Geminiv said:

---

Kansas Kid said:

---

mm98 said:

---

Yes I know it's 3B. It's been declining each year since the war in Ukraine and will be less this year.

My point is rather than try to funnel everything back to Trump is a Russia sympathizer, reality is its just a ****ty EO

---

So why did he exempt Russia and essentially no other country or territory in the world? We have a sizable trade deficit based on the formula used in these "reciprocal" tariff formulas. They didn't even get the base 10% increase he hit countries with that don't have a trade surplus to the US.

ETA. I didn't say he was a Russian sympathizer. I just pointed out countries that didn't get hit with tariffs.

---

He's just trolling the libs with this. They love that around here. What are they going to do ? Impeach him?

---

I love now often the excuse for Trump is he is trolling libs when he has policies that are yuge mistakes.

He has some good policies but he has others that history and common sense has shown don't work.

Please show us that history, really.

Find a world power in post global economics that levied tariffs and that resulted in equal or greater price increases, pre COVID inflation.

Your

Mr.Milkshake said:

---

Please show us that history, really.

Find a world power in post global economics that levied tariffs and that resulted in equal or greater price increases, pre COVID inflation.

Your

---

"A 2019 Federal Reserve study estimated that higher input costs from the 2018 tariffs reduced manufacturing jobs, relative to what it would have been without tariffs, and raised production costs for metal-based goods.

Other studies had similar findings, including one from 2020 that estimated that the increased costs driven by the tariffs may have resulted in as many as 75,000 fewer manufacturing jobs."

Numerous other studies from the 2018 steel tariffs found similar impacts on jobs in downstream users of steel. The same thing has happened repeatedly when tariffs were enacted by other administrations.

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/TRUMP-TARIFFS/STEEL/gdpznwgdzpw/

https://www.heritage.org/trade/commentary/steel-yourself-new-steel-tariffs-even-though-they-harm-consumers-and-cost-jobs

2018 U.S. manufacturing employment (Dec): 12.785 million
2019 U.S. manufacturing employment (Dec): 12.865 million

Next

Mr.Milkshake said:

---

Would love to see some evidence that tariffs result in increased prices (consumption tax) for a world power consumer economy in modern global economics. And, it will need to be pre-covid.

---

Quote:

---

Trade theory suggests that tariffs levied by a large country, such as the United States, should cause foreign firms to lower prices. However, until the 2018 trade war, economists have not had the opportunity to study tariffs on large economies in recent history due to the reluctance of governments in these economies to apply substantial tariffs. Thus, economists were forced to assess the impact of tariffs on the basis of estimates of export supply curves obtained from nontariff data as well as evidence of incomplete pass-through of exchange rates (e.g., Amiti, Itskhoki, and Konings 2014, 2019; Broda, Limo, and Weinstein 2008; Goldberg and Knetter 1997).

The recent US application of substantial tariffs on imports from major trading partners provides a natural experiment for understanding these effects. Quite surprisingly, we have found that in most sectors, these US tariffs have been completely passed on to US firms and consumers. Moreover, the reorganization of supply chains has increased with time. Interestingly, there is also substantial heterogeneity in the responses of some sectors, such as steel, where tariffs caused foreign exporters to drop their prices substantially, enabling them to export relatively more than in sectors where tariff pass-through was complete.

---

Source:

https://swh.princeton.edu/~reddings/pubpapers/ARW-May-2020.pdf

Here's another about the downstream effects of even short term, limited tariffs, studying Bush's steel tariffs in the early 2000's:

Quote:

---

Using a case study of the steel tariffs levied by George W. Bush in 2002-2003 and a newly devised method for mapping detailed steel inputs to downstream users, I provide new comprehensive estimates of the long-term effects that temporary upstream tariffs have on downstream industries. I find that temporary upstream tariffs have negative impacts on downstream industries, both in terms of their competitiveness in the export market and in terms of domestic outcomes like employment and production. Crucially, I find that these declines are highly persistent: The global market share of U.S. downstream industries remained depressed long after the tariffs were removed. Due in large part to this persistence, backof-the-envelope calculations suggest that losses to downstream industries as a result of the Bush steel tariffs likely swamped any short-term gains to the steel industry.

