• randon31415@lemmy.world
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    30 days ago

    There are two bright sides to this (and dark sides as well):

    -This will decrease demand of Chinese goods in the U.S., hurting a country that is … problematic to say the least. (Anyone remember the Uyghurs? The O.G. Gazens?) It probably won’t shift demand back to the U.S. factories, but maybe it is time for another country to become the slave-labor-ish manufacturing capital of the world.

    -When the prices skyrocket, along with food from all the missing immigrant farm hands, Trump will get blamed. I just hope this wasn’t the plan all along and those “fake” inflation hikes back after covid weren’t to cover for the real ones down the road.

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      30 days ago

      When the prices skyrocket, along with food from all the missing immigrant farm hands, Trump will get blamed.

      i really hope you’re right, but i think that will most likely get blamed on biden “ruining the economy” in his last term, or something in that vein. a lot of trump voters get their news from fox news or directly from donald trump, and i can’t imagine either of those sources criticizing trumps economic policies.

    • rayyy@lemmy.world
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      30 days ago

      Trump will get blamed

      Ha, ha, ha, he will blame Biden, or immigrants, and his moron supporters will believe him just like they have when he lied the other thousands of times.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      30 days ago

      Trump will get blamed

      Like they blamed him for his COVID-19 response?

      If that didn’t get through… honestly, I have no idea what would. Americans are just stuck in their feeds and divorced from reality now.

    • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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      30 days ago

      When the prices skyrocket, along with food from all the missing immigrant farm hands, Trump will get blamed.

      In all likelihood, only a small percentage of his voters will actually blame him for the predictable consequences of his tariffs. The rest of them will believe Trump when he blames it on Biden’s economic policies that were put in place before Trump’s second term. Our egos have a funny way of making us do mental gymnastics to avoid having to accept the idea of oneself being wrong.

  • ThePerfectLink@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    Realistically though, that’s how tariffs just work. With products costing more, theoretically that should drive demand down and eventually lead to fewer imports. Of course, if there’s still no competing product or the product is a basic necessity, then it’ll likely just result in people paying more.

      • ThePerfectLink@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Yah, I mean realistically, I can only really see tariffs working if a nation is trying to enter an industry. That’s not the case here, but even so, these tariffs differ from the ones you mentioned because they would be against Chinese imports rather than a specific product, so I can’t imagine there’s as much risk of that sort of market manipulation from happening again… but then again, I’ve got no idea.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          If you’ve got no idea then why argue?

          There isn’t a competition in the market between Malaysian washing machines vs Chinese washing machines, in reality the tariffs will affect Chinese goods mainly, and any industry will raise prices to pocket the difference as we saw in the above example. It was more than just a single appliance that raised the prices.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      29 days ago

      Working tariffs make importing goods so expensive that manufacturing them nationally is viable. There are definitely areas where tariffs make sense, e.g. you have or want to build an industry that’s competing against a subsidized industry from another country. Tariffs are one way to help with that.

      But we all know that’s way too much thought for him, which probably boiled down to “China bad”… which I’m not necessarily disagreeing with fully… but for reasons that tariffs aren’t necessarily an answer to.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Working tariffs make importing goods so expensive that manufacturing them nationally is viable.

        The lack of American subcompact trucks is evidence that this is false.

        • Laser@feddit.org
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          29 days ago

          I think this is rather an issue with what the majority of the market wants. If carmakers saw a bigger profit in offering smaller transport vehicles (pickup trucks in my opinion aren’t even particularly good at transporting a lot of stuff), they’d manufacturer and sell them.

          But the truth is pickup trucks are often just lifestyle products (when I need to transport something, I just rent something adequate) and as such, there is a much larger customer base than for sensible options, which makes the others commercially risky.

          • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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            29 days ago

            I think this is why single use vehicles aren’t popular in America. Everyone needs a car, usually to work, and generally also to vacation, grocery shop, meet friends and family, etc.

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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            29 days ago

            Yeah, the fact that every sporting event’s commercials rotate between dick pills, beer, and giant trucks totally doesn’t have anything to do with it.

            Also, if the market didn’t demand smaller trucks, why slap a tariff on them to encourage local production?

            • Laser@feddit.org
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              29 days ago

              I don’t know, is that particular tariff already in effect?

              I’m not saying they’re always good, bit that they can be a strategic instrument. The example you brought up makes no sense, I agree. But I’m sure if carmakers saw a market for a class of cars, they’d take the opportunity - maybe not on their core brand (like I don’t think Ford would build one under that brand in the US).

              Yeah, the fact that every sporting event’s commercials rotate between dick pills, beer, and giant trucks totally doesn’t have anything to do with it.

              I think this rather proves my point, they’re lifestyle products targeting a specific demographic under the guide of being a utility.

              • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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                29 days ago

                It’s called the Chicken Tax and it’s why I can’t buy a Hilux despite demanding as hard as I can.

                I think this rather proves my point, they’re lifestyle products targeting a specific demographic under the guide of being a utility.

                It’s also creating demand for trucks that are terrible at doing truck stuff.

                Saying “the market demands big trucks” ignores the billions they spend making the market demand big trucks.

                Why? Because they’re insanely profitable.

                • Laser@feddit.org
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                  29 days ago

                  So this is a retaliatory tariff and not actually one that makes particular sense otherwise.

                  It’s also creating demand for trucks that are terrible at doing truck stuff.

                  Yeah, they’re garbage.

                  Saying “the market demands big trucks” ignores the billions they spend making the market demand big trucks.

                  It’s probably some kind of feedback loop.

