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Trump's tariffs are equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades

Nickyjo said:
Not as much as conservatives ones, as I understand it, though the only comparison that comes to mind are Texas v California.
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Even the most liberal of states have .....................................................................regressive taxes.
 
Kushinator said:
How many more would emerge here and at what cost? What is the opportunity cost of producing low-cost/low-wage goods in the U.S.?
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Manufacturing jobs are far better paying than the service industry jobs that have replaced them.

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Vadinho said:
Wrong. Most of the companies paying the tariff are just moving towards other offshore nations with the capacity and standards in place. For instance, one of my suppliers moved their offshore assembly operations to Taiwan, another to Mexico, another to Vietnam. Not one single supplier has moved it to America, not one.
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Which is why I want tariffs across the board. Putting them up against China doesn't go far enough.
 
More tariffs? Then Trump is trying to get that deficit down.
 
phattonez said:
Which is why I want tariffs across the board. Putting them up against China doesn't go far enough.
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You can't put the globalism toothpaste back into the protectionism tube. Can't be done
 
phattonez said:
Why not? This isn't an argument.
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You'd be effectively cutting yourselves off from the rest of the world. You've already seen what happens in terms of retaliatory tariffs. Be assured that any country who's products are excluded from the American market will take the same steps and America's main value in the global economy is as a market. American corporations, many of them anyway, couldn't maintain their current level of production if confined to the domestic market, never mind increasing production levels.
Even when tariffs are called a matter of 'national security' they can't be kept in place for long. Tariffs on raw materials, anyway- tariffs on consumer goods would have a longer shelf life but they'd be unpopular. The tariffs on steel and aluminum in the case of Canada and Mexico lasted about a year and were dropped for the sake of a trade agreement between the three countries. That's a goodillustration of the relative values of protectionism and free trade.
 
Grand Mal said:
You'd be effectively cutting yourselves off from the rest of the world. You've already seen what happens in terms of retaliatory tariffs. Be assured that any country who's products are excluded from the American market will take the same steps and America's main value in the global economy is as a market. American corporations, many of them anyway, couldn't maintain their current level of production if confined to the domestic market, never mind increasing production levels.
Even when tariffs are called a matter of 'national security' they can't be kept in place for long. Tariffs on raw materials, anyway- tariffs on consumer goods would have a longer shelf life but they'd be unpopular. The tariffs on steel and aluminum in the case of Canada and Mexico lasted about a year and were dropped for the sake of a trade agreement between the three countries. That's a goodillustration of the relative values of protectionism and free trade.
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Given our massive supply of natural resources and highly skilled workforce, why do we need to trade with the rest of the world?
 
phattonez said:
Given our massive supply of natural resources and highly skilled workforce, why do we need to trade with the rest of the world?
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I understand why some people didn't think you were serious. Lithium. Where do we get lithium from? What's the U.S. supply? Figure that out, then explain your reasoning again.
 
NWRatCon said:
I understand why some people didn't think you were serious. Lithium. Where do we get lithium from? What's the U.S. supply? Figure that out, then explain your reasoning again.
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We don't have ALL natural resources. I get it. But why do we need to import, say, steel, which can easily and cheaply make ourselves?
 
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phattonez said:
Given our massive supply of natural resources and highly skilled workforce, why do we need to trade with the rest of the world?
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If you think our domestic market can support the volume of business we need to maintain our lifestyle you are sadly mistaken.
 
Vadinho said:
If you think our domestic market can support the volume of business we need to maintain our lifestyle you are sadly mistaken.
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How has increasing exports improved our standard of living? Why do we need to import goods from across the world if we can just make those very same things here?
 
phattonez said:
How has increasing exports improved our standard of living? Why do we need to import goods from across the world if we can just make those very same things here?
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OK. So after WW2, the US was the sole industrial power left intact. We built the modern America by both domestic and international business. We cannot sell only to each other and create a market big enough to sustain all of us in the way we demand. International trade is critical to growth for all of our industries. I was a VP of International Sales for 12 years. During that time, I was always responsible for 20-30% of the total revenue of the companies I worked for. Today, international markets are incredibly important to all industries. We are not big enough to create demand to replace international trade.
 
