The self-inflicted part is what really has left me reeling.
For Christmas wish lists, my daughters always have ways of surprising me with items from Africa retailers, Netherlands… I had to tell them this year to stick with U.S. only because of tariffs. I guess that's awesome for the U.S.?
(The political cartoon of Santa having to pay tariffs kind of draws itself at this point.)
I’ve personally got an ever-growing list of clothing items to get when tariffs come down. No US equivalents, and I don’t need them, so they can wait.
Britain, Canada, and one Nordic country or another are getting some business within a few months of tariffs dropping, lol. Maybe also Spain or Portugal.
What really blows is watching great stuff come up used on EBay overseas and not being able to buy it. It’s used, FFS! Sometimes it’s even US-made, which is extra goofy.
Perhaps the intended effect is to ultimately have more clothing items manufactured in the U.S., creating jobs that meet things like minimum wage.
You’d need a long term stable tariff regime for the investment required for that to happen.
The current administration has not proven itself to be stable. Even for their base they’ve walked back beneficial tariffs when the anticipated price increases happen (e.g. beef).
And that’s before you get into the constitutionality of their actions or how likely they are to be reversed with the next congress
This is correct. But the main argument against tariffs in this comment section seems to be "Waaah! You can't make me pay more" which completely misses the point.
I’m actually for trying to bring manufacturing back to the US. I’m for decoupling from (and hopefully weakening) China.
I’m entirely against Trump’s chaotic lunacy because it’s not going to accomplish any of the good things I’d hope for from such a thing. He’s got whole sectors treading water waiting for him to die, while smaller players simply shutter operations, because you can’t make huge capital investment decisions with this much uncertainty in the air. To say nothing of how bad an idea it is to try to decouple from China while also launching trade wars against your own allied trade bloc.
That means either a) making all clothes way more expensive for Americans, as our standards for labor and compensation are high compared to less developed countries, or b) lowering the standard of living in America such that we're forced to accept less pay for more labor.
Or C) deploying machines to do almost all of it (developing said machines if necessary). Which is more likely to actually happen than either A or B, even though the current regime is making it difficult. It also won't create very many jobs.
I believe this is the actual plan. They're forcing manufacturing back to America where we will automate the jobs out of existence. This isn't about creating jobs, it's about controlling production.
It's all about power and control.
In a dark humor way, it is the intended effect by Trump but really, how many Americans dream of a sweatshop job? Reminds me of a famously documented conversation between Cohn and Trump during the first administration (Bob Woodward's book):
Cohn starts assembling every piece of economic data to try and convince Trump that American workers did not aspire to work in assembly factories. “See,” he says to Trump at one point, “the biggest leavers of jobs – people leaving voluntarily – is from manufacturing.” “I don’t get it,” replies Trump. Cohn soldiers on. “I can sit in a nice office with air conditioning and a desk, or I can stand on my feet eight hours a day. Which one would you rather do for the same pay?” Trump still wasn’t buying it. Eventually, exasperated, Cohn simply asks Trump: “Why do you have these views?” “I just do,” Trump replies. “I’ve had these views for 30 years.” “That doesn’t mean they’re right,” says Cohn. “I had the view for 15 years I could play professional football.”
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/the-best-fights-betwee...
Well this seems like a fun read about a guy telling Trump, “just shut the fuck up and listen.”
Right, because that is a national emergency on the level of severity and immediacy of a foreign military invasion - which is the actual legal arguement put forward.
That might be the goal, but that implies the US should have low-skill labor, sweatshops, etc. And that enriching the owners of such factories is a good thing.
It's a net gain for everybody for low-skill products to be produced in regions with lower wages, like China, Vietnam, etc.
Super simple example... socks. Due to lower wages, China can produce socks with a retail price of $1/pair. A US-made equivalent costs $1.10/pair.
Trump placed a 20% tariff on Chinese goods, leading to Chinese socks having a retail price of $1.20.
US sock producer can now charge $1.19 and take 100% of the market. That's an additional, unearned $0.09 cents flowing to the owner of that sock business.
If the tariff had been set at 10%, creating equal retail prices, that might be good, as it would tend to shift more of the market to US-made socks.
Or, leave the prices alone, let us buy Chinese socks, and use that extra 10-20 cents for consuming something else.
