Now Trump's import tariffs could raise the cost of a laptop for Americans by 68% | Hacker News Reader

Now Trump's import tariffs could raise the cost of a laptop for Americans by 68%

theregister.com

17 pointsjjgreen18 comments

His tariffs on China his last round were a few token efforts early on, then he said it's hard ... and he never did anything again the rest of his term.

Those "few token efforts" as you call them led to some serious ramifications from which Trump, ever the idiot, learned nothing.

I think it is more that if it doesn't impact him personally, he is not interested.

Which is a trait that makes Trump a particularly bad leader

I made a lot of purchases following the election in anticipation of this. Most of Trumps policies are inflationary so it won’t just be electronics that increase in price. Ironic considering inflation was front of mind for many of his supporters.

Of course, if enough people (and especially if enough companies) do that, then that _in itself_ can cause market distortion. In the UK, from about 2018 on, all available warehouse space was filled as companies stockpiled to withstand a possible Brexit (in the end, Brexit, as a practical trade matter, didn't happen til 2022, when the main customs transition periods started expiring, so quite a lot of that stockpiling was wasted cost/effort).

Interestingly, this likely means that even if these tariffs never happen at all, they will _still_ do damage, because companies will have to treat them somewhat as if they might happen, and thus do things which do not make sense in the scenario where they do not happen.

Regularly it seems we're reminded that Trump's opponents take him literally, not seriously, and his supporters take him seriously, not literally.

"Arrgh, he's going to do this thing that's so horrible!"

-later- "Ahahaha he didn't do this thing that I thought was going to be so horrible, what a loser!"

Trump always high-balls and trolls in his public statements. Neither Trump - nor his supporters for that matter - ever expect the high-ball offer to be the final result.

Amidst media whose profit depends on us always being in a state of concern over some issue, and a society where 15-20% of the population is actively medicated for anxiety problems, I would urge patience & calm.

As has been said, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Typically politicians are more careful with their statements for all sorts of good reasons, and I suspect more likely to follow through generally.

Accordingly someone who is not that careful, for any reason, will get articles written about "what if they do".

Those are valid things to discuss even if I think unlikely. Even inside the GOP discussions and public debate went on regarding Trump's H1B visa ideas and differing views within his staff ... it's not like they just ignored it.

For sure, nothing is invalid to discuss, but proper framing (e.g. "this is theoretical based on crazy statements that aren't expected to become reality) is often missing. The headline is a good example, even if CTA doc was a bit more sober.

Last time around Trump had... let's call them "more seasoned" people around him that kept him from trying to carry out some of his wilder ideas. This time he's made it clear that he's trying as hard as possible to remove as many people as possible who might try to stop him.

So I think "crazy statements that aren't expected to become reality" is a bit over-optimistic. Trump expects at least some of his crazy statements to become reality, and he intends to make that happen, and he's going to remove all the restraints within the administration. So it's pretty much Congress or the courts who are going to have to tell him no (or, worse, the military).

Also, this time around there's some new stuff like that insane Supreme Court ruling (6-3) saying a President could have political rivals murdered and be functionally-immune from prosecution... Or any lesser crime, provided it had some veneer of officialdom.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c035zqe7lgro

SCOTUS is now just a “It’s ok if my guy does it.” Rubber stamp.

I don't know much about this but if there would be a bet, I would take the less side easily.

None of this is based on any information that came from the Trump administration

It's not exactly an administration that actually releases much info, even if they say they're going to do so they don't.

If he doesn't like the uncertainty, he could just say what his plan is clearly rather than ramble about it randomly.

Look, he's going to release his 2016 tax returns any week now, along with the ink that was missing from all of those stacks of blank paper he brought to press conferences, his personal secret plan to absolutely defeat ISIS, "infrastructure week", and literally every other self-serving declaration that he promised he would substantiate "soon"...

You just have to have faith and stop being so unreasonable. :p

Bottom line is Trump promises to use tariffs so critics leap to the absurd conclusion that there will be tariffs on every import.

The relevant Trump administration won't even begin existing for another 13 days yet, that doesn't seem like a big issue. :p

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