Crazy that one of the major policy initiatives of the all Republican/Maga government is to impose a huge consumer tax increase.
Maybe calling these "import taxes" instead of "tarrifs" would help emphasize that to the average voter?
linotype 6 hours ago [-]
That’s the point. It’s not crazy. Tariffs are regressive taxes. Rich people buy more stuff, sure, but as a percentage of their income they net out as beneficiaries of shifting taxes from income to spending. It’s totally rational if you want to increase taxes on the bottom 80% to subsidize the top 20% (and especially top 5%).
jauntywundrkind 5 hours ago [-]
Which matches the rest of the seeming plutocratic moves afoot in the past 6 months.
Taking huge chunks out of American opportunism (defunding science, health care, education, space, and so much else), blowing a huge chunk out of social welfare programs: that's going to cause amazing downgrades for most people. Paths to success closed, cost of getting by vastly higher. (All while walking over all over habeus corpus, while collecting & colating data of everyone in the homeland, while building concentration camps and tossing random hairdressers in international terrorism dungeons; denigrating the population generally, humiliating basic rights of man.)
But the plutocratic class doesn't really notice the change. The Global Elite E1 Barbarian class (of Michael O Church 3 ladders) doesn't notice or care. They stay about the same, but the sinking tide leaves many other boats grounded.
It sure seems like there's an international conspiracy of the very wealthy to screw over the land of opportunity right now. And there's 219+53 people in congess and two in the White House happily helping aid and abet this pushing opporunity off the cliff.
Fits perfectly hand in glove with the Network State ideology (which seeks to make who you know and what connections you've gathered define your environment) and the Christofascist ideology (which says religion should rule), both of which resent government as it is, which are part of the broader long campaign to "starve the beast". But to regionalize this situation to the US feels like it misses how the real nature of the E1 Global Barbarian Elite's desire to make clear their ascent over all others.
abnercoimbre 4 hours ago [-]
You're effectively saying humanity replaced monarchies with a global (often faceless) ruling class.
quantified 4 hours ago [-]
Yup, that's it. The analysis fits. Brexit helped push the UK on the same path.
kbelder 34 minutes ago [-]
>Brexit helped push the UK on the same path.
The EU has mastered the "global (often faceless) ruling class". No Brexit needed for that one.
reactordev 1 hours ago [-]
All hail the AI algorithms
486sx33 1 hours ago [-]
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water9 6 hours ago [-]
I just love how people that have the absolute worst logic in the world and know nothing about what they’re talking about post stuff like this. The most regressive taxes are sales tax, income tax, and a completely unnecessary permits and fines.
A tariff as you might recall is punitive for the ultra rich people who want to outsource American workers for practically slave labor in other countries. Make no mistake America paid for its entire finances for the first 120 years just fine without an income tax.
vaidhy 6 hours ago [-]
A tariff across the board is same as a sales tax (rather a value added tax, as it is dependent on the value of goods).
I would love to understand why you think it is punitive for the ultra rich.
fsckboy 1 hours ago [-]
sales taxes are based on the value of the goods.
value added taxes are paid on the profit made on the good, and are paid by the seller (because the buyer doesn't know what the profit is). value added taxes are basically corporate income taxes
ash_091 6 hours ago [-]
How is income tax regressive?
quantified 3 hours ago [-]
A flat tax would be. It's been flattening in the US.
nine_zeros 6 hours ago [-]
Tariff is a sales tax
gpsx 1 hours ago [-]
To be fair, the portion of the tariffs passed on to the consumer is a regressive tax. The portion of the tariff that is covered by the American companies is more complicated and probably goes mostly against the wealthy. (Then, of course, there’s the portion of the tariffs, covered by the foreign companies, which is article is saying it’s not a large portion.) There is hope the consumer is not completely screwed. We will have to see how it turns out. (I am not a fan of tariffs or the administration, but I am ok with people who are.)
CGMthrowaway 1 hours ago [-]
The tariffs are paid by the foreign producers, not consumers. America is the world's largest marketplace. Everyone wants in. If tariffs are the price of entry, they'll cut margins & pay. The same logic keeps Walmart cheap.
The OP article is short on data and only has a few anecdotes. Like GM, who makes 50% of their US-sold cars outside of the US. And no mention of GM passing any price increases onto consumers.
Let's look at Japanese automakers. Japanese auto exports to the US declined 25% by value in May, but only 4% by volume. But only in the US - the price of autos exported to non-US destinations was flat. Toyota et al. are eating the cost of the tariffs, not passing them on.[1] Chart[2]
Bloomberg itself looked at PPI data recently and observed, "core goods were the main source of price pressures in May, suggesting that companies may be eating some of the added costs from tariffs." Core goods continue to be a source of disinflation in consumer prices but a source of persistent inflation in producer prices hints at pressure on corporate margins.
