A small violin part highlights bigger problems for the global economy
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
(1) This sounds like a product that can’t be easily interchanged with competitors’ offerings since Chinese competitors offer “crude imitations”, at least for now
(2) From a Google search I see that the price of this product is in the range $25-250. It’s hard to see violins students who plunk down hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for their instrument try to save tens of $s for a subpar shoulder rest. Unless perhaps it breaks weekly or something.
Grade school violin students almost never purchase an instrument; they rent, at surprisingly low annual cost.
Focusing on cheaper Chinese competitors and how student violinists might approach a cost/benefit analysis for the widget seems to miss the spirit of the article (at least, as I understood it).
I wouldn't be surprised if they had started to be supplanted by cheap Chinese or other import brands, but I haven't seen it.
It illustrates the dynamics of strictures on global trade with a simple item that has several inputs and that China is the most likely to win out in these sorts of situations because of their low cost advantage.
Cars or something are probably a better example but there are so many complicating factors that would make it less illustrative.
- Tariffs are bad. They hurt the country enacting overall it in the long run.
- It's correct to respond to the US tariffs with tariffs in response.
Additionally, people seem to not understand that a country that exports more to the US than it imports stands to lose more when the US/that country have the same level of tariffs.
At a large scale, if global trade breaks down the United States will be comparatively (not absolutely) better off because they can support themselves (consumption, food, raw materials).
None of this is an endorsement of tariffs. I think the US is in a pretty good spot and things could get a lot worse. Tariffs absolutely will make expensive things more expensive, and it will hurt. But the discussion I've seen online has reduced itself to some sort of weird orthodoxy that doesnt even make sense.
I feel like China is going to be the biggest winner of this tariff war.
Just as an example (from Canada), we had long had a 50% tariff on Chinese EVs which helped U.S. EV manufacturers stay competitive. Now I think we're going to relax that (which IIUC was only implemented to appease our relationship with the U.S. in the first place) and cheaper Chinese EVs should start appearing on the market.
Good for Canadians, good for China. Not as good for the U.S.
A small and often overlooked one is that a Chinese hegemony would decrease the língua franca status of English.
I don't really care so much for the "lingua franca status of English" (even though it's the only language I speak fluently). While yes, this is one of Canada's main languages (not that we don't have a lot of Cantonese/Mandarin speakers too), China itself would be a good example that one can succeed without speaking the language which has the "lingua franca status"
Perhaps it's worth noting that the number of fluent Mandarin/Cantonese speakers in Canada is probably not much lower (as a percentage - ~4% in 2016 and I can imagine it's only increased since then) than the number of fluent English speakers in China (5%)
edit: 4% is actually the number of Canadians who spoke Mandarin or Cantonese as a first language in 2016 (which again, is likely higher now). The number of fluent combined Chinese language speakers is almost certainly higher then, even if just a little bit.
You have a huge unrecognized privilege in being a native English speaker.
To cling to the idea that English need continue to be the most important global economic language though, is a type of linguistic and economic supremacy I don't care to partake in.
The same logic applies in the real world. It’s not personal. It’s the most impersonal thing possible.
They could be a beneficiary if global trade doesnt go nuclear. And it probably wont. If it does they are in big trouble.
We have these claims:
- Shooting someone is absolutely bad in all scenarios
- Its correct to shoot someone if they are trying to shoot you
I agree with the second point completely. The problem is if you say that, you should go back and revise the first point, because clearly its not absolutely bad.
In the case of tariffs, once you acknowledge that reciprocal tariffs are good, you run into a problem because the US generally has lower tariffs on other countries than other countries have on it.
Trade wars are like regular wars, in that respect.
edit: lots of evasion from this point below
I think its poor because people see tariffs not immediately derided and they swoop in to denigrate them. Please re-read my entire comment.
"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion" --John Stuart Mill
It incidentally also reduces the social impact of a small number of extremely wealthy people, thus helping democracy.
It's probably not legal without a Constitutional amendment, but one can dream.
(*) progressive in the sense of following the principle that the impact of taxes should be roughly the same for all, not in the general political sense.
> The proposal also specifies a monthly payment made to all households based on household size. Called a "prebate," the monthly payment offsets the regressive nature of a sales tax up to the poverty level.
Of course nobody agrees [2] on how effective this would actually be:
> Sales taxes are normally considered regressive though the FairTax provides a rebate that supporters argue would create a progressive effective rate on consumption. However, the Fairtax would also eliminate the EITC and CTC, dramatically reducing this benefit.[58] Additionally the FairTax would be applied to goods that are currently not subject to sales tax. These include all food, all prescription drugs and other health care products and services (such as doctor’s visits and laboratory tests), purchases of new homes, and utility bills. These goods make up a substantial share of low income families expenses
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicted_effects_of_the_FairT...
Trump's plan doesn't do the former and no US President could achieve the second.
All things being equal, I might expect that strategic tariffs on important sectors to be vital in maintaining them. But, given how global the economy is, and how many more non-obvious substitutions there are today, I'm not sure these protections provide as much value going forward as they did 200 years ago. Worse, is blanket tariffs are not likely to do anything in the short term but drive up local prices to match foreign import goods costs, and is likely going to be a major wealth redistribution event towards physical capital holders.
