I would just like Trump to be honest with his supporters about what tariffs really are and what they entail.
He repeatedly implies that these are fees that other countries will shoulder to “bring them into compliance.”
The truth is (as I’m sure you all know) these are fees that we pay to the federal government separately when we import goods from these countries. Other countries don’t pay a dime.
On top of that, supply chains don’t (or can’t) change at the drop of a hat. Large scale onshoring takes time and investment.
So the reality for the average American is that the crippling inflation we’ve endured for the last 3 years is not going away, and we’re going to pay an extra 25% on top of it for the vast majority of our imported goods (which is basically everything nowadays).
The thing I can’t figure out is if he really doesn’t know how tariffs work, or if he’s just a liar. Either way it doesn’t make him look good.
And from any reasonable analysis I’ve seen, I just don’t understand how this is going to bring anything back home. It’s just going to raise prices and cause more suffering for those who can least afford it.
But I think most people understand that it’s not actually about accomplishing any goal in particular or about solving any problem, it’s just a bro flex.
Awesome. Your guy can flex. Congratulations. All your shit just went up 25%, so now you’re paying too. Elections have consequences, as they like to say.
> The thing I can’t figure out is if he really doesn’t know how tariffs work, or if he’s just a liar. Either way it doesn’t make him look good.
The second proposition has already been proven many times over. The first is very likely also true.
> And from any reasonable analysis I’ve seen, I just don’t understand how this is going to bring anything back home. It’s just going to raise prices and cause more suffering for those who can least afford it.
It won't. I think the best thing we can hope for is that it brings economic frustrations to an untenable boiling point and either forces the administration to correct course (ultimately still costing us significantly in terms of global trade positioning) or it spurs the idiots who voted for this administration into action agains the administration.
> The truth is (as I’m sure you all know) these are fees that we pay to the federal government separately when we import goods from these countries. Other countries don’t pay a dime.
The mistake you're making is only considering first order effects (gov collecting tariff taxes), and ignoring second and greater order effects (how people respond to those taxes).
> A good place to start disentangling things is the argument ad nauseam over who pays for tariffs — the consumer or the foreign producer? Contrary to what both sides sometimes assert, the question has no simple answer. “Despite over a century of theoretical debate on the incidence of tariffs, sound empirical evidence on who bears the burden of trade tariffs is sparse,” according to a 2015 article in the University of Chicago’s Chicago Policy Review.
> ...It’s true that up front, a U.S. tariff is levied on Americans, not foreign producers. But what really matters is who bears the ultimate cost. If the foreign producer continues to charge the same amount at the border, then the final price goes up by the amount of the tariff, and the American bears the full cost. But if the foreign producer cuts its price at the border by the amount of the tariff so that the final price paid by the American is unchanged, then the foreign producer bears the full cost of the tariff.
> Typically, the cost will be split. Americans won’t have to bear much of the cost of the tariff if the foreign producer is willing to accept a smaller profit to hang on to its share of the U.S. market. That calculation will vary product by product.
I don't want to insult you, but I do want to insult the NYT quotes you posted. Frankly, they are about the dumbest effing comments I've read in a while.
I will just pose a simple question- how many industries that trade in real goods have margins in excess of 25%?
How many industries do you know of that would keep going in the face of a 50% haircut to their profit?
Those quotes say nothing and are pure conjecture.
I will tell you exactly who will pay the increase (and then some, because there's always juice on top of juice): we will; you and I, and every person and family we know. That's who.
It’s not like fentanyl goes through customs (legally) now. Not sure how tariffs will help.
Also not sure why we’re being punished because our government can’t or won’t stop fentanyl smuggling across the southern border. I don’t see how that’s my fault. Or yours for that matter.
Are we going to slap tariffs on Colombia too for all the coke that also doesn’t clear customs?
> When Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on China during his first term in the White House, some studies found that part of the cost was passed on to American consumers. Suppliers in China also cut their prices in many cases to offset part of the cost of the tariffs. [emphasis mine]
> I will tell you exactly who will pay the increase (and then some, because there's always juice on top of juice): we will; you and I, and every person and family we know. That's who.
It's worth noting that you're basically quoting a line of political attack. From the same article I linked above:
> Democrats spent the weekend hammering the message that Mr. Trump was responsible for making life in America more expensive.
> “In one reckless move,” said Representative Gabe Vasquez, Democrat of New Mexico, “the president just raised the price you pay for gas, the truck you drive to work, a computer for your small business and everything at the grocery store, from avocados to tequila.”
Underneath all that noise, I'm sure things are far less simple than any side's attacks claim. Unfortunately, all almost anyone hears on any issue are political attacks, which are blasted from the rooftops.
With computing equipment from China, there wasn't enough margin for them to lower prices (or they just refused).
So we paid for all of it.
Read their wording carefully: some studies found...many cases to offset part of the cost...
This is weasel language that purports to convey a lot of meaning, but is (I feel intentionally) light on actual facts.
You can't just strong arm people into giving you a better deal. Logic would dictate that any company who is competetive in the market is already giving you their best price.
These tariffs are punitive and not even protectionist (which I could at least respect), because we don't, can't and/or won't manufacture the vast majority of the items we import from these countries.
