finally some GOP members are opening their eyes about the reality whom is paying the tariffs, Trump claimed it was China, Mexico, Canada, Europe and so forth but the numbers coming out showing the American consumers are the ones forking the bill

At the time, Trump insisted that other countries would "eat" this extra cost

According to the report, "The Trump tariffs amount to an average tax increase per US household of $1,000 in 2025 and $1,300 in 2026."

Additionally, the report found that, "The Trump tariffs are the largest US tax increase as a percent of GDP (0.54 percent for 2026) since 1993."

A Study Just Found The Average Cost Americans Paid For Trump's Tariffs In 2025, And It's Expected To Get Worse

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-just-found-average-cost-215519473.html

While I think tariffs on highly subsidized commodities like steel and aluminum are likely a good idea, I question how wise it is to impose such horrendously high tariffs on EV's from China.

As far as I'm concerned one of the most dangerous, reckless, and poorly thought out policies that Trump has proposed, are even higher tariffs on many classes of imported products.

Who ends up paying for this? American companies who are manufacturing in China, and the consumer, that's who.

In the end huge taxes may encourage companies too pull out of China, which is a good thing, but how long will that process take, and what will the economic consequences be in the interim?

Trump manufactures overseas, every opportunity he gets, to save money. Bibles, baseball caps, and likely countless other things. So, calling him very disingenuous would be an understatement.

The irony is that Trump is harming the US most of all. Trump’s tariffs are basically a form of tax on US citizens. And that it is a regressive tax, because rich or poor, Americans will pay the same amount of tax when they buy an import on the tariff list. The US government is collecting this tax. The US government would do better to raise income taxes on the most well off people in its society. People who can afford the tax more easily. It’s a far more equitable and effective way to raise taxes. It’s how governments do it in well run countries.

Trump is not a socialist. He is a failed capitalist and a Marxist. It is fairly easy to get wealthy if you are willing to steal most of your fortune from unsuspecting small contractors. Yet he still went bankrupt. That requires a special kind of skill. Or another form of grifting.

To the title ... common sense would be the exporter of said product, along with end user of, unless exporter and or seller are absorbing the cost, to stay competitive, and highly unlikely unless needing to.

To the rest of it, as explained so many times, theoretically, if people stand behind the excellent idea, then manufacturing and jobs would return to the USA, ... IF ... people were to 'buy USA'. That would be a huge plus for families and the economy.

We'll see how much people actually care about jobs & the economy, as if tariffs fail, it is everyone's fault who didn't, don't or won't buy USA. Certainly not Trump's, as he can only provide the solution, and if most people don't care enough, it will, as everything always does ... FAIL miserably.

Live with your choices, but STFU, when it fails, as you only have yourselves to blame, for the failure of govt policies.

#1 ... you allowed them

#2 ... you didn't help by using them properly

Som nam naa

BuzzFeed ... way too funny to be taken seriously IMHO

1 hour ago, Mavideol said:

finally some GOP members are opening their eyes about the reality whom is paying the tariffs, Trump claimed it was China, Mexico, Canada, Europe and so forth but the numbers coming out showing the American consumers are the ones forking the bill

At the time, Trump insisted that other countries would "eat" this extra cost

According to the report, "The Trump tariffs amount to an average tax increase per US household of $1,000 in 2025 and $1,300 in 2026."

Additionally, the report found that, "The Trump tariffs are the largest US tax increase as a percent of GDP (0.54 percent for 2026) since 1993."

A Study Just Found The Average Cost Americans Paid For Trump's Tariffs In 2025, And It's Expected To Get Worse

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-just-found-average-cost-215519473.html

But they must always have known that to be the case.......Emperor's new clothes symptom I guess

6 minutes ago, MIke B Bad said:

But they must always have known that to be the case.......Emperor's new clothes symptom I guess

Right. For centuries tariffs have always been used to protect a countries industries and balance trade defecits until Trump. As soon as Trump got elected...

"Tariffs r bad"

🤣

Tariffs are a tax imposed on consumers in order to make it difficult to purchase less expensive foreign products because the domestic market can't compete in a global free market.

1 hour ago, Mavideol said:

finally some GOP members are opening their eyes about the reality whom is paying the tariffs, Trump claimed it was China, Mexico, Canada, Europe and so forth but the numbers coming out showing the American consumers are the ones forking the bill

At the time, Trump insisted that other countries would "eat" this extra cost

According to the report, "The Trump tariffs amount to an average tax increase per US household of $1,000 in 2025 and $1,300 in 2026."

