If tariffs are so bad, how come the EU, Canada and other countries make it hard for us to sell our goods there but we let them off the hook here. And yet their economies are just fine. Why is it only good for them to do these things.
So the tariff thing
- Thread starter GIZMODAWG
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Their economies suck and they have for decades. Dumbing yourself down to your inferior competitors is a stupid strategy.
Well we don't make anything here anymore
That has to change or we will be taken over through economic dependability
That has to change or we will be taken over through economic dependability
Also, the EU, Canada and Mexico depend on us to protect them while we spend hundreds of billions to police the world. To thank us they screw us with Tarrifs.
I hope these libs read this tweet. These protective moms and dads just get your young men to go out and get a trade everyone can’t be chiefs in this new economy someone has to do the jobs. Welders, electricians. Machinists, and mechanics. Tell your sons to get out and go to technical school and get in on this new economy that is coming. America First is coming and you need to be prepared for it.
I tend to agree with President Reagan. He had strong opinions on tariffs.
Not trying to be pro- or anti- Trump or tariffs here, but instant reactions by the market aren’t always the best indicators of how the market will actually do as a result of something.
Mexico is a pass-thru country for China.
Trump did tariffs before and the economy was strong. I met the president of the US cotton growers association and asked him about it. He said the chaos was over quickly and that it helped their business.
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That’s all well and great, but to do so makes us a poorer country. Raising prices to ‘hopefully’ bring back manufacturing jobs doesn’t make us better off. Adding t-shirt manufacturing while increasing the price of everything we buy is just stupid. 50% of imports are used by existing manufacturers. The tariffs will hit them hard and make them less competitive globally. They are going to lay off workers…US manufacturing will shrink further in the coming years.
What he did before was small potatoes and really limited to China compared to what he’s doing now, which is tariffing the whole world.
This, although the tariffs did create a lot of chaos in manufacturing and construction the previous time. There is more to that, but it is too long a discussion to have in this post. As you said, it was much smaller in scale and we were in a a low inflation / low interest rate environment at the time. Tariffs are an odd hill to die on for a president who wants to reduce bureaucracy, lower taxes, and increase freedom.
Do some research dude. One, Trump needs to learn that a trade deficit is not a bad thing. More often than not countries running trade deficits are those that are wealthier and healthier economically. For some reason he’s always thought it was a bad thing (and Peter Navarro needs to get out of his ear).
If Joe Biden were doing this tarifffs, the GOP and MAGA would be losing their minds. Now, since Trump is doing them, people love tariffs and they’re good and popular.
We are told an American business can now and should build a manufacturing base in the United States. However, these businesses do not know how long the tariffs will last, and, in the worst-case scenario, they could end in four years with a new president. So do you think they want to invest the capital in new factories with higher labor costs that won’t be finalized for more than four years in the United States when the tariffs could go away within four years?
Trump didn’t exempt grocery imports. Your bananas, coffee, and even beer are about to increase in price.
Suppose the GOP faces massive defeats next year. In that case, it will be a globalist/corporate/progressive conspiracy to stop the tariffs by stealing the election, not a rejection by the voters who love the beautiful tariffs.
That’s fair.
Most of my clients are manufacturers and I’ve been worried about these tariffs since Trump started banging that drum. If he is as serious about them as it seems, it’s going to make for a very tough economy.
it’s very difficult to calculate given how the tariffs are being implemented, but early estimates are that this will be 10x what he implemented in his first term.
It’s inexplicable to such a degree that it leads to a conclusion of either rank stupidity or a very intentional effort to slam the breaks on the global economy and throw us into recession. As to why they would want to do that? I’ll leave that to others to decide for themselves.
Their economies are not fine. Tariffs protect local companies and weaken competition. They also raise prices (the is the goal of a tariff).
None of those are things we want.
We have the first or second biggest economy in the world by most metrics.
No problem with Trump trying to extract more concessions though. America first. Always.
Do you think t-shirt manufacturing is the target industry, or do you only post straw men?
If we don’t restore some critical industries then we are at the mercy of other countries. The drive towards deglobalization has been consistently increased by every administration since the wall fell. COVID just increased the pace.
Beats running a deficit that foreign countries use to buy our real estate, farmland and stock ownership in US countries. We are giving away US assets and their future benefit streams. It has to stop.
Then why else would we add 40% tariffs on Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka?
If your goal is to eliminate adversaries buying US assets, then ban adversaries buying US assets.
And trade deficits literally do not matter. We are not giving away US assets…they may be sold and the capital invested elsewhere, but nobody’s giving away anything for free.
you must be in life insurance or something else not tangible. You haven’t noticed how many manufacturing jobs we’ve lost? You have a typical elite viewpoint. Millions of kids aren’t college material.
“Trade deficits do not matter” is a globalist viewpoint. Not saying it is incorrect, we are likely all better off with free trade (ignoring the fact that there really never was free trade for us).
I have a US-centric viewpoint, and free trade has not been great for middle America so we are just going to disagree. I became a Lighthizer convert during Trump’s term and I like that vision for America’s future. Hope it works.
All I hear is, "restrict access to capital, restrict stock ownership, restrict trade". These aren't free market principles.
Those same millions of kids who aren’t college material are going to have dim prospects in a modern factory.
That’s part of what’s so confounding about these efforts. I’m all for more manufacturing in the US. It has benefits. However, given the increasing effectiveness of automation, opportunities for less-skilled workers isn’t really one of them.
