HN Reader

It's true that free trade is hugely beneficial to the US economy as a whole, particularly with the USD being the reserve currency.

The flow of goods is balanced by a flow of US dollars to other countries, which are ultimately cycled back into the US financial system - enabling budget deficits and an abundance of capital to invest in high growth industries.

The flip side of this is that it also drives inequality - the upside of this system is felt by the entrepreneurs, investors and high-skill employees in tech and finance, while the downside is concentrated with low-skill workers whose jobs are offshored to lower wage countries.

The obvious solution is not to hurt the economy as a whole, but rather for the government to lower the cost of high-quality education, build out social systems, and invest into onshoring select strategic industries by raising taxes at the high end.

As such, this administration's policies are foolish, but many on this very site would need to give up a little bit of their privilege to reduce the pain felt by many of their fellow citizens.

That is something that in the current American political climate seems a nearly impossible sell.

From what I understand, de minimis exemption has also been removed.

That is a huge, huge deal. It effectively means that all goods imported from China will be slapped with a 30% import tax, as soon as said goods arrive the US border / customs.

Usually what happens then, is that the courier will pay that tax, and then bill the recipient later on - as well as charge some fee/fees for the work done.

This is why in some European countries, that $1 item from China with free shipping can end up costing $10, because you're paying $0.25 in VAT or import taxes, and $10 to the shipping courier for doing the paperwork.

If that is the case in the US, I fully expect total chaos and mayhem when all the Temu / AliExpress/ Wish customers start receiving extra bills for their orders.

(That's just from the most obvious consumer example...then you have pretty much everything else. Goods, commodities, etc.)

EDIT: I found more info here https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

So it is even worse, you either pay $25 per shipment, or 30% - whichever is higher. Then later it moves up to $50 per shipment, or 30% - whichever is higher.

a $1 item with $1 shipping will end up costing you as much as $52 after June!

Aside from everything else one thing what strikes me as particularly insane is how it’s not even defensible as a protective measure. My favorite everyday olive oil comes from Tunisia. They now have a 38% tariff on them. There are no out of work olive farmers in the US.

The orange man wanted tariffs, the orange man is going to get tariffs. Now we have to hope the American people aren’t so dumb as to still be convinced only he can solve their issues. I don’t hold out hope for that.

Here's a csv and google sheet of the data. Turns out they aren't tariffs countries charge us. They are trade imbalance percentages. Unreal:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xK0OQ5VGl8JHmDSIgbXh...

https://gist.github.com/mcoliver/69fe48d03c12388e29cc0cd87eb...

A blanket 10% minimum tariff is a great excuse for any local US manufacturing to increase their prices.

I used to live in a country with heavy tariffs, every time tariffs were raised the local producers increased prices to be just below the imports. Even after the tariffs were abolished the prices (on local and imports) never really lowered in any significant way.

This won't bring home manufacturing but let's say that it will...

The US doesn't have the people to do the actual manufacturing. I saw a video recently explaining how sectors like the military, construction and the automotive industry each have 100K+ positions that they are unable to fill. A return to manufacturing adds to that shortage.

Apparently there's some 7 million young men of working age that are...missing in action. Self-isolated, gaming, addictions.

In construction, for every 5 people that retire, only 2 enter. And it's been like that for over 10 years. The people aren't there nor is the motivation.

I'm sure you'll have Apple investing in a mega plant where 50 educated people push some buttons though.

I don't see anyone mentioning that the United States needs to manage its massive national debt, currently in the trillions, by issuing Treasury securities. These securities mature at varying intervals and require continuous "rolling" or refinancing to pay off old debt with new borrowing.

Significant rollovers are expected from April through September 2025, with additional short-term maturities due by June.

Higher interest rates significantly complicate US' ability to refinance. The cost of servicing this debt — paying interest rather than reducing principal — is already a major budget item, surpassing Medicare, approaching Defense and Social Security levels.

If rates don't come down soon it locks in higher costs for years. The country is at risk of a debt spiral.

How can rates come down? The present uncertainty around tariffs and a potential crisis could create conditions that pressure interest rates downward before those Treasury securities mature, by influencing Federal Reserve policy.

Treasuries are considered safe during such crisis. Increased demand for Treasuries pushes their prices up and yields down, effectively lowering interest rates.

What are the flaws in this thinking?

Everyone is quick to deride this move as stupid. I don’t disagree that there are downsides to the approach, but there is a set of very real national problems that this might address.

For instance, globalization and offshoring of production has made goods cheaper for consumers, but what about the former domestic producers who could not compete, and do not have the skills or capital to find a new job which pays as well? Increased foreign competition pulls down domestic wages; telling people that they should shut up and be okay with that because they can get cheaper goods isn’t palatable to a lot of people facing the negatives of globalization. Globalization has played a big role in creating the massive income inequality in our country; it seems like we should fix that.

There really are structural challenges to onshoring production due to strength of the dollar due to its reserve currency status; our society as such is biased heavily toward importing goods rather than exporting goods. This is a real challenge that needs to be addressed as well.

Our national debt is not sustainable either. Either we pay it down some, or we inflate it away; these are the two ways it goes away, ignoring the option of a world-shattering default on the debt. Tariffs accomplish both of those, raising money at the same time as raising cost of goods and weakening the dollar.

So, to anyone who disagrees with these measures, but agrees that these are issues we ought to solve, what would you propose?

"This guy cracked the tariff formula: @orthonormalist

It’s simply the nation’s trade deficit with us divided by the nation’s exports to us.

Yes. Really.

Vietnam: Exports 136.6, Imports 13.1 Deficit = 123.5

123.5/136.6 = 90%"

https://x.com/Geiger_Capital/status/1907568233239949431

I think a lot of people assume the economic consequences like these have not been understood by the WH. Although I don't like this administration I beg to differ: they know what's going to happen, and they expect the coming storm because they seek what follows.

They want to repudiate foreign held debt, or devalue it, by revaluation of the USD and they will wear what they think of as a one time economic shock to get their reset in a belief they can make it less like the Smoot-Hawley great depression because so many other economic levers exist now, including floating currency, MMT, and massive fintech.

Personally I think it's a mistake but hot takes "they have no idea what's coming" are I believe naive. They know. They just don't care. Some amount of foreign trade will absorb the cost. Not all, not most. Not all prices in the US will rise and some substitution will happen although spinning up cheap labor factories again isn't going to happen in 2025. Maybe by 2027? Rust belt sewing shops and Walmart grade cheap goods production lines?