Using a simple dynamic trade model, I then show that the presence of relationship-specific sunk costs and uncertainty about future tariff policy can generate a persistent response of downstream exports to a temporary input tariff that is consistent with the patterns I find in the data. Intuitively, because it is costly for countries to change sources of imports, if an input tariff induces a change in sourcing patterns, those patterns will not immediately revert when the tariffs are lifted. Overall, my results highlight the complex nature of tariff policy in a world with globally integrated production networks. Even temporary tariffs on a small subset of imports can have persistent effects on a broad swath of the economy. Failing to take these persistent spillover effects into account can lead to a substantial underestimate of the costs of imposing unilateral trade barriers on an upstream industry.

---

https://coxlydia.com/papers/cox_steel_tariffs.pdf

If those are too long to read, here are a couple nice plots that sum it up:



https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/02/steel-tariffs-in-two-pictures.html

Senators have introduced a bipartisan bill to curtail presidential authority to impose tariffs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/03/trump-tariffs-updates-reaction/

You're going to have to post something that isn't so easy to debunk. 2018-2019 way too easy to teabag

Bush tariffs? Oh you mean in the midst of the market cratering after dot com bust and 9/11?

Ok, next

Tariffs are not the story!

Since Trump took office in Jan 2025, the 10-year yield has dropped from 4.79% to 4.17%. Look how much it’s dropped today!

That 0.62% drop may not sound like much—until you realize the U.S. has $36.5 trillion in debt.

This is stealth refinancing on…

— Charlie Shrem (@CharlieShrem) April 3, 2025

True or false?

Before you roll out the FED studies suggesting that household costs increased by 400-900 due to 2018 China tariffs, you better pull up household cost segmentation in 2018 and 2019 to see where expenditures increased (and even if they increased at a greater rate that avg) and if those categories were effected by Chinese products

Mr.Milkshake said:

---

You're going to have to post something that isn't so easy to debunk. 2018-2019 way too easy to teabag

Bush tariffs? Oh you mean in the midst of the market cratering after dot com bust and 9/11?

Ok, next

---

You have presented 0 evidence debunking the conclusion that the 2018 tariffs were mostly passed on to consumers. This is not a good faith conversation and I regret engaging in it.

Quo Vadis? said:

---

richardag said:

---

Zobel said:

---

The formula doesn't take tariffs into account at all. As they have put in place it is just a function of trade deficit.

Edit to add; if you want to "steelman" the approach they're saying the only way you have a persistent trade imbalance is if you are cheating somehow. So a large trade deficit is defacto evidence of some kind of manipulation - therefore the trade imbalance itself is all you look at. I don't think that's necessarily true, or even right, but that is a way to see the argument.

---

Indirectly they do take into account tariffs. Tariffs imposed on our exports indirectly affect trade imbalances by making our exports more expensive.
I am not a macro economist but I can see what the formula is trying to account for trade imbalances. Will it work is the question. Seems to have caught the attention of some countries leaders as they are attempting to negotiate their tariffs.

---

Trade imbalances itself are pretty stupid. The idea that a country with a fraction of our population is supposed to buy as much stuff from as we do from them is impossible.

• I haven't seen anywhere that anyone is expecting small countries be required to buy as much stuff from the US as we but from them. Could you point me to a link where this was stated?

What he should be trying to do is muscle the big guys who do have tariffs against us. The goal should be to drive exports, keep the demand for the US dollar strong.

---

richardag said:

---

Quo Vadis? said:

---

richardag said:

---

Zobel said:

---

The formula doesn't take tariffs into account at all. As they have put in place it is just a function of trade deficit.

Edit to add; if you want to "steelman" the approach they're saying the only way you have a persistent trade imbalance is if you are cheating somehow. So a large trade deficit is defacto evidence of some kind of manipulation - therefore the trade imbalance itself is all you look at. I don't think that's necessarily true, or even right, but that is a way to see the argument.