                  On the other hand, if just marketing budget created demand, they’d advertise these more here as not a lot of people own one. But someone figured out that that marketing budget would probably not yield an RoI, as opposed to the US. Though they’re are probably practical factors at pay, like gas prices and road size.

          • chrizzowski@lemmy.ca
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            29 days ago

            Wasn’t it something to do with trucks are work vehicles so emissions restrictions didn’t apply to the same extent, so they basically pushed trucks hard and made everything truck sized to skirt around it? That has the effect of turning into a lifestyle product. Guarantee my little Subaru sees more off-road than most jacked up trucks.

            Actually I’d argue Subaru is more of a lifestyle brand, selling the idea that you for sure need that extra clearance and all wheel drive, just in case you decide to rock crawl your way up to a camping spot after Costco. I love mine, and actually use it, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind to what they’re pushing.

            • toddestan@lemm.ee
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              29 days ago

              In the US, CAFE which regulates this sort of thing has different rules for light trucks versus cars. That’s why nearly everything sold today is a “light truck” - not just pickups but SUVs, CUVs, and vans which make up the majority of new vehicles sold. These rules also had a lot to do with large cars like station wagons going away.

            • Laser@feddit.org
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              29 days ago

              That could also be, I’m not American so I don’t know all the details.

              However, watching from the outside, it clearly comes off as some kind of statement.

  • LittleBorat3@lemmy.world
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    28 days ago

    They voted for nonsense looks like they are getting nonsense.

    How will they call the new inflation and how are they going to pin this on not Trump. Curious how this is going to play out.

    • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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      30 days ago

      I bet a big portion of that 9% shops at Walmart.

      Would been smart for Wally’s bottom line to maybe tell their customers about this before the fucking election.

      • Seleni@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        They don’t care. The owners of Walmart are some of the richest people in the world. So like all rich people they just figure they’ll hike prices and people will still pay (and they’ll have to, because Walmart tends to drive all its competitors out of town).

      • CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.cafe
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        29 days ago

        They do not care, and the Waltons probably like Trump. They’ve got their money already. Waltons don’t care about America; they’ve been in bed with China since Sam died & they’ve been gobbling up the excessive profits for years. Cheap Chinese goods for low-ish American prices.

    • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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      30 days ago

      Thing is, basic economics is a high school subject, except:

      “Sir, when am I going to have to know how tariffs work in the real world?”

        • Infomatics90@lemmy.ca
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          29 days ago

          I was the idiot who though skipping school to partake in smoking weed was the better outcome of studying at school, although I do partially blame being bullied at school for me avoiding it.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          30 days ago

          I don’t think mine even had it as an elective. We were too busy spending 2 years of history classes learning how nice the Pilgrims were to the natives. And this was in Massachusetts, which I believe ranks #1 in education in the US.

          • Billiam@lemmy.world
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            30 days ago

            #1 in education.

            And also the only state in the country where every precinct voted for Harris.

            Surely that must be a coincidence, right?

        • adarza@lemmy.ca
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          30 days ago

          tariffs, trade wars, and their effects surely were covered, or at least touched on, in a history class or two.

    • adarza@lemmy.ca
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      30 days ago

      ‘I love the poorly educated’, donald j trump, feb 2016.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    Oh, I thought he was fixing inflation!

    Wow, what a shocker! Who could have predicted how that turned out?

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    Hearing more and more stories about companies cutting bonuses this year so they can buy more supplies now at cheaper prices. They know the prices will go up and they’ll have to pass the increase to the consumers. But how much you wanna bet these companies will still raise prices even before they have to pay their tariff increases? They’re gonna get extra money on the supplies they paid the lower prices on.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      …This is just normal basic business economics.

      Your retail price is not predicated on what you paid to produce or obtain the product, it’s based on what you expect to have to pay to produce or procure the next one.

      • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Agreed, but some people don’t understand or realize this. We’re not going to see this huge manufacturing influx back to the US.

    • h0rnman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      29 days ago

      I saw it explained best like this

      Current imported price: $30

      Current locally made price: $35

      New imported price: $70

      New locally made price: $69.99

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Locally made still won’t happen.

        Say you’re an businessman who’s been manufacturing in China. Excel shows that you can make the same product in America for less than the post-tariff cost. Sound good?

        But you’re not stupid. You know the tariffs will end up wildly unpopular and fuck up the economy. A) Why keep producing when people won’t be able to afford your goods? And more importantly, you want to be left holding the bag with your shiny new American factory when the tariffs are repealed?

        • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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          29 days ago

          The amount of money it would take to move manufacturing back to the US would cost billions and companies aren’t going to do that. They would have to pay to import (with tariffs, still) any raw materials that can’t be made or mined here. Companies are just going to move their manufacturing to Vietnam another SE Asian country (some are already doing it), where labor is still cheap. And labor here for manufacturing wouldn’t be cheap. The company would have to worry about unions, and this country does not like unions (or labor, for that matter).

        • h0rnman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          29 days ago

          Oh for sure, I should have clarified that I was really speaking to the products that already have a US-based manufacturing presence and already have to compete with imports. Ramping up domestic production on things that aren’t already manufactured here because of the demented ramblings of a guy who (ostensibly) won’t be around in 4 years is just asking for your business to go under

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    Mango Mussolini’s tariff plans will increase prices across the board. The corporations earned record profits during the so-called inflation and the US consumers that voted for Cheeto are fucking clueless about the inbound out of control freight train.

  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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    29 days ago

    Gonna be real neat watching Republicans turn on corporate America and accusing them of price gouging when (for once) they’re not.