Core CPI continues to print lower than street expectations, for five consecutive months now. Far lower than what the Fed is concerned about, and certainly leagues lower than what the consumer expects (according to UMich study).
Contrary to popular wisdom, US inflation isn't soaring for the simple reason that costs are not being borne by domestic consumers.
> The tariffs are paid by the foreign producers, not consumers.
The tariffs are being paid by domestic companies, not foreign producers. There is literally no way for a foreign producer to pay a U.S. tariff as the tariff is charged to the importer before the good is released by Customs.
The impacts of the tariffs are domestic. If consumer prices are not increased, then profits, investment, or expenses (including salary, benefits, etc) will be decreased. The money has to come from somewhere inside the U.S.
This is the entire point of a tariff, historically and as expressed by this administration. It is not to source foreign tax revenue, it is to create intentional domestic pain as a means toward implementing a top-down industrial policy. “Make it here or I will hurt you” is the overt message from the President.
supplied_demand 36 minutes ago [-]
== hints at pressure on corporate margins.==
And if those hints become reality, might prices rise to re-increase margins?
Do you make the same argument about the corporate income tax being absorbed by companies? Or do you assume that tax makes its way to consumers through price increases? What about increases in the minimum wage?
CGMthrowaway 33 minutes ago [-]
They are reality (OP says GM took a $1B hit), and no, they aren't
dataflow 51 minutes ago [-]
> Core CPI continues to print lower than street expectations, for five consecutive months now. Far lower than what the Fed is concerned about, and certainly leagues lower than what the consumer expects.
Haven't a ton of the tariffs been delayed? To what extent have they actually been in effect?
The baseline 10% reciprocal tariff rate remains in effect for all, while many of the bigger country-specific tariffs are paused until Aug 1.
China has special tariffs that stack with that 10%: Section 301 (up to 25%) + Fentanyl tariff (20%).
In addition, worldwide tariffs impacting steel & aluminum (50%) as well as autos and auto parts (25%) are in effect.
dataflow 1 hours ago [-]
It's kind of amazing that we forgot they're illegal to begin with.
m463 6 hours ago [-]
but there's "tax what you want less of"
swordsmith 5 hours ago [-]
Everyone focusing on consumer prices. But tariffs also function to incentivize domestic reindustrialization, which has huge national security implications. You see this clearly in the venture space as increased investment interest in hardtech and manufacturing. It's great that the federal government is looking long term again.
Newlaptop 1 hours ago [-]
No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week.
If you want to incentive domestic reindustrialization, you do it with things like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS act or the "Green New Deal" where congress lays out clear sets of rules in law with a mixture of tax incentives, loan programs and spending to give investors and corporations confidence to make decade-long commitments of capital to major projects.
CGMthrowaway 49 minutes ago [-]
>No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America when the tariffs change week to week.
Apple: $500M over four years including a facility in Houston opening next year
Chobani: $1.7B for new facilities in Idaho and NY
J&J: $55B over four years into new facilities, a 25% increase over previous
Honda: moving 100% of Civic hybrid hatchback production to the US
Hyundai: $25B over three years
IBM: $150B over five years
Merck: $1B for a new plant in Delaware
Nvidia: For this first time in history will be manufacturing chips in the US
We’ve already seen what TSMC’s promises of investment are actually worth, in Wisconsin.
Hedge your bets on these…
GCUMstlyHarmls 44 minutes ago [-]
There was a pretty good NYT Daily interview with a small manufacturer on the 14th of April this year, "Her Business Was Thriving. Then Came the Tariffs". The business owner outlines a lot of "on the ground" issues around the tariffs & building in America (including looking at building the factory to build their products themselves).
They change week to week, but they're consistently an order of magnitude above where they were.
rob_c 1 hours ago [-]
> No one is risking multi-year commitments of millions or billions of dollars to build a factory in America
Yes because of all the silicon fab plants popping up in the EU and Africa?...
kurthr 2 hours ago [-]
You incentivize domestic industrialization by actually doing that (but it's hard and takes planning). In fact uncertainty about tariffs make investment less likely (and more expensive, because you have to buy equipment and steel, and copper at 50% tariffs).
So no, you don't get re-industrialization, you get stagflation. It's idiocracy.
rob_c 60 minutes ago [-]
No assuming that there is no next step is idiocracy... And also the weakness of 4yr political planning in the west.
