by stevenwoo »

wtcactus wrote: post #292

I have a doubt for some years about the US, but never really got good info on it (maybe because it’s a silly doubt). So, when I sell something to the USA (on eBay) for instance. It doesn’t pay VAT automatically. Do Americans pay VAT when it’s delivered? But, when an American buys something locally, they do pay VAT, correctly?

We used to not pay anything for stuff, for instance I bought items that were dropped shipped from China under a certain value but that has ended. https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-tariffs-trade-war-sto... Sales taxes are on a state by state basis and online companies are required to collect it from the buyer and forward/report it to the state. Local purchases all have sales tax paid to state governments, some to city in urban areas. Some food items are exempt. A state can choose to not have a sales tax but most do IIRC. There is no federal sales tax. Until these tariffs which are essentially taxes.
Post reply on HN