Additionally, the report found that, "The Trump tariffs are the largest US tax increase as a percent of GDP (0.54 percent for 2026) since 1993."

A Study Just Found The Average Cost Americans Paid For Trump's Tariffs In 2025, And It's Expected To Get Worse

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-just-found-average-cost-215519473.html

The War President is increasing taxes and causing a massive lack of consumer and dollar confidence. Surprise, surprise.

Donald gets an F grade.

30 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

To the title ... common sense would be the exporter of said product, along with end user of, unless exporter and or seller are absorbing the cost, to stay competitive, and highly unlikely unless needing to.

When I have imported vehicles in the past, the Japanese seller, the exporter, doesn't pay any duty or tax. The importer, me, pays that. Up until a few years ago, you could import a car, at some considerable cost, into Thailand. The exporter in Japan didn't pay the tax, you did. Its called Import tax, not export tax.

When it comes to goods, by and large, a distributor imports the goods, builds up warehouse inventory, and appoints dealers to sell the goods. Inventory control ensures the dealers, the shops, most of the time don't have empty shelves, empty lots. Import taxes are assessed based on an estimate of the retail price, and are payable at the point of importation, not the point of sale. Maintaining an inventory has a cost, which varies if you need lots of land for, say cars, or refrigeration for chiiled goods. Other goods are also lifed. Tariffs are also typically levied on subassemblies, such as engines, ZF gearboxes, tyres etc

Typically, distributors, importers, look for 30-50% markup due to their costs, such as paying the salaries of warehouse staff, truck drivers, and the desire to make a living selling, for instance, genuine Japanese art. The dealers also have their own costs, and also want to make a living. The manufacturer is usually the one that is squeezed.

Now it seems the desire is to replace genuine Japanese art with counterfeit Japanese art made by some hobo in Wyoming. Ok.

If it comes to cars, yes, make it more difficult to buy imported cars, because surely that will give the freedom for American car makers to make, for once, genuine, superb, best in class cars, rather than the <deleted> they currently make. Hows that going for Thailand? Have you got a really good choice of cars locally made? Or is it shades of pickup. When India had high tariffs on cars, the best a nation of over a billion people could come up with was a 60 year old Morris Oxford. Actually, that's not an expression of India ability; they have nukes, men in space etc. More to do with the car maker had no incentive to improve. The classic is Russia, and the Lada range. Utter <deleted>e, including the Niva. They had no lack of knowhow, but they didn't need to make anything better.

What actually will happen in the US is an explosion of transplant factories, and a dilution of creative talent. Chinese car makers are already setting up plants, probably CKD and SKD at first. Local people in states with zero engineering heritage, like farming states, will be grateful for the jobs. Perhaps some money will flow in to establish technical colleges so people can learn to build the Chinese way, which is all the more easy when you don't have an established local engineering culture. More importantly, all that profit flows out of the state to benefit some other country, to build roads and hospitals in some other country. The workforce are taught to assemble, but not to build, which makes them easily replaceable. The factory is just a steel frame on land given for free by a desperate local government desperate to attract these new jobs. It can be written off. Hence companies like Honda found it very easy to shutter their UK factories. The transplant factory model is well developed, and can be applied to any country. Hence there are Chinese transplant factories in deepest Africa now, in countries with virtually no prior industrialisation.

3 hours ago, KhunLA said:

To the title ... common sense would be the exporter of said product, along with end user of, unless exporter and or seller are absorbing the cost, to stay competitive, and highly unlikely unless needing to.

To the rest of it, as explained so many times, theoretically, if people stand behind the excellent idea, then manufacturing and jobs would return to the USA, ... IF ... people were to 'buy USA'. That would be a huge plus for families and the economy.

We'll see how much people actually care about jobs & the economy, as if tariffs fail, it is everyone's fault who didn't, don't or won't buy USA. Certainly not Trump's, as he can only provide the solution, and if most people don't care enough, it will, as everything always does ... FAIL miserably.

Live with your choices, but STFU, when it fails, as you only have yourselves to blame, for the failure of govt policies.

#1 ... you allowed them

#2 ... you didn't help by using them properly

Som nam naa

speaking about jobs, oh yeah the smart axx Navarro just explained the reason why the USA jobs keep plummeting, it appears it's because of the immigrants , feel free to compare the numbers

Since Trump returned to office, the economy has only been adding about 49,000 jobs per month on average, compared to about 168,000 jobs per month under former President Joe Biden.