This is such a childish, simplistic, naive view of both capitalism and material production in 2025 that it barely deserves a mention.
https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterpl...
https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the...
For example, this analysis of the term 1 tariffs show 1,000 jobs gained and up to 75,000 jobs lost.
>“The message is that tariffs are tax cuts, tariffs are jobs, tariffs are national security,” Navarro told Fox News Sunday. “Tariffs are great for America. They will make America great again.” https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-ta...
>“For decades our country has been looted, pillaged and raped,” Trump told an audience that included cabinet members and car workers. “It’s not going to happen any more.”
as a justification for a trade war. I guess people voted for this?
Of course those who are politically favored, such as US farmers, will get a handout, everyone else gets to pound sand.
I think a US recession is a given at this point, the only question is if there will also be a global recession.
If Trump persists with the threatened tariffs, there will definitely be a reordering of US and global trade, but not in the way he thinks. The US will likely have lower growth and higher inflation, ie "stagflation" and the rest of the world will move to trading with itself and without the US. There will be less competition and a consequent lowering of quality and innovation in areas such as cars.
It's a recipe for long term US decline.
Or the factory can build their parts here in one of our 50 great states. Turns out, Canada isn't the only place you can build a violin face rest.
Think not for one moment that Apple et al can rest on their laurels “designed in California”. China is coming for the value chain lunch.
This is a fiction. The US manufactures more than it ever did, just not the same products and with less staff. The US is second only to China.
This is a normal process of seeking out better markets and ceding less profitable ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St...
Let’s not even mention that in belligerence it is the “less profitable” industries that carry the war.
In the short term, it drives up prices and makes consumers poorer. In the long run, tariffs shield companies from global competition and limit their ability to scale. Without that pressure or opportunity, businesses grow weaker—not stronger.
That weakens U.S. industry, not strengthens it.
Is that Wharton business buzz-speak? Did the millons of jobs lost when manufacturing was moved overseas "deliver long-term success" ?
Driving up prices is ok sometimes. It makes sense when the value of the dollar is diluted thanks to inflation. People cannot afford to live anywhere, and judging by the replies, everyone here is fine with that.
Add on that trump is quite literally tariffing the materials needed to expand US industry/manufacturing.
The US also has a major labor shortage that trump is only making worse. How are ya gonna build a violin face when you can't hire anyone to do it?
Like usual, conservatives/Republicans grossly oversimplify how the world works in order to get sound bites and convince fools that 1+1=3.
We're going to use children.
The US labor force is shrinking for at least the next 20 years. We're losing 500-900k workers a year until at least 2034, and longer if people have fewer children because of, well... And it's not projected to increase until 2045.
All the squealing you hear from business owners? Labor today is likely about as inexpensive as it's going to be for the next 20 years.
Also I don't think he's making the labour market worse, haven't deportations been roughly at the same level as past administrations when we actually drill down into the numbers?
What he is doing differently is targeting protestors of U.S. foreign (and probably soon domestic) policy with his deportations, which is simply abhorrent, not to mention possibly illegal.
But it remains to be seen if these measures will actually harm the economy, or (by suppressing criticism) actually strengthen his administration. It's a move out of the fascist playbook, and fascist economics aren't necessarily bad for the economy (except when they're overthrown or defeated).
I highly doubt we'll see the U.S. defeated in conventional warfare any time soon, so if he manages to extend his seat as fuhrer, I think his deposal will only be possible internally.
Then the ⅔ they sell outside the USA would be subject to the retaliatory tariffs likely to come in response to Trump's tariffs. They'd also lose at least some of their existing 10 employees who wouldn't want to move, so they'd need to train more — quality would suffer.
It's more likely they'll find ways to avoid the USA — the European nylon supplier mentioned in the article might reduce their minimum order size, or maybe they could find another business to split the minimum order. The Canadian packaging producer is probably trying to find a Canadian paper supplier.
Your point is basically Trump propaganda at this point. Tariffs have historically had unintended consequences. For instance the tariffs on LCD screens basically killed the laptop industry in the US.
Maybe, just maybe, after 20 years of tariffs it might come true, for a limited selection of products, but consumers would be paying higher prices in the meantime, which may destroy the market.
The foreign strategy of punishing industries in regions that voted for Trump makes sense. So does subsidizing US farmers because we want to overproduce food to ensure supply stability. A key job of government is to step when when markets would/will fail, and markets don't like over-producing.
The US already does this, I'm talking about payments for losses due to tariffs.
It sounds like this debunked claim: https://www.factcheck.org/2025/04/trumps-misleading-claim-on...
A link would be great, but you can just name the products if that's easier, and I'll look up the data.
The American government is proposing across the board on every import (>=$800 or something) tariffs which has never been implemented by the Canadian government on American goods.
Canada is highly protective of certain industries which are typically small and are engaged in by a large voting population but small portion of the economy (GDP). As a percentage of total goods that American companies might actually want to export to Canada import tariffs are typically quite low.