---

Indirectly they do take into account tariffs. Tariffs imposed on our exports indirectly affect trade imbalances by making our exports more expensive.
I am not a macro economist but I can see what the formula is trying to account for trade imbalances. Will it work is the question. Seems to have caught the attention of some countries leaders as they are attempting to negotiate their tariffs.

---

Trade imbalances itself are pretty stupid. The idea that a country with a fraction of our population is supposed to buy as much stuff from as we do from them is impossible.

• I haven't seen anywhere that anyone is expecting small countries be required to buy as much stuff from the US as we but from them. Could you point me to a link where this was stated?

What he should be trying to do is muscle the big guys who do have tariffs against us. The goal should be to drive exports, keep the demand for the US dollar strong.

---

---

That's what the reciprocal tariffs are. They're just a trade ratio of exports to imports.

AggieZUUL said:

---

richardag said:

---

AggieZUUL said:

---

Larry S Ross said:

---

Seriously77 said:

---

At least the boomers will be as broke as everyone else.

---

This boomer will be picking up quality stocks at cheaper prices.

---

This is the way. If you're smart, you'll see that Billions trillions are being committed to investments in the U.S. because of this. Good on Trump to shake things up by leveling the playing field, which will encourage more manufacturing in the U.S. This is not a short term fix, it will take years but is the only path forward if we expect to survive as a sustainable superpower and not be held hostage on medicine, steel, oil, and semiconductors.

---

---

---

List of Companies Pledging to Invest Billions in US Since Donald Trump Win
quotes from the article

• Johnson & Johnson: On Friday, Johnson & Johnson announced manufacturing, research and development, and technology investments of more than $55 billion in the U.S.
• SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago and announced a $100 billion investment over the next four years with a promise to create 100,000 jobs
• Nvidia would invest hundreds of billions of dollars over the next four years in U.S.-based manufacturing operations.After a meeting with Trump, the United Arab Emirates committed to a 10-year, $1.4 trillion agreement with the U.S. that will sustain existing investments in AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy, and American manufacturing, according to Reuters.
• Tech giant Apple announced a $500 billion investment.
• a $500 billion private investment in AI infrastructure led by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.
• Nvidia would invest hundreds of billions of dollars over the next four years in U.S.-based manufacturing operations.

Just in case you can't see the obvious. He is bluffing and everyone knows he is bluffing.

nortex97 said:

---

Tariffs are not the story!

Since Trump took office in Jan 2025, the 10-year yield has dropped from 4.79% to 4.17%. Look how much it’s dropped today!

That 0.62% drop may not sound like much—until you realize the U.S. has $36.5 trillion in debt.

This is stealth refinancing on…

— Charlie Shrem (@CharlieShrem) April 3, 2025

True or false?

---

We're not allowed to talk about anything other than tariffs are a tax and anyone that doesn't think that way is a MAGA idiot.

Oh and the stock market tanked...WINNING!!! You're not allowed to have a nuanced discussion because it all has to be reactionary bull****.

More 4D chess bull****

Mr.Milkshake said:

---

2018 U.S. manufacturing employment (Dec): 12.785 million
2019 U.S. manufacturing employment (Dec): 12.865 million

Next

---

2018 tariffs were only related to aluminum and steel. You are looking at tot manufacturing employment which is not relevant analysis.

Of note, the growth in manufacturing in 2019 was a fraction of what it was in the year before the tariffs.

Manufacturing employment grew by 61,000 in 2019, less than a quarter of the 264,000 jobs added in 2018. Sharp reversals (ie net losses) in employment growth occurred in machinery, fabricated metal products, motor vehicles and parts, and primary metals, all of which had gained jobs a year earlier.

In other words, we lost net jobs in industries that use metal as key raw material like fabrication, cars and primary metals.

Next

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/employment-expansion-continued-in-2019-but-growth-slowed-in-several-industries.htm

2015: +0.32%
2016: +0.01%
2017: +1.67%
2018: +2.10%
2019: +0.48%

Fact of the matter is you have virtually zero evidence. On the contrary there is far far more evidence that support the assertion that tariffs cause onshoring.

