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

233 replies

Swirlythingy2025 · 06/04/2025 11:52

Lots of countries use tariffs to protect their own industries like China, India, even the EU. But when the US does it, especially under someone like Trump, people act like it’s a global crisis. Why?

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TempestTost · 10/04/2025 01:27

Yeah OP, I think people are really weird and inconsistent about this. Whether or not the tariffs are a good idea or make economic sense for the US, as a thing in themselves they are a legitimate economic tool. A nation is not evil because they want to promote and protect their own industry, it's their job to look out for their own economy.

Of course other countries may not be happy to lose a market, and that's fine too, but the way it's being presented as somehow evil is very weird.

What's even weirder is that many other countries and trading blocks use these kinds of rules to protect industry or give special advantages to only certain other countries. But even those who live in those places don't seem to think it's a problem when they do it.

And the third weird thing is that 20 years ago, free trade was being pushed by the right, people like Thatcher and Reagan. The left opposed it as exploitative to workers. They now seem to have totally forgot about that.

As for Trump - FWIW I don't think what he says about the tariffs has much to do with the reasons they are pushing them - I don't think it has much to do with calculating trade deficits or anything like that. I think it's about reducing the value of the American dollar and reducing the influence of global suppliers of goods on the US. WHether or not it will work, who knows.

TempestTost · 10/04/2025 01:37

ErrolTheDragon · 08/04/2025 14:48

I fear one effect of trump throwing a wrecking ball into worldwide trade and everyone’s economy, plus his turning on America’s historical allies will be to increase the influence and power of China (and also various of the rich Islamic countries) throughout the world, and decrease America’s. I hope (though am not convinced) that Europe can step up and to some extent hold the position of liberal democracies.

My feeling is that his goal (or that of his administration) is specifically to try and reduce the power of China.

Partly by reducing US reliance on Chinese goods. But I also suspect that they don't see Europe as serious allies. They are looking to Russia, and probably also India, to counter Chinese power. Faced with those two options, which way would Europe jump?

JHound · 10/04/2025 01:38

I see the Orange Manbaby has backtracked again.

ErrolTheDragon · 10/04/2025 15:54

TempestTost · 10/04/2025 01:37

My feeling is that his goal (or that of his administration) is specifically to try and reduce the power of China.

Partly by reducing US reliance on Chinese goods. But I also suspect that they don't see Europe as serious allies. They are looking to Russia, and probably also India, to counter Chinese power. Faced with those two options, which way would Europe jump?

I’m sure that’s one of his aims, but I’m not convinced it won’t backfire on him and the USA.

RedToothBrush · 10/04/2025 17:34

ElbowsUp · 09/04/2025 04:39

Pre-Trump, the average global tariff rate was 2.5%. The US and the EU were among those with average rates in the 2% range. The countries with the highest tariffs (in the high teens or around 20%) tend to be very small and/or very poor.

They are generally used sparingly, to protect vulnerable but industries that are of high importance to their nations economy.

Trump's tariffs are enormous, and apply to (almost) all goods. The baseline rate of 10% is, itself, 4 times the global average, and many countries have been hit with far higher ones.

He had said they were going to be reciprocal ("we'll tariff you what you tariff us") but they are not, they go magnitudes higher, because his (stupid) math factors in the country's trade deficit.

Trump, it seems, feels like a country is "ripping off" the US if the US buys more from them than they do from it. For example, he has hit Lesotho (a small African country, with a population of less than Wales') with the highest rate of tariffs. The US buys tens of millions of dollars of diamonds from Lesotho each year, as well as a lot of clothing.

Trump thinks that, somehow, the ~2.5m people of Lesotho, more than half of whom live below the poverty line, should be spending the same on US goods as the ~350m people in the US spend on goods from Lesotho. If the average person from Lesotho was 100 times richer than the average American, that would be a slightly more reasonable (if still absurd) ask.

The US accounts for around half of Lesotho's exports, so their economy will be decimated.

Which, apparently, is intended to make them spend more on US products?

It's hard to tell if it's more stupid or evil.

And, of course, China has, and other countries will, retaliate.

Either way, the US is picking a trade war it can't possibly win. I think the biggest question is if Trump really believes (contrary to all sense) that it'd be good for the US in the long term, or whether he's deliberately crushing the economy, people and businesses in order to consolidate his power over them.

