Would Donald Trump’s tariffs hurt US consumers?

[spidermike007]

6 hours ago, frank83628 said:

What does trump get manufactured in China ?

WALLACE: "But this brings up the point, the conservative American Enterprise Institute says, look, Donald Trump, he owns a dozen hotels, properties, all over the world. Your Trump Collection clothing line, some of it is made in Mexico…" TRUMP: "It's true." WALLACE: "…and China." TRUMP: "That's true. I want it to be made here." (Fox's "Fox News Sunday," 10/18/15)

 

"[The Trump Store was] selling $80 Trump-branded cotton sweaters and $70 Trump-branded warm-up tops, all made in China. Also available with the made in China tag: golf hats stamped with the Trump crest and stuffed animals. Visitors also could buy leather made-in-China belts priced at $45 that are advertised as 'So soft, it feels like a million bucks.' And in the display case were neat stacks of colorful Trump-branded polo shirts that would be perfect wear for one of Trump's golf courses. The shirts, which sell for $70, were not made in China, but nearby, in Korea and Thailand. … All the Trump tie pins ($22) and tie clips ($28) are labeled as 'Made in China,' as are the cufflinks ($35 to $45 a pair) and even the boxes containing them." (ABC News, 4/28/11)

 

The list goes on and on, make America great again baseball caps are made in China, his Bibles are made in China, his watches likely Switzerland, the list just goes on and on and on.

 

The question is, does Donald Trump make anything in America? I doubt it. Hypocrisy of the highest order. 

 

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/rubio-campaign-press-release-donald-trump-proudly-outsources-jobs-china-mexico-other

[Yellowtail]

3 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

WALLACE: "But this brings up the point, the conservative American Enterprise Institute says, look, Donald Trump, he owns a dozen hotels, properties, all over the world. Your Trump Collection clothing line, some of it is made in Mexico…" TRUMP: "It's true." WALLACE: "…and China." TRUMP: "That's true. I want it to be made here." (Fox's "Fox News Sunday," 10/18/15)

 

"[The Trump Store was] selling $80 Trump-branded cotton sweaters and $70 Trump-branded warm-up tops, all made in China. Also available with the made in China tag: golf hats stamped with the Trump crest and stuffed animals. Visitors also could buy leather made-in-China belts priced at $45 that are advertised as 'So soft, it feels like a million bucks.' And in the display case were neat stacks of colorful Trump-branded polo shirts that would be perfect wear for one of Trump's golf courses. The shirts, which sell for $70, were not made in China, but nearby, in Korea and Thailand. … All the Trump tie pins ($22) and tie clips ($28) are labeled as 'Made in China,' as are the cufflinks ($35 to $45 a pair) and even the boxes containing them." (ABC News, 4/28/11)

 

The list goes on and on, make America great again baseball caps are made in China, his Bibles are made in China, his watches likely Switzerland, the list just goes on and on and on.

 

The question is, does Donald Trump make anything in America? I doubt it. Hypocrisy of the highest order. 

 

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/rubio-campaign-press-release-donald-trump-proudly-outsources-jobs-china-mexico-other

So, he is imposing tariffs on his own products, yes? 

 

 

 

 

[WDSmart]

12 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

How will it hurt the citizens in the country the tariffs are imposed on? 

It would increase the cost of exporting those goods to the USA. That would reduce the profits of making and exporting those goods. That would either cause the goods to be sold at a lower price or lower the demand for the goods. Either of those would affect the economy of the country and would probably result in a reduction in the workforce of that industry. 

I am not an economist, so all this is just my thinking and resulting opinions on this subject. 

[MicroB]

3 hours ago, mogandave said:

You can make the same argument for mass immigration. Drives wages down, reducing prices for consumers. 

 

 

 

Not always. What happens to average Thai wages if Thailand decided to start handing out work permits/visas for Farang?

 

In reality, Thai managers won't be able to see massive pay rises because Cleetus from Mobile, Dirk from Groningen or Paul from Newcastle gets their £100k PA job transferred to the Bangkok office.

 

Mass immigration might be one of the drivers for wage inequality, but is not the only one, and might not even anywhere near the most important. Sandeep arrives from India in the bright lights of London, and he gets a job emptying the bins for an office cleaning company which wins a competitive bid from a PLC in the City because they are paying mostly immigrant employees a wage much closer to the minimum wage than their competitors. There is a saving to the PLC which helps them reduce costs, contributing to the bottom line, and nudging everyone over the line for those bonuses. PLC employee wages go up because of Sandeep. Of course Wayne the bloke who got thrown out of school at 14 for sniffing glue, still can't anything better than cleaning skips for cash in hand.