I dunno. American nicer-clothes brands were already consolidating, selling to foreign buyers (J. Press, now Japanese-owned), or moving down-market and shifting manufacturing overseas (Brooks Brothers, Hickey Freeman). This certainly hasn’t reversed any of that.
I don’t have any particular insight into their operations, but all the ones that still manufacture in the US that I pay attention to seem to be showing signs of distress more this year than ever. Shrinking product lines, steep sales, desperate-looking promotions, shifting more of their catalog to imported lower-quality products (despite the tariffs!). My current concern is that tariffs are going to cut the legs out from under what remains of that sector, and there’ll soon be way fewer US-made clothing options.
I think broad prosperity is a ton more important to their health than tariffs. When people don’t have much disposable income they’re not going to buy American-made leather shoes and wool shirts and suits and fine cotton shirts, they’re going to pay the 100% (or whatever) tariffs on a $50 (pre-tariff) Chinese outfit made mostly of petroleum and still pay way less than for a hypothetical similar outfit made in the US.
US labor only makes sense for pretty-decent or better goods (it’s the reason it’s an alright signal of quality, doesn’t make sense to spend up for American labor then use shit materials to save a penny, if you’re using US labor you’re already priced out of the lower half or more of the market) and those markets are getting fucked as prosperity concentrates to the top.
I expect the next shock to what’s left of the middle class is going to kill a bunch of these companies, and tariff chaos is rushing us into that. Plus almost all of them use foreign goods or labor in parts of their processes, so this shit’s forcing them to raise prices or eat reduced profit. Pendleton? The cloth is made in a US mill, but the shirts are assembled in the DR or wherever. Rochester suit makers? The cloth is Italian or maybe British, obviously, or why bother. Can you even get US-made linen? LOL.
So the tariffs had the intended effect? That’s great!
Is it great because the US will start manufacturing African and Dutch gifts? Or is it the reduced choice and inflated prices that you prefer?
People can pay a 10-20% premium for African and Dutch gifts if they want to.
Or shop American and help keep manufacturing and jobs alive here.
I think it's a fair compromise. As Americans we are used to having an overwhelming amount of choice, partly due to our previous open trade policies. Something you don't really see in other countries. Go to Japan and you can count the American products sold on your hand.
> Go to Japan and you can count the American products sold on your hand.
I'm living on Japan right now and this is absurd. There are American brands everywhere (although as usual who knows where the products are made). American food brands. American steak. American sportswear. American backpacks. Entire shops in the mall devoted to American fashion. I'd say appliances and cars are more rarely American brands but there are reasons beyond trade barriers why that's true.
Lived there for 6 years. You're not buying American steak, most likely it's Australian.
There are certain clothing brands (at a much higher cost), large fast food chains, and Apple are the exceptions. Basically really large companies that make specific deals.
Just checked my local grocery store circular, and as you can see (upper left) they sell American pork, at least. I believe I have bought American steak but it's not on sale at the moment.
https://www.seiyu.co.jp/assets/images/flyer_blackfriday25112...
You are comparing apples and oranges.
For food items, the import regulations are much stricter in every country than for stuff like electronics or clothes. Meat especially is very highly restricted, due to differences in feeding, antibiotics, etc...
And how are "large companies" making deals? The same import duties apply to everyone.
taking an example from the article, the USA currently produces 0.2% of coffee it consumes domestically (Hawaii and Puerto Rico).
Could coffee be grown in reasonable quantities inside the USA? I find some mention of very expensive high-end 'boutique' coffee grown in California but it is not generally a crop that grows well in the continental USA.
(until global warming reduces the chances of frost in Florida perhaps?)
Another example from the article was a tea grower. Again, niche growing is limited to just some regions of the USA, with less than 0.1% of consumption domestically produced.
And of course with these products they have distinctive tastes that reflect where they were grown, so tea from California is distinctive tasting and not a direct substitute for tea from Japan from the article.
The growers in the article had been heavily disrupted by tariffs.
Yes, but American labour laws / minimum wages would result in it costing more.
Where are you growing coffee in the us, purely from a climate and land perspective?
That's a strawman. Obviously if there's no American competition then I see no problem with lower tariffs for those products.
