What a trade war would mean for the US, in 9 charts | Hacker News Reader

What a trade war would mean for the US, in 9 charts

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58 pointsanigbrowl12 comments

Free global trade, when US prints the currency used in those trades, results in the globe being robbed by US. That's what "US trade deficit" means. It's how much US extracted from other countries by use of freshly printed paper. That's the secret fuel of US dominance of last seven decades. Trump's messing with global trade is going to accelerate dethroning US as a global hegemon.

Vaguely interested in the topic, this was a nice breakdown. I felt like I had to actively go looking for an article making the case for tariffs, and I thought this article[0] from The Atlantic made sense.

[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/09/economi...

> I had to actively go looking for an article make the case for tariffs

And I wonder who provided such a case?

> Oren Cass is the executive director at American Compass and author of The Once and Future Worker

Oh, I'm sure American Compass is a widely renowned firm known for objective, unbiased analysis!

> We are charting the course for conservative economics.

Hm.

Not everyone is constantly scouting for political reasons to dismiss ideas.

Much like how sarcasm in real life usually misses a chance at contributing to the conversation, I feel like you've done the same here. If you have something to say about the quotes or American Compass, then say it, or point to something else that's more credible, otherwise it's just internal dialogue

Canada imposes sneak tariffs on imported US goods in the form of dairy quotas on US producers, so it's very hard to make the case that they're an innocent party here. They want tariff-free oil exports while strangling US dairy imports via quotas.

Mexico, on the other hand, is an active narco state. It's impossible to get elected in Mexico without being affiliated with cartels. [1]

[1] https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-10-08/no-war...

Andres Obrador was president for 6 years and a big enemy of the cartels. He just went about it a different way. Which makes sense because clearly the "war on drugs" isn't working. Not in the US and not anywhere else. By making it riskier you're increasing the profit margins and corruption.

And the Canadian quotas were ruled fair.

Just over a year ago the agreed upon settlement process from NAFTA 2.0 ruled that Canada was not doing anything out of line with the 2018 agreement. The current quota system was also agreed to in 2018.

What we are seeing from the Americans is so far out of line that if the blanket tariffs are applied today, it is a clear turning point in relations with Canada, and really the entire world. There is no going back from this.

Your comment seems to omit the recent arbitration in regards to the quota system under the Biden admin, which indicates they ARE out of line with the 2018 agreement.

Just imagine, narcos deliver a product that is huuugely popular in the USA. If there was no demand, there would be no need to supply.

You guys could start by replacing opoids with Ibuprofen. But nooo… Ibuprofen damages your stomach, apparently. Opioids are sooo much better.

Just to clarify, they also have strict quotas for their own dairy producers.

If imports weren't restricted, we (the US) would completely shut down their dairy industry, since our dairy doesn't have quotas.

Well, the United States has a strategic cheese reserve and distributes free government cheese to welfare recipients and the elderly because the industry can't be bothered to match supply with demand.

There's also the gigantic US corn subsidy that's propped up by forced use of corn derived ethanol additives mandated in gasoline, as well as excessive use of extremely unhealthy high fructose corn syrup because of the resulting artificially low price of corn products.

Both of those programs far exceed the scale of Canada's dairy quotas. Additionally, the dairy quoatas in Canada are enforced on Canadian producers as well to prevent the never-ending boom-bust cycles seen in the US dairy market.

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