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Comment by Devilspawn6666 | Hacker News Reader

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Many people including doctors and health professionals apply restrictions to their diet including avoiding complex carbs or proteins, or reducing their salt or sugar intake while talking about balance diets. No complaints.

But when I decide to reduce all foods by at least 10%, lower my protein and carbs by 25%, pledge I'll remove at least 30% of metals from my diet and will be doing a 4 day fast twice a week in order to become an olympic level athlete by next year, people say I don't know what I'm doing!

How can people possibly be against nuanced thoughtful dieting yet be against my sudden do it all at once approach? It's totally inconsistent, what idiots everyone else is.

Gold.

Here in the EU, you'd generally just pay VAT of imports. And to be clear, we pay the same VAT on internal goods.

To make it convenient for consumers, large foreign platforms would automatically handle VAT at point of sale, reducing friction and thereby pushing more import.

Some specific things had tariffs - e.g., nuclear reactors, and chinese electric cars - but it was by no means the norm, and I don't think citizens liked this. The Chinese car tariff in particular feels like German automotive lobbying, stifling competition. Tesla, pre-DOGE, also showed that we would have an unsatiable hunger for import of competitive cars, it's just that an F150 isn't a competitive car in EU.

Now, because if the trade war, we end up with blanket retaliatory tariffs and a strong push for buying local products, killing imports, that just wasn't there before. US and China was already in a trade war, so I guess that was the current state of affairs there.

> The Chinese car tariff in particular feels like German automotive lobbying

That’s interesting because German car makers actually lobbied _against_ those tariffs fearing retaliatory tariffs.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/fatal-...

That's interesting, and if true (what one publicly states does not necessarily reflect ones actions) then the mind remains boggled.

> And to be clear, we pay the same VAT on internal goods

This isn't a fair comparison. Local produces also have VAT reduced by the value of goods they bought locally, so it is not such a burden for a local producer vs importer who doesn't benefit from such VAT reduction at all for his costs.

> Local produces also have VAT reduced by the value of goods they bought locally, so it is not such a burden for a local producer vs importer who doesn't benefit from such VAT reduction at all for his costs.

Huh? VAT is transparent to all involved companies regardless of import/export in such a way that the final transaction to a consumer cover the whole VAT of the value chain.

A quick VAT tutorial:

---

The local producer buys seeds, and pays a price that includes VAT. They then sell crop for a price that includes VAT. The difference is settled with the government: The local producer gets back all the VAT they paid, and instead give the government all the VAT they collected.

A reseller buys local produce at a price that includes VAT, and sells it at a price that includes VAT. They then get back all the VAT they paid (which is exactly what the government got from the local producer from this exact transaction!), and in turn give the government VAT they collect from the final consumer.

In the end, the amount of VAT retained by the government is exactly the price paid by the last recipient of the goods. No company in the chain ended up paying VAT out of their own pocket, and no other government earned VAT.

---

Now try with imported goods: The foreign producer buys seeds at a price that includes their local VAT. They then sell crops for export at a price with no VAT. The producer gets back all the VAT they paid, and give nothing to their government as they collected none during export.

The reseller buys the foreign produce at a price without VAT and instead report and pay VAT themselves to initiate the VAT chain. They sell it at a price that includes VAT. They get all the VAT they paid back, and in turn give the government the VAT they collect form the final consumer.

Granted, the importer's country is the one stuffing their pillows with the VAT, which does not benefit the foreign producer. That's the difference.

Hey, thanks for the tutorial, I’ve been running my company and paying VAT for only 20 years, so finally I'll know how it works! But, kidding aside, your breakdown is fine in theory, but it misses the real world sting for a US exporter selling to Europe. US goods start outside the VAT system, no offsets, just raw costs. When they hit Europe, the importer slaps VAT on top, jacking up the price before it even gets moving. Local producers? They’re already in the game, balancing input VAT with what they collect. So from the US point of view it is virtually indistinguishable from tariff, making US stuff pricier than the local competition.

Take two producers - one US, one local - selling their identical products at $100. US costs are $80, all out of pocket, no VAT relief, US producer's profit is $20 after the importer adds 20% VAT ($20) to reach $120.

The local guy’s $80 includes 20% VAT on inputs ($13.33 reclaimable), dropping his real cost to $66.67. He sells for $100, collects $20 VAT (total $120), then pays the government $6.67 ($20 collected minus $13.33 reclaimed). His profit’s $26.67 - still 33% more than US's $20, thanks to VAT offsets.

