Can someone please explain to me how tariffs are anything but a tax on the US consumer? Serious question.
The way I understand it…
The US charges a 10-25% upcharge on imported goods. The importers pay that fee, but pass the cost along to us, the consumers. So… we’re essentially paying for the tariffs, right?
I understand that there are more complicated economic policies at play here but I don’t see the upshot. How is this supposed to help? What’s the plan?
The US charges a 10-25% upcharge on imported goods. The importers pay that fee, but pass the cost along to us, the consumers. So… we’re essentially paying for the tariffs, right?
I understand that there are more complicated economic policies at play here but I don’t see the upshot. How is this supposed to help? What’s the plan?
The tariff is supposed to make buying similar American made products more attractive/cheaper. Personally I think with America’s corporate greed un-checked the American product will simply follow the foreign product’s post-tariff cost.
First thing to understand is the tariffs on the cost of the goods..not the retail price. Example is if Target imports a t shirt at a cost of $5 and sells in for $20, that tariff is applied to the $5 and not the $20. Could it result in a price raise…certainly. But it’s not as dramatic as it sounds.
The incentive behind tariffs is to get US companies to source locally. That’s not always an option though.
It’s a complicated system…it’s worth doing some research on because we already have tariffs in place for a lot of goods coming from these countries and more.
I think that United States consumers are going to pay a big price for these tariffs. As a quick example, at least in my part of the country, the U.S. imports electricity from Canada mostly from hydroelectic generation. If this is penalized 10% like it has been proposed by Trump, who pays the increased electrical cost related to the 10% tariff (10% on electricity I’ve read)? Whether it’s electricity to power businesses or to heat homes or even to power public utilities, who will ultimately pay the price for the tariff? You and I.
Canadian electricity has been a good value for consumers for years.
Trump just just goes in there with a know it all attitude and screws that up.
And this is only one example.
Most of the crude oil in the Midwest comes from Canada. Gas prices will be going up for the foreseeable future. Luckily, only a 10% tariff was placed on imported Canadian crude.
Some parts of the country will see no change because their crude is supplied elsewhere.
Besides bringing manufacturing back to the US, apparently the main motivation for the tariffs is to get those countries to do more to curb illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Everyone’s talking about what it could do to our economy. Almost no one is talking about the possible benefits. We shall see how it all shakes out. That’s even if the tariffs go into effect.
Most of the crude oil in the Midwest comes from Canada. Gas prices will be going up for the foreseeable future. Luckily, only a 10% tariff was placed on imported Canadian crude.
Some parts of the country will see no change because their crude is supplied elsewhere.
True in the short term. Longer term since the crude oil market is global and buyers will pursue lower cost crude from other suppliers the price in the world market will increase. Crude pumped in Texas won’t remain local if someone in Europe offers a higher price.
Pushing Mexico and Canada to stop fentanyl and illegal immigration does nothing to address the demand for drugs and cheap labor in the U.S. Expecting other countries to fix our domestic issues doesn’t seem to be a reasonable approach.
Besides bringing manufacturing back to the US, apparently the main motivation for the tariffs is to get those countries to do more to curb illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Everyone’s talking about what it could do to our economy. Almost no one is talking about the possible benefits. We shall see how it all shakes out. That’s even if the tariffs go into effect.
There are other ways economic benefits people don’t talk about. If we impose tariffs (like we have done in the past) on say Chinese steel, that directly correlates to more steel sourced from the US. When Trump imposed steel tariffs in his first term it was a massive economic boost for Minnesota. More jobs, more consumer spending, more taxes being paid, etc.
Like I mentioned above, it’s a complicated system and I won’t pretend there won’t be some negative impacts but the positive usually outweigh them.
I also believe not all of these tariff will stick. This is a shot across the bow…the countries we are levying tariffs against need the US as a trading partner. We are their largest export market. Look what happened recently with Colombia when we threatened tariffs if they didn’t take back their illegal immigrants.
The tariff is supposed to make buying similar American made products more attractive/cheaper. Personally I think with America’s corporate greed un-checked the American product will simply follow the foreign product’s post-tariff cost.
This theory has never been proved to work across a broad range of products.
Also, it is not been taken into account that most manufacturers that are making products outside of the US are serving a market beyond just the US. Let’s say a television manufacturer. They are not just making TVs for the American market, they are making TVs for markets all over the world.
So how likely is it that that manufacturer is going to spend millions or billions of dollars building a separate factory in America just to serve the American market so American consumers can avoid being tariffed?
In reality what is going to happen is simply that Americans are going to pay more for everything. And since all price rises can be blamed on tariffs this will be seen as a great opportunity by corporations all over the world to simply raise prices in America.
We are now going to be subsidizing cheap goods for the rest of the world while we pay more.
Look what happened recently with Colombia when we threatened tariffs if they didn’t take back their illegal immigrants.
They took back hundreds of flights under Biden when they weren’t chaining people up on military flights for photo ops. That wasn’t about taking back illegal immigrants, it was about the method.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Jimmy Jones wrote:</div>
The tariff is supposed to make buying similar American made products more attractive/cheaper. Personally I think with America’s corporate greed un-checked the American product will simply follow the foreign product’s post-tariff cost.This theory has never been proved to work across a broad range of products.
Also, it is not been taken into account that most manufacturers that are making products outside of the US are serving a market beyond just the US. Let’s say a television manufacturer. They are not just making TVs for the American market, they are making TVs for markets all over the world.
So how likely is it that that manufacturer is going to spend millions or billions of dollars building a separate factory in America just to serve the American market so American consumers can avoid being tariffed?
In reality what is going to happen is simply that Americans are going to pay more for everything. And since all price rises can be blamed on tariffs this will be seen as a great opportunity by corporations all over the world to simply raise prices in America.
We are now going to be subsidizing cheap goods for the rest of the world while we pay more.
Sorry Grouse, but that’s a massive oversimplification of how/why tariffs are imposed.
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