Your own unsourced numbers prove that the tariffs had some impact. I assume, because you provide no source for these numbers, that they are change in employment from previous year in manufacturing? Assuming that is the case you can clearly see changes in policy.

In 2015-2016 you see the final Obama years and bad policy suppressing growth. In 2017-2018 you see the new Trump administration policies causing substantial year over year growth in employment.

In 2018 tariffs take effect and you see growth more in line with Obama years starting in 2019. It's proof that taxes, which that is all tariffs are, and regulatory policy substantially impacts employment and economic growth.

You make assertions without a single source to backup your claims. However, I will provide evidence that your assertion that tariffs cause onshoring of jobs may not be entirely accurate:

Quote:

---

A January 2024 study by David Autor and others concludes that the 2018-2019 tariffs failed to provide economic help to the heartland: import tariffs had "neither a sizable nor significant effect on US employment in regions with newly protected sectors" and foreign retaliation "by contrast had clear negative employment impacts, particularly in agriculture.

---

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32082#fromrss

Oh and for good measure let's look at who pays for tariffs. In particular the steel tariffs:

Quote:

---

A May 2023 United States International Trade Commission report from Peter Herman and others found evidence for near complete pass-through of the steel, aluminum, and Chinese tariffs to US prices. It also found an estimated $2.8 billion production increase in industries protected by the steel and aluminum tariffs was met with a $3.4 billion production decrease in downstream industries affected by higher input prices.

---

https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub5405.pdf?source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

GarlandAg2012 said:

---

Mr.Milkshake said:

---

Would love to see some evidence that tariffs result in increased prices (consumption tax) for a world power consumer economy in modern global economics. And, it will need to be pre-covid.

---

Quote:

---

Trade theory suggests that tariffs levied by a large country, such as the United States, should cause foreign firms to lower prices. However, until the 2018 trade war, economists have not had the opportunity to study tariffs on large economies in recent history due to the reluctance of governments in these economies to apply substantial tariffs. Thus, economists were forced to assess the impact of tariffs on the basis of estimates of export supply curves obtained from nontariff data as well as evidence of incomplete pass-through of exchange rates (e.g., Amiti, Itskhoki, and Konings 2014, 2019; Broda, Limo, and Weinstein 2008; Goldberg and Knetter 1997).

The recent US application of substantial tariffs on imports from major trading partners provides a natural experiment for understanding these effects. Quite surprisingly, we have found that in most sectors, these US tariffs have been completely passed on to US firms and consumers. Moreover, the reorganization of supply chains has increased with time. Interestingly, there is also substantial heterogeneity in the responses of some sectors, such as steel, where tariffs caused foreign exporters to drop their prices substantially, enabling them to export relatively more than in sectors where tariff pass-through was complete.

---

Source:

https://swh.princeton.edu/~reddings/pubpapers/ARW-May-2020.pdf

Here's another about the downstream effects of even short term, limited tariffs, studying Bush's steel tariffs in the early 2000's:

Quote:

---

Using a case study of the steel tariffs levied by George W. Bush in 2002-2003 and a newly devised method for mapping detailed steel inputs to downstream users, I provide new comprehensive estimates of the long-term effects that temporary upstream tariffs have on downstream industries. I find that temporary upstream tariffs have negative impacts on downstream industries, both in terms of their competitiveness in the export market and in terms of domestic outcomes like employment and production. Crucially, I find that these declines are highly persistent: The global market share of U.S. downstream industries remained depressed long after the tariffs were removed. Due in large part to this persistence, backof-the-envelope calculations suggest that losses to downstream industries as a result of the Bush steel tariffs likely swamped any short-term gains to the steel industry.

Using a simple dynamic trade model, I then show that the presence of relationship-specific sunk costs and uncertainty about future tariff policy can generate a persistent response of downstream exports to a temporary input tariff that is consistent with the patterns I find in the data. Intuitively, because it is costly for countries to change sources of imports, if an input tariff induces a change in sourcing patterns, those patterns will not immediately revert when the tariffs are lifted. Overall, my results highlight the complex nature of tariff policy in a world with globally integrated production networks. Even temporary tariffs on a small subset of imports can have persistent effects on a broad swath of the economy. Failing to take these persistent spillover effects into account can lead to a substantial underestimate of the costs of imposing unilateral trade barriers on an upstream industry.