You have to agree that this is a very tangible advantage for local companies, no?

The case for the local guy is not calculated correctly for EU VAT, leading to the misunderstanding. The cost of the input increases proportionate to VAT, with the VAT refund cancelling this out exactly.

Let's assume as you did that the actual input has the same real cost to manufacture (ignoring e.g. local labor cost differences, fuel cost differences, government incentives, etc.), and that your example therefore needs exactly 80 USD worth of real, untaxed input in both cases.

The US producer buys this for 80 USD out of pocket as there's no VAT to pay, adds 20 USD profit and sells it for 100 USD. An importer adds 20% VAT, making it 120 USD.

The local producer has to pay VAT so their price for the same thing is 96 USD out of pocket. They get 16 USD VAT back from the government next time they file VAT (irrespective of what they sell), i.e. the "relief" undoes the VAT entirely. They add 20 USD profit making the price 100 USD, add 20% VAT, and what do you know, same 120 USD price tag.

In both cases the final consumer price is 120 USD, and after VAT is cleared the input seller gets 80 USD, the producer itself gets 20 USD profit and the government at the point of consumer sale gets 20 USD VAT.

If the local guy exports the goods to the US the VAT is refunded, making both prices 100 USD. Input seller earns the same, profits remain 20 USD, but no VAT is earned.

This is also why all companies only discuss prices excluding VAT, as the VAT is purely symbolical if it's not a consumer sale.

Actually, EU countries have pretty high tariffs for some US exports, and other countries too, higher than US used to have until today.

That's how the common market remains competitive. We lower barriers for trade inside EU, while protecting our market from outside exports. Data is all available. Cars for example, US had tariff of 2.5%, EU 10%.

> Cars for example, US had tariff of 2.5%, EU 10%.

This is highly misleading:

Pickup trucks, which is a major share of the US car market, had an import tariff of 25% since 1964 (so it was pretty much the same average tariff level but with the EU doing less targetting).

The idea the pickup trucks are wanted in Europe is hilarious.

The funny thing is that we actually have a quite big commercial market for such utility vehicles, currently met by dropside vans: vehicles built on a van frame with a flatbed or other custom equipment on the back.

This is not really that different from how the F-series works either, providing a frame where the rear can be built up dependent on needs.

It's just that the F-150 is a terrible fit. Our dropside vans are small with a very large footprint-to-bed ratio, is light and have low fuel consumption, is almost always custom, and has zero luxury or otherwise private appeal. There is no demand for e.g. engine performance, as the light vehicle class has load and towing limits that are easily met.

The F-150 is too bulky for casual city use and without a need to optimize have a low footprint-to-bed ratio, is heavy with and thirsty, is often just used "as is" with the stock bed, and is often used privately with a significant "muscle" appeal. In order to be driven with a regular license and not be affected by truck speed limits, tracking requirements and driving/rest time limits, it would still be registered as a light vehicle, making any additional load bearing/towing capacity unusuable.

There's nothing wrong with models being extremely optimized for specific markets and unfit for others. I imagine there aren't many EU-style dropside vans in the US, not to mention EU-style trucks. Japanese Kei cars are an even more extreme case of such market optimization.

I drive a Mercedes W447 in the US (though the "crew" version) and get no end of crap from people around me with F150's and the like (I live in an area that is borderline rural/urban and has a ton of farming). Meanwhile I have a larger hauling capacity, get vastly better mileage, have 8 seats when I want them, etc.

It's too bad no-one bought these and they went away.

Amusingly the Postal Service in our area drives them now.

> Mercedes W447

Something like this or an electric van would be amazing. However, does everyone always want to borrow it? I don’t think I own anything that wouldn’t fit in a vehicle like that.

Yes, I get all kinds of requests to borrow it to move stuff.

> The idea the pickup trucks are wanted in Europe is hilarious.

While demand is much lower than in the US, it's still not zero.

But I'm talking about US import tariffs, not EU.

"Light trucks" have like 80% market share in the US; if you have 25% tariffs on those (for over 60 years now, too) then there is no room to complain about 10% car tariffs in the EU, full stop.

You could make a strong argument that Fords dominance in the segment was significantly helped by protectionism (without those tariffs Ford etc. would face much stiffer foreign competition).

Well because they are applying them in a blanket fashion with no warning basically everywhere.

Tarrifs are a tool. They have both positive and negative consequences. It seems like the manner they are being applied are just random and will get most of the negative consequences with very little of the positive.

