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

Because he's the devil incarnate, apparently. I've also heard lots of people bemoaning the UK's 10% but hardly commenting on the fact that's half of the 20% he's slapped on Europe.

People are up in arms because his introduction of blanket tarries is bullshit. Him placing tariffs on islands inhabited by penguins and countries that the US have surpluses with, indicate he clearly doesn’t understand how trade defecits work. In the case of Lesotho they have a trade deficit with the US simply because they have materials that the US want and the US has a-lot of shit that they can’t afford.

As for bringing back manufacturing back, opening factories take years and where prey tell are the skilled labour coming from? Florida is currently rolling back employment safeguards for children because getting rid of immigrants has meant there aren’t enough adults left willing to pick produce. Yes there will be CEO’s willing to kiss the ring by making the right noises to placate Trump but given that it can take five years and over to setup a factory, most will wait it out until he leaves office or when he changes his mind (which given his irractic tendencies could be in the next five minutes).

Trump doesn’t give two shits about the plight of Americans, the man is a grifter at heart. The whole tariffs debacle is just another cynical way for him to exercise power. CEO’s and political leaders will stroke his ego enough to get what they want in the short term, knowing that things will go back to normal when he goes.

Targeted tariffs can be a useful instrument but the way Trump has used them just means that the average American will pay a lot more for everything.

The sycophants within the Republican Party who are “backing” tariffs were bashing their use only a few months ago, the before and after clips of them flip flopping is embarrassing.

The way Trump has implemented tariffs will lead to some very hard times because in addition to tariffs, federal employees are being fired left right and centre and organisations that protect the interests of Americans are being dismantled.

Trumps behaviour is straight out of the dictator’s playbook. Targeting university funding and deporting or sanctioning people who don’t agree with his agenda, defying judges rulings and calling for their impeachment, dismantling institutions that protect people’s rights are just a few of the actions of someone who wants absolute power.

Tariffs are a blunt instrument at best but in the hands of someone who isn’t very clever and has narcissistic tendencies, are very dangerous. I’d be interested to see how much damage his irrational and narcissistic tendencies will cause before the institutions I acted to protect people, really step up.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdNRg49f/

Exactly
Hes so dumb that almost every country in the world barring China and Canada are literally failing over themselves right now to sign trade deals that are more favourable to the US than the ones they’ve got now. Literally begging to give the US a better deal…but it’s trump who is thick?!

I thought about responding to Tricho but knew it would be useless. How do countries suddenly build factories on that tiny uninhabited island? How many factories would fit there and How long would that take to put the infrastructure necessary, move workers there (and how many?). Some arguments/people are not worth engaging with. They've made up their minds and nothing will change that

Other major trading partners like China and the EU are not running around like headless chickens trying to make deals with the US.
China retaliated and the EU is taking its time and being measured.
Canada is looking for alternative.
South Korea and Japan are doing deals with China.

Three things.

These threats of targets are making other countries run around like headless chicken to renegotiate deals with the US on better terms for the US.

There's lot of talk of how these tariffs will result in interest rates going down. This is a man with a vested interest in real estate.

Disaster capitalism and shocks to the market are great for wealth individuals who can then buy up stuff at a reduced cost or have actively benefitted from the lower price of land..

He probably thinks they’re just very short nuns.

He fucking hates penguins.

Tariffs can be an effective measure when targeted carefully. Not the scattergun approach seen here.

By the way, Trump's steel tariffs last time lost more jobs in manufacturing than they saved in steelmaking.

He keeps saying this but it's obviously not true because otherwise he wouldn't have done the minimum 10% for the UK, it should be more like 35% factoring in VAT.

Good episode of More or Less unpicks all this.

Hard to see how the US can plan to run a trade surplus w everyone else (which is what he seem to want) without wrecking industries (most) that need imports…

He is dumb.

Surely he'd be more likely to claim the Dutch throne on the basis that he's orange

The EU offered him a "zero for zero" tariff deal weeks ago. So he's either vindictive or he's stupid. Possibly both.

Isle of burnt umber, maybe.

Even though VAT applies to domestic goods and services, just as much as imports.

He is certainly assuming that his audience is stupid and don't understand tariffs

Takes one to know one.

He doesn’t actually know what a country is. An island that is part of a country, like Greenland, he sees as fair game for America. So of course he doesn’t realise that the penguin island is part of Australia without need specific tariffs applying to it.

I’m only surprised he hasn’t tried to claim the Isle of Wight because he’s, you know, white.

And that other fictional loophole - warehousing stuff on the island then claiming that's where the exports are from. Isn't the penguin island unvisited by humans for at least 10 years?

They could probably do a great trade in guano.

If only there were a lesson from history that Trump could have turned to?

"The Tariff Act of 1930, also known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, was a protectionist trade measure signed into law in the United Statesby President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. Named after its chief congressional sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, the act raised tariffson over 20,000 imported goods in an effort to shield American industries from foreign competition during the onset of the Great Depression, which had started in October 1929.[1]
Hoover signed the bill against the advice of many senior economists, yielding to pressure from his party and business leaders. Intended to bolster domestic employment and manufacturing, the tariffs instead deepened the Depression because the U.S.'s trading partners retaliated with tariffs of their own, leading to U.S. exports and global trade plummeting. Economists and historians widely regard the act as a policy misstep, and it remains a cautionary example of protectionist policy in modern economic debates.[2] It was followed by more liberal trade agreements, such as the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934.
"

I am no economist, and cannot claim a firm understanding of it all. However, if the aim is to gain the best possible tariff and trade agreements for the US which act in their economic interest, it seems to me that to throw down the gauntlet to , what effectively amounts to , EVERYONE, all at once, is not the best way to broker the best interest of your country. Instead it looks like heavy posturing at best, chaotic and dangerous lack of business and trade acumen at worst. And even IF you think Trumps tariffs are clever and fair, then the impact of them and the global response and opinion of them as largely idiotic and immoral, makes them so in practice, because when you are playing a game, if 95/100 players deem you unreasonable , regardless of your confidence that you are right, even if you are actually right/- it doesn’t matter, you are out of the game.

Trump's calculations or whoever he asked to calculate tariff rates are inaccurate - they have looked at trade surpluses. This along with his actions show he doesn't understand eleven basic trade and clearly doesn't contemplate possible consequences. China and any other country who retaliate are standing up to his bullying, whilst I understand that countries may be queueing up to sign trade deals and falling over themselves to please Trump this echoes the actions of children in the playground who are scared of the bully. He is a bully who not only in trade but in his actions regarding conflict in countries across the globe demonstrates that he thinks he can say and do what he wants but that other countries aren't allowed to. Standing up to such actions and making him irrelevant is in my view the only option

Maybe he watched the film Madagascar and is actually imposing tariffs on the penguins from the film.

He's imposed 47% tarrifs on Madagascar ffs. The US imports raw materials from Madagascar. Is this to encourage the amazing American vanilla plantations and cobalt mines?