---

https://coxlydia.com/papers/cox_steel_tariffs.pdf

If those are too long to read, here are a couple nice plots that sum it up:



https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/02/steel-tariffs-in-two-pictures.html

---

This article is great. The discussions to the article do a good job of fleshing out the real problem with US tariffs on commodities like steel. The real problem is that many foreign countries do not have steel worker unions that resist the implementation of automation in production. US steel unions greatly abhor automation in the manufacturing process because it impacts headcount.

It is terrible policy to have protective tariffs in the steel industry to protect production practices that are inefficient due to labor objections to advances in technology. That is weapons grade stupid.

The path forward here is to give some tax credits to a steel manufacturer to set up shop in Alabama or Georgia. Oklahoma has a lot of coal, so maybe there. Anywhere where the state legislatures will tell the trade unions to pound sand. So, unfortunately, Texas is not a serious consideration for another couple of years, at least.

nortex97 said:

---

Tariffs are not the story!

Since Trump took office in Jan 2025, the 10-year yield has dropped from 4.79% to 4.17%. Look how much it’s dropped today!

That 0.62% drop may not sound like much—until you realize the U.S. has $36.5 trillion in debt.

This is stealth refinancing on…

— Charlie Shrem (@CharlieShrem) April 3, 2025

True or false?

---

Quote:

---

Tariffs are not the story!

Since Trump took office in Jan 2025, the 10-year yield has dropped from 4.79% to 4.17%. Look how much it's dropped today!

That 0.62% drop may not sound like muchuntil you realize the U.S. has $36.5 trillion in debt.

This is stealth refinancing on a historic scale.

Lower yields = trillions in interest savings.
More breathing room. Less inflationary pressure.
And the market is front-running it.

Everyone's watching tariffs.
But this yield curve shift?
It's the real game.

Trump isn't just cutting spending
he's restructuring America's balance sheet in real time.

---

I doubt that this is a game as stated by the Twitter post. The author has this idea:

1) White House team sees that we have massive balance sheet problems.
2) White House puts out terrible tariff plan in order to reduce interest rates
3) White House takes advantages of terrible tariff plan to refinance its debt
4) White House abandons terrible tariff plan, which was all a refinancing ruse to begin with.

I think the White House put out a terrible tariff plan because they are drinking the internal kool-aid too much on this topic, and thought it would be a winner. It was not. But, I do think that the White House will take advantage of the market response to a terrible idea to refinance. They would be stupid not to.

Please do not call the crap that Trump rolled out on 4/2 reciprocal tariffs. It just hurts the discussion. They are Trump's tariffs, but they are not reciprocal tariffs.

Reciprocal tariffs are a good idea. This crap Trump put out is not.

JohnClark929 said:

---

Just in case you can't see the obvious. He is bluffing and everyone knows he is bluffing.

---

I hope so. If he is, it is a very convincing bluff, and he has a lot of countries folding. Will he take advantage of those offers for zero bilateral tariffs, or walk away?

aginresearch said:

---

Your own unsourced numbers prove that the tariffs had some impact. I assume, because you provide no source for these numbers, that they are change in employment from previous year in manufacturing? Assuming that is the case you can clearly see changes in policy.

In 2015-2016 you see the final Obama years and bad policy suppressing growth. In 2017-2018 you see the new Trump administration policies causing substantial year over year growth in employment.

In 2018 tariffs take effect and you see growth more in line with Obama years starting in 2019. It's proof that taxes, which that is all tariffs are, and regulatory policy substantially impacts employment and economic growth.

You make assertions without a single source to backup your claims. However, I will provide evidence that your assertion that tariffs cause onshoring of jobs may not be entirely accurate:

Quote:

---

A January 2024 study by David Autor and others concludes that the 2018-2019 tariffs failed to provide economic help to the heartland: import tariffs had "neither a sizable nor significant effect on US employment in regions with newly protected sectors" and foreign retaliation "by contrast had clear negative employment impacts, particularly in agriculture.