> They have both positive and negative consequences.

They have zero positive consequences for anyone but manufacturers.

They don’t even necessarily have positive benefits for manufacturers unless they somehow have a supply chain that exists only in the US all the way down. The automakers are against tariffs, for example.

This may kill more manufacturing than it creates.

That's why you implement them reciprocally, to force anyone else implementing them to reduce theirs. Their problem is that the method they used to identify the tariff levels was, generously, crude. And also that it was implemented too sharply.

However, as a political tactic, the sharp implementation gives them breathing room to re-calibrate before the midterms. That comes at a real GDP cost, though.

Retaliatory tariffs are just dumb. They're literally a tax on your own citizens.

The only reason to implement them is to protect local manufacturing, which is usually a bad thing in the long run (they just become less competitive)

Not retaliatory, reciprocal. Retaliatory tariffs are dumb. Reciprocal tariffs are the Nash equilibrium. Whether or not these particular tariffs are in fact reciprocal is something we could debate, though. At best they are a very crude approximation of reciprocal tariffs.

> Not retaliatory, reciprocal

Since we are diving into language semantics, these are _arbitrary_ tariffs that have been shat out via a "formula" which is being fed "how much stuff they sell us" as its input.

trump said "punish everyone who we spend more money with, barring our favourites" and they gave him a set of options. He chose the one he liked the best. No he didn't read any impact assessments, if they were made. He went by gut instinct.

Its just a punt. There is no greater game plan. its just a man making policy by vibe.

What makes them arbitrary? there is no really plan to test if they are going to work, or at what point they need to be adjusted. He will keep them until he sees something on twitter/truth social that makes him reconsider.

Yes, they are badly implemented, I agree. He is calling them reciprocal tariffs though, which implies he will lower them as they lower theirs. I don't think he's chosen a good way of estimating theirs, and so I don't think it's a particularly good policy, but reciprocal tariffs in principle are a good idea.

Even though his first pass crude approximation is stupid, it's really how other countries react, and how he reacts to them that will determine whether they behave like reciprocal tariffs or not.

There is a baked-in plan to test if they're going to work: they are formulaic, based on the trade deficit. Supposing that deficit falls, they will automaticlaly readjust downwards. I don't think the trade deficit (particularly restricted to goods, as they did it) is a good proxy for that, but it's also not completely untethered from reality.

> There is a baked-in plan to test if they're going to work

I really dont think there is a plan. Trump says he wants tariffs, this is what he got. Why would he adjust them, unless there is an upside for him? is he going to remember to re-evaluate them? does the department that generates the stats even exist any more?

I find it interesting that you are downvoted and yet nobody have a reason why you're wrong. Even the answer you get seems to agree with you.

I feel like that's not true (really, zero positives? never? that would mean a whole lot of people is patently stupid), but I'd like to base my opinions on facts, not feelings.

Reagan summed it up.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9C5Jig7XCw8&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5t...

Why? Because the US is smarter than the others. By having open trade, we've benefited greatly. Now you could argue that other countries have benefited more, and that made me true but the benefits of free trade are that the pie keeps growing. So other countries getting a bigger slice is not shrinking our slice.

For what it's worth, I bought a $2000 robotic hand from US a year ago, and paid about €400 in VAT and €32 (so like 2%) in import duties / tariffs.

Obviously VAT isn't a "trade barrier", if anything it's a "consumption barrier" and it's the same for every business that EU citizens give money to (i.e. if I bought a robot hand that cost $2000 to make from an EU company, I'd likewise be paying €400 VAT on top of that).

It would help if people answer than downvote. Both these kind of questions and economic answers are getting buried.

My understanding so far based on buried comments is: other countries have tariffs on individual products they're historically good at manufacturing and they want to retain it. e.g. Milk in the Nordics, Cars in Japan and EU, Bikes in India, etc.

keyword: "selective to retain"

US is applying it across the board blindly, not to retain something that's existing, but what appears to be a blind hope of starting everything from scratch.

Buried comments say "strategy" is lacking, because these tariffs also apply on the very raw materials needed to start from scratch. The policy does not intelligently select and separate items by their current or future use to the US industry.

There is a prediction that this blunt hammer will not yield to a more productive situation, in couple of years it would only have to be quietly rolled back and strategic thinking would have to be re-applied.

