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?

Which is why I think it's not as simple as looking up pre-globalisation prices and applying inflation to calculate the hypothetical retail price. The Trumps of this world will want to make a profit. They're not ever disrupting industry out of the goodness of their heart. So I think sadly the likeliest outcome is a big drop in living standards.

Ha You think the west doesn't exploit Africans in mines? They have done it longer than China and continue to do so. So yes China exploits Africans but let's not pretend western companies don't. They start and continue to fund wars ffs just to get diamonds and minerals. And a substantial part of those mining exploitation by China are for western companies' batteries, phones, tech.

Except when the price go up, demand decreases. That mobile phone made in the US won't be replaced every year, but every 2 years. It will be significantly higher in price, not just due to the current cost of production but the even higher cost of production caused by tarrifs on raw materials. So in the end, fewer phones will be bought, at a much higher price. And this will happen across the board with the way tarrifs have been implemented. US manufacturers will produce a little bit more, maybe, and US consumers will be much poorer. I'm not sure who wins here.

Your points are odd your either not finacially literate or cannot properly follow what is going on. The math used was wrong, the concept deranged and the threats to Canada indicate some form of utter madness. You sound like one of those people who would argue that the USA is a great miltray power they are not. They are a commercial power, trade based and they have just attacked all possible trading partners on earth. It's terrifying how slow people are when they want to be a little bit diffrent.

Well, TDS is really one sided and it’s those who think he can do no wrong that suffer from it. It’s funny the projection folks with TDS do that only comes back to them. He is popular amongst the weak minded folks. That’s you.

but I agree Tariffs are not good.

Some of the post on this thread are truly truly bizarre it's like they seriously think China a country the has run continously for 5000 years will now suddenly be unable to function 9n earth because a country that only came to power 75 years ago says so? Or that Europe whose nations have existed for millennia will suddenly be unable to function because a former colony cuts of trade. The USA wants to be isolated so it will be isolated, markets will adjust usa will decline. Unfortunately irrespective of impeachment or in 3 years the damage done is irreversible for at least 25 years. This mess will need to cycle out and value will need to be rebuilt. I'm hopeful for Europe proud of Canada and can clearly see the USA is not a nation to rely on.

What?

Oh I get it trump derangement syndrome omg I was checking my user name.

Absolutely. And don't forget it's the American (and other) corporations who have chosen to manufacture or source goods in China and southeast Asia that has lead to these trade imbalances in the first place.
p.s. and of course his calculation of trade deficits was for Goods only, not services, which makes it even more bullshit

The USA has no natural reserves of the minerals needed for tech and cleaner energy. China has them in spades, and has been deliberately restricting supply for years. This gives it a huge advantage in tech & energy development. Unsurprisingly, China's just downgraded America's access to these minerals.

Ukraine has loads of "raw earth" as Trump called it 🙄 Russia probably has large unexploited deposits, because Russia has large deposits of most minerals but limited capacity to develop them. I was surprised Trump shafted Zelenskyy after he'd evidently been told to get his hands on Ukraine's new-generation minerals, but perhaps he's promised to do Putin's mining for him. I've got no bloody idea what his strategy is, or if there even is one 🤷‍♀️

It’s not dissimilar to ‘immigrants are bad and are ripping off the US’ whereas it’s the immigrants that do the jobs that nobody else wants to do.

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.

I'm struggling to get my head around the logic at all-

You impose tariffs because you want to encourage manufacturing in your own country. This removes or at least reduces the price difference between super cheap imported goods and home produced items.

Scenario One, at least partly true:

However, a good chunk of your population is already struggling financially with the availability of cheap goods. You have now priced them out of the market entirely.

Scenario Two, also partially true:

Consumers switch to buying the domestically produced items, and demand increases. Production increases, increasing jobs, and potentially increasing wages for the workers so they can now afford the goods, this drives up the cost of production further, prices go up wages need to go up again etc etc in a never ending spiral of inflation.

What happens to low paid workers in the services industry-cleaners etc. Will their wagss go up too?

