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Comment by timewizard | Hacker News Reader

> That uncertainty does not create stable markets.

Stable markets with bad outcomes are not worth defending on stability alone.

> It does not create very accurate business decisions

The business environment is not great. It does seem some part of that is the result of cheap Chinese goods that have displaced labor _and_ environmental costs flooding foreign markets. That China even uses proxy countries to push out even more is instructive.

So, if not tariffs, then what should we use to solve this?

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Oh I don’t know, how about:

Not imposing ludicrous tariffs based on flawed economics on the entire world at once?

Not imposing tariffs with no warning on your closest allies and attempting to bully them into submission?

Not imposing huge tariffs on some of the weakest nations you trade with (e.g. Laos, Vietnam).

Not changing trade policy radically every few days and announcing it on social media?

Not crashing the stock market, announcing a reverse on your social media platform, then boasting about how much money your billionaire friends made?

Not calling one of your largest trading partners peasants and the then very clever, alternating between insults and praise like a two-bit mobster?

This administration has made America a laughing stock; I don’t think many Americans realise just how much trust has been burned with allies since ‘liberation day’.

> based on flawed economics

It's a simple formula based on balance of trade.

> tariffs with no warning

Some Hacker News types like to bury their head in the sand when inconvenient political news occurs but to say this happened without warning simply flags you as part of this group.

> on some of the weakest nations you trade with (e.g. Laos, Vietnam).

There is room for these countries to buy more American goods. These two countries also rebadge and ship out a lot of Chinese goods to evade tariffs.

> changing trade policy radically every few days and announcing it on social media?

So, do you want warnings, or not?

> Not crashing the stock market, announcing a reverse on your social media platform, then boasting about how much money your billionaire friends made?

If you didn't make any trades during this period how was your portfolio actually impacted? I would assume this is the majority of non billionaire investors. So the only ones who lost in the crash were the same billionaires.

> calling one of your largest trading partners peasants and the then very clever, alternating between insults and praise like a two-bit mobster?

Does that trading partner also act like a two bit mobster? If so, wouldn't this just be turnabout, or why is deference to hostile economic partners justified?

> has made America a laughing stock

That's an absurdly biased point of view.

> I don’t think many Americans realise just how much trust has been burned with allies since ‘liberation day’.

Not much. They didn't actually "trust" us before. I'm not sure how you'd measure that anyways. From my reading of foreign news they're mostly taking it in stride, having seen this coming since last year, and not being particularly surprised by it. This zeitgeist only exists in half of America right now.

> It's a simple formula based on balance of trade.

It certainly is simple.

> Does that trading partner also act like a two bit mobster?

The US is comparable to the dictatorship of Xi now? I suppose the new leadership style is similar.

> From my reading of foreign news…

The very high level of these tariffs and their global scope and speed of imposition was a huge surprise to (former) US allies, and even to many in the US.

PS I’m not American

> It's a simple formula based on balance of trade.

"Simple" is why it put 10% on an island with no humans and no manmade structures separately to the country which owns that island, and also tariffed another island that's technically British but which the British leased to the US military.

"Simple" isn't what you want to decide a complex trade policy for a complex economy.

> That's an absurdly biased point of view.

Hello, I'm in one of those foreign allies. We are, in fact, laughing at USA for shooting itself in the foot like this. On the other hand, the bit where Trump is also refusing to rule out military force to annex some of us? We take that seriously.

> Not much. They didn't actually "trust" us before. I'm not sure how you'd measure that anyways.

We used to hold the US in high regard. "Leaders of the free world" etc.

But also, relatively stable economic position, stable currency, reliable government that repaid debts, etc.

Even though Trump 1 happened, we knew it would come to an end, and we thought you would finally be over it — especially given how it ended.

Now, we don't. And many of us will be looking to China as a more reliable (for us) trading partner.

>They didn't actually "trust" us before. I'm not sure how you'd measure that anyways. From my reading of foreign news they're mostly taking it in stride, having seen this coming since last year, and not being particularly surprised by it. This zeitgeist only exists in half of America right now.