What amazes me is the timing: the midterms will hit while the bottom is still chugging along. I would think it unlikely they can secure an updraft from this to keep the house. What's the plan for that?

From the people in my life who talked about their preference for this administration, the economy was the core reason I heard. Specifically interest rates, but ignoring that that’s the federal reserve and the president has no impact on that.

Whatever - all that said, I can’t imagine this leads to an economic boom or anything near it by the midterms. Are the republicans going to lose midterms if the economy is shit? I’m not sure, but I can’t imagine this works out well. I’m no economist though, so what do I know.

So the US has been, more or less, the best place in the world to do business. Stocks historically soaring, yadda yadda yadda ... and somehow this guy sells the story that the US has been taking advantage of by all the other evil countries in the world. It does not, in any way, make sense. What a clown. A totalitorian clown unfortunately.

A possible retaliation by the EU could be to not enforce US intellectual property rights in the EU anymore. Or we could start taxing cloud companies, who, until now, have not paid taxes in the EU for profits that they generate in the EU.

Can someone explain if there's any logic at all to counting a countrys VAT as part of its tariffs? In my home country VAT is ultimately charged the end-customer and this happens regardless of the origin of the goods. How can this be a seen as a tariff?

Besides, isn't the "Use tax" most(?) American states have more or less equivalent in function?

When americans are angry, they tend to spread that frustration with a shovel on everyone.

My country as been hot by 29% tariffs.. I can't say what we did to upset americans, given that we do not compete with any american industry in any substantial way, bu we are bearing the wrath of the wounded american blue collar worker regardless.

I wonder what the net effect of tariffs will be in an year, americans are so used to cheap imports, especially all those shien/aliexpress/temu stuff.

The exemptions...

>Some goods will not be subject to the Reciprocal Tariff. These include: (1) articles subject to 50 USC 1702(b); (2) steel/aluminum articles and autos/auto parts already subject to Section 232 tariffs; (3) copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and lumber articles; (4) all articles that may become subject to future Section 232 tariffs; (5) bullion; and (6) energy and other certain minerals that are not available in the United States.

I guess we Europeans have to get our stuff from elsewhere than a nation hostile to the world with an insane unpredictable leader. China may also be authoritarian, but at least they are stable.

The coolest thing to read are american takes that are like "hey this might be benefiting us for that obscure reason", totally ignoring the fact that you betrayed your allies. Land of fhe free my ass. The only ideology the US has is nihilistic greed paired with hyperindividualsm and transactionalism to the point where Americans think if someone else is getting a thing you are hurting.

If the US was a kid it wouldn't invite others over because it wants to eat the birthday cake alone. And then it shits on all the cakes at the bakery because it wants to be the only kid eating cakes. If that is the American idea of how to lead a great life the rest of the world is better of without it.

The whole table doesn't make sense. We (NL/EU) don't charge the US 39% to import . Apparently orange guy (not the Dutch) doesn't understand VAT rates.

Car? max 4.5 + 21% VAT = 25%. But it simply doesn't matter bc we don't want their cars.. Except for thee Dodge RAM, which can be converted to a tax efficient company car (crazy)..

What amazes me even more is that Elon doesn't seems to understand it either.

The De Minimis loophole is highly significant with FOUR Million packages per day (What ???). The clause to address this loophole needs to be stated more accurately - It should be clearly defined to be higher or lower of 30 % of the value of shipment under $800 OR $25 per shipment and not either. If either then the De Minimis loophole will be continue to be used at $25 per shipment. Source : https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr...

I believe this from the White House contains the only semi official numbers:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr....

That has 10% across the board starting April 5th, then unspecified rates for the “worst offenders” starting April 9th.

I say “semi official” because it’s not official until US Customs and Border Patrol publishes the rates. So far I don’t think they’ve done that. Their announcements page here doesn’t have anything:

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/announcements

Americans have been hurt for 50 years … yes manufacturing going overseas was a huge change and many administrations didn’t do enough to help affected workers. Buuuuuut - placing tariffs on our allies that will likely lead to a recession makes no sense.

Devaluing the dollar and subsidizing production in the US makes far more sense.

But I’m not an economist or anything.

US says there was an imbalance in trade, and that is true only if we look at goods. If we look at services, I think the picture changes.

What if the EU and rest of the world starts adding taxes to financial and IT services provided by the US? What if Amazon cloud and Netflix start costing 20% more?

And let's not forget US is printing dollars which are being used for worldwide trade and the rest of the world subsidies their inflation and their economy through that.

Let's not forget US exported the 2008 crysis and most of the world payed for that.

I don't think US will like if the rest of the world stops using US dollars, stops using US financial services and stops investing in US economy by buying shares, bonds, securities.

And here I thought brexit would keep the top spot as act of self harm

So what's going to happen is:

- each country will impose equivalent taxes on the import of US goods - this is not only expected, but the norm under international trade law. - with the rest of the world, still having free trade agreements between them, will start trading around the US, the US won't be able to compete

The value of the US$ will likely drop by the value of the tariffs. If everyone starts trading around the US we'll probably lose the US$ as a standard currency to trade in, maybe switching to yuan or euros, the US$ is buoyed by it being the currency everyone uses, that's going to drive it even lower.

Here's something I want to understand: In 1930 the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was passed by congress - an act of legislation. Nearly 100 years later we have the president unilaterally picking any tariff numbers he wants. What happened?

The EU probably does not have a trade surplus with the US, but rather a trade deficit.

https://www-gmexconsulting-com.translate.goog/cms/de/dunkle-...

Here's the brilliant formula they used to determine those tariffs by the way:

https://xcancel.com/orthonormalist/status/190754526581875103...

https://xcancel.com/corsaren/status/1907554824180105343

It's trade deficit divided by total exports divided by 2

If anyone is interested, you can find the US's assessment of the tariffs imposed on the US by other countries here: https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Reports/202...

EG:

"The UK has duties on approximately 5,000 tariff lines, including on certain agricultural products, ceramics, chemicals, bioethanol, and vehicles. Tariffs on some products such as bananas, raw cane sugar, and apparel, which tend not to be import sensitive for the UK, are maintained to provide for preferential access for imports from certain developing countries into the UK compared to the MFN rate. The UK has some high tariffs that affect U.S. exports, such as rates of up to 25.0 percent for some fish and seafood products, 10.0 percent for trucks, 10.0 percent for passenger vehicles, and up to 6.5 percent for certain mineral or chemical fertilizers"

I can't say it any better than Randy Newman:

The end of an empire // Is messy at best

And this empire's ending // Like all the rest

Like the Spanish Armada // Adrift on the sea

We're adrift in the land of the brave // And the home of the free

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0EAwSpTcM4

I'm an American. I've generally benefited from the system here (which speaks to my privilege, of which I'm aware). I don't want to wade into political battles, but I'm genuinely concerned for my future and the future of my children from an economic standpoint, based on where things seem to be going.

