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The hyperbole on HN has been ridiculous lately. Get it together, folks. The US doesn't owe any other country cheap prices and the US also reserves the right to raise income in any lawful manner.
Except the way Trump imposed clearly seemed like an attempt at exhortation.
Of course those demands to Canada and Mexico were so absurd and vague that they turned out to just be a pretext.
Trump can't enact these tariffs legally without the approval from congress unless they are related to some national [economic] emergency.
So he came up with the fentanyl from Canada nonsense to somehow workaround that. Hopefully they will be challenged in court and the congress will refuse to confirm them.
He basically used the same mechanism used by presidents to impose sanctions on Russia and other countries to introduce tariffs on American allies...
Trump's tariff on the other hand doesn't have justification. He uses Drugs as an excuse to get his tariff unchallenged.
Trump also wants to use revenue Tariff to cover the tax revenue deficit for his proposed Tax Cut that only benefits the Rich people and he's selling Tariff as "tax on foreign countries" where in reality American consumers are the ones footing the bill, not the Corporate who pass the cost.
Go out and ask what Americans know about Tariff prior to this debacle and check how many articles, short videos were published to explain what or how Tariff works. It's pretty clear Americans don't understand how it works and Trump eloquently attempts to misled these folks.
Now having said that... Let's get to the details:
If you take out Oil from Canada-US trade agreement, both nations are on-par (yep, White House didn't tell you that)
You know how much Fentanyl goes across the border from Canada side? 19kg, you (yes you) can carry it in a military grade backpack probably. Fentanyl is US problems.
Trump is building a narrative to justify stealing US taxpayer money and shift it to the Billionaires.
I see this a lot. Obviously, the idea is to create market space for local companies to compete in with a clear advantage.
I think India before 1990s used to have nearly 200% tariffs (I am not entirely sure on the numbers, but it was absurdly high). This did not fare well for India because quality products made in countries like US and Japan were incredibly expensive. Some companies got around this by forming alliances with local companies leading to companies like (Maruti-Suzuki, Hero-Honda, Mahindra-Ford, etc.)
But US seems to me in a position where they can impose tariffs on some competing countries and reasonably expect their local market to occupy the space created