P.S. citing easily observable facts are not a political attack. You have no idea what my political persuasion is, and frankly, just because I have a strong distaste for DJT doesn't mean I'm a Democrat. Some people know what a spade looks like, no matter who they pretend to be.
P.P.S. additionally, had this administration annonuced a comprehensive plan to make capital available to American industry to step up and onshore the manufacture of these goods, I would be singing a very different tone.
But your experience with IT equipment does not generalize to all trade between the US and China, which includes more than just IT equipment.
> This is weasel language that purports to convey a lot of meaning, but is (I feel intentionally) light on actual facts.
I don't think it's weaselly, rather it's one of those areas that's not black and white and there is a lot of variation, which does not lend itself to a crisp, succinct summary. One of the cases in the original article I linked was the supplier gives a little on margin, and the importer overall pays more due to the tariff, but not the full amount, and that's what the second article seemed to be describing.
> P.S. citing easily observable facts are not a political attack.
That kind of thing can totally can be part of an attack: the most effective attacks usually start with easily observable facts (and then omit others to fit the desired narrative), because that gives them more credibility. And I didn't mean to imply that you were making an attack, I was just noting that rhetoric is in the air due to the frequent political attacks, which often leads to it getting repeated.
> P.P.S. additionally, had this administration annonuced a comprehensive plan to make capital available to American industry to step up and onshore the manufacture of these goods, I would be singing a very different tone.
I know someone who works for a construction company that does big jobs, factories, airports, hospitals, etc, and asked him about building a new factory. He said if someone woke up tomorrow and said "I'm going to build a new plant", 2 years would be an aggressive timeline just for the construction. That doesn't take into account the planning, design, permits, machinery installation, etc. It wouldn't be producing anything until after his presidency.
Now, that's all fine and good, but construction materials like steel, wood, and aluminum are about to go up due to the tariffs not to mention supply chain disruption and stockpiling, making prices even worse.
Construction is going to contract. The publicly traded companies all went down as soon as this was announced. Noone is going to want to build this stuff while materials prices are going up.
There are other ways to encourage onshoring. 25% tariffs and a tariff war with our main trading partners ain't it.
Of course it will cost you in terms of loss of demand. But there’s no guarantee that your factories will be able to reduce prices though.
Everyone is worried about it. The global supply chain is a well oiled machine after the last 40 years. Problem is, Trump’s enablers and the media are too scared of retribution to tell people just how bad this will be.
It’s a solution looking for a problem.
You should have seen my frustration during Trump I explaining to my die hard Trumper why he kept getting customs bills from DHL, FedEx and UPS for his equipment and supply orders. I was literally exacerbated trying to tell him he was paying the tariffs that Trump enacted. It’s like he was incapable of understanding plain English because it conflicted with his Fox induced worldview.
The complete lack of charity in these neoliberal critiques always crack me up. Haha, those poor blue collar plebs don't know what's even in their best interest!
"any reasonable analysis"-- I will help you out, right now you can ask deepseek how tariffs helped power the asian economic miracle.
Even if I assume that is true, Asia in the 60s-90s and the USA in 2025 are very different geopolitical entities with very different trade relations to navigate and resources that they have/do not have available. This is the whole reason an analysis is necessary. Making good political choices is about taking relevant information and making trade offs, these levers are not some context-independent magic wand that we should hope will work because "hey it worked for the other guy".
You'll also note that good trade relations with the US, not pissing off your trading partners, were a key element to that success.
I'm sure deepseek will also let you know that tariffs are by and large considered a terrible strategy in the vast majority of circumstances.
The asian economic miracle as you put it took place in countries with cheap land, essentially free labor (by Western standards), zero environmental protections, and cheap global shipping.
News flash Einstein, they weren’t buying our expensive shit to begin with. So they didn’t really need tariffs. Why? Because they lived in huts with no electricity or running water and ate rice and vegetables for every meal.
Neoliberal takes. I’ve been reading the Wall Street Journal daily since before you were born, back when it wasn’t just another mouthpiece for some rich asshole with an axe to grind.
The asian economic uplift was powered by exports, not by reducing imports. Tariffs were the exact opposite of what they wanted as they were reliant on exporting their cheap labor and a trade war makes that much harder.
Latin american countries made the mistake of trying to build an economy by reducing imports through tariffs, as we can see it did not work.
He repeatedly implies that these are fees that other countries will shoulder to “bring them into compliance.”
The truth is (as I’m sure you all know) these are fees that we pay to the federal government separately when we import goods from these countries. Other countries don’t pay a dime.
On top of that, supply chains don’t (or can’t) change at the drop of a hat. Large scale onshoring takes time and investment.
So the reality for the average American is that the crippling inflation we’ve endured for the last 3 years is not going away, and we’re going to pay an extra 25% on top of it for the vast majority of our imported goods (which is basically everything nowadays).
The thing I can’t figure out is if he really doesn’t know how tariffs work, or if he’s just a liar. Either way it doesn’t make him look good.
And from any reasonable analysis I’ve seen, I just don’t understand how this is going to bring anything back home. It’s just going to raise prices and cause more suffering for those who can least afford it.
But I think most people understand that it’s not actually about accomplishing any goal in particular or about solving any problem, it’s just a bro flex.
Awesome. Your guy can flex. Congratulations. All your shit just went up 25%, so now you’re paying too. Elections have consequences, as they like to say.