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

631–640 of 1001 posts

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

#631

Post by ajmurmann »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #602
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…

I suspect that this $25/50 per item policy is to prevent people from claiming a lower value than the actual price of the item. I've received international packages marked "gift" with a value of $10 that I had paid much more for. I doubt the US will even manufacture substitutes for most of the things I liked and ordered from AliExpress. People with hobbies primarily supplied by Chinese manufacturing (like mine- electr…

I wonder how item will be defined. If I order a pack of 100 tiny magnets from AliExpress, is that $30 or $3000?

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

#632

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

lifeinthevoid wrote: post #475

So the US has been, more or less, the best place in the world to do business. Stocks historically soaring, yadda yadda yadda ... and somehow this guy sells the story that the US has been taking advantage of by all the other evil countries in the world. It does not, in any way, make sense. What a clown. A totalitorian clown unfortunately.

Would love to know what your country's tariffs are on the US.

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

#633

Post by jccalhoun »

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 recently listened to an episode of the Search Engine podcast where they showed how hard it is to manufacture something completely in the USA: https://www.searchengine.show/listen/search-engine-1/the-puz...

(Spoilers, the problem they had was that even when they found companies to manufacture their bbq scrubber, it was harder to find someone in the USA to make the parts that are used to make the parts.)

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

#634

Post by jiocrag »

rthomas6 wrote: post #613
TaurenHunter wrote: post #599

I don't see anyone mentioning that the United States needs to manage its massive national debt, currently in the trillions, by issuing Treasury securities. These securities mature at varying intervals and require continuous "rolling" or refinancing to pay off old debt with new borrowing. Significant rollovers are expected from April through September 2025, with additional short-term maturities due by June. Higher int…

The flaw I see is centered around this paragraph. > How can rates come down? The present uncertainty around tariffs and a potential crisis could create conditions that pressure interest rates downward before those Treasury securities mature, by influencing Federal Reserve policy. Rising prices due to tariffs won't pressure the Fed to lower interest rates. It will increase inflation and worries of inflation, which wil…

This is flat out wrong. The Fed raises and lowers interest rates to stimulate or tamp down demand. Raising interest rates because prices rise while demand drops due to a trade war would accomplish nothing.

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

#635

Post by motorest »

TaurenHunter wrote: post #599

I don't see anyone mentioning that the United States needs to manage its massive national debt, currently in the trillions, by issuing Treasury securities. These securities mature at varying intervals and require continuous "rolling" or refinancing to pay off old debt with new borrowing. Significant rollovers are expected from April through September 2025, with additional short-term maturities due by June. Higher int…

> I don't see anyone mentioning that the United States needs to manage its massive national debt, currently in the trillions, by issuing Treasury securities.

It's very hard to even assume that's a concern of the current US administration, based on not only the fundamentalist goal of radically cutting taxes and regulations, coupled with the fact that it's purposely pushing a recessive economic policy that defies any logic or reason.

The very least that you'd expect is a progressive tax policy that didn't excluded corporations and mega-rich. You're not seeing any of that.

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

#636

Post by mapt »

vitorgrs wrote: post #118
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…

The weighted average of the new U.S. tariffs will be 29% it seems. Maybe they know the consequences, but to give you a idea... it was 1.5% before. The new ones will be equivalent to Brazilian tariffs in 1989 before opening the economy (31%, data from World Bank). Now, Brazilian tariffs, which have one if the most closed economies, by weighted average, is 7%. China, have 2.2%. The United States will be an autarchy, si…

It's hard to imagine that there's a way they thought this through in several redundant dimensions.

I understand rationally that there was an economy before the US plunged the world into neoliberalist global free trade in order to build its trade empire, and there will probably be an economy after... but likely not a US trade empire.

But another thing is investment uncertainty. The mechanism by which protectionist tariffs are supposed to work functions over a timespan of a decade or two - foreign imported goods are made more expensive, and so when investors believe they're confident in future tariff conditions, they spend money on domestic factories to produce goods, which have a large setup cost and gradually pay back the difference relative to their good-importer competitors that are paying high tariffs.

If investors can't form a confident prediction on future tariff conditions, investors can't invest; The sheer uncertainty of having a lunatic making up random numbers for every country over lunch and then rolling them out at close of market is instead going to scare them off. Trump has gone back and forth over tariffs with Canada and Mexico over the past couple months, and this doesn't just demonstrate that tariffs can be set extraordinarily high for arbitrary reasons, but that they can be set back to zero for arbitrary reasons. Both of these transitions cause economic ruin for one investor or other; If it's going to happen every few months then nobody is going to build factories or launch import supplychains, at least not for competitive prices. The risk of going bankrupt tomorrow (or in four years when the next administration takes over and abruptly cancels every tariff) on what is basically a coinflip then gets priced into consumer goods for both producers and importers.

