For Christmas wish lists, my daughters always have ways of surprising me with items from Africa retailers, Netherlands… I had to tell them this year to stick with U.S. only because of tariffs. I guess that's awesome for the U.S.?
(The political cartoon of Santa having to pay tariffs kind of draws itself at this point.)
Britain, Canada, and one Nordic country or another are getting some business within a few months of tariffs dropping, lol. Maybe also Spain or Portugal.
What really blows is watching great stuff come up used on EBay overseas and not being able to buy it. It’s used, FFS! Sometimes it’s even US-made, which is extra goofy.
The current administration has not proven itself to be stable. Even for their base they’ve walked back beneficial tariffs when the anticipated price increases happen (e.g. beef).
And that’s before you get into the constitutionality of their actions or how likely they are to be reversed with the next congress
I’m entirely against Trump’s chaotic lunacy because it’s not going to accomplish any of the good things I’d hope for from such a thing. He’s got whole sectors treading water waiting for him to die, while smaller players simply shutter operations, because you can’t make huge capital investment decisions with this much uncertainty in the air. To say nothing of how bad an idea it is to try to decouple from China while also launching trade wars against your own allied trade bloc.
It's all about power and control.
Cohn starts assembling every piece of economic data to try and convince Trump that American workers did not aspire to work in assembly factories. “See,” he says to Trump at one point, “the biggest leavers of jobs – people leaving voluntarily – is from manufacturing.” “I don’t get it,” replies Trump. Cohn soldiers on. “I can sit in a nice office with air conditioning and a desk, or I can stand on my feet eight hours a day. Which one would you rather do for the same pay?” Trump still wasn’t buying it. Eventually, exasperated, Cohn simply asks Trump: “Why do you have these views?” “I just do,” Trump replies. “I’ve had these views for 30 years.” “That doesn’t mean they’re right,” says Cohn. “I had the view for 15 years I could play professional football.”
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/the-best-fights-betwee...
It's a net gain for everybody for low-skill products to be produced in regions with lower wages, like China, Vietnam, etc.
Super simple example... socks. Due to lower wages, China can produce socks with a retail price of $1/pair. A US-made equivalent costs $1.10/pair.
Trump placed a 20% tariff on Chinese goods, leading to Chinese socks having a retail price of $1.20.
US sock producer can now charge $1.19 and take 100% of the market. That's an additional, unearned $0.09 cents flowing to the owner of that sock business.
If the tariff had been set at 10%, creating equal retail prices, that might be good, as it would tend to shift more of the market to US-made socks.
Or, leave the prices alone, let us buy Chinese socks, and use that extra 10-20 cents for consuming something else.
I don’t have any particular insight into their operations, but all the ones that still manufacture in the US that I pay attention to seem to be showing signs of distress more this year than ever. Shrinking product lines, steep sales, desperate-looking promotions, shifting more of their catalog to imported lower-quality products (despite the tariffs!). My current concern is that tariffs are going to cut the legs out from under what remains of that sector, and there’ll soon be way fewer US-made clothing options.
I think broad prosperity is a ton more important to their health than tariffs. When people don’t have much disposable income they’re not going to buy American-made leather shoes and wool shirts and suits and fine cotton shirts, they’re going to pay the 100% (or whatever) tariffs on a $50 (pre-tariff) Chinese outfit made mostly of petroleum and still pay way less than for a hypothetical similar outfit made in the US.
US labor only makes sense for pretty-decent or better goods (it’s the reason it’s an alright signal of quality, doesn’t make sense to spend up for American labor then use shit materials to save a penny, if you’re using US labor you’re already priced out of the lower half or more of the market) and those markets are getting fucked as prosperity concentrates to the top.
I expect the next shock to what’s left of the middle class is going to kill a bunch of these companies, and tariff chaos is rushing us into that. Plus almost all of them use foreign goods or labor in parts of their processes, so this shit’s forcing them to raise prices or eat reduced profit. Pendleton? The cloth is made in a US mill, but the shirts are assembled in the DR or wherever. Rochester suit makers? The cloth is Italian or maybe British, obviously, or why bother. Can you even get US-made linen? LOL.
Or shop American and help keep manufacturing and jobs alive here.
I think it's a fair compromise. As Americans we are used to having an overwhelming amount of choice, partly due to our previous open trade policies. Something you don't really see in other countries. Go to Japan and you can count the American products sold on your hand.
Could coffee be grown in reasonable quantities inside the USA? I find some mention of very expensive high-end 'boutique' coffee grown in California but it is not generally a crop that grows well in the continental USA.
(until global warming reduces the chances of frost in Florida perhaps?)
Another example from the article was a tea grower. Again, niche growing is limited to just some regions of the USA, with less than 0.1% of consumption domestically produced.
And of course with these products they have distinctive tastes that reflect where they were grown, so tea from California is distinctive tasting and not a direct substitute for tea from Japan from the article.
The growers in the article had been heavily disrupted by tariffs.
I don't mind at all reducing tariffs for things we dont manufacture or can't for various reasons.
I believe the administration is lowering tariffs for things like that.
Beef on the other hand should be temporarily lowered since our cattle herd is half of what it should be. (It plummeted under Biden takes awhile to return as the herd matures) Soooo import from Argentina until it's back up.
The reason is that there are hardly any products made in America.
Pretty much everything I buy, apart from computer tech, is from an American company.
I realise that my experience is limited to the handful of times I've tried to buy stuff from the US. Perhaps I've just been very unlucky, but frankly, the odds are against it.
That’s not a new thing. It seems like you guys are the only ones whose goods aren’t interesting.
Or you know, drive us into a recession. You do recall tariffs (Smoot-Hawley) were a contributing factor to the length and depth of the Great Depression, right?
I'm living on Japan right now and this is absurd. There are American brands everywhere (although as usual who knows where the products are made). American food brands. American steak. American sportswear. American backpacks. Entire shops in the mall devoted to American fashion. I'd say appliances and cars are more rarely American brands but there are reasons beyond trade barriers why that's true.
There are certain clothing brands (at a much higher cost), large fast food chains, and Apple are the exceptions. Basically really large companies that make specific deals.
https://www.seiyu.co.jp/assets/images/flyer_blackfriday25112...
For food items, the import regulations are much stricter in every country than for stuff like electronics or clothes. Meat especially is very highly restricted, due to differences in feeding, antibiotics, etc...
And how are "large companies" making deals? The same import duties apply to everyone.
You don't see GE appliances over there either.
Yet LG, Samsung appliances are plentiful in the states.
This kind of myopic view completely misses the scope of manufacturing chains that are simply missing in the US. Things like stainless steel rebar and LCD screens take many years to build up efficient production for.
>Go to Japan and you can count the American products sold on your hand
Do you honestly think that Japan makes almost everything domestically? There's a good reason for the absence of American products in Japan. You are so close :)
Which part of the mutually exclusive triangle of "add manufacturing" or "add revenue" or "reduce deficits" do you consider to be "the intended effect"?
If that's the model the US chooses, then i guess that's their choice.