I am considering options on the spectrum with ends like:

* Staying here, because this is where I was born and raised and I've felt like the country has generally taken care of me - and hey, it can't stay bad forever, right?

* Leaving to another country, because I am feeling less and less like the country's leadership care about building a society or economy that tries to take care of its people and creates incentives to innovate.

This isn't because of just the last few months; I view the last few months as big symptoms of something more systemic that's been building up. I am also not looking to jump ship quickly because things "temporarily got hard."

On the flip side, I'm also feeling incredibly jaded these days: how could it be much better anywhere else?

Are there places out in the world where my wife and I could take our experience (mine being a strong career in tech, my wife's being a strong nursing career) and put it to use elsewhere where I could hope for a good standard of living, more stability in government leadership, and incentives similar to the economic system I grew up in, where our children could thrive and build a life?

I'm not pulling any triggers quickly or easily... I'm just trying to gather some data and different perspectives, even those that might challenge my own. Maybe an answer is "stop reading news."

edit: formatting

Genuine questions: why are they calling it “reciprocal”? Is the US just matching the tariffs set by the other countries?

Also, this announcement has wiped out any plans of buying tech products this year, plus a holiday to the US and Canada later in the year. Good thing too, as the entire globe is probably staring down the barrel of a recession.

Are those in addition to existing tariffs?

And there are a lot more countries in that list, South Korea and Taiwan are going to really hurt for electronics. And I assume Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and other countries will hurt for other good that are made cheaply there.

Liberation day indeed... when Canada/Australia/Europe/South Korea/Japan are now the enemy I'm not sure there are any more friends left.

Someone figured out that the new tariffs are just our trade deficit with that country divided by the country's exports. I think more and more we see lots of evidence they don't know what they're doing.

I don’t buy the blanket statement that the consumer always pays the tariff. It depends on what alternative companies have. If a company can purchase the same clothing from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Mexican vendors, a tax on China only could make the Chinese vendors lower the price or risk losing the business.

However, a blanket tax on every country, regardless of available alternatives, would leave businesses with fewer options and make it more likely that the cost is passed on to consumers.

The idea that a giant regressive tax, which these are, will help the lower or middle class or do anything but kill demand and destroy jobs is madness.

It also won't help the debt because even though we might collect some money in the short term, the long term solution is we need to grow our way out and these policies are recessionary.

So, it already starts affecting stuff. I and 10 other recent hires were cut today because our next round is in jeopardy. That startup is in sales and hiring area, so it senses recession much sooner than other industries, but there's that.

I'm a freelance selling software services. Some of my customers are in the US. Am I affected? These tariff don't impact software, right?

Different countries have different tariff. Is there room for arbitration? In which a 3rd party business from a country with low tariff would buy a product in one of the countries with high tariff and export that to the US, taking a small cut.

I like to ask, "What would a Russian agent do to try to dethrone the USA as a global power?"

* remove support from historic trading partners

* break up NATO and similar military alliances

* convince the world to distrust USD as default reserve currency

* specifically make it harder to trade with China who makes a lot of our junk

* remove a lot of the federal government workforce from their positions

* convince those involved in Ukraine to back out so that the mineral-rich regions in the east can be appropriated

* destroy the image of "democracy" and "free speech" by flaunting legal processes and crushing dissent

I could list and think of more, but these are most illustrative IMO.

The goal of the world now is to specifically target red swing states with counter tariffs so that the democrats will win the midterms, pass legislation to prevent the president from being able to unilaterally impose tariffs in the future and thus put a swift end to the golden age.

This is just a stray thought of mine - but I feel like the US might go down a very dangerous path - I think to avoid retaliatory tariffs, US companies, such as NVIDIA might decide to create foreign subsidiaries, and license the technology to them - after all the tariffs don't apply if Europe does business with a Taiwanese subsidiary.

But this will expose them to a technology exfiltration scheme and/or hostile takeover in the vein of what happened to ARM China.

Am I reading too much into this?

The De Minimis loophole is highly significant with 4 Million packages per day (What ?). The clause to address this loophole needs to be stated more accurately - It should clearly define it to be higher / lower of 30 % of value of shipment under $800 or $25 per shipment and not either

Source :https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-pr....

Most goods in US directly or indirectly relies on importing. So practically, I think it just mean US introduced VAT.

The US Administration is dead. America is occupied by creatures that simply want to destroy the current world order, sow chaos, and profit from that by means of power and utter hate and disrespect for ordinary people, who live from paycheck to paycheck. Keep advancing AI, so they wouldn't need to employ humans to kill other humans.

Factories are not coming back to the USA in large number, for a lot of reasons, at least not until full automation + tariffs makes them economical. But the biggest reason is that what's going to happen is that the average joe is going to suffer a bit, then will vote against these policies in the next election, and that's only 3.5 years away. If it takes a year to build a factory -- and frankly these tariffs could be adjusted again or removed in a few months -- and then they're likely to be fully removed in 3.5 years, I'm just not sure it makes sense to invest in a factory.

The lion is not killed by other beasts but by the worms inside.

This doesn't come as a surprise as we all know it's going to come.

My question is, how does the US prepare to re-industrialize itself? Is the tariff good enough to provide incentives so that factories start to appear domestically? I fear this might not be the case.

So has anyone an idea how those tariffs would affect software sales? Say I'm a German guy selling a license for my software to someone in the US. Will this fall under tariffs, too. Or are software licenses somehow exempt? Asking for a friend(me).

As a preview of our future, it's now a good time to review the decline of standard of living that occurred when Great Britain lost the privilege of having the World's reserve currency, the Pound Sterling.

My estimate is we're in for a 75% haircut to our personal standard of living as the US Dollar loses it's place, and we actually have to pay for everything we want in hard currency or real goods. Trump killed the golden Goose, and threw it into a wood chipper.

These guys are untrustworthy liars. I assume there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands of carve outs for the tariffs, based on bribing the POTUS or approved affiliates.

Tariffs are a tax on consumer goods. They will also be counterproductive to economic growth.