Trump Aide Gives Jaw-Dropping Excuse for Humiliating Jobs Numbers

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-aide-gives-jaw-dropping-172204469.html

3 hours ago, KhunLA said:

BuzzFeed ... way too funny to be taken seriously IMHO

because you have nothing, out of sheer desperation last resort AI overview

4 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

Right. For centuries tariffs have always been used to protect a countries industries and balance trade defecits until Trump. As soon as Trump got elected...

"Tariffs r bad"

🤣

But that changed in 1947, when the leading mercantile countries established an organisation with the single objective of eliminating all tariffs. Was GATT able to achieve it? Partly. Tariffs were eliminated on healthcare products. The opening lines from the 1947 agreement

The Governments of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Kingdom of Belgium, the United States of Brazil, Burma, Canada, Ceylon, the Republic of Chile, the Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, the Czechoslovak Republic, the French Republic, India, Lebanon, the Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Norway, Pakistan, Southern Rhodesia, Syria, the Union of South Africa, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America:

Recognizing that their relations in the field of trade and economic endeavour should be conducted with a view to raising standards of living, ensuring full employment and a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand, developing the full use of the resources of the world and expanding the production and exchange of goods;

Being desirous of contributing to these objectives by entering into reciprocal and mutually advantageous arrangements directed to the substantial reduction of tariffs and other barriers to trade and to the elimination of discriminatory treatment in international commerce;

One of the major causes of WW2 was the use of injurous tariffs in the 1930s, as inept politicians tried to regulate their way out of a depression.

An oft repeated maxim, of uncertain origin is "When Goods Don't Cross Borders, Soldiers Will". Protectionism raises the risk of war.

Those tariffs were passed at a time when imports were only 4% of the US economy. Subsequently, US GDP fell by 40%, half of that attributed to the tariff act as US trade collapsed because the the result global trade wars. It worsened the global geopolitical crisis, enabling grifting thugs like the Nazis to take power, and the militarists to cement power in Japan and beyond. Trade became weaponised as a means of strategic power. Weaponised trade talks between the US and Japan, nominally over the shipment of American scrap steel through the Panama canal on its way to Japan, ended with Pearl Harbor.

Yeah, tariffs have always been a bloody terrible idea. Never been a good idea. Reagan knew that, Thatcher knew that. Tariffs were embraced more recently by left wingers who oppose the free market. Their beliefs in wrapping up industry in government cotton wool lead to crap like British Leyland and Red Robbo, and 6 months to get a phone line put in. Protectionism ruined the British car industry; it wasn't the imports, that's a red herring. Rubbish like the Morris Marina just could not compete. Not good enough. Government intervention makes business soft and fat, not hard and lean.

6 hours ago, KhunLA said:

To the title ... common sense would be the exporter of said product, along with end user of, unless exporter and or seller are absorbing the cost, to stay competitive, and highly unlikely unless needing to.

To the rest of it, as explained so many times, theoretically, if people stand behind the excellent idea, then manufacturing and jobs would return to the USA, ... IF ... people were to 'buy USA'. That would be a huge plus for families and the economy.

We'll see how much people actually care about jobs & the economy, as if tariffs fail, it is everyone's fault who didn't, don't or won't buy USA. Certainly not Trump's, as he can only provide the solution, and if most people don't care enough, it will, as everything always does ... FAIL miserably.

Live with your choices, but STFU, when it fails, as you only have yourselves to blame, for the failure of govt policies.

#1 ... you allowed them

#2 ... you didn't help by using them properly

Som nam naa

"it is everyone's fault who didn't, don't or won't buy USA. Certainly not Trump's" 55555 😀

5 hours ago, connda said:

Tariffs are a tax imposed on consumers in order to make it difficult to purchase less expensive foreign products because the domestic market can't compete in a global free market.

I agree 100% part of Donald’s problem is the arbitrary way he uses tariffs.seems to me many times he’s having a tantrum and we the consumer’s pay the price.hes gutting manufacturing jobs gutting agriculture education and squandering any good will we as a nation have in the world.what an epic blunder electing this woefully ignorant corrupt man all because we men are afraid of electing a qualified woman…..2 effin times!!sad

7 hours ago, Tug said:

I agree 100% part of Donald’s problem is the arbitrary way he uses tariffs.seems to me many times he’s having a tantrum and we the consumer’s pay the price.hes gutting manufacturing jobs gutting agriculture education and squandering any good will we as a nation have in the world.what an epic blunder electing this woefully ignorant corrupt man all because we men are afraid of electing a qualified woman…..2 effin times!!sad

Female leaders have been elected to top spots of government all over the world. Clearly the public felt the ones that were put up were not the right choice for the job.