The most frustrating of Trump's projects are not just when he shreds your rights or shreds precedent or tries to topple the government, but when he looks favorably at a policy you think is a good idea (like having a manufacturing sector) and chooses to pursue it by running around with a flamethrower setting everything ablaze because on some lever somebody's taught him about the Broken Windows Fallacy wrong, as a joke, and he's upgraded it. During his administration, we circle the wagons and declare that the policy is a terrible idea. Post-Trump, the absolute ruin that the execution of that policy predictably brought will discredit it for the rest of your adult life.

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

#637

Post by belter »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #615
TaurenHunter wrote: post #599

I don't see anyone mentioning that the United States needs to manage its massive national debt, currently in the trillions, by issuing Treasury securities. These securities mature at varying intervals and require continuous "rolling" or refinancing to pay off old debt with new borrowing. Significant rollovers are expected from April through September 2025, with additional short-term maturities due by June. Higher int…

> What are the flaws in this thinking? -> Treasuries are considered safe during such crisis. Is that truly still the case? Does the world consider the US stable right now? I am astonished at how effectively the administration has blown up every pillar upholding the US economy, short, medium, and long term. The damage done here is incalculable. In all of human history never has so much wealth been destroyed so quickly…

> I am astonished at how effectively the administration has blown up every pillar upholding the US economy, short, medium, and long term.

They are only 73 days In....

"France’s Macron Urges EU Companies to Pause US Investments" - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-03/france-s-...

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

#638

Post by ncruces »

srj wrote: post #630
roxolotl wrote: post #479

Aside from everything else one thing what strikes me as particularly insane is how it’s not even defensible as a protective measure. My favorite everyday olive oil comes from Tunisia. They now have a 38% tariff on them. There are no out of work olive farmers in the US. The orange man wanted tariffs, the orange man is going to get tariffs. Now we have to hope the American people aren’t so dumb as to still be convinced…

>> There are no out of work olive farmers in the US. I'm not sure this is true. I buy olive oil specifically from California. It's niche but could be larger if they weren't competing with lower overseas labor costs.

[flagged]

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

#639

Post by kogus »

TaurenHunter wrote: post #599

I don't see anyone mentioning that the United States needs to manage its massive national debt, currently in the trillions, by issuing Treasury securities. These securities mature at varying intervals and require continuous "rolling" or refinancing to pay off old debt with new borrowing. Significant rollovers are expected from April through September 2025, with additional short-term maturities due by June. Higher int…

I agree with you. To just offer a counterpoint, I sometimes see quotes like this one:

  But plenty of economists looked at the economic hole left by the 2008 financial crisis,
  and concluded the stimulus policies on the table weren't nearly big enough to fill it.
  The size of the hole is all that matters.
  Whatever level of deficit spending is required to fill it is the right level of deficit spending.[1]
or this one:

  We need the government to be out there borrowing money because of the long-term investments it's making in our economy[2]
The line of reasoning seems to be

1) The government is special because it can go to extreme measures to repay loans if necessary (i.e., print more money or raise taxes)

2) The reliability of the government means that it can borrow at a low rate (say, 3%) and make investments that are worth far more than that (say, 10%).

Put those together, and the government's borrowing amounts to a net benefit to society.

This argument reminds me of the 'then a miracle occurs' comic [3]. It doesn't hold water because

1) The extreme measures are very harmful - they cause high inflation and hardship amongst taxpayers.

2) Even if we accept that government investment makes a good return (a highly questionable assertion), that return does not go to the government. If the government borrows money to build a new road, then there is no doubt some economic benefit, but the government does not receive that benefit, and they are on the hook for the repayment anyway. So government spending does represent a pure cost - not an "investment". And in any case, interest payments represent investment that can no longer happen.

I would also point out that back when we ran briefly ran a surplus in the late 1990s, economists were not exclaiming about how terrible this was, or how paying off the debt represented a missed opportunity or a catastophe in the making. Everyone agreed at that time that surpluses were good, and that paying down the debt was good. The current "this is fine" thinking smacks of economists who have a predisposition to accept and justify the status quo, whether it is objectively good or not.

So all of that is to say that I'm with you - government debt is bad. We are in danger of some combination of insolvency, default, or very high inflation. And once we enter that spiral it will be impossible to get out of it without permanent damage to the economy and the global standing of the US (such as it is).

[1] https://theweek.com/articles/618419/why-americas-gigantic-na...

[2] https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/us-debt-econo...

[3] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Sidney+Harris+comic+miracle+occurs...

Post reply on HN