The counter-counter argument is, maybe a real strategy is being worked upon, and this blunt hammer is just a leverage tool. But so far there are no concrete signals of strategic thinking, so it's currently perceived as "let's keep turning one knob after another". The lack of accompanying software updates, calculations, projections, personnel planning, etc all contribute to the notion that there is no strategy.

And at this point, it devolves into emotion and personality, which is better to stay away from.

> The counter-counter argument is, maybe a real strategy is being worked upon, and this blunt hammer is just a leverage tool.

I hope it's not the department of government something...

The United States maintains the world's most powerful corporations and attracts exceptional talent, yet appears to be hastening toward what some consider an inevitable conflict—one that exists largely in political rhetoric rather than reality. Setting an ambitious four-year timeline to rebuild manufacturing capabilities seems impractical. More concerning is how this approach risks dismantling the global governance system that took generations to establish, while alienating allies who could be valuable partners rather than burdens. The potential costs of such a strategy are immense, explaining why many observers question whether there's a coherent strategy behind these actions.

> What's amazing me is the lack of consistent thinking by the commenters here.

I feel your "consistency" is based on a facile model where big percentages correspond to badness and that's everything.

An analogy:

1. Roommate Trump who falsely claims you're in a common-law marriage: "You're running a trade-deficit with your grocery store, so every time you buy groceries from them I'm going to punish you by taking 25% of the cost. If you don't like it, you should work there part-time to reduce the deficit. You're about equal in paying friends for food versus them paying you for food, but they need you more than you need them, so to make you hustle I'm still taking 15% from any money that goes out. Finally, you have an extreme trade-surplus with your regular employer because they just send you checks, hurray!... That'll be 10%, because reasons."

2. Critics: "That idiot is insane. That's not how any of this works. Find a divorce lawyer ASAP."

3. You: "You guys aren't consistent thinkers! I mean, why aren't you complaining about how Mrs. Johnson adds a 100% cost onto Mr. Johnson's purchases of cigarettes, as a way to get him to quit? 100% is a much bigger number, so obviously Mrs. Johnson's the real villain here, and you don't seem to care!"

____________

If you're so certain Trump has a coherent and non-dumb strategy, please describe how it's supposed to work and why you expect the results to be good things.

Well, why only consider just goods and not consider services? US is mostly exporting services while other countries are exporting goods.

Why not consider US prints dollars which are used for global trade? That means other countries are subsidizing US inflation and US economy.

Why not consider the massive investments other countries have made in the US economy when buying shares, bonds, securities?

What if they impose tarrifs on US financial and IT services? What if Amazon cloud and Netflix start costing 30% more?

What if they quit using dollars for trade?

What if they start selling US stock and securities? What if they start selling US dollars?

>Many other countries, including EU members and China, already apply tariffs and non-tariff barriers far in excess of what the US is applying now.

>So why no complaints about them?

Because that's not true.

> Many other countries, including EU members and China, already apply tariffs and non-tariff barriers far in excess of what the US is applying now.

Source?

Can you provide an example, especially for the EU?

From what I read, the average tariff applied by the EU is under 1%. Other comments say Trump has just divided imports by exports to calculate his tariff rates.

On a trade weighted basis it’s more like 3%-4%. The US is indeed lower on average, but marginally by like 1-2% on average.

But I think the concern is more key industries for the US like autos, tech (EU never ending fines are essentially tariffs), etc. where the disparity is more dramatic. But it’s still not a 20% difference.

Another concern is the devaluation of the Euro vs the dollar due to certain economic policies. Which again is a defacto tariff.

Anyways, my guess is this is a negotiating position since 20% seems excessive, but I could be wrong.

EU's fines are not tariffs. They are fines for breaking the law. EU companies are also fined.

In fact, every EU big tech company has already been fined a trillion EUR! All 0 of them.

I don't get your irony. Yes EU companies are smaller, do the fines are proportionally smaller, but they are held up to the same standard and fined as well. It's not some hidden scheme to extract money from the US.

The limits are conveniently set so that the law doesn't apply to most EU companies. Only 4/25 included companies are EU (and 3/4 of those are porn, Booking.com isn't).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Services_Act#Large_onl...

Edit: it's definitely worse if you go deeper into the rabbit hole. Sister legislature, Digital Markets Act:

Booking.com insisted on the fact that it is one of the only European companies that is a global success and that as they are not the most dominant actor in this sector, they should not be disincentivized while competing with bigger companies.

So yeah, "please only punish non-EU companies" definitely sounds like a trade barrier.

I see this devolving into a circular argument.

But you can rebrand tariffs as “fines” all you want.

