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

bbc.com

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

#81

Post by belter »

dralley wrote: post #2

25% on South Korea, 32% on Taiwan, 36% on Thailand, 46% on Vietnam What a massive and moronic blow to our soft power.

The full list:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/trump-reciprocal-tariffs-cou...

10% tariffs on the Heard Island and McDonald Islands which are uninhabited, and can be reached only by sea, which from Australia takes two weeks by vessel. And also 10% on Svalbard and Jan Mayen which is also uninhabited. That will teach them not to ripoff the USA!

Oh NO tariffs on Russia or Belarus. None.

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

#86

Post by s1artibartfast »

codedokode wrote: post #80
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…

> The US doesn't have the people to do the actual manufacturing. A usual lack of high qualified low paid workers?

If that's really the case, then these tariffs are the cure.

If outsourcing labor overseas is cost prohibitive, wages will have to rise.

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

#87

Post by ggm »

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 their reset in a belief they can make it less like the Smoot-Hawley great depression because so many other economic levers exist now, including floating currency, MMT, and massive fintech.

Personally I think it's a mistake but hot takes "they have no idea what's coming" are I believe naive. They know. They just don't care. Some amount of foreign trade will absorb the cost. Not all, not most. Not all prices in the US will rise and some substitution will happen although spinning up cheap labor factories again isn't going to happen in 2025. Maybe by 2027? Rust belt sewing shops and Walmart grade cheap goods production lines?

What amazes me is the timing: the midterms will hit while the bottom is still chugging along. I would think it unlikely they can secure an updraft from this to keep the house. What's the plan for that?

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

#88

Post by kazinator »

tnt128 wrote: post #50

I don’t buy the blanket statement that the consumer always pays the tariff. It depends on what alternative companies have. If a company can purchase the same clothing from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Mexican vendors, a tax on China only could make the Chinese vendors lower the price or risk losing the business. However, a blanket tax on every country, regardless of available alternatives, would leave businesses with fewe…

The objective reality of the situation is that there is a transaction between a buyer and a seller. That transaction is what pays the tariff, VAT, property transfer tax or whatever vampirical suckage by whatevername.

Both transacting counterparties are robbed.

How that is distributed between them is a matter of which has more alternatives. E.g. if the seller has lots of prospective buyers, most of whom are not subject to the tax, then the market price they demand is not sensitive to the rare buyer who does pay the tax.

If a big fraction of the seller's prospective buyers face a tax, then it makes their product or service look more expensive to a good chunk of the market, which exerts downward pressure on the price. The downward pressure on the price means that the seller effectively pays some of the tax, through lost revenue.

So, the transaction pays the tax as such, but how much of it is distributed between buyer and seller depends on the degree of influence of the tax on the price point.

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

#89

Post by maxerickson »

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…

If that is the plan, it's terrible. The majority of US debt is domestic.

https://usafacts.org/articles/which-countries-own-the-most-u...

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

#90

Post by phillipseamore »

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.

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