The next step is to work around tariffs where you can and need to which forces innovation and jobs on both sides of the border.
chairmansteve 1 hours ago [-]
Most manufacturers rely on a global supply chain. Therefore tariffs raise costs for US manufacturers, actually making them less competitive internationally.
But don't worry, the falling dollar will compensate.
0cf8612b2e1e 1 hours ago [-]
Tariff rates have changed how many times in the past six months? Businesses need certainty if they are going to make long term investments.
fsckboy 55 minutes ago [-]
have you followed the news? it's been reported that after the period of changing tariffs, agreements have been reached for more US manufacturing, said agreements providing the certainty you are seeking.
yongjik 48 minutes ago [-]
If you believe that any agreements with Trump provide certainty, I have a bridge to sell.
The rest of the world now knows that any promise made by the US government is not worth the paper it's signed on, and is planning accordingly.
fsckboy 39 minutes ago [-]
the rest of the world is complaining bitterly. they would not be doing that if their solution was as simple and painless as you like to think
supertrope 4 hours ago [-]
An N95 mask made in China costs $0.30. One made in the USA costs $1.00. A 25% tariff was enacted by executive fiat. The made in China mask is still cheaper than the USA made one. Few hospitals buy American. PPE manufacturers in Malaysia win.
fsckboy 54 minutes ago [-]
and China is therefore punished in the context of treating US imports to China in an unfair way; this was one of the goals, so you're saying "policy win"?
vharuck 1 hours ago [-]
I'm not willing to believe this was the plan while the tariffs also apply to crops we can't reasonably grow in the US, like cocoa and coffee. And the tariffs are also single across-the-board numbers for each country. And were originally based on trade deficits with the countries (unless we had a trade surplus with a country, in which case it was 10% anyway).
fsckboy 57 minutes ago [-]
tariffs that apply to crops we don't grow in the US still discourage purchase of those crops, making the sellers unhappy. if the seller country has been putting tariffs on US goods, the seller country is now incented to bargain on the tariffs in both directions. I'm not saying this is a good idea, but explaining something you have not accounted as a reason.
jauntywundrkind 5 hours ago [-]
With the planet-smashing asteroid sized caveat that all these businesses are way harder to start when trying to procure machines and materials and other CapEx is all faces massive tariffs.
Maybe those folks can be competitive within the US given the absurd tariffs. But will they be competitive on any global scale, with those additional headwinds? And if TACO or years pass and tariffs get rescinded, having that massive extra overhead on CapEx is not a good position to be in.
legitster 7 hours ago [-]
A reminder, most tariffs will not be paid because consumers will just shift their spending habits to match or just buy less.
Tariffs are a double edged sword because the hurt purchasing power of consumers without really generating much money for the government.
The administration is going to focus on the fact that tariffs don't really drive inflation, but are going to miss the forest for the trees: prices won't go up because we all have become a little poorer.
fsckboy 48 minutes ago [-]
>without really generating much money for the government
it's been reported that tariff collections have soared to the point that the budgeted spending is no longer in the red. this article is written in a confusing way, but your statement "not generating much money for the govt" appears to be incorrect
The oversimplified (and naive) response has been that prices will go up, but the shift to domestic production and consumption will in turn increase household incomes, and that will (hand-wavingly) balance out.
unclad5968 1 hours ago [-]
Do you have any resources for other solutions for improving American manufacturing capability? I'm ignorant to most of this but I'm interested in what solutions people have proposed.
klooney 29 minutes ago [-]
You generally need to subsidize too, and if you look at the real industrial powerhouses like China or Germany you'll see deep government involvement in things like "ensuring super cheap energy for industry" and "removing red tape" that we're not really tackling.
rob_c 57 minutes ago [-]
Tariffs and tax breaks mostly.
Usually to bring big existing companies back either by choice or kicking and screaming about being weaned off unsustainably cheap labour...
As for new companies, other than the valley or DoD contracts what's new? Electric cars which aren't popular in a country that doesn't apply tax at the pump.
Spartan-S63 6 hours ago [-]
The real double-edged sword is that tariffs can be both recessionary and inflationary. Consumers cutting spending habits will slow the economy and trigger layoffs, which in turn will continue slowing the economy. On the flip side, we still import most of our goods because we don't have an industrial base sizable enough–and likely won't for several decades—so those tariffs will drive prices up. It's a positive feedback loop that results in a halting economy.
If the Trump admin was serious about rebuilding the industrial base, they'd be providing subsidies and federal grants, not tariffs. They'd also be sucking money out of the economy by increasing the number and top marginal rates on the income tax and patching loopholes in the corporate tax code. At the same time, they'd be cutting taxes for the bottom 80% of America and providing healthcare and childcare subsidies.