---

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32082#fromrss

Oh and for good measure let's look at who pays for tariffs. In particular the steel tariffs:

Quote:

---

A May 2023 United States International Trade Commission report from Peter Herman and others found evidence for near complete pass-through of the steel, aluminum, and Chinese tariffs to US prices. It also found an estimated $2.8 billion production increase in industries protected by the steel and aluminum tariffs was met with a $3.4 billion production decrease in downstream industries affected by higher input prices.

---

https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub5405.pdf?source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

---

I think steel tariffs are a bad test case for broader application of tariffs. There is likely no other sector of the US economy that is more captured by unions than the steel industry, for various reasons.

Protecting poorly run industries under the thumb of trade unions is a bad idea.

BusterAg said:

---

Please do not call the crap that Trump rolled out on 4/2 reciprocal tariffs. It just hurts the discussion. They are Trump's tariffs, but they are not reciprocal tariffs.

Reciprocal tariffs are a good idea. This crap Trump put out is not.

---

I like it; it's completely false but it makes it seem like we're just defending ourselves. All of politics is smoke and mirrors at best and outright lies at worst, and this is fairly milquetoast as far as it goes

Quo Vadis? said:

---

BusterAg said:

---

Please do not call the crap that Trump rolled out on 4/2 reciprocal tariffs. It just hurts the discussion. They are Trump's tariffs, but they are not reciprocal tariffs.

Reciprocal tariffs are a good idea. This crap Trump put out is not.

---

I like it; it's completely false but it makes it seem like we're just defending ourselves. All of politics is smoke and mirrors at best and outright lies at worst, and this is fairly milquetoast as far as it goes

---

If this is just Art of the Deal stuff that leads to tariff free bilateral trade deals, I do think you have to give Trump and team credit for playing 4D chess.

If this is the actual policy goal going forward, to try and replace the income tax with tariff fees, then Trump is an idiot.

He is either really stupid, or the world champ of being as stupid as a fox. I guess we will see in the coming months.

Mr.Milkshake said:

---

You're going to have to post something that isn't so easy to debunk. 2018-2019 way too easy to teabag

Bush tariffs? Oh you mean in the midst of the market cratering after dot com bust and 9/11?

Ok, next

---

amazing how leftists can only pull up certain types of "evidence"

completely avoiding any discussion of the fact that the USA has used tariffs since Thomas Jefferson was President

if Tariffs are so awful and stupid-

how come nearly EVERY OTHER COUNTRY levies tariffs against the USA?!?

if it always makes your economy weaker- why is that happening that the EU uses tariffs?

Just so we are clear I could have posted a number of different tariffs enacted since 2017 and their resulting economic analysis. All of them are uniformly negative in their impact on the economy. Unless you are now a champion of the corporate income tax, which is bad and needs to go away, these policies are almost one to one pass through price increases to the end consumer of the product. The downstream impacts are always an order of magnitude worse than any positive impact on the immediate beneficiary industry.

Are you serious? The EU economic zone suffers from a significant inability to complete globally due to their tariffs, regulatory and social welfare policies. Why do we want to be like them?

Entirely debunked example of 1 with 1 year of data.

Have any others, or is it a dataset of 1 from which you draw sweeping conclusions on the effect of tariffs in a global economy?

Quo Vadis? said:

---

richardag said:

---

Quo Vadis? said:

---

richardag said:

---

Zobel said:

---

The formula doesn't take tariffs into account at all. As they have put in place it is just a function of trade deficit.

Edit to add; if you want to "steelman" the approach they're saying the only way you have a persistent trade imbalance is if you are cheating somehow. So a large trade deficit is defacto evidence of some kind of manipulation - therefore the trade imbalance itself is all you look at. I don't think that's necessarily true, or even right, but that is a way to see the argument.

---

Indirectly they do take into account tariffs. Tariffs imposed on our exports indirectly affect trade imbalances by making our exports more expensive.
I am not a macro economist but I can see what the formula is trying to account for trade imbalances. Will it work is the question. Seems to have caught the attention of some countries leaders as they are attempting to negotiate their tariffs.