The tariffs are bad for the whole world but are economic suicide for the US. I just worry that he'll do something else crazy, like invade Greenland, to distract from it.

It depends on what Trumps ultimate goals are.

We assume it's about doing best for America and it's people. Except that's not how Trump has ever operated. It's always been about what's best for Trump.

He has a shed load of debt. That's affected by interest rates. By driving the interest rates down he's writing off his debt and he still will have purchasing power. Indeed he will have moved because he will be less laden with debt. The value of things within America will go down because he can off shore in other currencies and because lots of people further down the chain will go pop.

This works for obligarchs. It enables them to get richer and the rest of the population to get poorer. It's an enslaving mechanism to remove power from the American people. It's how disaster capitalism works. It also will allow America businesses to move in and buy up everything in places like Lesotho. Or effectively all but take them over. Their currencies will be devalued too, thus meaning that the cost of goods to Americans may not go up as much as people think. Because it's those at the bottom of the chain who pay the price most. It will be in the form of starvation. Where this falls down is in how it's likely to drive more wars too. But hey who are the worlds weapons manufacturers?

We are seeing China trying to do similar to this to an extent with it's belt and road initiative - extend influence with loans and the insistence of using Chinese companies as conditions for the loan for infrastructure. This move is going to make it much more difficult for China to continue to do this - because it will be trying to prop up its own economy instead. Instead it gives the US the opportunity to move away from an aid model to an ownership model where the US has control of overseas assets and to extend influence in a way more similar to the belt and road approach. This is where talking about Greenland also makes a lot of sense.

Trump is an ultra capitalist. He thinks of everything in terms of owning it. That's how he sees American futures. It's a different type of American Colonialism and exploitation of non Americans. One that doesn't value the lives of people living elsewhere. The bonus is that in decimating African economies he'll drive African migration to Europe which will destabilise Europe politically in his favour too.

He could literally back down on everything tomorrow with this now and he, personally will still win, because trust in America has gone and the stability and safety of the American market has gone due to his recklessness.

Yes it might wreck the US economy in some ways. But it also gives enormous opportunities in others for the super rich.

If you see all of this through the lens of how it benefits the super rich it makes sense. Trump has no interest in the lives and experiences of normal people. He has no capacity to comprehend them as he's so removed from that experience.

Far from being a losing situation for the US, it has the potential to work the other way for obligarchs. Its closer to the model that Putin used when he took over Russia. It led to a huge rise in criminality in Russia and a decline in living standards but Putin is still there. It is easy to see how the US could go the same way and how Trump could aspire to that. Putin, despite this, retains a huge popular following because he trades on nationalism and traditionalism. This again works for Trump in the context of the US and the Christian Right and ideas of nationalism particularly in red states.

It's really messed up.

Trumps trade mark is to do one thing, double down reverse and the deny he ever did to the contrary. He holds two opposing positions at the same time in this way - allowing his supporters to always take the line they line and deny the other. And it gives little room for the opposition to have any traction because the truth and the power to observe and recognise the truth is undermined and destroyed. This there can be no accountability.

So I don't assume that Trump will follow through. He doesn't necessarily need to. He just needs to break the existing system and exploit the cracks that emerge. And to hell with those who fall through those cracks. Trump regards them as losers - he refers to them as losers. They are worthless to him. Why should he care? Humans are just another resource to be exploited.

DdraigGoch · 11/04/2025 14:34

It's pretty obvious now that this was all just an opportunity for some insider trading. Short some stocks, crash the market, buy stock on the cheap and revive the market.

EasternStandard · 11/04/2025 14:48

TempestTost · 10/04/2025 01:37

My feeling is that his goal (or that of his administration) is specifically to try and reduce the power of China.

Partly by reducing US reliance on Chinese goods. But I also suspect that they don't see Europe as serious allies. They are looking to Russia, and probably also India, to counter Chinese power. Faced with those two options, which way would Europe jump?

I’m not sure anyone will take on China if US doesn’t reorder things.

Also not sure what they’re planning with the military kit that looks high end and some of it likely under wraps.

Flytrap01 · 13/04/2025 00:39

Can the us rebuild its manufacturing base ?

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