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Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

nytimes.com

61–70 of 220 posts

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#61
post #10

How is it retaliation to destroy your own economy by making the same bad life choices? Isn't actual retaliation to just ignore the entire thing and thank the US for the extra percentage points in advantage you got for free?

If you assume the US tariffs are unchangeable then you would be right but the hope of retaliatory tariffs is that they will get the US to update it's tariffs in response to the economic harm caused. It will also harm China of course but I would imagine they hope the harm caused to the US will reduce the tariffs and leave China better off in the long run. This is not totally unreasonable, the US is ostensibly more sen…

I asked the google and it appears a big chunk of Chinese imports are agricultural products. Farmers not having a market to sell their products into isn't such a good thing for any administration so they seem to have a bunch of leverage on this point alone.

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will suck on both sides, but the majority of American households can weather a $2-4k blow over the next year as supply chains react. Congress stepping in to exclude Canada and Mexico and the NAFTA exemption cushions the blow significantly. Most of Latin America being placed at the lower end of the announcement means manufacturers who used to be competitive until China Shock set around 2014-16 can be cost competiti…

Half of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck, so no - the majority of households will not be able to survive for long if they have to spend an extra few thousand to stay where they are today. Those that can will be cutting spending, which will ripple across the rest of the economy. There's no sign that negotiation is even possible, never mind likely. One tell is that tariffs have been applied to the Heard and…

Mexican cartels just got handed the biggest payday of their wildest dreams. 30% profit on the entire global economy if only they can get it past the border.

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#64

I hate to say it: this might be the thing that actually screws his movement. Biden was uninspiring but ultimately did okay on a few things. The things that screwed him were inflation - some of which was Trump's fault - and his mental state, which can happen to anyone at that age. The inflation followed Harris in her run, as people were fondly remembering 2017-2019 and the era of lower prices. They thought putting Tru…

No doubt Lutnick and Bessent are taking crazy risks with their strategy. If they are to be believed, their plan is to have a recession at the begining of the term to get long term bond price lower and refinance the debt. By their own account, they outright said to Trump things aren't going to be good until 2028. So, I guess we have to prepare for a few years of crap. Let's hope it doesn't trigger a depression that wo…

What’s worrisome is, if they’re planning on things to suck until 2028, that is precisely when the next presidential election is supposed to happen. Suppose he feels like he must have 4 more years, to take credit for the V-shaped recovery, and not go out like a loser? Suppose he declines to step down?

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#65
post #4

No Hyper-economy, like China or the EU is going to stand about and take what seems like economic intimidation from the US. All the unaffiliated nations are going to be collateral damage in this clash of the economic titans. The best thing everyone can do is maintain low tariffs and try and strike free trade deals with each other. But the consequeces of Trumps Trade war are going to be disasterous for smaller developi…

Why does America get inflation and everyone else gets deflation in your view?

Things will cost more in the US than elsewhere assuming we (abroad) don't also attack ourselves.

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Chinese don’t have proper elections so there, I don't know. But you can be sure that in the USA, this will all stop in 2 years with the midterms, and be reversed in 4 with the presidential elections. No one other than Trump’s fan base likes this even now, imagine in a few months when people start feeling the terrible repercussions.

I am not part of Trump's fan base, and I am in favor of taking action to reverse decades of negative trends I've seen happening as a result of American corporations selling their souls to the highest outside bidders. It's going to be short term pain for long term gain.

Tariffs are not a magic button for "short term pain, long term gain". The way they're being implemented is more like "short term pain, long term pain".

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#67
post #50

I'm kinda happy about this. Our farmers in Utah lobby so hard for water, then use it to grow alfalfa which they sell to China because they can sell it there for more money than it can be sold locally. It boils my circuits that they ask for our precious water -- to which they have historically had an obvious right, growing our food -- and then basically ship it overseas. Keep the crops at least sold in the US, and hop…

> they can sell it there for more money than it can be sold locally So, just to be clear here: you want Utah farmers to foot the bill for the trade war? If they are forced to sell locally for less, they're the ones losing money. Utahns end up poorer in this scenario. Obviously in a trade war, everyone ends up poorer. It's just simple math. It's absolutely dumbfounding the extent to which people have simply decided to…

I don't think it was OPs point. OP's point is that agricultural exporters in Utah profits on externalizations (aquifer depletion), which impoverishes everybody depending on that aquifer.

When you come to the realization that you can't drink money, this comes as good news.

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the majority of households will not be able to survive for long if they have to spend an extra few thousand to stay where they are today. The median American household has an income of around $78,000 [0]. They can survive the blowback. The Trump admin on the other hand will not. As a Sullivan, Raimondo, and IRA supporting Dem, it's a win-win for me. Harsher policies against China have been enacted which will not be…

The whole trump thing went from prospects of economic boom to "the median household is enough wealthy to tolerate the price increase" really, really quick

It was both. Musk said there would be pain for the short term. Trump promised the long game.

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#69
post #4

No Hyper-economy, like China or the EU is going to stand about and take what seems like economic intimidation from the US. All the unaffiliated nations are going to be collateral damage in this clash of the economic titans. The best thing everyone can do is maintain low tariffs and try and strike free trade deals with each other. But the consequeces of Trumps Trade war are going to be disasterous for smaller developi…

And billionaires are still going to be rich. I hope one day USA wakes up and realize the solution is wealth tax to these billionaires

Like what Norway did? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/10/super-rich-aba...

Re: Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates with 34% Tariffs

#70
post #2

Many American tech leaders helped usher in a Trump presidency in the belief that he could be their strongman protecting them from meddling foreign governments: No more EU levying fines or China making demands, they thought, or else Donald would target them with punitive tariffs! They had the mob boss on their side and this was their time to trample the world. Zuckerberg explicitly stated this in his Rogan interview.…

It seems there’s a lot of money to be made if you are willing to navigate eu business rules to build European copies of American technology companies. Like I have thought about starting a European based, European values cloud data science platform. There’s a lot of people who would simply want to move away from azure, Google, etc. even though Europe can sometimes be draconian and highly segmented.
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