 

Rohit is an engineer with some experience. In India, his wage is £6000 a year, which is pretty decent there, but he thinks the UK offers more opportunities. His boss in India keeps telling him the grass isn't always greener, but Rohit is young, got a new wife and baby, and he spends a lot of time on Tiktok, looking at amazing snow and cars. He get a visa sponsor. He attends interview for a graduate engineer, advertised as starting at £45,000 depending on experience, which seems like a King's Ransom to him. He doesn't have quite as much experience as the other candidates. He comes out with out during the interview, he'll take the job for £10,000 a year. Does he get the job, driving down wages? No. What is happening is the UK company sets up an office in Bangalore, and employs all the CAD engineers they need there. Now the savings aren't really 1/10th of the wage cost, because they seem to need to employ twice as many people  there, on shifts, because of the time difference. They design clever stuff that is manufactured in the UK by an additive process that is pretty automated. Normally those engineers would be a £60 PH overhead in the UK, now that's reduced to £20PA, taking account of the rented office in India, and that they need to have a travel budget so that some of the managers can swan out there every now and then.

 

Wage growth is complex. There was this idea at one time of "trickle down" economics; Elon Musk now being a trillionaire (or close to it) makes you richer. It doesn't; its a garbage idea that the Oligarchs in Russia made the lives of ordinary Russians better because they became richer and brought more Bentleys. I think the opposite is also equally untrue; capillary economics, the idea that poor immigrants make other people poorer. No, what happens is you have a lot more people less well off than you.

 

Where mass immigration can cause stress is on public services, and that is down to the humanity of the society. there is increased demand on education, healthcare. A society can be inhumane and stop migrants sending their kids to school, or, in the case of a publicly funded healthcare system, let them die in the streets, Or in the case of Farang managers in Thailand, make them send their Farang kids to an expensive international school, and take out private healthcare insurance.

 

When Sandeep the cleaner is stopped from coming to the UK, the cleaning company doesn't turn to the semi-literate Wayne to start cleaning the Boardrooms. They invest in a few of those cleaning robots, made in China, designed by engineers in Bangalore, working for a Newcastle based start up selling whizzy AI enabled cleaning robots. Which had received a generous innovation grant from the government as an example of 21st Century Britain, taking on the world, after they won the contracts to sell robot cleaners to Bangalore airport, a stunning "export" win, given the airport had seen massive increases in passenger traffic.

 

The Industrial Revolution had casualties. It lead to high level industrial espionage and mass infringement of patents to enable a cotton industry to be established in the nascent United States with its Revolutionary Government, who had recently inspired very bloody regicide in France. The Americans, as they called themselves, needed stolen technologies (Samuel "Slater the Traitor" Slater  who stole the secrets to Richard Arkwright’s transformational “water frame” technology of cotton spinning) to make the mass slave trade much more profitable (picking cotton). It was ok, because 2 generations later, it fueled a rise in American innovation, beating that of Europe. Britain was cotton king (and sugar king) was no longer so, but that was ok, because they had made a ton of cash, and 200 years later became a service based economy, hardly affected by threats of tariffs. Not much of a navy, but then, the tea clippers,  anti-slavery patrols, were just a distant memory.

 

There is a Digital Revolution, and there will be casualties. And beneficiaries. There is an alternative, called Ludditism.

 

A restriction on immigrants won't in itself cause an increase in employment rates. Jobs will still move overseas. There is not an easy solution, but people will offer easy sounding solutions. They always will because they need your vote, but not always have your interests at heart.

[Yellowtail]

6 minutes ago, WDSmart said:

It would increase the cost of exporting those goods to the USA. That would reduce the profits of making and exporting those goods. That would either cause the goods to be sold at a lower price or lower the demand for the goods. Either of those would affect the economy of the country and would probably result in a reduction in the workforce of that industry. 

I am not an economist, so all this is just my thinking and resulting opinions on this subject. 

You do not need to be an economist, and you are mostly correct, except that it's the import cost that increases, not the export cost.

[Dave0206]

3 hours ago, Yagoda said:

The more the Left screeches and howls, the more they will turn off the electorate, especially as their tricks and horrific mcost of their policies are exposed. Meanwhile, take a look at the young Republican bench, and right now, nobody is beating JD Vance. All he has to do is be productive. Business will see that, at least the smart ones. Put that made in USA on that package, Id pay $1 or 2 more anyday

Made in usa is a great idea except for the fact you're party blocks the minimum wage at every stage I know it's a terrible lefty thing expecting companies to pay a living wage better to let them pay peanuts and get subsidised by workers relying on food stamps

[MicroB]

Ferris Bueller's teacher had a point. Its a good idea to pay attention in class, you might learn something.

