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Comment by mensetmanusman | Hacker News Reader

Tariffs are just a mechanism to adjust the calculus of where something is made.

Consumers getting Nd:YAG lasers from China below cost are also weakening the laser supply chain elsewhere. Tariffs are a type of response to these situations.

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On the topic of "where things are made":

"If you look at page 1 of the tariff handbook, it says: Don't tariff inputs. It's the simplest way to make it harder—more expensive—for Americans to do business. Any factory around the world can get the steel, copper, and aluminum it needs without paying a 50% upcharge, except an American factory."

https://bsky.app/profile/justinwolfers.bsky.social/post/3lud...

yes, sure, except in many cases, where something is made has nothing to do with market forces and everything to do with geology.

As such, the way in which they're used can easily be disguished between "hidden tax" and "design to affect production location".

These tariffs are, as a whole, about adding a hidden tax.

Why do you argue with 'below cost'?

If you mean that we exploit Chinese people by not giving them the proper salary, living standard and retirement fund, yeah true

But parallel to that, automatization has reached a level we never had before.

I don't think tarifs would lead to more capital in USA in the right/expected pockets.

They should be that. But a Tariff on avocado exports from Mexico doesn't mean more avocados get grown in the US, because it simply isn't possible.

Tariffs need to be applied surgically and... they are not

It would take many years for production to meaningfully ramp up, but there absolutely is a lot of land in California that could be used to grow avocados if it made economic sense.

So, on to the next example: Brazilian coffee.

Technically Hawaii and maybe Puerto Rico.

But those areas don't have anywhere close to the land of Brazil, Columbia or Vietnam.

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Another example: bauxite ore (Australia is our chief partner in that IIRC). USA somehow is missing the raw ore for Aluminum despite nearly everyone else in the world having it.

There's lots of things we can't make

Correct, I know that coffee is grown on Hawaii, but it simply doesn't have the land area at the right altitude necessary to do so at the required scale.

Something not quite the same, but parallel is happening with Florida oranges:

> Only 12m boxes of oranges will have been produced in Florida by the end of this year (2024), ... The figure is 33% lower than a year ago, and less than 5% of the 2004 harvest of 242m boxes.

> It is also dwarfed by the 378m boxes expected to be produced this year in Brazil

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/22/florida-oran...

Greening disease is the primary cause of decreased citrus production in the US https://citrusindustry.net/2024/05/07/florida-orange-product...

That's what the linked article says, yes.

And tariffs won't change that.

Some enterprising company needs to brand yaupon for the maga crowd.

It needs a name change.

Much like "Chinese gooseberry" was rebranded as "Kiwi fruit".

Maybe "Ilex vomitoria" -> "Patriot puke". "Spew American!".

What are you talking about? These tariffs are used to combat the influx of fentanyl from China, Canada, and Penguin Island.

Do you think all the stuff made in China can be made at the same price in the US?

At the end of the day the prices still rise just not as much as with the tariffs but higher than foreign made without tariffs.

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