AnimalMuppet 7 hours ago [-]
I don't think that's quite right.
Here's a thing with a punitive tariff on it. People won't buy it because the price went up too much. It is because prices went up that nobody buys it. (And we all become poorer because we can afford less, whether or not the price increase shows up in the inflation statistics.)
Tariffs have their own Laffer Curve just like income taxes do. Sure, you can set them so that the government gets zero (or close) revenue. But you don't have to. You can set them so that the government gets quite a bit of money. (Note well: I am not claiming that Trump is setting them there.)
legitster 3 hours ago [-]
I think that's correct to say it's not an on-off switch, but I am just saying that inflation should not be an expected outcome of tariffs.
rob_c 1 hours ago [-]
Given the desire to weaken the dollar... Isn't that kind of the expected goal?
HeavyStorm 32 minutes ago [-]
Well duh
msgodel 38 minutes ago [-]
Everyone keeps talking about "taxing the rich." Then Trump decides to tax luxury consumption and they all wig out.
tuatoru 4 hours ago [-]
In my trade economics textbook years ago it was stated that the cleared customs cost of an imported good is no more than 30% of its final consumer price, and more typically 10%. The rest is inland logistics, retail costs, and marketing.
Further to that, 80% of the economy is services or otherwise has nothing to do with imports. Tariffs are not affecting haircuts or yoga classes or bank fees.
Seems to me like tariffs are being used as a convenient excuse.
tmtvl 1 hours ago [-]
Import taxes can affect the price of, say, yoga classes. Not direcly of course (unless maybe you're following a correspondence/video course from India where you need to buy imported tapes), but you can think of it like this:
The price of food is based on the price of domestic produce and the price of imports. If taxes are levied on food imports it will raise the mean price of food. As yoga instructors need food to do their job (in fact, they need it to live), they would have to raise their prices.
avidiax 4 hours ago [-]
Right, but if you double the cleared customs cost with a 100% tariff, many of those additional costs are levied as a constant margin, which tends toward doubling the retail price.
You might argue that the retail channel can eat the difference, but it doesn't make sense to make the same absolute margin on goods that are subject to volatile tariff policies. It makes it hard to predict how many units will sell, how much stock to maintain, and creates a big risk that any units on shelves will suddenly be devalued when these tariffs are rescinded.
fsckboy 41 minutes ago [-]
you can't actually argue that the retail channel will eat the difference. that would be arguing that the financial market would eat the difference, and that's exactly what financial markets will not do. nor do you want them to, since the money in financial markets is your pension.
lay people have a broken view of what goes into a price and a profit, thinking that a "fair" profit should be some "reasonable" percentage. It's just not how it works, it works on multiplied rates. the financial markets exist to give large companies working capital. if the companies need double the working capital, the shareholders/bankers want double the returns. the alternative would be you getting a letter saying "hey, the returns on your retirement account are going to be halved, think of it like your retirement account is now half the size"
RhysU 3 hours ago [-]
What was the textbook and would you recommend it? This is an area where I would like to read something substantial and good.
rob_c 53 minutes ago [-]
Bingo.
486sx33 1 hours ago [-]
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wetpaws 1 hours ago [-]
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kazinator 7 hours ago [-]
This only needs to be explained to Americans who are somehow still hanging on to Donald Trump's explanation of tariffs: that they are gonna make foreigners pay.
Tariffs are taxes that locals pay on stuff imported from abroad.
throwawaylaptop 54 minutes ago [-]
If an American screw driver is $10, and a Chinese one was $5, I bought Chinese.
If you tariff the Chinese one to $8, I will buy American.
China knows this, so they change the price on their screw driver (that actually costs them 0.75) accordingly, so that it can still be sold for $5, because they know there's a ceiling on what people will pay.
China doesn't have pure competition. The price of their goods isnt really related to cost by it more of what the buyer will pay.
cosmicgadget 6 hours ago [-]
Not worth explaining, they exist in a different reality. One where thousands of sex trafficking victims had just two culprits, a bathroom full of classified documents was not a felony, and "find me votes" isn't a crime.
hamuraijack 7 hours ago [-]
The sky is blue
dang 3 hours ago [-]
Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments.
toomuchtodo 6 hours ago [-]
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megabless123 7 hours ago [-]
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almosthere 7 hours ago [-]
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almosthere 7 hours ago [-]
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pessimizer 7 hours ago [-]
American tariffs are meant to be paid by Americans, and not usually meant to damage foreign companies. A rise in the price of imports is not an unforeseen consequence of tariffs, it's their entire purpose. This is basic knowledge that everybody at Bloomberg knows. You know the tariffs are targeted well enough because Bloomberg is against them; they wouldn't care at all if they felt that the costs could be passed onto the consumer. The consumer, when confronted with high prices due to tariffs, often buys something else that is not subject to tariffs.
