No Stupid Questions

He is not.

A tariff is a tax that increases the price of imported goods.

Tariffs are used to push people toward domestic alternatives to imported goods.

However, today, there are no domestic alternatives to most important goods.

So, all it's doing is increasing the burden on the average person.

Companies are not going to invest in domestic production. They are going to spend that money lobbying to have tarriffs removed. Because guess what? Once tariffs go away, consumer prices are not going to go back to what they used to be. Instead, megacorps are going to pocket the difference as profit.

I don't believe this question is being asked in good faith

Yes, as you said, they aren't a new concept. We have plenty of evidence, of countries that tried that again and again. We know what he is doing is stupid.

Besides, your theory on tariffs won't even get to be tested. Kidnapping people at random on the street and sending them to concentration camps has an overwhelmingly larger impact on the economy than the tariffs. People from outside of the US will only focus at this if you start to invade other countries, but at this point, nobody inside the US should be concerned with tariffs, at all.

We’ll never know

He isn't. He can't be; not the way he has handled them.

Bringing industry and manufacturing back to US soil is actually not a bad idea at all but it's a problem that needs to be tackled smartly and over a period of time so businesses can react. He is trying to force decades worth of economic migration in the span of a few months. For (hopefully) obvious reasons, that is impossible and the US economy is about to collapse.

And considering Trump, along with Musk at DOGE, have systematically destroyed economic and social safety-net programs... the aftermath of this is going to be catastrophic. The only way Trump is "right" about these tariffs is that they are an intentional sabotage of the US economy so him and his wealthy backers can cash out as the walls come crashing down. That is the goal and it's going according to plan.

I suspect he is right. These tariffs will torpedo the economy just as intended.

Tariffs will be super hard on american economy. There is no universe where current tariffs and migration policy wont mean stagflation from hell. But that's a price that might be worth/necessary paying. However, if american blue collar are able to organize, there is a possibility that blue collar salaries will keep up with inflation and that implies economic power is transferred to the working clas (supply and demand will be on the side of blue collar at least). Transfer of economic (and political) power is very much needed if the US democracy shall survive (or return from the dead).

But it's all a big gamble for sure. Chaos and feudalism/fascism is probably the most likely outcome. Everything is so complex that it's impossible to know for sure. Hopefully evolution has empowered us with enough accurate intuitions.

I want to smoke the copium you're high on 🤣

He won't be right about tariffs because he (and you, I suppose) has a gross misunderstanding about how tariffs should be implemented. Tariffs are typically used to strengthen a local product. Say that we wanted to support Napa wine. We might introduce a tarrif on importing wines from our largest competitors. This would increase the cost of the foreign product in relation to the domestic product and encourage consumers to buy locally. So, why won't this work if we just tarrif everyone for everything? Well, we don't make everything so they're isn't a local option to buy instead. Not just for you, but for the companies that make the things you consume. Oh, then let's just build up the industries to make everything. Even disregarding that we don't have the ability to produce everything due to, well, climate and resources, that would cost many millions of dollars and years of investment before seeing a profit. Which is a nice idea if businesses had any faith that the tariffs are permanent, which they don't not only because the current administration (likely lol) won't be in power forever, but also because the current administration has said that they are willing to negotiate. So why bother making the investment when you can import again soon? And lastly, if we try to strong-arm everyone at the same time, they'll just band together without us. They don't need to trade with us if they have an alternative in a more profitable trade partner, and we've just incentivized the entire world to look for a better option than us. We did that. All at once. The idiocy is frankly astounding.

The same way they'll react if someone is right about the Earth being flat.

The question is inconsequential.

The empirical and historical information we have demonstrates that this is a patently stupid policy.

The big difference between the US and China is that China is often close to the bottom of the supply chain.

America doesn't have the infrastructure already in place to supply the raw materials and basic essentials to manufacturers.

Until this is the case (and I'm phrasing it optimistically but the reality is it never can be the case), all manufacturers have to pay extra just to have access to the things they need to produce their goods.

This cost is passed on to the consumer.

Like another commenter pointed out, there just isn't a domestic supplier of many products. Crucial rare earth metals and various other minerals just aren't available. Heck, to my knowledge, there isn't even a domestic manufacturer of light bulbs anymore.

Without putting anything in place before implementing these tariffs, he's guaranteed that prices will go up on almost everything.

Wait, you were a child of the Great Depression? 'cause the US has been promoting free trade with low tariff rates since the end of WWII

What we have seen before are small, narrowly focused tariffs. This is about as not- that as it's possible to be and still be tariffs. So if Trump is somehow right the response will be to question everything we know about economics because we are now living in an alternate time line where taking a hammer to a complex issue that needs a scalpel will have somehow worked for literally the first time in human history. But, ya know, ask silly questions, get silly answers.

That would certainly be quite surprising. The expression of Trump being right is flexible enough to be interpreted in various ways.

