American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by 3D30497420 » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

giardini wrote: post #251

BFD. The reason for tariffs is NOT to reduce prices but to bring production (jobs, capacity) home. (Don't take some British newspapers' word for it - most of them are extremely anti-Trump - and they're really, really good at tabloid journalism. Our economy remains robust (down jackets moving like mad in Minneapolis) and the number of native-born Americans and legal aliens working is higher than ever. Illegal aliens a…

A few notes:

> The reason for tariffs is NOT to reduce prices but to bring production (jobs, capacity) home.

Tariffs can be used for many purposes. I would say this is administration is clearly not using them to bring jobs home. Earlier tariffs were lowered/dropped when trade deals were signed, and the current ones are clearly a way to strong arm Europe to giving up its territory.

> Unemployment rate has decreased to 4.4%.

Decreased from where...? Not including the pandemic, 4.4% is the highest rate in almost a decade. Unemployment is clearly rising: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une...

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

#352

Post by SauntSolaire » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

carefulfungi wrote: post #219

SauntSolaire wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood part of the point of the tariffs as encouraging on-shore production of some items by increasing the price of their imported counterparts. Such protectionist practices were used by China to bootstrap their own automobile industry, before they became competitive in the global market. Of course, China had surplus capacity of untapped cheap labor, which America does not. Barring an evolution in automated man…

I don’t think the evidence supports this. This was the marketing of tarifs. But the reality is rates have been changed rapidly, added, dropped - this is just leverage Trump is using to exert his will. Whether it is Greenland, defense spending by NATO, whims of narcissism, or kickback deal making (like NVIDIA or Intel). There is little evidence this policy is designed to increase US manufacturing.

I agree in the case of the US, which I chalk up partially to investors knowing the US tariffs are both arbitrary and transitory. Even if the Trump administration were consistent, there's the possibility that the next president will undo them and corporations need more than a four-year guarantee before making investments.

I'm mostly responding to the position that tariffs have no place in economic policy, when we've seen them used successfully in other countries. Should Congress pass a bill legislating tariffs, then I could see them having more of the desired effect, though as I said I'd still be pessimistic without broader changes.

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

#353

Post by bad_haircut72 » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #231

mothballed wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harris was shitcanned post haste when she actually primaried, so the party already knew she was non-viable. She got put in as VP as the best token non-white woman from a large population state they could shove in there and then Democrats got caught with their pants down because they hid Biden's physical state past the point they could have an actual primary to vet the proper candidate. The fact Biden said he wouldn't…

A third-party vote is a vote for Trump.

This kind of purity test is why the left cant win right now. Anyone who does a wrong-think is shitcanned and othered.

Im gonna put a theory out that I havent seen here yet, a lot of people voted for Trump because they got dunked on by leftist Twitter, told they were racist/fascist/whatever for having an opinion like "communism is bad", and now comes a guy who wont back down and who legit makes them cry liberal tears. Ever been pissed off at someone with no recourse? Of course they want that kind of satisfaction.

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

#354

Post by tt24 » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #101

jcims wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been this phrase 'passing costs off to the consumer' that I've heard since I was a kid, used as some kind of indictment against companies raising prices when their costs go up. Even as a kid I was confused. Where else is the money going to come from?

Profits, bonuses, and dividends. Which would be a nice balance to the way productivity has rocketed since the late 70s, and has mostly flowed to the top 1%. Ultimately - and predictably - wealth hoarding becomes economic self-harm. You need distributed prosperity if you want diverse growth and economic and social stability.

Productivity has tracked wages pretty well. The graphs you’re referring to compare median wages to mean productivity, which is of course nonsense.

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

#355

Post by gordonhart » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

_diyar wrote: post #169

threethirtytwo wrote: post #118

Well the purpose of the tariff is to control US Americans to rely less on foreign goods. So of course to control something you would enact policies that affect the thing you’re trying to control. If the importer took on most of the burden that would defeat the purpose of the tariff.

The report states that US customs revenue surged by $200Bn (of which the US consumer pays 96%). That does not breath confidence into the idea of lower reliance on foreign goods.

Your conclusion is a non sequitur. Of course Customs revenue boomed, that’s what tariffs do. To assess impact on the country’s reliance on foreign goods you’d need to see how the volume of foreign imports changed over time.

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

#356

Post by rjrjrjrj » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

nathan_compton wrote: post #189

rjrjrjrj wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so much compete as being protected from having to compete.

Talking about competition between places with good labor standards and environmental regulation and places without those things is bullshit. I would be 100% pro free trade between nations with identical labor rights and environmental protections, but that really isn't what free trade is about, is it?

The EU and Canada have better labor standards and environmental regulation than the US.

Perhaps the US should charge them negative tariffs until it gets up to snuff.

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

#357

Post by kcolford » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #236

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…

to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. No, it is surprising, as noted in the article, because basic economics suggests that suppliers will adjust pricing, and eat some of the tariff to keep their products competitive. Page 5: This finding was initially surprising to some observers. Standard economic models suggest that the incidence of a tariff depends on the re…

that assumes that external suppliers were not already at their cheapest price point and that they were not competing with each other already

it also assumes that there are no other alternative markets to sell to or that supplier capacity is equally elastic; the US might be a high margin market to sell to, but if you only have a fixed amount of product to sell then it makes no sense to eat the high cost of a tariff to keep selling a low margin product when you can instead sell your product at a medium margin in europe

building out more supply for a product is often capital intensive if you want to make it at an economically efficient price point in these times; efficiencies of scale are hard to overcome and a rapid shift of economic policies makes anyone uncertain about future investment so it takes a very long time for these supply chains to rebalance, if they ever do

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

#358

Post by cael450 » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

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 have spent my whole life intimately involved with southern Republicans. They will never ever not vote Republican, let alone vote Democrat. It is an identity marker. It doesn’t even really matter what the policies are. They’ll complain for a while, but they will always internalize a Republican policy shift no matter what it is. They used to treat “free market economics” as a religion just 10 years ago. Secondarily, they love to define their identity as opposition to the northeast (a stereotypical fictional version of northeast). Democrats and “coastal elites” are the same to them. Once they elected a black man, they all got more racist. They nominated a woman, then they got more sexist. They campaigned on social programs, fuck the poor (even if they are poor). And there is a cognitive dissonance between their beliefs and their experience. They’ll say “deport them all” but be personal friends with immigrants from church. They simply don’t connect their political beliefs to their reality. I’m a southerner and I don’t see a future for this country. I used to think if they felt enough pain, then they would take politics seriously, but then a whole bunch of them died of COVID and it changed nothing. If I was a non-American, I’d be telling my government to do what they can to remove all dependence on this country as possible because it won’t get better.

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

#359

Post by bilbo0s » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

BanAntiVaxxers wrote: post #260

nathan_compton wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be perceived as pandering bullshit from either of them. What the democrats need is an aggressive economic policy that actually will manifestly improve regular people's lives. If they cannot articulate such a thing and credibly convince the voter that they will fucking fight for it, they will never win.

She can articulate the policy at the shooting range while eating some grits. And drinking some Keystone Light. That is when they will be receptive to the ideas.

That won't do anything.

No one at a gun range is changing their vote.

Both parties already know which voters change their votes depending on the situation. The data's already told strategists in both parties that the hotspots are, generally speaking, a few counties in a few states in the midwest, Pennsylvania, and more and more Arizona. So they don't really need to do more than pay lip service to any others. Because the data's already told them that the others won't change their votes in any case.

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

#360

Post by throwaway_aiai » Mon, Jan 19, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

lovlar wrote: post #323

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 outr…

Why did you feel the need to use an LLM to compose this comment?