It's hard for me to overstate how wrong this is. In my country Denmark, everyone, everywhere is talking about this and people are generally worried. I hear it in the supermarkets. We absolutely did trust the US until now. For instance, the entire Danish public sector runs on Microsoft. Nobody ever considered that to be an issue. Now there is political talk about how that can be undone. Several of my peers who read HN and considered US-based, YC-backed to be the ultimate way to launch a startup are talking about the liability involved. Mind you, this is not the typical "I hate America!" rhetoric that has always existed to some degree everywhere, this is risk management: "Can I trust that the US is stable enough for me to bet on?"

You may not think it matters because the US is as strong as it is, or maybe you don't care. But the trust and thereby soft power that has been destroyed in these few months is generational.

Allies saw Trump the first time around.

The simple fact Trump was voted in again denotes that the people of the US is not to be trusted.

At this point, it doesn't matter if Trump disappears into a void at the end of his term.

22% of people in the US voted directly for Trump. That's 22% of people that think his mode of operating is great presidential material.

I cannot trust doing business in a society with such a large proportion of either idiocy or malice, which includes wealthy and influential individuals!

The last 15 years has changed the fundamental stereotype of a US citizen. And while I personally know a few US citizens who are trustworthy, competent, lovely people, this marks an inherent bias in decision making.

From here, whatever Trump does is simply reinforcing the stereotype.

> The simple fact Trump was voted in again denotes that the people of the US is not to be trusted.

That might be the read, but it was people who were not happy with their lot in life and just saw same old same old as options while Trump was different. People in the US mostly don't think about the EU.

I guess they’ll find out why the rest of the world is important to them soon then.

While I'd like to think lessons are learned, they swallowed/supported outrageous claims up to this point.

Cognitive dissonance suggests they have to keep supporting the current regime and whatever it says,because to change their mind is to realise the horror of what they've done.

* Lower corporate income tax to the global minimum of 15%

* Reshoring incentives

* Regulatory reform to remove barriers to building things

* Strict export controls around AI, robotics, and fusion

* Massive subsides for production of useful humanoid robots and deployment of useful fusion power generation

To the extent that tariffs are considered at all, it should only be if they're implemented with bipartisan support, selective with specific strategic goals in mind, gradually phased in, and explicitly long-term policy. Extreme tariffs without clear staying power are just disruptive for no good reason. They won't change business behavior; they'll just temporarily jack up costs, create an unnecessary customs backlog, and roadblock some commercial activities entirely.

Even if implemented carefully, I would argue that tariffs in general are counterproductive in the long run. If a domestic industry isn't internationally competitive, the goal should be to fix that, not insulate it from competition.

> So, if not tariffs, then what should we use to solve this?

I’d argue that tariffs that increase at a known rate are better than surprise large ones. Even a 1% increase a week every Monday for a year lets everyone’s supply chain adjust gradually. You’ll know within a few weeks how your product is affected and you’ll plan for the increase over the year. That’s probably still too fast though, since factories take time to build and the whole point is to encourage local manufacturing. Given the 4 year term trump could have gone for 3 years of increases with the hope that companies would start building factories and have them running by year 4.

Maybe start with smaller tariffs and go from there. But its not even worth defending current administration policies. Its either completely stupid or deliberately malevolent.

On what basis are you making this recommendation? Your personal experience negotiating nation-state level agreements between two hegemons?

There is a deluge of experts in economics and other fields who clearly state this is not the right approach to bringing manufacturing to the US. Why wouldn't we trust experts in their fields?

What makes them experts in their fields? They have never done anything like this. Nor are historical analogues abundant.

That probably means its not a good strategy. Look at business activity, people are comparing it to early covid business conditions but its entirely self inflicted. You don't need to be an expert to see this is a failure. The assumption shouldn't be that Trump is acting in the interest of the average American or the American government.

If an entrepreneur is smart enough to figure out how to land a rocket ship on its feet, that person can figure out how to manufacture printed circuit boards economically in the US.

One is a fight against nature; the other — to make it economic — is a fight against all the other highly skilled entrepreneurs not in the USA.

Single player, multiplayer.

I'll add that the elites who pushed for earlier trade deals often did it specifically to get rich selling off America's domestic manufacturing and many jobs. Now, countries like China have them.

So, Trump's policies should be seen as an attempt to reverse for Americans' benefit damaging policies from before which are still active. Now, whether that will do good or harm in the long term is anyone's guess. We already see companies investing more in American infrastructure, though.

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