641–650 of 931 posts
The 145% tariff is so absurd I wouldn't be surprised to see cheap chips glued to the item to exploit the exceptions. "Oh yeah, that's not a shoe: it's the protective case for an ESP32 WiFi router".
Perhaps one could say they are "Smart shoes": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DonAdams.jpg
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Even universal tariffs with no exceptions is a problem. Many things cross US/Canada/Mexico border in the process being manufactured. And tariffs will stack up. Many advanced products (tech/chip, etc) are not entirely made in any single place. Some stuff is imported, and some is exported again, and tariffing the world, will also make the world tariff you. I think this is all around bad. Best case scenario the US has e…
> Can EU countries buy US military equipment, when it turns out that the US will withhold support for equipment we've bought and paid for, in order to pressure a democracy, fighting for its existence, into surrender. Why would anyone buy US military equipment that's either "10%" handicapped on purpose, or remotely disabled whenever the US changes its feelings about the users of said military equipment?
There are valid reasons for tariffs: * https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/when-are-tariffs-good Especially when it comes to certain areas of the economy: > Democratic countries’ economies are mainly set up as free market economies with redistribution, because this is what maximizes living standards in peacetime. In a free market economy, if a foreign country wants to sell you cheap cars, you let them do it, and you alloca…
Except tarrifs rarely help any of that: there's already extensive regulations in place to require local sourcing for defence critical components, all the way down the supply chain. And tarriffing imports doesn't make a difference in the case of something like shipbuilding where the real problem is the government hasn't got a consistent order-book to keep factories staffed, operating and training - nor a plan to allow…
This is too limited in thinking. It's not just about "defence critical components", but the know-how and having the production workflow knowledge. It's all well and good to have rules on what goes into frigate, but if you don't have the shipyards to build things then it's a bit of a moot point:
* https://www.csis.org/analysis/ship-wars-confronting-chinas-d...
> You don't get a defence manufacturing industry without actually paying for a defence manufacturing industry.
It's not just about industry but about capacity as well: if you have (in this example) only (say) 4 shipyards you're going to have a tough time beating someone who has 40.
Why is no one highlighting how this is repeating history 8 years ago? I don’t get it, there’s this magical reporting gap where all of this is new strategy but it’s the exact same strategy. Why don’t we acknowledge this instead of searching for some new angle? Here are a bunch of links from 2018/2019: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/13/apple-dodges-iphone-tariff-a... https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/investing/t052-s00…
For the first two years of his first term, in 2017-18, his instincts were largely kept in check by his economic adviser Gary Cohn, a former chief operating officer at Goldman Sachs, who dampened Trump’s determination to use tariffs to end trade deficits.“
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/12/did-trump-tari...
I listened the book "Lucky Loser" (Craig/Buettner) a few months back. It's a well-researched timeline of how the Trump fortune was made, and to be really kind, how monumentally terrible DJT is at business on a fundamental level. The shady deals and repulsive ethics are not exceptions but the status quo. The only reason he's in the situation he's in is because the guy who created Survivor saw an opportunity. Now the w…
> I'd say that I don't understand how anyone can be charmed by this con artist, but the truth is that I have simply lost a ton of faith in the "average" person.
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Unlikely. The exclusions above are for reciprocal tariffs from all countries, i.e. China 0% reciprocal + 20% (fentanyl) + 2018-2024 rates non-China 0% reciprocal
Reciprocal is inaccurate, you should stop using that term - this label was chosen to obfuscate what is going on and confuse those who don't know better.
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Do you really believe in the comparative advantage argument though? Surely it’s only true if comparative advantage is fixed over time. And surely in order to leverage comparative advantage, an economy would need to know how good they would be at producing every possible good. There are good reasons to trade, but comparative advantage doesn’t feel like the correct theoretical underpinning to me.
IMO your logic is all wrong. Comparative Advantage ist just applied "opportunity cost" of time. Humans and resources are unique, everyone has their theoretically "optimal" use of time in terms of economic output. The invisible hand of the market will let you know what aspect of your output is most valuable for others. The benefit of this invisible hand is that the "economy" as a whole does not need to know how good t…
We don't have pure free market economies. Neither in China nor in the USA nor anywhere else. The see big monopolistic companies dominating most markets. We see an closer interlink between state and private corporations.
Even just with the currency manipulation that China engages in, things get screwed a lot. Or the special status the US has with the dollar. Real world is more complicated.
But even if we assume free markets, you misunderstood what the previous poster said. The problem with Ricardo's comparative advantages is that is assumes fixed advantages. It is like optimizing for a local optimum. You might be super inefficient in producing X because you have never done it but if you actually invested in learning how to produce X you might discover that you are really good at it and the comparative advantages would go in your favor.
I do still believe that trading with each others can lead to more net wealth in most cases and obviously full autarky is not realistic these days but like anything in economics, it shouldn't be taken as a dogma.
I’m not seeing anyone discuss this here, so I figured I’d raise an important point: this style of tariffs is crushing for US manufacturing. While a universal tariff with no exceptions incentivizes domestic manufacturing, a selective tariff with specific industry exceptions is absolute poison. You might think, as the authors of this exemption did, “well then we will exempt computer parts.” Then people will simply impo…
Universal tariffs with no exception don't even incentivize domestic manufacturing when it cuts local manufacturers off from an outside market that's bigger than the domestic one. My company manufactures equipment in North America, with the most expensive input coming domestically from Ohio. Guess what though? Retaliatory tariffs from the global community means that the most rational course of action is now to move th…
That is generally not possible. All EU countries share a common trade policy. Another country can either be in a trade war with the entire EU or with none of the EU.
According to the Wikipedia [0], The EU member states delegate authority to the European Commission to negotiate their external trade relations.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Commercial_Policy_(EU)
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"No problem"? It's not just that the prices are high; I can hardly get those guys to even answer the phone and give me a quote. I can get that board from China before I've gotten through to a local sales rep. Then when they do finally check their messages they want to fly out, meet me at my office, size up my operation and my budget, have a nice chat over dinner, and spend a few weeks pestering me with phone calls wi…
You are pretty confused about why this is. When the only market you ever had was high touch high cost low volume production then that is your default business model. The biggest issue is that Trump is pushing tariffs without first ramping up local manufacturing, the type of manufacturing you are looking for isn't _currently_ being catered for in the US. It may in the future depending on how things pan out, the bet Tr…
You know I tried to think positively about the United States; but darned if they don't keep doing negative things. Like appointing grossly incompetent people to head Federal departments. Like unlawfully and arbitrarily abducting people from the streets. Like extorting universities - ideally centres of free thought - over non-complying ideological positions. Like appearing to wreck the economy; but in ways that might just advantage himself and others in his circle. And the list goes on...
Some of us aren't "shifting with the times" because of an ethical line we won't cross. I grew up in the United States in the 1960's and had the constant drumbeat of "We're the world's melting pot," "We're the most benevolent spreader of democracy," "We're practically the only free country on the planet," "We are a country of laws." beat into us in public school. So it's a little jarring to see the wholesale abandonment of these values at the hands of someone who can barely string together a cogent sentence of more than, say, 4-5 non-repeating words and for whom "negotiating" means "win/lose", instead of "how can we meet our needs _and_ your needs, while creating more value in the process?"
Personally, I tried having a positive outlook; but saw this coming and left the U.S. just ahead of Trump 1.0.
This rant aside, it's incredibly wishful thinking to assume that one can undo in weeks or months, the complex web of international trade that has developed over decades because of the much-vaunted invisible hand of the market.