I don't mind at all reducing tariffs for things we dont manufacture or can't for various reasons.
I believe the administration is lowering tariffs for things like that.
Beef on the other hand should be temporarily lowered since our cattle herd is half of what it should be. (It plummeted under Biden takes awhile to return as the herd matures) Soooo import from Argentina until it's back up.
>Or shop American and help keep manufacturing and jobs alive here.
This kind of myopic view completely misses the scope of manufacturing chains that are simply missing in the US. Things like stainless steel rebar and LCD screens take many years to build up efficient production for.
>Go to Japan and you can count the American products sold on your hand
Do you honestly think that Japan makes almost everything domestically? There's a good reason for the absence of American products in Japan. You are so close :)
Yeah, walk around any popular shopping area in Japan and you’ll see box after box of items marked “Made in China”
Here in Ireland we have items from all over the world, except the US.
That’s not a new thing. It seems like you guys are the only ones whose goods aren’t interesting.
That is not the reason that Japanese people don't buy many American products.
The reason is that there are hardly any products made in America.
I don't buy many American products because whenever I've tried in the past, the quality, and customer service has been shoddy. Americans can't assemble things correctly, ship wrong or obviously defective products, fail to fill in customs forms properly, and then expect me to just shrug my shoulders and accept all that rather than acknowledging issues and trying to fix them.
I realise that my experience is limited to the handful of times I've tried to buy stuff from the US. Perhaps I've just been very unlucky, but frankly, the odds are against it.
Your comment just reminded me, I bought a circuit board from the US recently and some of the pins were not soldered properly, I had to fix it myself.
It is. Japanese don't have the opportunity to buy most American products. You won't see them stocked or available apart from import stores where prices can be 2-3x the price they are in America due to import fees. Many items aren't even available there due to strict restrictions. Meanwhile America has been an open market for a long time.
My point isn't that American products aren't expensive to import into Japan (I don't know). My point is that even if they weren't expensive to import into Japan, what American products would you even import? Most stuff is not made in America in the first place.
There are plenty of food, household, and tool products we make.
Pretty much everything I buy, apart from computer tech, is from an American company.
I'm struggling to think of what goods are made in the US that I might buy - certainly not food or cars?
Or shop American and help keep manufacturing and jobs alive here.
Or you know, drive us into a recession. You do recall tariffs (Smoot-Hawley) were a contributing factor to the length and depth of the Great Depression, right?
I no longer care about my layabout countrymen.
Depends on which "intended effect" you mean.
Which part of the mutually exclusive triangle of "add manufacturing" or "add revenue" or "reduce deficits" do you consider to be "the intended effect"?
None of the above. Intended effect is to manufacture a more compliant populace through a new Great Depression.
Intended effect of increased prices and less choice?
Tariffs are not intended to benefit the consumer
Literally yes. "Tariffs on imports are designed to raise the price of imported goods to discourage consumption."
Or it can be like Brazil and everyone just pays 2x the cost for a large swath of things because there is no reasonable way that someone can make a competitive version of an iPhone - even with (in this case) 200 something million ‘captive’ customers.
Yep, just visit a country that does a lot of high tariff stuff, like Brazil, Argentina. Yes they have strong local industries of very odd stuff sometimes, but on the other hand, they have people travelling outside the country to buy electronics because nothing is made locally.
If that's the model the US chooses, then i guess that's their choice.
Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
I'm hoping smuggling makes a major comeback.
The other day over dinner I was speaking with a friend who works at a major international bank in the wire transfer department.
They mentioned that before the tariffs deadline, American businesses were rushing to make giant international orders. And since then, work had been slow for my friend.
Who would have thought that basing foreign trade policy on the whims of a man who has absolutely no clue how the world works would end up having a negative impact??
This is such an obviously self-inflicted wound it's maddening.
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100% with you, but I don't think the presidential whims were the instigator for all this madness. That could be a Howard Lutnick:
The Man Behind Trump’s Tariffs Strategy: https://archive.is/llGGR
Update: fixed link
Peter Navarro is also a driving force behind the tariffs.
True on Lutnick but he is playing into Trump's deeply held belief (despite every data point saying the opposite) that Americans want manufacturing jobs.
Trump likes tariffs because they easily enable government corruption.
That's it.