Grover Norquist is smiling from the grave right now, watching this bipartisan anti-tax push.
More interesting to me is how Trump has managed to multiply the effects of tariffs by creating complete chaos (either on purpose or by accident.) The tariffs never turn out to be as high as they were marketed as. They are reapplied and dropped on alternate months. He makes the ending of tariffs contingent on actual concessions on other issues that the US is concerned about, but also makes them contingent on bullshit that no one would ever agree to.
All of this is creating the stress that causes people to restructure their supply chains, manufacturing, and logistics, at first to get the flexibility to adjust when Trump veers, but they can always see the alternative of cutting out imports at all which would frees them from any of that. The drama ("uncertainty") around tariffs is in and of itself a tariff (that will be seen in prices) that isn't being collected by the government, it's going into efforts by businesses to onshore and/or diversify their vendors. That onshoring is also going to raise consumer prices until it lowers them again.
That would be the price for demanding US labor standards be used in making US products, too. If we wanted to stop depending on foreign slave labor for cheap disposable shit, I don't know how we do that without tariffs. "Free trade" is an active enemy of labor rights.
0cf8612b2e1e 58 minutes ago [-]
Grover Norquist is smiling from the grave right now, watching this bipartisan anti-tax push.
Someone buried Grover Norquist alive?
throttlebody 6 hours ago [-]
I don't think I have read anything so wrong about tariffs in quite a while.
Tariffs either protect local manufacturing and/or slows consumption of said import.
In both cases, it is inflationary.
drewcoo 7 hours ago [-]
Tariffs are supposed to change consumer behavior.
What's next? Is Bloomberg going to be telling us that fluoridation is preventing tooth demineralization and not actually helping the Communists?
dragontamer 7 hours ago [-]
The President and his followers think that Tariffs are something foreigners pay. And they still think that.
bediger4000 4 hours ago [-]
I feel like we can't impugn any kind of belief about what Trump thinks about tariffs.
It appears to me that Trump sometimes uses the threat of tariffs to get him myself some emoluments. After that, many of his tariffs seem nonsensical
HarHarVeryFunny 6 hours ago [-]
His followers may believe that, but Trump himself is obviously aware of what a tariff is. He seems to think that he can bully importers such as Walmart into eating the cost of tariffs and not passing the cost onto the consumer, but I suspect he really doesn't care. It makes for better optics if he pretends to care about consumers, but ultimately Trump only cares about Trump, and wants to use tariffs as a way to bully other countries to make himself look good - the tough deal maker. Some of his tariff "deals", such as with UK, have been laughable, but he's happy to go along as long as he can claim victory and get good press out of it.
thaumasiotes 7 hours ago [-]
"Not Foreign Companies"? They can both pay. Taxes are negative-sum.
gtowey 7 hours ago [-]
They will not.
Because the sellers can sell to another country without the tariff. American buyers have no alternative.
pessimizer 7 hours ago [-]
American buyers are the pretty girl, because they are in debt up to their ears and constantly taking out more. There's no secret alternative to the American market that everybody was ignoring until tariffs. Everybody else will be getting stuff cheap for a while because countries that are hit with tariffs will have too much production capacity, but those won't be profitable sales.
American buyers, however, can buy their products from anyone in the world. They can choose to buy domestically, or to import from countries that have lower tariffs.
xnx 6 hours ago [-]
Foreign labor seems to be one of the few things not covered by these import taxes.
water9 6 hours ago [-]
that’s because they already spend a shit ton on sponsorships
xnx 4 hours ago [-]
We could tax outsourcing
daft_pink 6 hours ago [-]
honestly, it’s a little of everything. foreign companies will eat the tariffs to some extent, consumers will shift to less tariffed goods and consumers will pay the tariffs.
however, paying the tariffs is essentially paying taxes and the government needs money and there’s nothing wrong with that. this one has the extra sword of helping our other Americans find work and increasing the likelihood that foreign goods will be purchased from allied nations and not totalitarian dictatorships with goals that might end in ww3 with the usa, while not completely cratering our economic system with full and immediate decoupling.
drdec 6 hours ago [-]
> helping our other Americans find work
In the same way that laws against pumping your own gas help other Americans find work. It makes everyone else poorer instead of naturally created jobs which provide goods and services people want.