When they’re applied wildly disproportionately to certain firms in a certain industry from a certain 3rd party country…it’s a defacto tariff.

I know this view is common in the US but the EU fines all kinds of companies - European and not - large amounts for various violations.

Just 3 days ago it was almost $500 million to various car manufacturers, the biggest piece to Volkswagen. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_...

In 2021 it was $900 million to Volkswagen and BMW https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/sv/ip_21_...

In 2019 it was $370 million to automotive suppliers: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/sk/ip_19_...

In 2016 it was $3 billion to truck manufacturers: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_16_...

That list keeps going. And these are just the EU actions. National governments have their own enforcement. Germany fines Volkswagen for another billion in 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/13/vw-fined-1b...

Treating fines on US companies as a tariff means we should also count Volkswagen $4.3 billion fine for Dieselgate as a hidden tariff. Do you agree with that?

Yes, both Europe and the US fine companies.

But specifically when it comes to tech (which is overwhelmingly US companies), there is a massive imbalance. Tariffs are one mechanism by which that imbalance can be tilted.

"EU privacy regs are just laws you can choose to follow if you don't want to get fined!" Yes, and tariffs are laws you can choose to follow (by producing US market products in the US) if you don't want to get fined.

Again, US companies will also need to pay tariffs on imported goods, so it's not just targeted at EU companies. It's a tariff on geographic production.

I don't agree with much of this administrations policies, but to claim the EU hasn't created an imbalance in the way it extracts "fines" from US tech companies (and the incentives around that) doesn't reflect reality.

AGAIN, I don't agree that either the EU fines or US tariffs are a good idea. But the logic of using a tariff to correct this imbalance is sound.

You avoided the question, if fines are a trade barrier, shouldn’t we count US fines on European manufacturers as well?

Of course fines on tech companies disproportionately affect US companies. They’re the biggest tech companies!

If you broaden your view to look at other industries you’ll find things are much more balanced.

The other day I got a massive tariff from the police, alleging that my parking was somehow wrong. This is a free country, I can park where I want.

Great example. Your government has decided they will levy additional fees for parking in geographic areas deemed undesirable. This is also what a tariff does for manufacturing (US firms also have to pay tariffs on imported goods).

Let’s continue down the circular argument drain!

Aligning incentives through financial penalties = forcing an entity to give you money until what you want happens. The key question here is intent - 1)which entity, 2)what's the scope of what you want to happen, 3)what happened before and 4) can you do something about it if you're disadvantaged?

Tariffs and fines, for lack of better words, are both aligning incentives through financial penalties, but they are still different things.

The EU (governmental body) created laws to price in negative externalities and punish offenders until they correct their behavior. Fines will punish corps (private citizens) directly, with little collateral damage, until they stop being anti-competitive.

A fine forces a 1)small target to follow 2)a specific law and uses, like tariffs, financial penalties to achieve this. That law is a long term reflection of people's local culture and values, and it 4)can be appealed and judged. 3)A negative externality was priced in as a law and a fine.

-- Right now, you have the Trump admin (gov body) applying tariffs to other countries (gov body) because they want manufacturing (private citizens) back in US soil. There is clear widespread collateral damage.

A tariff shapes the economic behavior of a 1)big target and, like fines, also uses financial penalties to achieves this. The desired economic outcome is a 2)trading strategy of a temporary administration. There is collateral damage. 4)There is no court, judge or 3rd party to appeal to, you as a government can only try to negotiate with the other government. 3) Two governments that were having mutually beneficial and consensual trading are now no longer doing so, there was no negative externality here, and while Trump may claim so it does not make it true that other countries were taking advantage of America. See trade balances considering products and services, as one example of lies trying to make it look like US was getting short changed by the world, it was not.

If tariffs and fines still feel like the same thing, it's only because 1)corporations have become government-sized and have achieved government-like powers; and 4) that 3rd party of the judicial branch seems to be more and more taken over by just the government itself, who might actually be a gov-sized and gov-powered corporation.

I mean, you are not presenting any robust or even reasonable arguments for your view. What you seem to be completely missing is intent. The EU privacy laws were not put in place to tariff US tech companies. The fact that US tech runs routinely afoul EU privacy laws and actually mostly gets away with it is entirely their choice. They could always abide by the rules and then they wouldn't get fined.

Have you tried a reciprocal tariff?

I did but unfortunately that day I did not have a military of my own that could serve as the tool of last resort in advancing my political will.