Just look up all the officials that he has pardoned or given clemency for corruption.
ITT: isolationists and idiots pretending this a 4D chess move for trade deals or reducing consumption. Show me the trade deals and promises made to reduce consumption. There are none, just pinky promises and Trump begrudgingly admitting your kids might get less toys this Christmas.
A mad king imposing tariffs (taxes) on a whim is not okay. Republicans control all three branches of government, they'd craft coherent policy if they wanted to bring back manufacturing to the US. Unserious and frankly stupid crowd of people who still support this government.
> is not okay
Let's all be clear, too. This is illegal. Trump does not have the power to do this. It exclusively belongs to Congress.
Just like the executive can't just randomly alter budgets and what programs get to run. Or declare ~~war~~ "special operations" against Venezuela. Or get away with any crime they simply want to call "official acts".
The Constitution is basically a joke at this point.
It’s certainly not ideal, but as one of if not the largest consumer in the world it does make sense as a negotiating point on trade deals.
The sticky part is we are also one of the largest producers in the world, and there is every reason to think that our producers will also take hits from our chaotic trade "policy."
(This is in addition to the fact that imposing big, likely-illegal, capricious taxes on Americans is a de facto reduction in the freedom of all American citizens. We are being deprived of our freedom to purchase what we want from wherever we want, and now it extends far beyond cheap Chinese EVs and into practically everything. People should understand the tariffs first as an assault on our personal liberties and only second as a business matter.)
love to support domestic high-value manufacturing by creating an ever-changing and expensive regulatory scheme around low-value inputs
> We are being deprived of our freedom to purchase what we want from wherever we want
Sorry, but that is not a freedom you have in the US or anywhere else on earth. Of course you are right that tariffs on intermediate goods hurt US producers, but your claim that your freedom is being assaulted is laughable.
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... the trade deals had already been agreed to...
Obviously deals expire and can be renegotiated, but what Trump has done is just said "deal is off just because I said so, even ones that I myself previously negotiated and signed!"
Do you like to do business with people who just shred your prior deals when they change their mind? It makes no sense.
Saying this makes sense in theory while wholey ignoring how it was carried in practice is a disingenuous attempt to defend the indefensible.
True. But it’s also disingenuous to ignore the massive institutional momentum in favor of unrestricted trade? Throwing debris on the track may have been the only way to stop the train that was rolling on its own towards zero tariffs.
Zero tariffs are good! That's why the US put "no internal tariffs between states" in the constitution!
The founders' notion of free trade between states created an economic "race to the bottom" that has been hurting northern states for decades now as business moves to lower-tax and lower-regulation southern states. It would be hugely beneficial to Illinois or New York if they could tariff cheap goods from Georgia or Alabama.
"guys actually taxes are good and we should have more trade barriers!!"
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
I don't know why you can't just admit you're out of your depth here instead of doubling down on the dumbest and most chaotic trade policy we've ever seen.
They’re good as long as everyone is co-operating and has a common idea of ‘good’.
Notably, China, India, etc. still tax the every loving crap out of most imports in their jurisdiction (yes, tariffs!).
I suppose by mimicking them we hope to bring the US to the standard of living that the Chinese and Indians have.
Not sure if you've been to China lately, but their standard of living has improved dramatically over the past 25 years (after they began restricting and penalizing imports). The quality of their domestically-built consumer products now exceeds what's available in the US, and costs less. This is what happens when you stop outsourcing and bring manufacturing on-shore. The opposite has happened to the US over the same period, where international corporations (such as GE, GM, etc.) shut down on-shore manufacturing and import everything. In addition to the immediate economic effects, the long term effect is that the US has lost its ability to participate (let alone compete) in many manufacturing areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_China_(194...
I haven’t been recently. I was in Hong Kong last just before the pandemic and my parents have been to China recently. It’s quite an advanced place but they happily prefer the US to China still.
I have a friend I met last year who lives in China and he’s looking to move to Singapore. So I’m not super informed but also I think I have enough anecdotal knowledge that someone showing me a GDP chart won’t convince me life is better there.
But we may go in a few months after we take our daughter to her ancestral Taiwan. Then I’ll see for myself.
Many Indians told me India is rapidly approaching the West once and I went there for a friend’s wedding and they were right but in the sense that Andromeda is approaching us at 120 km/s: it’s fast but the gap is big in standard of living.