The only plausible way would be if he achieves some largely meaningless concessions and the media spins it as a win. But if the American electorate gets the idea that the US can get free stuff by throwing a fit, then any agreement is not worth the paper it is written on.

Well, I guess that's the answer. If Trump achieves anything positive with this, then the reaction with be self-destructive.

Do you have any particular scenario in mind that ends with Trump being vindicated?

Since the odds are so slim of tariffs at this scale further boosting an economy that was already pretty vigorous - I think the more important question is, who are you going to scapegoat when tariffs don't work as advertised? Immigration? George Soros? Biden? Deep State? Panama and Greenland? Her emails? Will you swallow the doublethink when Murdoch and Bezos's fake news tell you a recession is really sort of a boom, and vodka rations are up 8%?

I can't imagine that it happens. Usually tariffs are targeted but Trump is doing large scale blanket tariffs. The world economy is much more intertwined than it used to be. Even if factory jobs were brought back there are many problems with that.

Firstly to avoid tariffs everything for the product would need to be made in the US and very little is made completely in a single country these days.

Second the same applies to all the factory equipment.

Then you have to ask would factories employ people at large rates or would they automate?

I could go on but i feel like the point has been made why blanket tariffs are bad

And the last time they have been used by the US in 1930, they ruined the economy.

How in depth would you like to understand the level to which across the board tariffs from the united states are going to fuck not just the united states economy but the global economy? Education at this level is not free.

Brother you should take a step back from politics if this is the depth of analysis you’re capable of.

Probably MAGAs will feel so vindicated they will literally start murdering people opposed to Trump.

We've already seen quite a few shooting, and attacking the Capitol, and most of the people getting off mostly free.

So we'll see even more of it.

How can he be right when it's pretty much a wrong decision? Tariff isn't new, country does that to protect or nurturing the local industry so it won't get wrecked by bigger fish coming into the local market.

But there is cost to that, because once the bigger brand established locally and people relying on them, and local brand has since been demolished, tariffs gonna hurt so many people without alternatives to consider. It take years for the good effect of tariff to establish. What frump did is put a sweeping one with the 10% minimum for all country EXCEPT russia, and some as high as 34%. This have serious consequences outside of stock market, the so called "blue collar" he's trying to protect is the one gonna hurt the most, and it gonna take years if not decade(s) for such tariff to take effect.

What china did cannot be replicated beyond their land. They can survive on their own for years if they close off their port today. The whole thing by china is planned, drump and the depublicant can't even figure out the mathematical equation of tariff. What they did is turning friend into enemy and pretend it's a win.

Most people who aren't right-wing nut jobs know how to admit when they're wrong about something and how to be happy for something that actually is a positive for the majority of people who aren't already rich, regardless of how that result was achieved.

Tariffs are normal, they encourage a strong local economy that doesn't get screwed over by a dominant economy that decides to use the trade relationship against the local economy, but they haven't been "aggressive" since the last time they were used as an act of war and ended up causing a depression.

Ignoring whether he is or not, as that is a DEEP dive into world economics, the response would have some variance, because nothing is monolithic, but I expect the prominent responses would be for supporters to cheer and gloat, for the independents to cheer and hope, with timing deciding the midterms, and for the opposition to drop it and focus on all the other problems with Trump.

Tariffs don't "work" or "not work" it's not a binary outcome. Just as measuring "the economy" is pretty much impossible, so is attributing economic outcomes to one single feature of the regulatory environment, They interact with the rest of the economic environment and some variety or work, production, trade, investment and distribution will occur. Over time all aspects of the system will change, adapt and react. Most changes have winners and losers and they can be counted or balanced off differently.

It it were paired with bank regulation and asset ownership regulation and a coherent industrial strategy, maybe also forex controls, maybe some counter cyclical macroeconomic policy (extremely unpopular these days) the outcomes would likely be quite different from a low regulation free for "all". "All" is probably "a few with relatively unconstrained access to enough capital or credit to hoover up assets of the losers".

But then a smaller subset of those things might also change the outcomes on their own. Either way it would be a matter of time and adaptation of a complex system.

It also depends what you think the objective is before you understand "success" or "failure", the goals might well be social as much as economic. If the objective is trash the small scale asset ownig middle classes and enrich the elites economically then it might be working already.

How will idiots react when they finally figure out what a tariff is?

“A broken clock is right twice a day.”

This thread is an example why Lemmy wont succeed as the new reigning image board.

Yeah you definately sound a lot older than most lemmy users, what are you doing lurking here creep. Don't you have a bingo game to attend or something

I believe the tarrifs are good. Though for other reasons than Trump. The current (previous) situation is super unstable and unsustainable. It basically require a global US monopoly of violence (which was the case for about 30 years). Trade imbalance implies war (as stated by Keynes).

However, the arguments of the Trump administration are completely false and uneducated.

We've all been drenched in neoliberal propaganda for about 50 years (disguised as science), so it's not weird people are unable to think outside of the box on this matter.

Also, super valid question. Don't get the down votes.