This is basically the Kim Jong-Un approach to foreign policy:

Kim: threaten a nuclear war, see if people will pay you to stop

Trump: threaten to crash the world economy, see if other countries will pay to stop you

He doesn't care that this will shrink the global economy, or even, at least in the short term, the US economy. If other countries submit in order to negotiate tariffs down then he has his "win" politically, if not then he has someone to blame.

Inheriting a strong economy beating all expectations that was just about to end its fight with inflation and burning it all away in a pump and dump crypto scheme fashion, while doing nothing (or even working to expand) unprecedented wealth inequality. Good luck, going to need it. The world reserve currency status is faltering, and so will the benefits it allowed US economy.

As someone interested in "curious discussion", what are some of the positives we can take away from this? Is this a new standard for economic policy?

Trump really thinks America is in the 1950's. He thinks people want to work at factories doing manual labor. He doesn't understand that we DON'T want to work at factories. Americans like our plush corporate office jobs building intellectual property. We aren't oxen doing physical labor.

And we designed it that way. We pay thousands of dollars to each citizen in our public schools to teach them calculus, literature, world history, and science, so that they DON'T work at factories doing manual labor like we were oxen. We're supposed to be doing more valuable jobs in intellectual property and services.

It's going to be hard lesson to be learned by Trump and his working class supporters when the inflation hits them because our economy doesn't have any workers that want to work at factories, but it'll have to be a lesson they learn the hard way.

The correct economy is to let people do labor they're best at. If a foreigner can make a shirt cheaper than an American can, LET THEM. Our economy is already taken by the people that design the shirts.

Three things:

1. On the face of it, this looks horrible. I won't rehash the many arguments against it here, though. This page is already chock-full of those arguments.

2. Robot labor could make ultra-low-cost manufacturing possible in the US, to the point that many things become cheaper to make locally than to ship from abroad, tariffs or or no tariffs.

3. If any major country/region negotiates lower tariffs by fully opening its market to US products, every other country/region will be forced to do the same, expanding free trade everywhere.

The golden prize for America's enemies is to remove the US dollar as a global reserve currency.

Since trade is conducted largely in USD, that means other governments must purchase USD to trade. This is the core of trade deficits. Foreign countries buy US dollars so they can trade with other people. That guarantees the deficit since they give us something in exchange for USD, which they do not then spend on goods we make.

If you no longer want the trade deficit that means payments of fealty by those who trade in dollars, which countries aren't likely to tolerate, or abandoning the USD as a global reserve currency, which would be disastrous, truly disastrous. Our debts would suddenly become existential because inflating our currency to pay for them could result in functionally not being able to import goods required to run our economy. I don't think many truly understand just how disastrous it will be.

This isn't America's liberation day. This is Russia's and China's liberation day. While America was once able to check their power, America is no longer in a position to do so, we will barely be in a position to satisfy our own military's logistics requirements.

This is a decapitation strike (Timothy Snyder: Decapitation Strike -- https://archive.is/1xkxK) on America by our enemies. It is not only a de facto soft blockade of American trade, but it is an attack on the mechanics of American hegemony. Politicians already ask for money instead of votes or actions. That means if foreign governments spend money, they can elect their preferred candidates. America's own government was a result of french support. We institute regime change in other counties, and I see no reason to believe we are immune.

If trade stops occurring in US Dollar, which is a consequence of the stated goal of our current ruling regime, that would be the coup de grace on this country's hegemony. It is the definitive end to it, and the birth of Chinese hegemony.

Ray Dalio's Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order feels prescient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8

Are we surprised? If anyone watched the presidential debates VP Kamala Harris told us about this.

From September 2024:

"What Goldman Sachs has said is that Donald Trump's plan would make the economy worse. Mine would strengthen the economy. What the Wharton School has said is Donald Trump's plan would actually explode the deficit. Sixteen Nobel laureates have described his economic plan as something that would increase inflation and by the middle of next year would invite a recession."

Emphasis on that last line:

  would increase inflation and by the middle of next year would invite a recession.

btw the US Congress can stop this anytime they want.

I encourage everyone to contact their reps and demand a bill be advanced to return tariff authority to the Congress.

There are enough GOP reps opposed to tariffs to get a discharge petition.

This is absolutely shocking. As these tariffs are reflective of trade deficits this administration is taxing the cheapest sources of goods for the American economy in proportion of volume.

This is economic handbrake territory. It will impact every industry that imports goods (as well as many raw materials and components) and will devestate many, if not all SMEs who rely on importing goods to sell to local customers. Fashion retail in particular and drop shippers will have to raise their prices considerably.

While I imagine the ideas behind these tariffs have some sense of justification, the numbers simply don't add up. Manufacturing clothing in the US simply isn't viable at the sorts of scales for mass consumption. For example, you can pick up Levis at Walmart for around $25 that have been manufactured abroad. The Levi Vintage run, which are made within the US, have prices starting at $150. So all this will do is force people will less money to spend an extra ~50% (or $12.5 in this case) on their jeans, as this will still be cheaper than $150. Obviously to entirely succeed at the supposed aim would to create a world where all jeans cost $150 and this would simply mean that most people would not be able to afford jeans.

Here we go.

My dumb ass invested money in usa stocks when trump got elected because trump is pro business, right ? Should have invested in Asia, today china is the usa from 40 year ago.

Man the stock market today was a slaughter house.

Unfortunately in America they choose a dictator for 4 years with a parlement made up of puppets so it is what it is.

Time for the EU to float the idea of the PetroEuro.

What most people don’t see is that we are basically under “shadow austerity” to correct for the not so hyperinflation we saw post COVID.

It is a combination of post WW2 Britain (China is the US in that analogy) - this helps to explain the Canada and Greenland issue; and Volcker era stagflation economics. It will not get any better in the short term, but there is likely to be substantial growth in the long term as a result.

What that means is the fed likely won’t reduce rates, and it may reduce its rate decrease to 1 this year, if even that. It is entirely possible the rate doesn’t come down at all.

Expect Layoffs to come, as the fed doesn’t seem to care about unemployment as its target is on inflation. Many zirp era businesses and funds will fail. Less cereal and eggs for the same dollar.

I am really hoping we don’t start to de-anchor from 2% inflation as a result of all this. I wonder how various US infrastructure projects can and will be financed. Reduction in entitlements. Possibly some type of mandate to hold treasuries.

Trump is going for a 1-2 punch. First tariffs and then tax cuts to soften the blow of price increases. It also puts republicans in a choke hold to force the tax cut legislation through, because the fallout of tariffs with no tax cuts would be a death knell for the party.