 

 

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/economics/smoot-hawley-tariff-act/

 

 

 

[Yellowtail]

2 minutes ago, Dave0206 said:

Made in usa is a great idea except for the fact you're party blocks the minimum wage at every stage I know it's a terrible lefty thing expecting companies to pay a living wage better to let them pay peanuts and get subsidised by workers relying on food stamps

 

The left's position seems to be that:

 

We can't have tariffs, because it will raise prices. 

 

We have to have mass illegal immigration to keep wages low, to keep prices down. 

 

We have to raise minimum wages to get votes, and we don't care that it increases prices. 

 

We have to raise corporate income taxes to get votes, and we don't care that it increases prices. 

[pattayasan]

2 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

 

The left's position seems to be that:

 

We can't have tariffs, because it will raise prices. 

 

We have to have mass illegal immigration to keep wages low, to keep prices down. 

 

We have to raise minimum wages to get votes, and we don't care that it increases prices. 

 

We have to raise corporate income taxes to get votes, and we don't care that it increases prices. 

 

The left's position is that some corporations should pay taxes. And that billionaires might cough up the same rate as somebody on the median wage.

[bubblegum]

 

[Yellowtail]

9 minutes ago, Dave0206 said:

Made in usa is a great idea except for the fact you're party blocks the minimum wage at every stage I know it's a terrible lefty thing expecting companies to pay a living wage better to let them pay peanuts and get subsidised by workers relying on food stamps

Yet your party wants to flood the country will illegals to hold wages down and to compete for housing and benefits. 

 

Why is that? 

[Yellowtail]

1 minute ago, bubblegum said:

 

So you have no thought of your own, 

[wwest5829]

8 hours ago, Yagoda said:

You are from Australia, have never been to the USA, know nothing about the USA except what you read in your leftist media bubble and are a Leftist, which means you viscerally oppose capitalism and the West and the USA and your intellectual allies are Cuba and China and Venezuela.

 

 With that, carry on

So, only a person of the same country nationality can comment on a nation’s documented history? Interesting approach to censoring comments. As your “which means” … sorry, you lost me as your reasoning is … well, not reasoned.

[pattayasan]

3 minutes ago, wwest5829 said:

So, only a person of the same country nationality can comment on a nation’s documented history? Interesting approach to censoring comments. As your “which means” … sorry, you lost me as your reasoning is … well, not reasoned.

 

We keep getting that regurgitation like it's a new revelation or somehow an epiphany. I have him on ignore because I can't stand the inanity.

[Dave0206]

8 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Yet your party wants to flood the country will illegals to hold wages down and to compete for housing and benefits. 

 

Why is that? 

Not my party I'm just confused why anyone would not hold there representatives of either party to account I'm sure most people have wishes that are not unreasonable so when a vote in house or senate and your representatives vote in a way that shows they do not care about you time for a change 

[bubblegum]

11 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

So you have no thought of your own, 

Maybe you should read some of my comments. I also recommend a thread I started earlier his year on how tariffs work. But then again you are the soundbite man. 

On top of that I place a link by the Wall Street Journal to help you try and understand but it's clear that you didn't bother to look at the evidence. You just want to post something, even if it's totally off topic.   

[simple1]

1 hour ago, Chosenfew said:

Give it a break, you lost, get over it. Does DJT live in your head?

 

 

<snipped for brevity> No, just providing some facts which is rare in MAGA world

[Yellowtail]

4 minutes ago, bubblegum said:

Maybe you should read some of my comments. I also recommend a thread I started earlier his year on how tariffs work. But then again you are the soundbite man. 

On top of that I place a link by the Wall Street Journal to help you try and understand but it's clear that you didn't bother to look at the evidence. You just want to post something, even if it's totally off topic.   

So do you agree that increasing corporate income taxes increase prices or not? 

[Airalee]

7 hours ago, Yagoda said:

Wow. You mean there are...trade offs? Like an extra 25% on the cheap chinese junk that floods our country and eggs back to .99 per dozen, on sale?

 

Bet ya Weather Tech is just salivating over tariffs  on cheap chinese floormats LOL. I hear they are hiring.

 

We have trillions of dollars of Liquid Gold here in North America, time to bank it.

Leftists need their 20 pairs of Nikes and garages full of cheap 💩 (don’t even have room to park their EV) that they don’t even use that was made by people making $200/month (child labor perhaps?) working for companies that freely dump their toxic sludge and pollute the environment far more than the western countries who have to continually hear scornful howling from the likes of Greta.

 

I support even higher tariffs.  Maybe then, leftists will understand the idea of quality vs quantity and will buy a decent pair of shoes (Alden) for once.

[Airalee]

5 hours ago, bubblegum said:

@Yagoda Do you have friends?