So I’m a bit hesitant to believe this stuff. I’ll see for myself.
I think that’s more a side effect of China being the worlds manufacturing hub - which has nothing to do with their import policies, and everything to do with their export/currency policies.
There isn’t much ‘made in the USA (actually)’ at this point.
Plenty of other places have similar import policies - and still import most things from China. Like India, and well, frankly most of the world at this point.
Well, someone very well might - it’s not the common man though.
Notably, those in power in both countries live pretty cushy lives.
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I think this is an excellent point. Let's say they had NOT done that (and thank goodness they did) - would the current defenders of tarrifs see this as a path to wealth between states too? Me thinks they would. But they why stop there. Why not impose such tarrifs between cities. And if that enriches cities - neighbors should get in on the action too, no?
There is a modern Bastiat style essay waiting to be written here.
Trump is using effectively unrestricted powers to impose tarriffs, there is no institional momentum in his way. He did not need to 'throw debris' anywhere.
Further, when he's out of office, I fully expect all his tariffs to evaporate. All we have to do is bide our time.
Trust takes a lifetime to build but just a moment to lose. The rest of of the world is not going to risk the deep dependency vassal state relationship that it had with the USA. Things don't reset like that.
What are you talking about?
I can't buy anything overseas anymore. For example, used guitars from Japan used to have free shipping. It's now hundreds of dollars.
I can't buy my cat's medicine from Canada anymore, and the U S. distributor was already price gauging, as the American health system is wont to do.
How is any of this make sense? Nothing prompted this.
The American public got taxed while the rich got tax breaks, and his followers are lapping it up.
I makes sense because you probably bought a US guitar instead. The goal of tariffs isn't to benefit you. If you want to argue on the merits, you can do that, but don't claim it doesn't make sense.
Is that true though?
Cameras and bicycles are my two main hobbies. Essentially zero US production for either. Prices have gone up, but for no good reason - there's no US industry to protect.
Limited, highly-targeted tariffs can serve a purpose. But the blanket stuff we've seen this year make zero sense at a macroeconomic level.
Yes, blanket tariffs are retarded. However, the point of the tariffs is that it is a national priority to develop a domestic industry. It is, of course, arguable that this national priority makes sense, but the fact that it makes your hobbies much more expensive is not at all relevant.
The Trump trade policy makes no sense and has been horribly executed on op of that, but I think that in the long run moving away from a policy of "as much cheap stuff for consumers as possible no matter the externalizes" will be a good thing.
in the long run moving away from a policy of "as much cheap stuff for consumers as possible no matter the externalizes" will be a good thing.
That strikes me as something akin to the broken window fallacy. Tariffs are absolutely market-distorting and absolutely lead to higher prices.
We absolutely should be leveraging lower cost of labor overseas to build cheap stuff. If there is concern about other externalities (pollution, slave labor, etc) then address those directly with sanctions, targeted tariffs, or something else.
I've yet to see a good argument that overconsumption is bad (in a general economic sense). If we're overspending (not saving, or over-leveraging) then address that directly (not via tariffs). If it's a pollution argument, then address that directly. Etc.
It is a double edged sword - the U.S. manufacturers no longer have to compete with potentially better products from overseas, they can push lower quality to the local market for the same price.
This is correct. But this creates an opportunity for other domestic manufacturers to offer a better deal. Look at the Chinese car manufacturers. It was Chinese policy to say basically "sorry, you just have to buy shitty domestic cars or pay massive tariffs." Now their domestic manufacturers have gotten good enough that they are exporters themselves.
> I makes sense because you probably bought a US guitar instead.
Nope. Japanese guitars are substantially higher quality and at lower prices than U.S. made guitars.
I'm still waiting for you to describe how this makes sense. The U.S. doesn't have the industries the foreign market has.
The thing that prompted this is people fell for it, and he can use it as leverage to get rich.
That everyone was willing to stand by and let him do it (as in not apply real consequences or physically/procedurally actually stop him) is the opportunity that presented itself.
If a criminal suddenly walks by and steals your unlocked car (or breaks the window and steals it), and gets away, it’s a bit silly to stand there complaining you didn’t ask them to do that!
