this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Tariff Isn't Tax on Other Countries?🤪 (lemmy.world)
submitted 12 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 44 minutes ago

Even if it were a tax paid by foreign companies, what difference does it make? They would just increase the prices the goods are sold at.

So, lets say, a smartphone that is priced at $1000:

With the 20% tariff in place:

If the Chinese conpanies pay the $200 per device, they just sell each phone at $1200 to the US importer.

If the US importers pay the $200 per device, similarily, they would tack on the $200 (on top of the usual markups), making it $1200 per phone.

There is zero difference, the end consumer always foots the bill.

This is so simple to understand, how are people this stupid

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago

And the people who voted for the orangetard will still be shafted by him and his mafia yet will continue to blame "obiden" for their economic woes. 🥱

[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

didn't understand why he was told the other countries pay the tariffs

that's easy: you were willing to vote for a guy who lied over 30 thousand times in his first term so he realized you're a fucking idiot and he could say anything without you thinking even half a second about it.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF EXPORTING SHIT YOU IDIOT WHY WOULD A COUNTRY DO IT IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR IT

[–] [email protected] 6 points 53 minutes ago

They willing pay the extra funbucks tariff monies for the privilege and honor of shipping it to America (at cost) on a chance some red-hatted half-wit will waste it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 minutes ago

WHAT’S THE POINT OF EXPORTING SHIT YOU IDIOT WHY WOULD A COUNTRY DO IT IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR IT

Yeah this is grade school level reasoning telling you that it obviously doesn't work that way.

A country's aluminum exports for example aren't extra aluminum they want to get rid of because it's junking up their basements and America is 1800-got-junk taking it off their hands at cost. It's a fucking series of material production companies in a different country. They too are based on capitalism and they too require profits in order to function.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 minutes ago

literally googling tariffs, brings you to a government page that lists tariffs, duties, and taxes under the same fucking definition.

How people like this DO NOT understand this shit, is beyond me. I can respect the humility in changing your position after being that stupid though, please, due your due diligence before mindlessly repeating the shit other people tell you, so you don't look stupid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago* (last edited 21 seconds ago)

If you're Republican it's simple: a tariff is Trump magic that saves you from immigrants and wokeness, and Mexico pays for it!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 minutes ago

Omg. We’ve come full circle now that smart people are telling idiots to do your own research…

[–] Snowpix 13 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

"Doing your own research" means watching one or two YouTube videos or Facebook posts as far as these people are concerned. No thought for themselves, just parrot what you hear.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 50 minutes ago (1 children)

I don't understand why this even needs to be researched. I'm no economist and I don't know much about tariffs, but: costs more to get product to me for any reason = product costs me more. When has that ever not been the case? What am I missing?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 33 minutes ago

Hey, you have to factor in things like market capture! They could be operating entirely at a loss just to ensure no other competitor can operate in the same market.

(/s because duh more cost = more price)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

Some people genuinely are fucking dumber than a rock

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 hours ago

I would like to ask them what happens when taffis are increased to 100%? Does that mean producers are giving stuff for free?

And then what happen when the tarris are at 200%? Do they have to send stuff for free and pay on top of that?

One more thing - don't tell them they are wrong. Tell them they were lied to

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Doing your own research or, you know, trust the experts? There's no way I will get deep enough into virology to get a proper grasp if I need a vaccination. But I for sure won't trust a random space Karen or brainworm Jimmy.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Real answer is in the last line there. If 60% of people we're capable of doing their own research (and arriving at the correct answer) then we wouldn't have anti-vaxers, flat-earthers and non-billionaire/non-bigot/non-christian nationalist republicans.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

The problem lies where they "find" their "research" when they see the answer they want to see on social media rather than an actual study or any factual references.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

"He was told the other countries pay the tariffs", by a bunch of liars and he believed the liars.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

The real hard part is it's a partial truth.

The sellers do pay the tariffs, they just don't talk about what that does to the prices.

The other problem is it cuts both ways, and a number of the idiots will say as long as you're hurting them too, fine.

And then we have retaliatory tariffs, which also cut both ways.

IMHO, our biggest issue is we've been using cheap Chinese products and labor as a crutch instead of increasing wages. They've been able to cut down wages because Amazon, Temu and Shein have been providing products WAY WAY under marketable US made prices.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I wrote a comment explaining Tariffs on a Fox News YouTube video a few weeks back, and the entire reply chain was people arguing with eachother about how tariffs work because "Trump said it's a tax on other countries, so that's how they work"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It’s the problem that reality is more complicated than the simplified version trump gives his followers.

