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

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

#981

Post by RobKohr »

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…

Manufacturing pays very little, and for good reason.

You are competing with sometimes slave labor in other countries. Countries with no environmental protections and with no labor laws or concern for safety.

Imagine you could open a factory in country A or B, but country B's labor and employment law makes your production cost 30% less. You'd be an idiot, and more importantly you would lose in the market if you chose country A.

But you slap a tariff on, then it changes the dynamics. It makes the higher pay and labor costs more palatable in country A.

The usA has gotten itself in a pickle. It advanced worker rights and minimum wages to the point that shipping their work overseas to countries that don't care about such things is the only rational choice.

Perhaps if pay rates go up by some percentage to bring them out of their self isolation, then this will be resolved.

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

#982

Post by audunw »

brabel wrote: post #158
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.

That always seems to happen with this sort of protections. It's like when the government tries to incentivize people to buy electric cars by paying 25% of it (example from the climate bonus in Sweden, which was given for years), but what happens is that buyers actually end up paying just maybe 5% less as the car companies now can increase their prices and still sell the cars they produce while making more money.

The electric car does illustrate what happens to prices well.. but I just want to point out that those incentives are not necessarily meant to decrease prices. The incentives are as much for EV car companies as it is for the consumer. Giving them better margins makes them motivated to keep investing in EVs and coming out with new models. It encourages them to do marketing for those EVs since they can actually get some profit from selling them.

One of the reason why EVs was going nowhere for so long was there was no incentives for the car companies since there were no prospects of increasing profits by selling EVs.

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

#983

Post by regularjack »

lumb63 wrote: post #625

Everyone is quick to deride this move as stupid. I don’t disagree that there are downsides to the approach, but there is a set of very real national problems that this might address. For instance, globalization and offshoring of production has made goods cheaper for consumers, but what about the former domestic producers who could not compete, and do not have the skills or capital to find a new job which pays as well…

Tax the billionaires and the behemoth corporations.

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

#984

Post by SJC_Hacker »

wtcactus wrote: post #292

I have a doubt for some years about the US, but never really got good info on it (maybe because it’s a silly doubt). So, when I sell something to the USA (on eBay) for instance. It doesn’t pay VAT automatically. Do Americans pay VAT when it’s delivered? But, when an American buys something locally, they do pay VAT, correctly?

The US doesn't have an equivalent to VAT. Sales taxes at are at the level of states and cities. VAT would be in effect a federal sales tax, which the US doesn't have.

Since different states had widely varying sales taxes (ranging from 0% to 8%), for people living close to state lines, it sometimes makes sense to buy items just across the line to avoid sales tax. Although some business/individuals would get in trouble for deliberately evading sales taxes, as you are technically supposed to report on taxes.

This created a problem with online retailers, who were essentially avoiding sales taxes. Legislation in the mid 2010s changed that, the law is somewhat complicated but generally the sales tax is collected where the business "resides", which could be multiple jurisdictions. If there is any "office" in a state, all purchases originating from within that state have to pay that states sales taxes.

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

#985

Post by 15155 »

wayeq wrote: post #670
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…

If Jan 6th didn't dissuade people, I don't think anything will. Additionally, his base will not blame him, they will swallow whichever of the many narratives the propagandists are currently cooking up that suites their fancy.

> Jan 6th

Folks who try to make "the insurrection!" a thing don't really have a good read on the pulse of the average American. This is a failed branding attempt for what amounted to an unscheduled tour around the Capitol.

The same people pushing "Jan 6th" can normally take home the gold medal in mental gymnastics when discussing the events ending with numerous American cities being on fire just 6 months prior. Multi-city infernos were "mostly peaceful" protests, but when a Republican is shot by Capitol security, it's an "insurrection."

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

#986

Post by [deleted] »

buzzert wrote: post #948
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…

Why do you think it's a good idea to buy olive oil from Tunisia instead of from California? Are you aware of how much CO2 is released to ship a trivial commodity across the atlantic ocean?

[deleted]

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

#988

Post by dragonwriter »

rkowal wrote: post #987

ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude all recommend the same “nonsense” tariff calculation. https://www.theverge.com/news/642620/trump-tariffs-formula-a...

Note that the prompt given here does not ask for a way of calculating the effective foreign tariffs imposed on the US (what the formula is used to dishonestly present) but to calculate the ideal US tariffs to level the trade deficit.

That is, the LLMs do not give the formula the US actually used for setting US tariffs with this prompt asking for ideal US tariffs, instead, the response to this prompt about ideal US tariffs gives the calculation that the Administration used to calculate the effective foreign tariffs, not the US tariffs.

Also, given that tariff rates must be a percentage, any answer is probably going to end up being a ratio, and the prompt naturally indicates that the numerator should be the trade deficit the US has with the country. So. this is essentially expressing surprise that when suggested half of the formula in the prompt, the models all come up with the same (and I would argue quite obvious once you've gotten that far) denominator.

I don't think this indicates that that used an LLM, I think it indicates that they decided that all trade deficits shoule be ascribed to manipulation that was effectively tariff-like, and presented as a tariff rate imposed by the foreign country, and, having made that decision, the formula fell out naturally, and is what any reasonably knowledgeable human given the assignment—as well as any non-hallucinating, modestly capable LLM—would produce given the way the assignment already implicitly provides both the shape and one of two key pieces of the formula.

(Of course, expressing surprise at AI doing something in a response and not realizing it was mostly just regurgitating what was already decided by the prompter and fed to it in the prompt in a slightly different form is quite common is quite common these days, though using that mistake as a basis for an accusation of using AI is somewhat novel.)

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

#989

Post by atom058 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #935
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…

Great. AliExpress was the RadioShack of 2025. No way I’m spending $25+ for a strip of SMD resistors, and I expect to never see them available in the US at a price that makes sense as a hobbyist. This isn’t helping anyone, will prevent a lot of prototyping, and just be a bad experience in life. Thanks for ruining the fun of the last 5-10 years of DIY electronics golden age. I had plans to build some animatronic Hallow…

This is what happened in Sweden about 10 years ago, when they started charging a $7 "administrative fee" on all packages privately imported from China. Prices for resistors went from $1 for a pack of a hundred to $8. As a student at the time, it effectively made the hobby non-viable over night because it got too expensive.

Lately, there have been some domestic actors filling in the gap. But it's still a significant cost increase compared to the glory days.

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

#990

Post by rapjr9 »

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 think price uncertainty is already hitting eBay. A few days ago I looked at the price of cheap musical instruments (a student violin and a trumpet that each cost $25 several years ago) and the low price is now $129. Some things seem to have disappeared almost entirely from eBay (most small portable ozone generators). Maybe this is temporary until sellers figure it all out.
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