---

Trade imbalances itself are pretty stupid. The idea that a country with a fraction of our population is supposed to buy as much stuff from as we do from them is impossible.

• I haven't seen anywhere that anyone is expecting small countries be required to buy as much stuff from the US as we but from them. Could you point me to a link where this was stated?

What he should be trying to do is muscle the big guys who do have tariffs against us. The goal should be to drive exports, keep the demand for the US dollar strong.

---

---

That's what the reciprocal tariffs are. They're just a trade ratio of exports to imports.

---

The reason this formula has been derided so much is because the first two terms in the denominator cancel each other out. It's amateurish application of historically bad economic policy.

aginresearch said:

---

Just so we are clear I could have posted a number of different tariffs enacted since 2017 and their resulting economic analysis. All of them are uniformly negative in their impact on the economy. Unless you are now a champion of the corporate income tax, which is bad and needs to go away, these policies are almost one to one pass through price increases to the end consumer of the product. The downstream impacts are always an order of magnitude worse than any positive impact on the immediate beneficiary industry.

---

Every single tariff in isolation is bad. Bad for the country levying the tariff. Bad for the country paying the tariff.

The US international trade strategy is, collectively, really bad for the middle class.

There are socio-political costs to sticking it to the middle class every single time for "the good of the country".

MAGA is an example of this political cost.

Maybe MAGA isn't worth it, and we should just let the special work ethic of the American working class that has made this country the best damn economy in the history of the world just die.

Or not.

Is the cost of allowing foreign manipulation of the US industrial sector, and the trade gains experienced by the US economy by ignoring this foreign manipulation, worth losing American Exceptionalism?

That is where the rubber meets the road in the discussion.

I know that many will disagree with the opinion that there is no real chance for American Exceptionalism to die. If human beings were really like that, the record for the amount of years that have gone by without the sun setting on the flag of the British Empire would not have been broken in the 21st century.

That is the fundamental disagreement about tariffs. In the case of the steel market, all of the downstream industries are also impacted by international tariffs and foreign manipulation. You can't take the economic analysis in isolation for any one tariff. You can't properly addressing this issue without taking into considerations socio-political costs, which are larger than economic analysis in isolation.

The status quo is not going to work anymore. We will end up with a populist democrat in office, like Berny Sanders. We narrowly avoided that fate in 2016. That would be catastrophic.

BusterAg said:

---

Quo Vadis? said:

---

BusterAg said:

---

Please do not call the crap that Trump rolled out on 4/2 reciprocal tariffs. It just hurts the discussion. They are Trump's tariffs, but they are not reciprocal tariffs.

Reciprocal tariffs are a good idea. This crap Trump put out is not.

---

I like it; it's completely false but it makes it seem like we're just defending ourselves. All of politics is smoke and mirrors at best and outright lies at worst, and this is fairly milquetoast as far as it goes

---

If this is just Art of the Deal stuff that leads to tariff free bilateral trade deals, I do think you have to give Trump and team credit for playing 4D chess.

If this is the actual policy goal going forward, to try and replace the income tax with tariff fees, then Trump is an idiot.

He is either really stupid, or the world champ of being as stupid as a fox. I guess we will see in the coming months.

---

I predict more or less the status quo with a bunch of heavily advertised "wins" that don't actually amount to much; and trump giving a token "tariff rebate" in the form of a check to Americans.

aginresearch said:

---

Are you serious? The EU economic zone suffers from a significant inability to complete globally due to their tariffs, regulatory and social welfare policies. Why do we want to be like them?

---

So that we can export more BMW's from the US, as opposed to $$$'s used for treasury reserves.

The EU tariff on Harley Davidsons is 175%. That is insane. It is there to protect BMW motorcycles in Europe. BMW is doing quite well selling motorcycles globally, and into the US as well. The US should have a 175% tariff on BMW motorcycles, IMO.

Unfortunately, that is not consistent with the crap that Trump out out on 4/2.