Tariffs on China set to rise to 104% on Wednesday | Hacker News Reader

Tariffs on China set to rise to 104% on Wednesday

cnn.com

37 pointsydnyshhh23 comments

Truly insane that the GOP is attacking US taxpayers like this. China is only able to be harmed by how much pain is inflicted through a domestic tax hike.

When the dust settles on this, the executive branch needs to be nerfed to the point that it's mostly a figurehead. Certainly the unchecked tax hike via tariffs power needs to be ripped out immediately, before (any further) permanent damage can be inflicted on the country.

It'll be interesting to see if there's anything Trump can do to cause the GOP-led Congress to reign him in. The Senate is starting to fracture, but so far, the House remains in steadfast support. Maybe once their supporters start feeling the impact of this, they may start singing a different tune.

The House Republicans will just blame Biden in the run up to election in 2026, and I'm sure their idiot sycophants will eat it out of the palms of their hands.

I understand and to a large degree agree with what you are saying, but those "idiot sycophants" don't have a bottomless wallet and the resulting inflation is going to hit them hard. My father-in-law had a saying "I may be dumb, but I ain't plumb dumb" that I think applies here: I suspect the majority of these folks aren't plumb dumb.

The ones ignorant enough to vote for Trump again are also ignorant enough to blame Biden for another two years.

In four years, if inflation and tariffs make the cost of living higher, then I think that Republican candidates will have problems, but in the midterm I think they can spin enough bullshit to keep the easily-distracted still voting for them. They just have to say "woke trigger the libs China beautiful clean coal Biden bad men in women's sports" and it's over.

> the House remains in steadfast support

House is fighting Trump on blowing out the deficit [1].

[1] https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/04/08/congress/an...

> The Senate is starting to fracture, but so far, the House remains in steadfast support.

Which is kind of odd. 100% of the House is up for re-election; only 1/3 of the Senate is. I would expect the House to be fracturing more than the Senate.

Give it some time. Mid terms are still many months off.

> Which is kind of odd. 100% of the House is up for re-election; only 1/3 of the Senate is. I would expect the House to be fracturing more than the Senate.

The senators all have to battle state wide campaigns that are much more competitive than most safe house seats, which tends to have a moderating influence. Their campaigns are also a lot more expensive so they have to answer to a greater number and diversity of donors, while being less afraid of a more extreme primary challenger.

That's an interesting point. Gerrymandering only affects the House, not the Senate.

This has the makings of the largest tax hike on Americans in history.

The largest and the most regressive tax since it impacts mostly the lower economic class that's already struggling with the cost of living.

Yep, this is more or less a VAT in disguise

I like the idea of converting the executive branch to be just the cabinet and not the president or vice president.

National elections for a few of the most significant ones (e.g. secretary of state, attorney general). Maybe Congress appoints the rest.

When designing a system to be resistant to attack, it helps to split up roles. A "superadmin" type of role is a vulnerability. Similar idea here.

Xi doesn't have to worry about reelection. The Republicans in Congress do in 2026. The Chinese can politically handle a trade war better than the US.

Democracy or not, people tend to rally around the flag when they feel like their country is under attack by a hostile actor. Both the Chinese and the Canadians are willing to tolerate pain in order to push back against Trump and his cronies.

Why is Trump even attempting to reshore manufacturing?

This drastic of a Tariff so soon, and the inconsistent messaging with pausing tariffs makes it impossible for any business owner to safely setup US manufacturing.

Besides US manufacturing should be more focused on high value, high tech products. We are a rich enough country in where we CAN import more than export. This is why poorer countries rely on exports for income whilst richer countries import more.

Trade deficits should not be a reason for these tariffs and just alienates allies more than anything.

> Why is Trump even attempting to reshore manufacturing?

He isn’t. The fact that he’s open to cutting deals undercuts the tariffs’ restoring effect.

Tariffs are a tax. The administration found a revenue toy and a bunch of people are playing it in different directions. There isn’t a coherent plan as much as a bunch of plans, some of which make sense, some of which don’t, but none of which make sense when stacked with the others.

It's long been a conservative dream to eliminate progressive taxation, and moving entirely to a tariff-based system is a fantastic option for forcing the tax burden onto the poor. The genius of it is that you get to invoke nationalism as you do it. Someone who complains simply doesn't love America and isn't a patriot.

> long been a conservative dream to eliminate progressive taxation, and moving entirely to a tariff-based system

Since when? Free trade has been a conservative staple until the Tea Party and Trump.

Free trade is orthogonal to this goal. For my entire life, the right-wing/libertarian tax proposal has been for the 'flat tax' or 'fair tax', which basically means an across-the-board high sales tax funds the government. This is of course a regressive tax, since the upper echelon classes only spend a small fraction of their incomes, while the lower classes generally spend at least 100% of theirs.

Don't believe that once a high consumption tax has been enacted to replace income taxes, and once trade disputes are settled, that conservatives would ever allow the return of a progressive income tax.

I've often seen the statistic where the US Government at point was almost entirely funded by tariffs (and that this was to justify removing the income tax), but this seems to be misleading as from what I remember, at that time the Government was also much less powerful and didn't have as much of an active role providing services to citizens so I doubt tariffs would be able to supplement what other plans the Trump admin has.

Any info on this?

> often seen the statistic where the US Government at point was almost entirely funded by tariffs

Most old societies were. It’s easy to tax at a limited number of ports. And we didn’t understand comparative advantgae because we didn’t need to; most societies were—most of the time—Malthusian/zero real growth. (You’d also go to war more often. Industrial warfare and nukes sort of birthed the modern trade war.)

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