> increasing the likelihood that foreign goods will be purchased from allied nations and not totalitarian dictatorships
Citation needed, this round of tariffs have also fallen on our allies
aussieguy1234 2 hours ago [-]
That this is surprising to a large group of Americans speaks to how uneducated a lot of them are. Not sure if it has something to do with the underfunded school system?
le-mark 1 hours ago [-]
Red states are red states for a reason. Lowest income, lowest educational attainment, rural poverty and struggling schools.
It’s a pernicious problem exacerbated by conservative media that’s 24 hour xenophobia and jingoism. It’s not just the US look to your countrymen dear reader!
russdill 1 hours ago [-]
It's very frustrating to city dwellers that so much of the "discourse" on the right is how immigrants are destroying cities, mass transit is a death trap, etc. And it's aimed squarely at rural voters.
SauciestGNU 1 hours ago [-]
Not to mention a large portion of that cohort views education as a moral wrong.
sremani 56 minutes ago [-]
Birds did not read Ornithology to fly. Accumulation of knowledge is useful but real world experience and hard earned wisdom is more important.
That is what you test-taking, credential hustlers do not understand.
mensetmanusman 7 hours ago [-]
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.
Melonololoti 7 hours ago [-]
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.
afavour 7 hours ago [-]
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
plorkyeran 7 hours ago [-]
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.
SideburnsOfDoom 7 hours ago [-]
So, on to the next example: Brazilian coffee.
dragontamer 7 hours ago [-]
Technically Hawaii and maybe Puerto Rico.
But those areas don't have anywhere close to the land of Brazil, Columbia or Vietnam.
--------
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
SideburnsOfDoom 7 hours ago [-]
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
Some enterprising company needs to brand yaupon for the maga crowd.
cosmicgadget 7 hours ago [-]
What are you talking about? These tariffs are used to combat the influx of fentanyl from China, Canada, and Penguin Island.
SideburnsOfDoom 7 hours ago [-]
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."
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.
croes 7 hours ago [-]
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.
boboboboboboo 7 hours ago [-]
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throwawaymaths 2 hours ago [-]
there are so many second order effects here who knows. for example (and im not saying this will always be the case) if a tariff pushes a foreign company's good out of the us marketplace and the customer is "forced" to pay 2x for something domestically manufactured that lasts 4x as long, did the american "pay for it"? how would this look in bulk economic data (spoiler it would look bad because consumption went down)
bdcravens 1 hours ago [-]
In this case, the economic data would indicate rising inflation. The quality of the goods purchased is mostly irrelevant, but it's quite an assumption to assume the good will last longer.
binarymax 1 hours ago [-]
But we don’t manufacture anything here anymore. Like at all. And even if we did, would it really last 4x as long as a foreign manufactured item? And would it only cost 2x?
rekenaut 1 hours ago [-]
This isn’t remotely true, the United States is the second largest manufacturing nation by value [1]. And manufacturing is still the dominant industry in many regions of the US. We might not be great at making consumer goods, but consumer goods is only a small subset of all manufacturing.
Maybe calling these "import taxes" instead of "tarrifs" would help emphasize that to the average voter?
Taking huge chunks out of American opportunism (defunding science, health care, education, space, and so much else), blowing a huge chunk out of social welfare programs: that's going to cause amazing downgrades for most people. Paths to success closed, cost of getting by vastly higher. (All while walking over all over habeus corpus, while collecting & colating data of everyone in the homeland, while building concentration camps and tossing random hairdressers in international terrorism dungeons; denigrating the population generally, humiliating basic rights of man.)
But the plutocratic class doesn't really notice the change. The Global Elite E1 Barbarian class (of Michael O Church 3 ladders) doesn't notice or care. They stay about the same, but the sinking tide leaves many other boats grounded.
It sure seems like there's an international conspiracy of the very wealthy to screw over the land of opportunity right now. And there's 219+53 people in congess and two in the White House happily helping aid and abet this pushing opporunity off the cliff.
Fits perfectly hand in glove with the Network State ideology (which seeks to make who you know and what connections you've gathered define your environment) and the Christofascist ideology (which says religion should rule), both of which resent government as it is, which are part of the broader long campaign to "starve the beast". But to regionalize this situation to the US feels like it misses how the real nature of the E1 Global Barbarian Elite's desire to make clear their ascent over all others.
The EU has mastered the "global (often faceless) ruling class". No Brexit needed for that one.
A tariff as you might recall is punitive for the ultra rich people who want to outsource American workers for practically slave labor in other countries. Make no mistake America paid for its entire finances for the first 120 years just fine without an income tax.