Maybe in a sim city game this would balance out, but it's a tall order for a real world scenario. Prepare for a bumpy road ahead.

My understandings reading some comments. 1. Prices will increase 2. US will need to manufacture things and they will need a lots of workers. There will be shortage of workers because factory pays minimal wages. 3. Factories will have to offer higher amount of salary that will increase price

Ultimately prices increases for everything and working class will suffer more.

By chance could it be that US is still angry at those British tea tariffs?

Notably none of Russia, Belorussia or North Korea.

Really starting to look like the US senior leadership is compromised

Maybe if the US would clean up their production to what people actually want to buy it would help.

EU does not just randomly target US products. No EU company would be allowed to sell food with the same processes (GMO, prohibited additives, medication traces, ...)

The US is just running into these restrictions more than others because of their (lack of) health and safety standards being at odds with other markets.

So, if the tarrifs lead to the world actually being able to buy something produced in the US with the dollars they were forced to accept, something real besides war equipment and (stale) IP bits, the problem would sort itself.

At least the EU has discovered 'sovereignty', after ignoring it to the hilt for the last 55 years. Ringing up the concept even a year ago was at best met with a shrug and more often with a 'conspiracy theory' label. Sadly I don't even think they mean it, but I would be pleasantly surprised.

Complete tariff list - https://cdn.xcancel.com/pic/orig/3B0CC9EA63B82/media%2FGnjqy...

Looking forward to the retaliatory tariffs, which seems to be only language this administration understands.

I guess it will eventually be the year of FOSS software, I am only waiting for the administration going back to export restrictions in software as well.

One thing I don't understand. US is much bigger than most countries. Why would a country the size of Belgium (~12M people) needs to import as much as it export from the US in order not to have tariffs > 10%?

I think it is a mistake to approach this policy as if it is about other states. One sign that it is not is that it seems to be based on a crude, almost simplistic calculation, something like trade deficit divided by exports, with a ten percent blanket tariff on states with trade surplus or no trade.

Applying the same policy against everyone indicates it's not about them, it's about the usian 'us'. Another way to look at it might be as sanctions, but instead of applying them on another state, applying them at home. And sanctions are usually a means to influence oligarchs and industrialists in a state, which probably means this is a policy directed at those groups in the US.

Why would you want to hurt US industrialists and oligarchs? Because then you can ease their pain in exchange for their loyalty. This is the logic behind castles in Europe. It's a place where the king decides the taxes, taxing illoyal barons or whatever more than loyal ones, and if they militantly disagree, shut the door and have them expend their resources on a hopefully futile siege and then be weakened anyway. Similar policy was common in colonial settings too, if the colony was uppity, tax them harshly.

The world is changing fast anyway, the liberalist hegemony wasn't going to extend far into the future for many reasons, like climate change and the general rise of autocracy worldwide. Having guarantees of loyalty and stability from the state apparatus at home when the world order inevitably crumbles while burning some bridges that would likely fall apart anyway, instead of wasting resources keeping up a charade defending some 'status quo', has a kind of logic too it.

Am I wrong to intuit that tariffs against everyone is less bad than tariffs against a few, because now the rest of the world has even more potentially willing replacement trade partners?

Out of curiosity, would you still need to pay the full tariff, if the cost of an item that was shifted to a token/smart contract, that only enabled a right to purchase, but reduce the device cost to like a dollar or shipping.

It’d be pretty cool if someone derived a legal smart contract solution. One could argue that, the tech enabled products are two things a digital service, and a manufactured product. Those costs could be potentially be seperated.

Then again, I know nothing ^_^

Did the "de minimus" exemption on small packages from China go away, and are all those now going to have to go through customs clearance?

The way I see it, it is more like a very-high initial negotiation position. From here on, each country will be dealt with individually. You accept our terms and get 5% discount on tariff ! Every country has a set of red lines. Fewer the red lines better they will be placed in one-to-one "trade agreements".

EDIT: Someone from white-house explicitly declined tariff to be a negotiation. Next few days will be interesting.

The admin's think is that any negative trade balance is 'exploiting' the US. Logically, the opposite would mean US is exploiting others. So the only 'proper' balance is zero, which requires managed trade. An obvious impossibility in this age. There are ways to rebalance, they require time and patience and thought (the latter seems most lacking).

ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude all recommend the same “nonsense” tariff calculation.

https://www.theverge.com/news/642620/trump-tariffs-formula-a...

If you got time, this is IMO a very good critique of the recent events by senior Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=594yN8rxIJo

This article has more information, such as

> The 10% rate would be collected starting Saturday and the higher rates would be collected beginning April 9.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-liberation-day-2a03...

Side concern: how impactful must the tarrifs be to make a noticable dent in global trend, and a noticable dent on climate change ?

(I mean, it would not be noticed by the USA anymore, since they're not into that whole "science" stuff, but I heard that Europeans have learned how to make a couple satellites on the side.)

what is stopping everybody from exporting to the one guy that knuckles under completely and circumvent the circus?

The US particularly has an extremely large population of men (10s of millions) who don't work. Who knows if they'd be doing "low skill" manufacturing if somebody was around to hire them. But if you actually wanted this to work you would have started by subsidizing american raw materials.

I have a doubt for some years about the US, but never really got good info on it (maybe because it’s a silly doubt).

So, when I sell something to the USA (on eBay) for instance. It doesn’t pay VAT automatically. Do Americans pay VAT when it’s delivered?

But, when an American buys something locally, they do pay VAT, correctly?

Damn it was hard looking at my portfolio today... I hope thing's change in the long run though

and it’s all thanks to a16z and co

So now that the impacted countries will respond with tariffs, are there any chance they might include tariffs on digital services like AWS and Azure, or will they only target physical goods that cross the border?

I don't know how these things usually work in the best cases, and it seems like we're living in exceptionally stupid ones right now.

I'm European. While it's pretty childish to paint the US and the EU as two human being with a "relationship" it's of course pretty jarring to see a country that has for my entire life been the undisputed cultural hegemony simply check out of the world stage and suddenly treat everyone on "their" side (culturally, politically and economically) like an enemy, or at the very least an abuser.

I'm not an economist, but I don't think you have to be one to realize that kicking the entire global economy right between the legs will lead to a recession -- just look at the supply chain issues that echoed for years after Covid, and the massive "quantitative easing" that had to be done to avoid a recession.

