Trump’s Tariff Strategy: US can no longer act as the world's economic shock absorber

[stevenl]

2 hours ago, BritScot said:

Trump was quite in his right to reciprocally tax them but he could easily have doubled the tax. Use do realise that he is only hit them with 50% of the tax they hit they issue against American goods? I

Nonsense.

[coolcarer]

3 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Nonsense.

Why?

[Digitalbanana]

3 minutes ago, coolcarer said:

Why?

 

 

.... the biggest policy mistake in 95 years!

[stevenl]

3 minutes ago, coolcarer said:

Why?

Not even close to reciprocal.

[coolcarer]

1 minute ago, stevenl said:

Not even close to reciprocal.

Nonsense. Read the post you responded to. See if you understand it

[norsurin]

China just put 34% on US.Figthing back.

[PuiPuiHarry]

11 hours ago, ChicagoExpat said:

Yes, he's a scam artist.  But why should any country put up with their goods being taxed while they have allowed the other country's exports, tax-free, for decades?

Please show me ONE country, where the EXPORT is taxed. The IMPORT.. yes, many.

 

Every country needs income to pay their State bills. Many countries use income, VAT, company profit etc taxes + some import duty. In Thailand, the source of import duty is very important, as...other taxes are much more difficult to get in.

As far as I now, EXPORT tax is levies very seldon, but IMPORT tax often. So, when US goods to go TH, they are NOT taxed in the US as export, but info Thailand as Import. Same the other way round. When Trump, in is unendness and always 100% correct wisdom, decides to increase the IMPORT tax of Thai goods into the US, he hopes the next day the US is able to replace these import goods with domestic production, if companies have production facilities and -lines ready the next day. If not, the imported products will increase in price, at least the amount of import duty is levied on it, so Thai goods a + 37 % when inside the US.

I am sure, the pineapple etc production will be grown overnight, so for pineapple the US consumer will have not any disadvantage. ( of has to switch to US grown foods, which is already abundant, therefore no food imports ever into the US).

In this example, because Thai pineapple will be a lot more expensive, US consumer will buy less, and Thailand will export less to the US.

His Unendless Lying Wishdom forgets, other nations might react with IMPORT tariffs on US products into their countries. Imagine a 25 % import duty on all US produced commercial palanes... Airbus will thank the Trump-the Lyer administration for over a century

Second: when their income drops because of less exports to the US, they lack the money to pay for US products.

 

And maybe, as Thailand gets less revenues, they will levy a visa-amount , for instance: for every day an US citizen stays into Thailand, has to pay … e.g. a 5000 THB to compensate their use of Thai legal system ( protection against robbery = police, law system), for the use of infrastructure ( roads, trains etc), and a lot more.

[PaoloR]

So many truly deluded people. Once you lose your manufacturing base it is never coming back. How long will it take to re-build manufacturing? Who is going to pay for it? Where is the labor going to come from? How many products are going to be even close to competitive at US labor cost? AI doesn't make things. it is not the solution to this problem as many seem to believe.

Plus - the biggest single con is looking only at consumables and not balancing it against services. For example, is Google tariffed? The money income flow from banking, insurance and so many service industries needs to be balanced against the outflow from purchasing consumables. Looking at only one side of the equation, then jumping on to tariffs as a means of miraculously bringing non-competitive manufacturing back to the U.S. is pie in the sky.

The solution should have been to offshore manufacturing as it became uncompetitive and relocate the machinery and expertise to owned subsidiaries in low-cost countries. It worked for the Japanese and is now working for the Chinese. The USA which suffers badly from short-termism was not able to take the long-term view on offshoring and provide the finance to build elsewhere. It leapt at short-term profit taking and now thinks it can rectify the situation with tariffs.

[PuiPuiHarry]

1 hour ago, coolcarer said:

Why?

Just look into the REAL customs duty/tariffs lists, see for the EU  https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/taric/taric_consultation.jsp?Lang=en and NOT in the lying list of Trump "grab them by the pussy" president of the USA ( in any normal country you would go in jail. Only in the USA you can be elected to president of the nation.)

[thaibeachlovers]

8 hours ago, uncletiger said:

Economists like to point out that free trade makes everyone better...on average. It's the on average part that is the problem. Because as Trump has told us, 50 years of data clearly show the vast, vast majority of Americans are worse off. Free trade works by pulling wealthy countries down to the same level as impoverished ones, while making a few who control the global supply lines very, very wealthy. In the process, those countries who were desperately poor might experience a slight increase in their standard of living, but again that came at the expense of the US which experienced a much more significant decrease.

Great post, especially the bit about making a few who control the global supply lines very, very wealthy. I had been going to post something similar but you beat me to it.

Globalisation, IMO, is built on BS by the 1% that use it to exploit poor workers in Asia to make inferior products that are sold at a large profit in western countries by the same people that exported all the jobs to exploit the poor overseas.

I suppose it's too much to hope that the 1% will suffer if they lose their exploited workers, but I expect they will simply build automated factories in the US to make inferior products to be sold at a substantial profit- business as usual.

 

IMO Globalisation is corrupt and rotten to the core, and I hope it is burned to the ground ( figuratively ). If Trump is the man to light the fire, kudos to him for that.

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, PuiPuiHarry said:

Just look into the REAL customs duty/tariffs lists, see for the EU  https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/dds2/taric/taric_consultation.jsp?Lang=en and NOT in the lying list of Trump "grab them by the pussy" president of the USA ( in any normal country you would go in jail. Only in the USA you can be elected to president of the nation.)

Enjoy the next 3 1/2 years- I will.

[thaibeachlovers]

12 hours ago, Dirk Z said:

But when Trump does it, everyone loses their marbles. 😄 

Just like the self-proclaimed economic genius himself.

If every insult leveled at Trump was a brick, we could build a road to the moon!

I suppose insults are all they have now, considering their candidate was so incredibly bad.

[kwilco]

Trump isn't interested in the economics of tariffs - they are a political too. The World may be heading for a “trump slump” – but for Trump, it is a political measure to get businesses and countries to cow tow to him. It’s a power grab where everyone has to negotiate with Tump. He’s already said he’s going to try for a 3rd term – an impoverished world is easier for him to manipulate – or so he thinks

 

However, he seems to have underestimated the ability of the  the world  to ignore him – the's terrified of big economic or poitical blocs, this is why he’s so keen to divide Europe – e.g. Brexit and Putin in Ukraine. People are coming round to new alignments – a Canada EU block, an Asean bloc and Idia, even China.

 

America can’t make all the stuff currently made abroad – it would take decades to set up  (Trump knows and doesn’t care) and then for his smaller market, ( he can't sell it abroad, it will be too dear.  Also the economies of scale would set in and they will flounder. In the meantime other countries in the world are well placed to pick up the slck with US products out of the way. By the midterms the failure will be overly apparent and Trump will invent some “national crisis” followed by a state of emergency and eventually cancel elections at the end of his term.