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

kielinstitut.de

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

#321

Post by greenavocado »

estearum wrote: post #193
ifwinterco wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tariffs could make sense economically, but even in that case, they would "hurt consumers", because that's the whole point - address the imbalance between consumption and production currently being made to add up with constantly increasing debt. If you were going to do that though, it would be more like a 10-20% blanket tariff on all goods. No exceptions, no special deals, and you can't use tariffs as a negotiating to…

Or you can use tariffs in a highly targeted way to try defend certain domestic industries from foreign competition. But as is common with this administration, they're doing everything in the dumbest and least productive way possible.

You misunderstand. Tariffs have always been in place like this. They are just expanded now. Enacted in 1988 via the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act, the HTS replaced the older Tariff Schedules of the United States and took effect January 1, 1989. It aligns with the World Customs Organization's HS, adopted globally by over 200 countries. https://hts.usitc.gov/

You can see the archive going to "2015 and older" here https://hts.usitc.gov/download/archive

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

#322

Post by pjc50 »

throw101010 wrote: post #62
wanderinghogan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect tens of millions of Americans believe whatever they are told by their trusted "news" source. My only basis is anecdotal though, a dozen or so "maga/trump no matter what" family members and people I grew up with are mostly believing the tariffs are something other countries are paying the US.

FOX News, after their scandal with Dominion, should have been broken down or even shutdown. They deliberately disinformed the public, there is blatant evidence that the news anchors were aware that they were lying. Not just bending facts a little or opining, but knowingly and purposefully lying. The pretext of freedom of expression, and more narrowly freedom of press should not *continue* to apply to businesses/indiv…

People love being lied to like that, though.

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

#323

Post by lovlar »

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…

One of the main reasons we end up with populist leaders who make decisions not in the interest of their population, but in service of their own pursuit of power, is social media and the attention economy.

If people stopped spending hours each day scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook feeds, media incentives would change. Journalism would become more thorough and responsible, rather than optimized for outrage and clicks. People’s attention spans would recover, making them more capable of listening to opposing views and engaging in meaningful discussion. The overall quality of public debate would improve, and political leaders would be chosen based on objective, long-term policies rather than emotional manipulation.

The reinforcement-learning algorithms that drive these feeds are fundamentally unnatural. They represent a massive, uncontrolled social experiment on humanity—one that is far too powerful for our psychological reward systems to handle.

What needs to happen is education. Education on how the attention economy works. People must learn to resist becoming social media junkies, because every hour surrendered to these platforms reinforces the very systems that distort public discourse. When we lose control over our attention, we don’t just harm ourselves—we actively worsen the societal conditions that enable manipulation, polarization, and poor political leadership.

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

#325

Post by brightball »

BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #121
PaulRobinson wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

I don’t usually bother reacting strongly to anything on HN but that is a complete fabrication.

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

#326

Post by sethev »

eudamoniac wrote: post #156
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…

Like you observed, no one with a grasp of economics thought exporters would absorb the cost of these tariffs. That includes myself, a person who supports tariffs. I don't think it should be necessary to explain why tariffs might be desirable, because they were not invented by idiots, but I will explain briefly. Tariffs make foreign imports more expensive. This dissuades people from buying them. Some of those people w…

It's one thing to vote in support of politicians who want to use tariffs to reduce imports / increase the price of goods to support US manufacturing. It's quite another to vote for a politician who wields tariffs in inconsistent and arbitrary ways and claims that it won't increase prices.

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

#327

Post by jbm »

greenavocado wrote: post #290
rich_sasha wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a bit of a mystery to me TBH. Not that Americans are paying it, but where's the cash? The headline suggests it was all passed into consumers. So why is inflation still so low? If you add 10-30% to prices (granted, of imports, not of houses, domestic food etc), you'd expect more. If companies were eating it (which apparently they aren't) then their profitability should be down. But that doesn't seem to be t…

Chinese exporters and the Beijing government absorb most US tariffs rather than passing them fully to American consumers. Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick: “The model is clear: 10% tariffs or less are paid by the manufacturers, the distributors, the businesses,” he said. “The consumer doesn’t pay. The consumer doesn’t pay because the seller doesn’t want to raise prices, because if they could, they would, but they d…

The article we are commenting on literally says 96% is paid for by Americans. Do you have a reason to accept Lutnick's position?

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

#328

Post by LtWorf »

MisterTea wrote: post #233
BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I know women in NYC who voted Trump because they believed Harris was not tough enough to handle the geopolitical stage. I know Puerto Ricans and Dominicans who voted Trump because they believe they are being replaced by a wave of new immigrants who will vote Democrat. My friends, an interracial couple who voted democrat, voted Trump because the schools were going to give their kids hormone pills without their consent…

I don't understand why you're downvoted. People vote against their interest all the time. Which is why the 1% even exists.

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

#329

Post by PurpleRamen »

igogq425 wrote: post #208
benj111 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Brit who studied history, the parallels to 1930s Germany are too strong for comfort. So I would suggest reading up on that for some answers. Although as the comparison hopefully makes clear, you worrying about tariffs is missing the point, it's more a question of basic democracy at this point. I'm also somewhat concerned about your (edit: as in the USs) new found lust for Lebensraum, because again, that went wel…

As a German, I am generally cautious about drawing hasty parallels with the Holocaust, but I must admit: now that you mention it, the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel probably began their work in the streets of the country in a similar way to ICE today. """ Sturmabteilung (SA) The SA was formed in 1921 as the paramilitary fighting organization of the NSDAP and protected party events. After 1933, under Ernst Röhm,…

> As a German, I am generally cautious about drawing hasty parallels with the Holocaust,

The drawings are not about the holocaust, but the fascism which has led to that point. The holocaust started nearly a decade after Hitler taking power. And I don't think anyone believes Trump or his puppet masters are seriously after an actual genocide; everything else and the victims they accept as "necessary" for their goals are the problem.

History can repeat itself, but never in the same cloths. Some details are always different.

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