The abandonment of trade partnerships I could live with, I'll make it through a recession and every country is free to elect their own politicians and make their own fiscal policies, dumb as they may be; I don't get my "feelings hurt" by Americans wanting to bring back manufacturing jobs -- although I have issues understanding the reasoning.

What worries, and actually saddens me, is the complete doing away with of values, that I do think have existed in the past. The US has never been a beacon of exemplary behavior, and I understand that "nations have no friends, only interests" -- one needs to look no further than the US treatment of the Kurds for an example of this -- but it's unbelievable to me how so many Americans can not see the American self-interest in making Russia pay for what they've done in Ukraine.

Russia has been the main antagonist of the US for the entire post-ww2 era. It's a totalitarian state and an obvious enemy to the US. Invading Ukraine was a massive mistake, and all the richest country in the world had to do to basically risk-free damage their biggest antagonist, was to keep pressing a dollar-button together with the EU. No boots on the ground, no Iraq- or Afghanistan scale disaster, just military and economic support for a country that could end up being an extremely close ally. There is literally zero chance Russia could win a war of attrition with this dynamic. Instead, it's like the Soviet union in the 70s would have given away Cuba for free and instead threatened to invade North Korea.

In the end, I think what makes me uncomfortable is that I truly do not understand what it is that the average American (or voter) wants, because the actions of the US on the international stage makes no sense to me, yet so many Americans seem to cheer it on.

Real problem is budget deficit not trade deficit. Trade deficit matters to countries who can't control the supply of dollar.

The country that prints dollars doesn't have this to worry about.

Main problem is budget deficit and the huge pile of debt.

Trump must be a Russian asset. There can be no other explanation. To weaken NATO, remove U.S. dominance by withdrawing forces from bases worldwide, abandon maritime security, weaken the dollar, and implement hostile economic policies that maintain the dollar as the world’s currency, it seems that the final step of “America First” is to make the dollar the sole currency used only in the United States.

Meanwhile the options level upgrade I asked e*trade for at 8am (before the 4pm announcement) so I can buy puts is still pending at 8am the following day.

TIL one should configure brokerage accounts well in advance of events.

I wonder how long it takes until this trade war moves to the digital stage. It wouldn't be surprising to see that software license fees start increasing if this tit-for-tat continues for much longer

Would be good to know -

Who are the people coming up with these specific rates?

How are they modeling this system?

I'm wondering how this protectionist trend will impact overseas hires. Will US companies continue to hire talent remotely outside of their borders? Will they be incentivized to only hire in the US?

Is there going to be a hearing into the stock transactions of any the cabinet related to this news? Seems to me like some people could make some significant money on information like this.

And as tech guys we always wonder if the world is a better place with AI Agents taking over. My guess is that even gpt-3 would have come up with a better solution than this.

I don't know how I feel about this overall. But I do want to recount something from my childhood.

I'm American. I grew up in the rural Midwest. The truth is that much of this country is a depressing shell of its former self. The town I grew up in is all but dead -- about 12,000 people still live there, though. The nearest big city, previously a hub of manufacturing innovation, has been on a steady decline for decades. Since the 70s, more and more powerful drugs have been flooding into the broad geographic region, decimating entire communities and creating generational cycles of poverty and addiction. It's an absolutely brutal combination that has totally killed almost all innovation and output in huge swathes of this country. Candidly, even if you brought back manufacturing to the area, the local population is so dependent on drugs that you'd struggle to even find workers today.

Today's drugs are so powerful that addicts would rather live in total poverty with drugs daily than have a high-paying job without drugs. Every small business owner in these regions knows this, but the true scope and severity of the problem can otherwise be hard to fully notice and appreciate. It's not possible to operate a small business in these regions without encountering the drug problem on a regular basis.

Do I think tariffs are going to fix this? Honestly, probably not, for the simple reason that Trump is old and won't be here much longer even if he tries to install himself as a dictator. The winning strategy for much of the world is to likely wait this out to some degree -- best case scenario for others is that this will just get reversed or significantly mitigated in 3.5 years, which is the blink of an eye on global timescales.

Nonetheless, my heart goes out to the incredible loss this country has experienced over the last few decades. It's truly heartbreaking and devastating that we've sold out so much of the country for short-term profits to such a degree that we can probably never break out of the cycle without severe pain and sacrifice.

Since the Nixon admin ended the dollar standard the world has basically been pumping the US economy in so many ways, enabling US imperialism.

1)Dollar standard guarantees countries will absorb US budget costs, since they all have to have dollars they have to accept their money devaluing as the US creates artificial inflation.

2)People buying the US stock market due to no fears of free trade, now why would a Chinese or citizens of certain other countries EVER risk buying US stocks? the trade has become so flimsy if even possible anymore, this is a cold war 2.0 at full scale, 54% tariffs on China are not a joke, that almost kills trade entirely, it wouldn't surprise me if China cut relations at some point now or if it keeps getting worse.

The real reason for this tariffs is a very Thucydides trap moment, ALL these tariffs were primarily targeted to China and countries that could potentially be a "threat" again if China were to "fall" economically, example: Japan, SK, India.

Oligarchs are for it because they want to eventually privatize the stock market and go back into a weird pseudo aristocracy, where they control the most powerful corporations in the world, just like back in the 1800s. (notice how Elon keeps SpaceX, Neuralink and others private?) Since the 90s unlike the rest of the world the stock market has halved in size in the US and the trend will keep going until only a couple individuals control the US economy.

This whole plan however has a flaw, it assume China won't eventually pass the US technology wise, but in the event that it happens, what then? will you not trade with China then? if that happens then you become basically North Korea where you are isolated from the latest technology, as the gap grows you get further and further behind in your standard of living. If that scenario happens it would be catastrophic for the US.

So many people around the world have been hurt by the terrorist US government. This lessening legitimacy will hopefully provide them some sort of justice.

Thank you, nonvoters.

The blue collar workers are fine with enduring a bit more pain for a few months or even years as this pans out. Specifically if the investment classes (who will be most harmed) suffer more. Long term goals are other countries lower their tariffs with the US, more US manufacturing, a temporarily devalued US dollar to more easily pay down the national debt, and a renegotiation of the terms by which the US provides military protection to other nations. People who already had little if anything to lose not being able to buy cheap foreign goods they weren't going to purchase anyways for a chance to see if this works out, while seeing the tech bros, academics, and investment bankers squirm, rage, and seethe? Though I'll get down voted into oblivion, the unmitigated despair and outrage on display in these comments just make my smile that much wider.

White collar jobs will be destroyed by AI/AGI. But the US workforce consists of a large portion of white collar workers.

