Tariffs: Why Is It Fine When Others Use Them, But Not the US?

Imagine you have penguins in a sweatshop making MAGA hats which they sell to the US. Trump has slapped tariffs on that penguin sweatshop because the penguins aren't buying US cars. But penguins can't drive so they're never going to buy the cars.

So what do the tariffs do? It makes MAGA hats more expensive for the US consumer.
Maybe the US could make their own MAGA hats? But they don't have any penguins to do it.

So either Americans now have no MAGA hats or more expensive MAGA hats. And the penguins still aren't buying US cars. Win!

Are we too reliant on China and possibly sleepwalking into a pretty weak position wrt world order?

What does it look like over time, idk if it’s just been too easy to buy stuff cheaply now and regret it later.

Quite ironic when you see where the red MAGA hats are made🤣🤣🤣

But you are talking about a man who brings out a board, a physical board with the list of countries and tariffs like some 1960’s open university lecturer. All it lacked was a wall to hang it on and a pointy stick to point at lines

He might be prolific on X but he needs to realise that his computer can do so much more.

It’s the speed and extent and the demanding/ threatening that’s causing the problems not the races themselves, which already exist in most countries.
the man’s a moron and anyone living off a pension or trying to is really going to feel this.
he’s THE worst businessman.

Also, he didn't include Russia, North Korea or Cuba apparently due to sanctions but there is still US/Russia trade. Could just move all those factories there as that seems an equally big loophole to those poor, hardworking penguins just trying to get their economy up and running...

Well he wants Greenland, Canada and Gaza so why not go after everything? The man is fucking insane if you ask me....

This is it. We’re reliant on China and Asia for cheaper goods. I read an interesting summary of how many countries are involved in making the iPhone and that Nike don’t bring tax dollars to US despite being ‘American brand’.

It might be too late to disrupt that reliance now. But in a few more decades the west will be comparatively weaker.

All those saying Trump's unpredictability is causing instability are wrong.

Trump is not unpredictable, he has been talking about imposing tariffs for years. All his MAGA rallies were focused on him saying he was going to impose tariffs. His project 2025 detailed how he was going to impose tariffs. Not sure how else he could have made it clearer what his intentions were.

It's literally been there in glowing neon signs for a long time now. The problem is people didn't take him seriously. People weren't really listening or bent themselves out of shape trying to explain what he actually meant. They were wrong.

There was no sub text, he meant what he said. The mistake was to not take him seriously and others should shoulder some of that responsibility.

Also, the Democrats did gaslight a lot of MAGA voters instead of actually listening to them. They were patronising and dismissive to the extreme.

There's responsibility all round for this but ironically Trump is the only one who is actually doing what he said he would.

I am not a Trump supporter but I think the hysteria about his unpredictability is hypocrisy.

Agreed - those penguins had some pretty significant exports to the US according to the BBC!

I've often wondered how much 'stuff' would cost if everyone in the supply chain was paid a living wage & reasonable environmental & health & safety standards were met. Farm shop & British made clothing prices for everything. More tariffs may push us closer to this - no comment on whether this is good or bad but it's an interesting question.

Trump is an insane old man stuck in the 70s. He is trying to tariff away trade deficits BUT the USA is a wealthy, advanced economy. These types of economies often have trade deficits, especially for primary and manufactured goods as they buy a lot more and it makes sense to manufacture goods in countries with cheaper costs. Furthermore he has ignkred the fact the USA produces a lot of services which everyone buys - tech, culture, finacial services etc...

He obviously missed the basic economics lecture on comparative advantage.

Yes, I think so - blanket tariffs based on trade surpluses (with a minimum of 10% even if there is no surplus as with the U.K.).

So he’s put iirc 90% tariffs on Lesotho - this country mainly exports diamonds which the US doesn’t produce. It’s too poor to import many US goods. The tariffs will make it poorer as their sales will drop - and aid has of course been cut off. This is going to cost lives as well as pensions.

Tariffs may be a useful tool in very specific situations but this illiterate blunderbuss approach is destructive all round.

USA is entitled to impose tariffs (they always did), but massive jumps causes global havoc, that's the problem. Americans really had become so arrogant and isolationist, they need a reality hit, and they are getting it.

Its like the boomers can't understand why life didn't continue booming indefinitely, and it's all some foreigners fault. Wake up USA, economics change, the world has changed dramatically, we need scientists and economists to carefully guide the way forward, not some hotelier and a 3rd generation Natzi sympathiser technocrat.

China and the USA are like a married couple, completely intertwined and they can’t live without each other. They have to make a deal whether they like it or not, although, there will be endless threats and protestations along the way.

The Republican Senators are gonna turn on Trump, just need a few brave ones to raise their voices. Elon is already voicing alternative solutions to the tariffs mess.

It's also stupid because countries have ways of responding beyond retaliatory tariffs.

China has already paused exports of critical minerals which is a massive problem, this explains it well: https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/05/china-just-turned-off-u-s-supplies-of-minerals-critical-for-defense-cleantech/

Because no one else's tariffs have caused my pension to plunge by over 10% in a week, just as I was contemplating retirement... 🤬

Just listening to their response. They are strong but will be more so in a few decades, their military power is fairly out of discussion but growing too. Idk what they will do but if the US is weaker now we all will be even more so as China strengthen. In fact the west generally if others combine.

I was in America last year. They have entire huge stores (Target, Walmart, Dollar Tree etc) stocked floor to ceiling with 'cheap' goods made in China. I can't believe Trump wants his voting base to be priced out of Walmart and to buy locally made goods. None of it makes any sense to me at all but I find global economics quite hard to understand.

@Ilovetowander I think you've wandered onto the wrong thread

I'm also not convinced that 'tarrifing' is a word.

If it is a word - I think it is spelled incorrectly. HTH

Companies can avoid tariffs by moving manufacturing to the US. Why would anyone think that moving manufacturing to an uninhabited remote penguin island is a tempting loophole that needs closing? They're just trying to cover up the mistake they made. We can see the data and know exactly why they imposed tariffs on the island. It's because they had a blunt formula applied with zero thought.

But it's a convenient story that he's tarrifing penguins because he's dumb

If it quacks like a duck (or a penguin)

He does seem to have a thing against penguins 🐧