However unpalatable it may be, western countries particularly will always be in need of cheap products. And that largely means importing from countries whose workforce are not treated ethically. This is because every country will always need people to work in low paid jobs, such as cleaning, waste management etc because these are essential services.

Unless you are rich enough to be able to consciouslessly switch to the higher priced goods anyway-these tariffs are going to hit the average American hard. And although I know little of their welfare system, my understanding is that it is not as robust as the UK for example (correct me if I am wrong here).

A lot of people who voted for Trump under the MAGA march and not rich are about to get a wake up call about just who is going to benefit under his presidency.

Also this has the potential to absolutely emiserate a lot of developing countries, people in already poor countries will be thrown in to severe poverty.

And as pointed out above there is nothing they can do, they cannot simply start consuming a lot of higher priced American goods. It's an awful, evil thing to do.

I honestly suspect Trump/Musk want to wear down people in developing countries (with valuable mines), remove USAID, create famine or widespread illness, and once those people are sufficiently fragile, go in and take over.

So maybe they are benign long term, but lack of democracy is an issue.

This attitude is an issue in itself. Why assume democracy is the best way of governing all countries? I lived in Brazil just after their military dictatorship ended and many Brazilians felt that it was needed at the time.

Political systems can change and I would argue that Trump's current government, while elected, is not maximilist democratic.

It's certainly true that Trump may be remembered as the environmental president.

Drill, baby, Drill.🤔

It’s not an ‘issue’ to prefer democracy.

You can live where you like. If prefer China’s version of governance feel free to live under it.

My point is that China's government has an 85% approval rating. Pointing out the obvious doesn't equal that I want to live there. That's irrational thinking. The government there has moved beyond hardline communism to 'authoritarian capitalism' and has lifted millions out of poverty.

What works for one country may not work for all.

Blimey. I lived there around the same time as you. Didn't people tell you about the 'disappeared' from almost every family, show you their torture scars and that? They were still afraid to mention anything at all about the government or the military; they loosened up very gradually over the years I was there.

Populations often feel like they want hard-line governance and even a dictator when they're living through uncertainty, particularly populations that are not very clued up about how governments work. There's a growing swell of this kind in Britain at the moment. Wanting something doesn't have to mean it's right for you.

Isn’t there a fair bit of state control on what you can say and do?

At least we can criticise the gov including on here, protest and vote them out if we are not happy with them.

Just a bit! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

That’s the kind of thing I’m wary of.

Also in other non democratic countries people can’t run in elections, eg against Putin so you get results where apparently the votes are in his favour so the percentage can be high. But with state controlled media and bad outcomes for those who oppose it’s misleading.

The real issue with dictatorship is lack of accountability which means you just have no recourse as an individual because there is no rule of law protecting you. I am opposed to anarchy (like the chaos in Russia that followed the fall of the USSR) for the same reason. They're both bad for ordinary people. You need balance of power between the branches because you must have mechanisms for accountability in order to have any hope of fairness. Restoring order after chaos - yes - but as long as you make sure to transition to rule of law. Someone mentioned corruption in China. How do you whistleblow there? How do you effect change? There is no recourse if you're a victim of injustice. You can't effect change unless you're part of the party apparatus and even then I have no clue. I know things are not perfect in democracies - but the flaws become major threats under tyranny or anarchy/failed states.

However unpalatable it may be, western countries particularly will always be in need of cheap products.

It's almost like it wasn't possible for us to survive until the 90s when large volumes of trade began with China.

I think it is also something of a simplistic view to believe China is all about cheap products. For example they are first in solar panel production. But my belief is they got there through protectionism rather than through competition. Of course people can argue pretty much indefinitely over what constitutes protectionism.

I think there is also a lack of understanding of what is cheap to produce in China. Anything low skill labour intensive is cheap to produce there. Anything high tech is just as expensive to produce there as it is in the West (or the US at least, maybe not Europe). The reason is the cost in things like chip fabrication plants is in the equipment and construction, not in the labour or operation. A trained engineer in Shanghai costs pretty much the same as one in the US.

Generally China secures these sorts of businesses through protectionism (IMO) and has done for a long time. Hence Bidens 2022 Chips Act (more protectionism).