To replace the coming destruction of white collar jobs, manufacturing and industry jobs must be brought back, along with new resource collection initiatives (e.g. mining). They will be needed anyhow to build robots, drones, and other machines to compete with China and India, technologically and militarily.

Globalization will be effectively dead, remaining trust in the petrodollar will be destroyed, therefore so will Pax Americana. Expect more wars.

what would happen to US??? I mean you cant ignore US market right now

so is this enough that factory gonna comeback on US soil??

How can companies, importers and ports even implement these tariffs so quickly?

Do these tariffs go into effect immediately?

One thing we know for sure Trump will never back down or admit he’s wrong. So how to invest in this 4 year regime to survive or even thrive?

No tariffs on Russia, interestingly enough.

All actions by this administration point to Trump working in cahoots with Putin, which we were told was "a hoax".

The White House dressing down of Zelensky, and this week Russias investment chief in the US, and just scads of obvious daily reminders that Trump has no bad words for his pal. Odd.

Tariffs on our friends and allies while he speaks of dropping sanctions on Russia and meanwhile levies no tariffs upon goods from Russia, zero. Odd.

for starters, countries will sell to the UK , which will resell to the US at the lowest tarriff rate. Great for the UK, but stupid.

I try to sympathize with trump's deglobalization agenda but it is probably exactly what it seems to be : a colossal stupidity.

I honestly didn't expect that Americans would simply... choose to be poor.

Mistake in headline: tge article says 54% rate on China. 34 looks like a typo.

I would bet that most of these tarrifs won't exist in <6 months. This reeks negotiation tactics from Trump.

He's been playing this game for 2 months now with Canada and Mexico, and so far he's loosing. US & business are loosing even more.

Keeping this kind of tarrifs, would be absolutely moronic even by Trump standards. That would be economic and financial suicide for the US.

It’s a good time to enroll in grad school and get an economics phd.

I like the idea of tariffs but only if followed with income tax cuts.

The Hawk-Dove game is a wise framework to consider. When both are Hawks, both get harmed. When one is a Hawk and the other a Dove, the Dove gets hurt, and the Hawk laughs. I hope both can be Doves, bringing tariffs to zero and making all great again.

how long before we start seing this reflecting in prices?

Matches the expectation analysts have had from December 2024 [0]

"In the baseline scenario, we assume that the US will raise its effective WATR against Chinese goods by a total of 20 percentage points over 2025-27. We expect the effective tariff rate on China to rise by 5-10 percentage points in 2025, owing to the imposition of tariffs related to fentanyl smuggling disputes. Mr Trump will further phase in tariffs from late 2025 with a wider range of excuses and policy tools, eventually bringing the effective WATR facing Chinese exports to about 30% by 2027."

[0] - https://www.eiu.com/n/the-impact-of-us-tariffs-on-china-thre...

The media has been perpetuating that that tariffs are borne by consumers. This is partially the case, but not entirely: US dairy in Canada is not 3 x the price of Canadian dairy despite the 200% + tariff.

Vietnam and Israel already agreed to remove tariffs on USA imports. Thailand is opening negotiations today.

It’s simple - remove import duty from USA goods and the USA will remove tariffs. Reciprocal trade.

There has been a lot of speculation about why this is being done, given that even a young child could understand that a grocery store is not taking advantage of you when you exchange your money for goods. Some say that it doesn't need an explanation, because the President has so much power that caprice and a little bad advice from a cabinet member is all it takes. That is not a complete picture, though, because power in the US is spread out enough that while only the President needs a reason to do something, many others must have a reason to allow it.

Here's one idea for a "why are his supporters allowing this," sort of explanation. In the US, educated professionals hold way more importance than the global average, due to the US's status as an exporter of services. They tend to vote for liberal (in the European sense) policies, whether Republican or Democrat.

If you wanted to destroy liberalism in the United States, you would have to drastically reduce the importance of higher education and professional labor. This can be done by placing very high taxes on the import of goods and base resources, so that young people who would have become engineers have to become miners, loggers and machinists instead. While I do not think this is true (blue-collar workers do not live up to the ultraright's "noble savage" sort of fantasy about their preferences and are actually just like anyone else... but if you're an elite you don't know that firsthand), it sounds plausible that enough of the people who are important for a season might believe it, and support it as a plan to remake American culture, not in their image, but in the image of a fantasy they share.

This works together with the strategic need to decouple from trade with a country before invading them, dramatically increasing the number of opportunities for self-aggrandizement through the threatening of war, high-stakes diplomacy, negotiations over individual prices... which also offer some respite for elected officials who would otherwise take an unending beating in the news over consumer data.

You'd think that experts before this time would have considered this already, and rejected it.

Every single move by Trump towards the world economy has always been a bad one. Too bad to be mistakes.

They're not listening to the experts, and it's intentional.

I am not an economist but I see two things 1) usa has a huge debt, 2) this feels a lot like VAT applied on a federal level, without calling it VAT. Ok "VAT on imports". Why not.

Obviously this is being sold as a trading surplus BS, etc, but if you look at EU, the surplus is ridiculously low when you consider goods and services (something like 50B).

I don't think it's the worst idea ever, I just dislike the useless hatred that this guy is spreading around and all the idiots believing him. But hey if he hadn't done it, people would have said he is a socialist :)

we've spent the last 50 years basing our currency in foreign manufacturing, seems like a good way to tank the dollar to me

Can this be an arbitrage opportunity?

Wild

"Reduces trillions of foreign debt, also causes double that in inflation"

Naive question of a foreigner: I see a lot of approval on the youtube comments to Trump's liberation day speech and over at twitter. Now the consensus on HN is diametrically opposed. My question: why do some people think that this is a good idea? Why is there such a huge rift in US society and how do you plan to bridge this gap?

So no soft landing anymore

Russia defeated the UK with Brexit.

Russia defeated the US with Trump's policies.

Where's the internal opposition?

How did the value added tax (which is paid by all companies including domestic ones) become the same as import duty?

The only way that you can make that tariffs charged to the USA is the level Trump claims (ie. 39% in the EU) is if you include VAT.

The attempts to force a mineral deal on to Ukraine, and also the attempts to get hold of Greenland, start to make sense if you assume that the Trump administration is preparing for a permanent global trade war. Higher costs for mineral imports would hurt the US economy the most.

cui bono? It is clear that the american taxpayer is not profiting from this but neither seem the billionaires. So who does?

Are we gone flag this one too? Or just all the articles chronicling certain crypto invested tech billionaires pushing in this direction?