In fact, given ongoing developments in AI and automation, the jobs you are referring to will be gone almost entirely. Without a fundamental rethinking of how our economy works, we are going to have a very large group of disaffected people with almost no economic prospects. Historically, that’s a recipe for major societal disruption and violence.
I think that is the point. The debate is between “free” markets and protectionism and how that benefits/ harms USA vs the global economy.
It it isn’t just the factoryjobs, it is the construction jobs to build those factories, the steel wood and concrete for those factories,the home builders providing housing for those factory workers, the schools to teach the kids of the workers and all the services required to support a new industry.
Building a lot of modern AI driven plants sounds like it would mean lots of good jobs.
Reagan was the greatest President of my lifetime, and the economy was pretty damn good under his watch.
The differences between Reagan and the Orange Jesus are stark, opinions on tariffs, Reagan hated the Ruskies while Trump is controlled by them, Reagan was a man of character, and Trump, well, don't really have to say anything.
Trade deficits do not matter for the same reason I have a trade deficit with Amazon, Wal-Mart and Publix. They have things, I buy them, and we are both better off. It is not 'globalist' or any other word you want to place on it to add a negative connotation. It's just economic fact and the economic principles existed long before the term globalist was invented.
That may be the worst example I have ever seen explaining how trade deficits work.
You left out that you also have a trade relationship with your employer. As long as there is a net surplus, you are better off. If there is a net deficit you are worse off on your balance sheet.
Well, here’s the thing—you’re not wrong to ask that, but it’s kinda like arguing why one team gets to run the triple option while everyone else plays spread offense. Every country’s playing the game their own way, and most of them are trying to protect their home turf like a defensive coordinator who doesn’t trust his secondary.
The EU and Canada throw up tariffs and red tape like they’re building a bureaucratic fortress. It’s not that their way is better—it’s just how they play ball. They’re guarding their markets, propping up local industries, and pretending it’s all in the name of sustainability or tradition or some cultural reason involving cheese.
Meanwhile, we’ve historically played more of a wide-open, free-trade game—lower tariffs, more imports, big global footprint. But that doesn’t mean it’s always fair. Sometimes it feels like we’re spotting the other team ten points and then wondering why we’re behind at halftime.
Their economies are “just fine” because they’re structured differently—more centralized, often slower-moving, sometimes with fewer entrepreneurial chances, but more social safety nets. Ours is like a bar fight with rules: chaotic, high-risk, high-reward.
Bottom line: it’s not that it’s good for them and bad for us. It’s just that they’re running a different playbook, and we’re still trying to figure out if we want to change ours or double down.
So yeah—tariffs are like blitzing. Sometimes it works, sometimes you get burned deep.
The EU and Canada throw up tariffs and red tape like they’re building a bureaucratic fortress. It’s not that their way is better—it’s just how they play ball. They’re guarding their markets, propping up local industries, and pretending it’s all in the name of sustainability or tradition or some cultural reason involving cheese.
Meanwhile, we’ve historically played more of a wide-open, free-trade game—lower tariffs, more imports, big global footprint. But that doesn’t mean it’s always fair. Sometimes it feels like we’re spotting the other team ten points and then wondering why we’re behind at halftime.
Their economies are “just fine” because they’re structured differently—more centralized, often slower-moving, sometimes with fewer entrepreneurial chances, but more social safety nets. Ours is like a bar fight with rules: chaotic, high-risk, high-reward.
Bottom line: it’s not that it’s good for them and bad for us. It’s just that they’re running a different playbook, and we’re still trying to figure out if we want to change ours or double down.
So yeah—tariffs are like blitzing. Sometimes it works, sometimes you get burned deep.
thinks most everybody is a little nervous. understand what he is trying to do in theory, it's a gamble and hope that it all works...but you don't know unless you try. at this point, just hope he is not too pig-headed to change if it doesn't work.
Trump gave farmers $61 billion dollars of US taxpayer money to bail them out of the disaster that resulted from the previous tariffs on China.
That’s a national security threat and these libs just don’t see it or don’t care.
Its possible. But go look at the list of companies investing billions in American manufacturing. The list is too long for me to type.
If the announced tariffs stayed put, I think that's exactly what would happen. I don't think they will. This is a starting point for negotiation....an admittedly unrealistically high starting point, with questionable logic / calculation on how we get there.....but I guess it doesn't matter how it is calculated if you are just negotiating an unrealistically high number.
As a negotiating tactic, starting high and even being unpredictable / chaotic can be effective. I think he's taking too much risk in the way he is rolling these out. A panic selloff can lead to breaking things you didn't want to break.......that's a lot to risk if this is simply a way to negotiate.
If he truly is intent on keeping these tariffs in place for the pipe dream of effectively moving all manufacturing to the US......I will be standing with you Will with my get Trump pitchfork out. Because that would trigger a reallly bad economic situation. That won't happen.....but the market has to price at least a chance of that happening....and that is the risk in the way this has all rolled out.
As a commercial real estate dude, I'm digging the lower rates.....but not at the expense of the economy. The REITs are about flat....when typically they pop on this kind of interest rate drop.
In and of itself, I'm not bothered by the stock market taking a short term hit on tariff headlines.........so long as the ultimate destination is a good outcome in trade, and tariff certainty at a very reasonable level, where both the US and foreign partners can profit. If the ultimate destination on tariffs is where we are now........I have a big problem with it. As we all should.
The most reasurring commentary I've seen was from Mnuchin in his interview this morning. You can tell he knows these tariffs are not doable at this level. An unrealistically high starting point for negotiation.
If you didn’t vote then you have no say so on what either party is doing.
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