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Comment by kcplate | Hacker News Reader

I keep asking this of people making the argument of “when tariffs are felt…”?

Where do you think they will be felt and by who?

My guess is among Trump supporters, especially among those solid blue collar middle class vocal MAGA ones, most of these tariffs will not be felt in any really meaningful way. The tariffs that might affect the middle class (basically east Asia) will be the first ones that end up negotiating them away before American consumers feel them…because it’s in those countries best interest and they know it.

The biggest danger to Trump from these tariffs are from the GOP politicians and conservative retirees and nearing retirement age who will not be happy with the stock market if it doesn’t stabilize soon. The price increases don’t hurt them, it’s the impact on their portfolios.

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Solid blue collar people will pay most of it in form of more expensive cloth, food, cars ... everything. The poorer you are, the more you will feel it. If you are rich, prices going up by 20% are nothing. If you are middle class, it is annoying. If you are poor, it is disaster.

Plus, truly rich are getting lower taxes. Tariffs are partially meant to offset those looses.

Didn't we already have 20% inflation over the last 4 years? At least Tariffs will mean American products are 20% cheaper, with inflation there was no alternative to avoid getting charged, domestic production has no tariffs.

Tariffs will have negative impact if it’s on an everyday item. That group doesn't buy new luxury euro cars and wines every day. They buy domestic or Japanese and domestic beer and liquor. I’m convinced that east asia (Japan, Korea, Vietnam) will negotiate the tariffs down and that will bring Japanese/Korean vehicles and clothes prices down because China will need to lower prices to stay competitive to Vietnam and Korea and will just eat the tariff.

Coffee will go up, but most food staples will not be all that volatile because Mexico got the out. Coffee is weird one though…because people will gladly pay 30% more for coffee on account of it being more an habit/addiction.

They buy cheap. A lot of what is cheap is from abroad. Also, cheap domestically produced goods use foreign materials or parts. If the steel price goes up, everything from the steel goes up too. The tariffs are supposed to offset tax breaks for rich people. In their current form, they are basically tax on consumers.

Mexico has old tariffs in place, they did not got an out. They do not have new tariffs put on them on top of previous tariffs. Even domestic foods can go up when fertilizers used to grow them are more expensive. Or when transportation is more expensive.

China did not just "eat the tariff". First, tariff is paid by domestic consumer, foreign company is not paying that. Second, China announced retaliatory tariffs.

You should go back and read what I actually wrote. It seems like you just picked random sets of words and responded to them out of context of what I was saying.

> cheap domestically produced goods

What cheap domestically produced goods?

The question now is, what kind of tariff negotiations will be acceptable to Trump?

Is it the numbers he used to justify the tariffs? The article we're commenting on shows Trump has always seen that any trade deficit at all is unacceptable.

Even zero tariffs in Vietnam is not going to zero out the US's deficit with them, Vietnamese people can't afford to buy that many goods from the US , and the US can't manufacture that many clothes or shoes for their own market.

Even Australia, which has a trade surplus with the US, got tariffs. What negotiations will work for them?

Or will he take tiny, pointless wins just to sound strong like in the early negotiations with Canada/Mexico? Are the talking points just bluster?

They’ll be felt by everyone buying goods in the US as prices increase, it’s not a trick question.

So all goods. Care to explain how it will affect all goods including domestic goods?

Your domestically produced food was grown with engines powered by oil bought from abroad, because the stuff the US gets out of the ground isn't right for the US refineries: https://www.marketplace.org/2024/05/13/the-u-s-exports-more-...

Likewise, the US imports fertiliser: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports/fertilize...

Several critical minerals just aren't mined at all in the USA, they have to be imported. Anything that needs those to be produced, just got more expensive, regardless of where the factory is.

Your domestically produced cars were made from imported parts, sometimes with multiple border crossings.

Your domestically produced big tech runs on servers with many imported components.

Not all goods will be affected equally, but it would be hard to imagine production costs would not increase on domestic goods.

Also reduced competition might lead to overall higher prices.

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