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Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

What are you talking about?

I can't buy anything overseas anymore. For example, used guitars from Japan used to have free shipping. It's now hundreds of dollars.

I can't buy my cat's medicine from Canada anymore, and the U S. distributor was already price gauging, as the American health system is wont to do.

How is any of this make sense? Nothing prompted this.

The American public got taxed while the rich got tax breaks, and his followers are lapping it up.

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I makes sense because you probably bought a US guitar instead. The goal of tariffs isn't to benefit you. If you want to argue on the merits, you can do that, but don't claim it doesn't make sense.

It is a double edged sword - the U.S. manufacturers no longer have to compete with potentially better products from overseas, they can push lower quality to the local market for the same price.

This is correct. But this creates an opportunity for other domestic manufacturers to offer a better deal. Look at the Chinese car manufacturers. It was Chinese policy to say basically "sorry, you just have to buy shitty domestic cars or pay massive tariffs." Now their domestic manufacturers have gotten good enough that they are exporters themselves.

Is that true though?

Cameras and bicycles are my two main hobbies. Essentially zero US production for either. Prices have gone up, but for no good reason - there's no US industry to protect.

Limited, highly-targeted tariffs can serve a purpose. But the blanket stuff we've seen this year make zero sense at a macroeconomic level.

Yes, blanket tariffs are retarded. However, the point of the tariffs is that it is a national priority to develop a domestic industry. It is, of course, arguable that this national priority makes sense, but the fact that it makes your hobbies much more expensive is not at all relevant.

The Trump trade policy makes no sense and has been horribly executed on op of that, but I think that in the long run moving away from a policy of "as much cheap stuff for consumers as possible no matter the externalizes" will be a good thing.

in the long run moving away from a policy of "as much cheap stuff for consumers as possible no matter the externalizes" will be a good thing.

That strikes me as something akin to the broken window fallacy. Tariffs are absolutely market-distorting and absolutely lead to higher prices.

We absolutely should be leveraging lower cost of labor overseas to build cheap stuff. If there is concern about other externalities (pollution, slave labor, etc) then address those directly with sanctions, targeted tariffs, or something else.

I've yet to see a good argument that overconsumption is bad (in a general economic sense). If we're overspending (not saving, or over-leveraging) then address that directly (not via tariffs). If it's a pollution argument, then address that directly. Etc.

The problem is when the US has to fight a conventional war and can’t make cheap robotic warfighters on the scale of the China aligned bloc

> I makes sense because you probably bought a US guitar instead.

Nope. Japanese guitars are substantially higher quality and at lower prices than U.S. made guitars.

I'm still waiting for you to describe how this makes sense. The U.S. doesn't have the industries the foreign market has.

The thing that prompted this is people fell for it, and he can use it as leverage to get rich.

That everyone was willing to stand by and let him do it (as in not apply real consequences or physically/procedurally actually stop him) is the opportunity that presented itself.

If a criminal suddenly walks by and steals your unlocked car (or breaks the window and steals it), and gets away, it’s a bit silly to stand there complaining you didn’t ask them to do that!

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