I know Yagoda.  Dude probably has more honor than any leftist on this forum and would even have your back long before you would make any true sacrifices for other people.

[Airalee]

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

How will it hurt the citizens in the country the tariffs are imposed on? 

Makes it harder for children to get jobs in sweatshops?

 

http://mason.gmu.edu/~clensing/FinishLine.html

[pattayasan]

3 minutes ago, Airalee said:

Makes it harder for children to get jobs in sweatshops?

 

http://mason.gmu.edu/~clensing/FinishLine.html

 

How so? Your logic is spaghetti on coke.

[jvs]

5 hours ago, Yagoda said:

Sure. 

 

Leftism is an ideology which has as its underlying philosophy the good of the collective in a utopian framework based on a (false) determination of human nature, with such Utopia to be achieved by the destruction of those who oppose it. It has been called Bolshevism, Menshivism, National Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Trotkyism Stalinism, and  Fascism and operates under the umbrella term of Socialism.

 

is characterized by being revolutionary in nature with the movement led by a hard core cadre who are convinced of the scientific basis of their philosophy that will lead mankind into the future. Cult like, the righteousness of their cause makes those who oppose it  the enemy who must be destroyed. Democracy is incompatible with Socialism, since Democracy requires free thought.

 

So how is that hate? Pointing out that the philosophy adhered to by so many leaves bodies in ditches?

 

 

 

 

Oh ok,i see.Thanks,a little like maga then?

[scottiejohn]

15 minutes ago, Airalee said:

I know Yagoda.  Dude probably has more honor than any leftist on this forum and would even have your back long before you would make any true sacrifices for other people.

And your posts are so similar that you could be one and the same person/BOT!

[jvs]

No matter what your standpoint is or how much name calling certain people come up with this tarif

idea is totally against the Status Quo and  nobody really knows how it will effect things.

As always when things are getting turned upside down there will be many unforseen factors that will come up.

Factors that no on saw coming.

To make it simple,the tariffs that the Thai government levies on imported foods over here do make a product more expensive for the consumer.

I do not see that being different in another country.

Mixing this up with mass deportations among others things has the potential to really shake up the US

economy and even society.

Like i said no one can predict what will come out of the wood work and we all will just have to wait if any of these planned policies even will take place.

I do not see name calling me a leftist is helping to solve any issues,it just makes the name caller look weak.

 

 

[Airalee]

9 minutes ago, scottiejohn said:

And your posts are so similar that you could be one and the same person/BOT!

I’m far more handsome.  

[Yellowtail]

1 minute ago, jvs said:

No matter what your standpoint is or how much name calling certain people come up with this tarif

idea is totally against the Status Quo and  nobody really knows how it will effect things.

As always when things are getting turned upside down there will be many unforseen factors that will come up.

Factors that no on saw coming.

To make it simple,the tariffs that the Thai government levies on imported foods over here do make a product more expensive for the consumer.

I do not see that being different in another country.

Mixing this up with mass deportations among others things has the potential to really shake up the US

economy and even society.

Like i said no one can predict what will come out of the wood work and we all will just have to wait if any of these planned policies even will take place.

I do not see name calling me a leftist is helping to solve any issues,it just makes the name caller look weak.

 

 

Is maga not name calling? 

 

Tariffs generally increase prices, as does increasing labor costs, energy costs and taxes. 

 

To be clear, I am not a fan of tariffs, but I see them as a tool. Thailand would almost certainly not have a robust automotive industry without high tariffs.

 

 

[spidermike007]

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

So, he is imposing tariffs on his own products, yes? 

 

 

 

 

Yes. Maga hats will go up in price. So will the bibles! Society will be torn asunder. 

[NoDisplayName]

2 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

How will it hurt the citizens in the country the tariffs are imposed on? 

 

Trump imposes tariffs on bibles printed in China.

 

Result is no more bibles printed in China.

Chinese workers potentially lose jobs, with add-on effects to Chinese economy.

 

Manufacturing of bibles moves to Vietnam.

Vietnam workers in Chinese owned sweatshops get slave wages.

Chinese owners of factories in Vietnam still get the profits.

 

American consumers pay higher prices for the "Made in Vietnam" label.

 

Winning!

[Yellowtail]

3 minutes ago, NoDisplayName said:

 

Trump imposes tariffs on bibles printed in China.

 

Result is no more bibles printed in China.

Chinese workers potentially lose jobs, with add-on effects to Chinese economy.

 

Manufacturing of bibles moves to Vietnam.

Vietnam workers in Chinese owned sweatshops get slave wages.

Chinese owners of factories in Vietnam still get the profits.

 

American consumers pay higher prices for the "Made in Vietnam" label.

 

Winning!

No, China would just trans ship them through Vietnam