> EU never ending fines are essentially tariffs)

Comply with EU legislation for activity within the EU and there are no fines so it’s hardly a tariff

Listen I get this is wildly counter-narrative on HN (all tech legislation = good and EU = default good on this forum) so I will never win this argument.

But I’ve dealt closely with EU compliance on these matters, and the fines are absolutely levied selectively and in bad faith on areas that are impossible to comply with on the timelines provided or ever. They have absolutely turned into strategically punitive taxes on an industry that the EU has no answer to, so in effect, yes, they are tariffs.

I have also dealt with EU compliance, and I have never seen the EU act quickly on anything concerning business. It's a slow, bureaucratic institution.

With all due respect, when you are given years to comply, the problem is not that the timeline is impossible, but that your organization chooses to ignore the regulation.

If the same laws had been passed in the US, the company would have complied already.

Yes, fines sometimes appear levied selectively. Where do you draw the line though? Would you consider the tens of billions Volkswagen had to spent in the US to settle their emissions scandal as "tariffs"?

I mean, if you respect the law, you don't get fined. How hard it is?

Also it's not as if the US doesn't fine EU banks disproportionately compared to US ones.

Yep, and if you respect the tariff, you don't get fined. How hard is it?

"THE LAW IS THE LAW" is not an logical argument. Tariffs are also imposed via legislation (laws).

Just as EU companies have to abide by EU privacy regs, US firms also have to abide by US tariff regs.

> Yep, and if you respect the tariff, you don't get fined. How hard is it?

Exactly, so we agree fines are not tariffs then?

> Just as EU companies have to abide by EU privacy regs, US firms also have to abide by US tariff regs.

Yes, also by nature, only importers pay tariffs, so most tarrifs will be paid by US firms, just like most EU fines are paid by EU companies. I don't see a disagreement here.

> "THE LAW IS THE LAW" is not an logical argument

It's not mine. I'm saying that if you don't commit a crime or by negligence let a crime happen, you won't get fined. Some criminals are never caught, and we can talk about two-tiered justice system, but just, I don't know... Don't commit crime? The risk to be fined will be 0 then.

This whole "the EU fining us for breaking EU law is a tariff" narrative is such BS. The big tech companies just don't like the privacy & consumer protection laws in the EU so now they're getting the US government to help them bully the EU into submission.

Yes, criminals get fined, I don't understand why part of the HN crowd support criminals that much.

The fines are not all crime-related. They don't come out of a criminal court.

In my country, any fine > 135€ have to be given by a judge. If you want to discriminate between 'crime' and 'offense', be my guest, breaking the law get you fined, respect it, you'll be fine.

>Many other countries, including EU members and China, already apply tariffs and non-tariff barriers far in excess of what the US is applying now.

This has been persistently claimed but I have yet to see evidence on this. In most cases it's including VAT which doesn't make sense since local manufacturers pay that as well.

If the US doesn't apply non tariff barriers and the EU, for example, does, why us the EU flooded by Chinese cars and smartphones and the US isn't?

It's not really inconsistent as as far as I'm aware the US is the only country in the world with a universal baseline tariff on all imports. Other countries have tariffs that seek to protect certain industries and balance this with trade agreements that cover other goods or certain countries.

For example Japan wants to protect its farmers so has tariffs on rice. But that is not a simple tariff on all rice imports. There are various rules and a tariff free allowance. The largest importer of tariff free rice to Japan is the US.

I think there's a few things wrong with Trump's go to of tariffs as weapons:

- America seems to want total freedom to trade on its terms, not as partners. E.g. expecting countries to import American goods that do no satisfy customer demand or local laws.

- Trump's unpredictability will mean that companies will be hesitant to make large investments if they think the policy will change on a whim. US policy is largely controlled by a single, unpredictable, vindictive and fragile ego. That's not a good environment to build a stable and healthy company.

- The hyperbole such as calling international trade raping & pillaging. This is voluntary trade we're talking about.

- The main issue is that it's not solving the real problems of the average American. Globalization has big issues, it's kept some countries in poverty and contributed to declining living standards especially in western manufacturing. However it is just one factor amongst many that are causing hardship for small town America. A reversing of globalisation does not solve massive wealth inequality, it does not intrinsically solve low wages or abandoned factory towns. At the same time that Trump installs tariffs he's making it easier for the wealthy to concentrate ownership of assets, increase inequality, reduce employment laws and erase social protections. 14 billionaires with elite projection are not working to benefit the average American, they're working to benefit their own average.

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