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

[Swirlythingy2025]

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?

It’s a group of barren, glaciated volcanic islands in the Antarctic.

What kind production would you plan to move there? Banana growing? Cattle ranching? Artisanal cheese making?

Not to mention the massive active volcano that makes up most of the land.

Surely the fact that tariffs are ready in place and the average person is hardly aware of them suggests they are generally well negotiated and managed.
It’s the financial markets that have shit themselves over his tariffs, not people being anti Trump. Maybe he is somehow smarter than all the world’s mainstream economists put together, or perhaps he has no idea what he’s doing. Hmm, I wonder which it could be. The emperor’s new clothes going on with this shitbag is beyond me.

The EU is generally thought as a good thing (on mn) but rarely is protectionism mentioned. Doesn’t it apply here too?

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

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

It absolutely seems to have worked in your case.

I have seen some mad posts on Mumsnet in my time, but that must be up there in the top ten , does your carer know you have Internet access.

That is genuinely the funniest fucking thing I've heard since this whole tariff thing started. Man alive.

It’s an interesting question. Tariffs are quite complicated. Most countries have some but they are set per country and per product. These are carefully set to protect domestic industries from cheap imports without damaging the economy. I think with Trumps tariffs it’s the sheer scope and scale of them plus the lack of any thought of the consequences. So the EU has a 10% tariff on US cars but the level of imports of these is tiny. So across all US goods on average it’s only 1-1.5%. The US had I think 2.5% on EU cars but around 35% on EU pick up trucks, so very targeted. These massive tariffs will make life in the US very hard for consumers and businesses. Wouldn’t want to be them.

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?

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

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

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.

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.
"

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.

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.

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

Takes one to know one.

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

Isle of burnt umber, maybe.

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

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

He is dumb.

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 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.

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 fucking hates penguins.