I would love to understand why you think it is punitive for the ultra rich.
value added taxes are paid on the profit made on the good, and are paid by the seller (because the buyer doesn't know what the profit is). value added taxes are basically corporate income taxes
The OP article is short on data and only has a few anecdotes. Like GM, who makes 50% of their US-sold cars outside of the US. And no mention of GM passing any price increases onto consumers.
Let's look at Japanese automakers. Japanese auto exports to the US declined 25% by value in May, but only 4% by volume. But only in the US - the price of autos exported to non-US destinations was flat. Toyota et al. are eating the cost of the tariffs, not passing them on.[1] Chart[2]
Bloomberg itself looked at PPI data recently and observed, "core goods were the main source of price pressures in May, suggesting that companies may be eating some of the added costs from tariffs." Core goods continue to be a source of disinflation in consumer prices but a source of persistent inflation in producer prices hints at pressure on corporate margins.
Core CPI continues to print lower than street expectations, for five consecutive months now. Far lower than what the Fed is concerned about, and certainly leagues lower than what the consumer expects (according to UMich study).
Contrary to popular wisdom, US inflation isn't soaring for the simple reason that costs are not being borne by domestic consumers.
[1]https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Japan-auto-expo... [2]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GuFMrZRW0AA7Rc0?format=png&name=...
The tariffs are being paid by domestic companies, not foreign producers. There is literally no way for a foreign producer to pay a U.S. tariff as the tariff is charged to the importer before the good is released by Customs.
The impacts of the tariffs are domestic. If consumer prices are not increased, then profits, investment, or expenses (including salary, benefits, etc) will be decreased. The money has to come from somewhere inside the U.S.
This is the entire point of a tariff, historically and as expressed by this administration. It is not to source foreign tax revenue, it is to create intentional domestic pain as a means toward implementing a top-down industrial policy. “Make it here or I will hurt you” is the overt message from the President.
And if those hints become reality, might prices rise to re-increase margins?
Do you make the same argument about the corporate income tax being absorbed by companies? Or do you assume that tax makes its way to consumers through price increases? What about increases in the minimum wage?
Haven't a ton of the tariffs been delayed? To what extent have they actually been in effect?
The baseline 10% reciprocal tariff rate remains in effect for all, while many of the bigger country-specific tariffs are paused until Aug 1.
China has special tariffs that stack with that 10%: Section 301 (up to 25%) + Fentanyl tariff (20%).
In addition, worldwide tariffs impacting steel & aluminum (50%) as well as autos and auto parts (25%) are in effect.
If you want to incentive domestic reindustrialization, you do it with things like the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS act or the "Green New Deal" where congress lays out clear sets of rules in law with a mixture of tax incentives, loan programs and spending to give investors and corporations confidence to make decade-long commitments of capital to major projects.
Apple: $500M over four years including a facility in Houston opening next year
Chobani: $1.7B for new facilities in Idaho and NY
J&J: $55B over four years into new facilities, a 25% increase over previous
Honda: moving 100% of Civic hybrid hatchback production to the US
Hyundai: $25B over three years
IBM: $150B over five years
Merck: $1B for a new plant in Delaware
Nvidia: For this first time in history will be manufacturing chips in the US
Roche: $50B
TSMC: $165B
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-manufacturing-domestic-tarif...
Hedge your bets on these…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pfM5v0F9U
Yes because of all the silicon fab plants popping up in the EU and Africa?...
So no, you don't get re-industrialization, you get stagflation. It's idiocracy.
The next step is to work around tariffs where you can and need to which forces innovation and jobs on both sides of the border.
But don't worry, the falling dollar will compensate.
The rest of the world now knows that any promise made by the US government is not worth the paper it's signed on, and is planning accordingly.
Maybe those folks can be competitive within the US given the absurd tariffs. But will they be competitive on any global scale, with those additional headwinds? And if TACO or years pass and tariffs get rescinded, having that massive extra overhead on CapEx is not a good position to be in.
Tariffs are a double edged sword because the hurt purchasing power of consumers without really generating much money for the government.
The administration is going to focus on the fact that tariffs don't really drive inflation, but are going to miss the forest for the trees: prices won't go up because we all have become a little poorer.
it's been reported that tariff collections have soared to the point that the budgeted spending is no longer in the red. this article is written in a confusing way, but your statement "not generating much money for the govt" appears to be incorrect
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/11/treasury-posts-unexpected-su...
Usually to bring big existing companies back either by choice or kicking and screaming about being weaned off unsustainably cheap labour...
As for new companies, other than the valley or DoD contracts what's new? Electric cars which aren't popular in a country that doesn't apply tax at the pump.