Vadinho said:
OK. So after WW2, the US was the sole industrial power left intact. We built the modern America by both domestic and international business. We cannot sell only to each other and create a market big enough to sustain all of us in the way we demand. International trade is critical to growth for all of our industries. I was a VP of International Sales for 12 years. During that time, I was always responsible for 20-30% of the total revenue of the companies I worked for. Today, international markets are incredibly important to all industries. We are not big enough to create demand to replace international trade.
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You need more of an argument than just this. These are blanket statements with no evidence.
 
phattonez said:
You need more of an argument than just this. These are blanket statements with no evidence.
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Oh, my friend, you just stepped in it, big time. Please provide a single reference from a reputable source to support your musing. (Hint: you won't find one.) The inefficiency of tariffs has been demonstrated for a century. Smoot-Hawley: The consensus view among economists and economic historians is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression, although there is disagreement as to how much.
 
phattonez said:
You need more of an argument than just this. These are blanket statements with no evidence.
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Oh, my friend, you just stepped in it, big time. Please provide a single reference from a reputable source to support your musing. (Hint: you won't find one.) The inefficiency of tariffs has been demonstrated for a century. Smoot-Hawley: The consensus view among economists and economic historians is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression, although there is disagreement as to how much.
 
phattonez said:
We don't have ALL natural resources. I get it. But why do we need to import, say, steel, which can easily and cheaply make ourselves?
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Because we clearly can't make it cheap enough for the people who use it. And they don't give a **** where it's from as long as the price is right
 
The four main points, the left misses, is the counties that are being tariffed, have high tariffs and obstructions on US goods. The amount the Trump is imposing is not even equal to what they do to the US. Trump is making the playing field, closer to level. The real complaint in Washington is a level playing field makes less margin for political shakedowns, kickbacks and donations.

The second point is the left does not understand international trade at the level of importers and exporters. This is where bulk buying occurs and where factory schedules are made for many years in advance. These contracts are set for the long term, and include estimates in future tariffs, future raw materials, future labor costs, future utilities such as oil, etc. The net result is these contracts are like a large ship being turned by a small rudder of tariffs. It does not turn on a dime, but the turn is very gradual, since tariffs were already negotiated even before Trump did anything. The middle men; wholesaler and retailers, may use media deception to cash in on the faux media expectation, to raise some prices.

The third point is China and Mexico are not the only countries in the world that can make products sold in the US. Selective tariffs on certain countries, like China, makes other smaller countries better able to compete. This check and balance requires China and Mexico hold down prices, at the risk of losing future sales. Viet Nam, Indonesia and others would love to see more exports. This threat of new competitors offsets some of the turn in the large ship.

With the ship slowly turning, it makes more and more sense for US manufacturing to get ahead of the ship, and try to pick up the slack. They invest in new factories and create jobs. Trump will make it easy for the off-shore money to be brought home, with investment in new factories, a way to make money; GNP increase.
 
NWRatCon said:
Oh, my friend, you just stepped in it, big time. Please provide a single reference from a reputable source to support your musing. (Hint: you won't find one.) The inefficiency of tariffs has been demonstrated for a century. Smoot-Hawley: The consensus view among economists and economic historians is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression, although there is disagreement as to how much.
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There isn't any evidence that wage growth increased was significantly stronger after the 1950s. In fact it's quite the contrary. We have had zero to negative wage growth since the 1970s when tariffs were all but eliminated.

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kitsune said:
Because we clearly can't make it cheap enough for the people who use it. And they don't give a **** where it's from as long as the price is right
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Because we have labor and environmental regulations in this country that corporations get around by shipping jobs overseas. They still get to cheat their employees and dump pollution on the environment, but even worse they then dump their products here and ensure that those who play by the rules can't compete.

There's a very simple fix. Require that any company that sells products in this country follows all of our regulations.
 
phattonez said:
Because we have labor and environmental regulations in this country that corporations get around by shipping jobs overseas. They still get to cheat their employees and dump pollution on the environment, but even worse they then dump their products here and ensure that those who play by the rules can't compete.

There's a very simple fix. Require that any company that sells products in this country follows all of our regulations.
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That would be great. Until Western European nations and maybe Japan started demanding that any American company selling products in those countries needs to follow all of the local labor, environmental, and safety regs. The scream of outrage from Washington and its corporate masters would be deafening.
 
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