If you don’t know how something works and someone very confidently tells you how it works and it sorta maps onto familiar concepts, boy is that catnip.

Maybe all the countries are just sitting around like people and Canada is like a guy buying our stuff and we are just making that guy pay a tax. I’m a guy, I pay taxes, sucks to be that guy but probably rules to be the guy getting the tax revenue, and now trump made that us, awesome!!!

Transmitting this wrong idea is fast because it maps onto their lived experiences. It’s easy for them to conceptualize Canada as a single monolithic entity that is buying shit and having to pay a tax. So in one stroke they get a double dopamine hit.

  • I’m not dumb, I get how this all works, and it was pretty easy!
  • we get to collect these taxes instead of having to pay them, awesome!!!

So here you come to explain, “that’s not how any of this works” Canada isn’t one entity, it’s many. Sure the tariff is on their stuff, but it’s paid by the person buying it, us. And you can go on about all the ways they are wrong but you are threatening the fact that they are not dumb and they already understand this and their understanding means they are winning. So you want them to admit they are dumb and getting fucked and that’s a hard sale.

This is the real danger of hypernormalization, it allows people like trump to replace the complexity of reality with a fake but simpler version. And it’s so dangerous because the people that buy in to that fake but simpler version have this weird insane incentive to defend it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You’re doing god’s work in the hellish trenches

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

That's front line in "Trench Crusade" level of trenches.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

I recently learned that almost 1 in 5 Americans are illiterate.

How many Americans do you think are reasonably well educated, so that they would understand somewhat complex issues like tariffs? Or could seek out information if they didn't understand?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 52 minutes ago* (last edited 51 minutes ago) (1 children)

Important note - literacy isn’t simply about being able to recognize and pronounce letters and words. A person can sound out every word in English, and understand what each word says, and still be illiterate if they cannot comprehend the message the words express together.

That’s where this illiteracy arises - it’s a failure of reading comprehension. In this light, I imagine many of us have attempted conversation online with somebody functionally illiterate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 minutes ago

Literacy is also about English (at least as commonly reported in the US). About 1/3 of functionally illiterate adults in the US are foreign born. I have never seen literacy stats that measure "literate in any language".

[–] Hozerkiller 1 points 1 hour ago

"Are you saying 1 fouth of Americans are removed?" "Yeah at least 1 fourth."

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Im still surprised by that , the quality of education in my country is low but holly fuck im stunned by the lack of education in the states

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

It is highly regional, too.

Despite the existence of the Department of Education (which Trump is trying to dismantle), there is no national standard for education in the US. In general, each state is free to decide upon its own policies and standards.

Some states, such as those in the northeast, have very high-performing school systems. So when that "1 in 5 are illiterate" statistic is mentioned (I actually have not verified that number, just quoting the prior claim as an example), it would be caused by low-performing states where the situation is much more dire dragging down the national average.

Here's a general look at quality of education in the US by state, though recommend folks look up their own numbers because I haven't validated the numbers pulled in the article I grabbed this from.

It's not a perfect divide between red states and blue states (Florida appears good, California less so, as an example), but in general we see the lower performing states located mainly in the South where the Republicans have more support. Basically, a less educated populace is easier to manipulate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

For extra fun, look into where school districts allocate their funding and how it relates to their rankings. Some of the worst performing public schools spend a lot more on athletics than they spend on anything else. It's like they want to be professional athlete mills instead of functioning adult mills.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 hours ago

I was reading into this recently and the reason Florida is so high on these lists is because post-secondary education is very cheap. Their K-12 education is on the garbage end of the spectrum.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 hours ago

It's by design.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 hours ago

The whole thing was very purposefully talked about using the word "tariff" and never ever its synonym "import tax" exactly so that the traditional Fascist technique of redefining the meaning of words could be easily used: if all the Fascists' speech had been about "import taxes" they would not have been able to leverage most people's ignorance anywhere near this level because the very words "import" and "tax" were already reasonably well understood by most - unlike "tariff" - so the opinion makers would not have been able to miseducate their targets anywhere as easily.

I'm not saying that the people who fell for this are to be excused - if there is something important enough for you to put the effort into educating yourself, it's Politics - I'm saying it's understandable how so many were so easy to swindle.

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