If the Trump admin was serious about rebuilding the industrial base, they'd be providing subsidies and federal grants, not tariffs. They'd also be sucking money out of the economy by increasing the number and top marginal rates on the income tax and patching loopholes in the corporate tax code. At the same time, they'd be cutting taxes for the bottom 80% of America and providing healthcare and childcare subsidies.
Here's a thing with a punitive tariff on it. People won't buy it because the price went up too much. It is because prices went up that nobody buys it. (And we all become poorer because we can afford less, whether or not the price increase shows up in the inflation statistics.)
Tariffs have their own Laffer Curve just like income taxes do. Sure, you can set them so that the government gets zero (or close) revenue. But you don't have to. You can set them so that the government gets quite a bit of money. (Note well: I am not claiming that Trump is setting them there.)
Further to that, 80% of the economy is services or otherwise has nothing to do with imports. Tariffs are not affecting haircuts or yoga classes or bank fees.
Seems to me like tariffs are being used as a convenient excuse.
The price of food is based on the price of domestic produce and the price of imports. If taxes are levied on food imports it will raise the mean price of food. As yoga instructors need food to do their job (in fact, they need it to live), they would have to raise their prices.
You might argue that the retail channel can eat the difference, but it doesn't make sense to make the same absolute margin on goods that are subject to volatile tariff policies. It makes it hard to predict how many units will sell, how much stock to maintain, and creates a big risk that any units on shelves will suddenly be devalued when these tariffs are rescinded.
lay people have a broken view of what goes into a price and a profit, thinking that a "fair" profit should be some "reasonable" percentage. It's just not how it works, it works on multiplied rates. the financial markets exist to give large companies working capital. if the companies need double the working capital, the shareholders/bankers want double the returns. the alternative would be you getting a letter saying "hey, the returns on your retirement account are going to be halved, think of it like your retirement account is now half the size"
Tariffs are taxes that locals pay on stuff imported from abroad.
If you tariff the Chinese one to $8, I will buy American.
China knows this, so they change the price on their screw driver (that actually costs them 0.75) accordingly, so that it can still be sold for $5, because they know there's a ceiling on what people will pay.
China doesn't have pure competition. The price of their goods isnt really related to cost by it more of what the buyer will pay.
Grover Norquist is smiling from the grave right now, watching this bipartisan anti-tax push.
More interesting to me is how Trump has managed to multiply the effects of tariffs by creating complete chaos (either on purpose or by accident.) The tariffs never turn out to be as high as they were marketed as. They are reapplied and dropped on alternate months. He makes the ending of tariffs contingent on actual concessions on other issues that the US is concerned about, but also makes them contingent on bullshit that no one would ever agree to.
All of this is creating the stress that causes people to restructure their supply chains, manufacturing, and logistics, at first to get the flexibility to adjust when Trump veers, but they can always see the alternative of cutting out imports at all which would frees them from any of that. The drama ("uncertainty") around tariffs is in and of itself a tariff (that will be seen in prices) that isn't being collected by the government, it's going into efforts by businesses to onshore and/or diversify their vendors. That onshoring is also going to raise consumer prices until it lowers them again.
That would be the price for demanding US labor standards be used in making US products, too. If we wanted to stop depending on foreign slave labor for cheap disposable shit, I don't know how we do that without tariffs. "Free trade" is an active enemy of labor rights.
What's next? Is Bloomberg going to be telling us that fluoridation is preventing tooth demineralization and not actually helping the Communists?
It appears to me that Trump sometimes uses the threat of tariffs to get him myself some emoluments. After that, many of his tariffs seem nonsensical
Because the sellers can sell to another country without the tariff. American buyers have no alternative.
American buyers, however, can buy their products from anyone in the world. They can choose to buy domestically, or to import from countries that have lower tariffs.
however, paying the tariffs is essentially paying taxes and the government needs money and there’s nothing wrong with that. this one has the extra sword of helping our other Americans find work and increasing the likelihood that foreign goods will be purchased from allied nations and not totalitarian dictatorships with goals that might end in ww3 with the usa, while not completely cratering our economic system with full and immediate decoupling.
In the same way that laws against pumping your own gas help other Americans find work. It makes everyone else poorer instead of naturally created jobs which provide goods and services people want.
> increasing the likelihood that foreign goods will be purchased from allied nations and not totalitarian dictatorships
Citation needed, this round of tariffs have also fallen on our allies
It’s a pernicious problem exacerbated by conservative media that’s 24 hour xenophobia and jingoism. It’s not just the US look to your countrymen dear reader!
That is what you test-taking, credential hustlers do not understand.
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.
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.
Tariffs need to be applied surgically and... they are not
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
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...
And tariffs won't change that.
"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...
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.
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.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing
Also, obvious political bias.