US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by basisword » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:10 AM UTC

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…

>> If that is the case in the US, I fully expect total chaos and mayhem when all the Temu / AliExpress/ Wish customers start receiving extra bills for their orders.

All three of those stores are very popular in my part of Europe. So there must be some workaround. Based on your edit I would guess that they would import a bunch of orders in one shipment to make the 'per shipment' charge small per item/order.

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

#422

Post by Tuna-Fish » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:11 AM UTC

coderenegade wrote: post #244

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…

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 abol…

No-one will move any manufacturing because people don't expect this to last long enough for it to make sense.

The congress can remove Trump's authority to determine tariffs at any point by declaring the crisis to be over. The Republicans have a knife-edge margin in the house and the most consistent two rules in American elections are that the party with the president loses some support in the midterms and that bad economic times means that the opposition party gains.

It would take years to move production, and next congress is 20 months away. There is no world in which this ends up good for the USA. Even if you believe that this is a situation where short-term pain leads to long-term gain, there is no way this will continue long enough for that gain to ever materialize.

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

#423

Post by DanielVZ » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:11 AM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #395

And here I thought brexit would keep the top spot as act of self harm

Yep. This is like brexit but ten times worse.

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

#424

Post by cmrdporcupine » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:15 AM UTC

forgotoldacc wrote: post #109

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…

This is precisely the problem. Plus, even assuming there existed lots of people to fill the gap, why would they sign up for manufacturing jobs? They pay like crap. Unions and worker rights have been gradually chipped away at for years and now they're straight up chainsawing them. Why work a monotonous job that pays at or just slightly above minimum wage, has skills that aren't really transferable should you decide to…

> Why work a monotonous job that pays at or just slightly above minimum wage,

If you torpedo the economy so people have no other sources of income, raise the price of all goods, and cut of all social supports and programs, people will have no choice but to take jobs they would have turned their noises up at before.

Draining the swamp is winning!

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

#425

Post by jgilias » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:17 AM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #415

The next phase is likely geopolitical. Countries will begin negotiating directly with the U.S. administration to secure exemptions or reductions in tariffs. In effect, it’s the formation of a new American sphere of influence / empire.

To me it seems like Americans are currently actively dismantling their sphere of influence.

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

#426

Post by dandanua » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:18 AM UTC

The US Administration is dead. America is occupied by creatures that simply want to destroy the current world order, sow chaos, and profit from that by means of power and utter hate and disrespect for ordinary people, who live from paycheck to paycheck. Keep advancing AI, so they wouldn't need to employ humans to kill other humans.

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

#427

Post by aetimmes » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:20 AM UTC

55555 wrote: post #277

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…

Optimistic to assume that the US will have voting in 3.5 years.

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

#428

Post by cbg0 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:21 AM UTC

Beijinger wrote: post #397

The EU probably does not have a trade surplus with the US, but rather a trade deficit. https://www-gmexconsulting-com.translate.goog/cms/de/dunkle-...

With regards to goods, the EU exports more than it imports from the US, but we do import more services from the US, which can likely be taxed in retaliation.

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

#429

Post by generalizations » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:21 AM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #114

Someone figured out that the new tariffs are just our trade deficit with that country divided by the country's exports. I think more and more we see lots of evidence they don't know what they're doing.

Does the exact percentage of the tariffs matter? I suspect it doesn't - these look like approximate numbers to obtain concessions, and a complex formula doesn't really help anything.

Far as I can tell, the ideal would have been to simply double incoming tariffs, but that would be infeasibly large. This was a way to generate a plausible smaller number that can be increased later on an individual basis depending on how the country responds.

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

#430

Post by rco8786 » Thu, Apr 03, 2025, 11:22 AM UTC

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.

Yes that will invariably happen, barring price controls.