Nasdaq composite is down 5.6% at the time of writing this comment.

I honestly think Trump is doing this just to enrich himself and his friends. Stock market crashes always end up transfering wealth from the poor to the rich.

Number one rule of combat is that you need a very good homegrown industrial base. In order to be great country it needs to be combat-ready. If you apply that lens, what Trump is doing will start making sense. He is trying to revert globalisation and free trade in order to make the USA manufacturing superpower again. Not sure whether this will be successful or not, as China already has an order of magnitude advantage in manufacturing.

All the gigabrains trying to be economists ITT don't understand this is a political move for Trump's base. It is not about what is technically best or the most logical according to the academics. It is an emotional decision more than anything. It stems from the working class in America being given cheap crap from Asia that barely works in exchange for shipping the good jobs overseas to the lowest bidder.

The working class has enough TVs, iPhones, and toys. We want secure housing, good education, healthy food, and an opportunity for promotion in life. Those things can only come with good jobs that are accessible to the whole working class, not just the well educated who make up most of the service economy.

Can't we sue the President or something? What if he made it like 200% to really try to fuck the country over?

There's a lot of speculation that the Switch 2 would be atleast hundred dollars less without this nonsense. The Japan exclusive version of the Switch 2 seems to support this, with it's restrictions that insulate Japan, support the notion that English actually isn't needed in Japan (nor any other languages), by releasing a version of the Switch 2 that is far cheaper but only allows you to play games in Japanese.

Trump is going at this with a big ask. I anticipate that these percentage numbers will settle much lower in the end.

Just leaving this here from 2023...

"In America, estimates say that Chinese suppliers make up 70-80 percent of Walmart’s merchandise" - https://retailwire.com/discussion/walmarts-open-call-continu...

It is not a conspiracy anymore. Problem - Reaction - Solution. Start a war in the middle of Europe and Gaza. Tariffs. Recession - Panic - Digital ID, Social scoring, CDBC, Digital dollar, AI governance, tech feudalism. That's all folks. :)

I am not a specialist; but isn't that the most "green" policy ever ? I mean:

- Tariffs will increase the price of virtually everything -> By law of supply and demand; global trade and production will decrease, leading to less CO2 production

- This effect will be stronger for stuff coming from far away (little for Canda / Mexico; more for EU; huge for China). So companies will have a tendency to rely on local producer (even at a higher price). This again will lower transoceanic shipping. Other countries will probably retaliate so this effect will go both for inbound and outbound shipping. Again; less CO2 production

- More money for the government. There more stuff you buy, the more tariffs you pay, so rich pay more than poors. Which again is what green parties are looking for.

I might be very wrong about this; I am not a Trump supporter in any way - and to be honest I ma not a fan of green parties either - but my initial reaction is that if we look at the conclusion of the policies; the results are looking to align quite well. Of course the surrounding storytelling is extremely different; which puzzles me a bit.

Walton family, owners of Walmart, run the company by exploiting the labor force and social safety nets like welfare. Walmart is the largest company with the most employees on some sort of welfare. Tax payers are propping up their stock. This allows them to retain more of the profits versus sharing them and removing their employees from the welfare system. None of their listed actions have to do anything with globalization to retain their wealth.

Taxing the wealth and redistributing helps. Saw this in the 1950-1960s with building of new infrastructure to replace the aging or expand the supply to offset the demand. Using the money to pay for new training so lost jobs can be replaced where jobs are needed helps too. Even the simple act of ending starvation in children increases their intellect for the next generation and helps support the future. This method will never be perfect. These are band-aid solutions that have actual results.

Reality is that the inequality is a social problem masquerading as an economic problem. Society has moved to from respecting empathy and humanity to respecting greed and power. People mind set is anchored to, “That person is quite wealthy so they should be smart and some god must love them for it.” Reality is that person exploited a labor force to maximize their wealth. They are not more intelligent nor does some god like them better. Look at how many rich people fell for Elizabeth Holmes’s blood testing scam while a person that actually studies blood understands parts per millions in looking for test markers. A vial of blood or more is needed versus a drop.

Want to fix the system? Start looking at the wealthy with disgust and damnation. Demonize them for being the driving force in economic inequality. Move back to honoring and respecting empathy and humanity. Real intelligent people have empty. It lets them be placed in the shoes of others when they will never can experience it themselves.

I would also caption the wealth gab in the USA as modern day segregation. The world happiness index shows that equalizing the rich and poor creates a better sociality. Respecting the wealth and demonizing the poor is the complete inverse of a better society and maximizes soar.

PS. Why do people think bulling trade partners will be beneficial? Say you are store owner or product producer and you keep trying to bully me to by your products. I will not and go the competition, even with higher costs or deem the product or service not worth it. I already started boycotting USA bourbon manufacturers with their arrogant and bully statements during the Tariff Wars.

Do good, demonize extreme wealth. Irony is so many GOOD Christians even ignore Jesus’s statement on this matter with pretending Matthew 19:24 doesn’t exist.

disastrous

Just like Trump said, he could shoot someone on the street and the bootlickers here would still justify it.

Pushing Vietnam into Chinas arms I see. Oh America.

If there's one upside to Trump, it's that he might turn a lot of left-wingers into passionate free traders. Who would have thought.

Americans would want to have high value-added activities done in the USA, and low value-added activities done abroad. Tariffs are being marketed as trying to achieve that goal.

The five strategic areas/sectors identified as a priority for repatriating activity into the USA are pharmaceuticals, forestry, steel/aluminum, automobiles, and semiconductors.

How is forestry a high value added activity? Are we including furniture manufacturing, or maybe residential housing construction in that sector?

Are we including all of the byproducts of steel and aluminum in the steel/aluminum strategic area? I assume it's not just the raw materials?

Is software included as part of the semiconductor sector?

The bull case for the USA is 1. Reshoring actually happens 2. Other countries actually drop their tariffs/trade barriers 3. A new golden age of Pax Americana/free trade ensues, with Americans exporting their high value manufactured goods worldwide

The bear case for the USA is 1. Republicans get hammered in the midterms 2. Entire world raises tariffs against the USA 3. American factories close en masse 4. USA dollar is devalued and reserve currency status is threatened

Historically, the pattern seems to be: 1. Acquire global empire 2. Promote free trade inside that empire, benefiting high-value added domestic activities and limiting high-value added activities in areas outside the core of the empire 3. Run out of money due to the costs of fighting wars to maintain the empire 4. Military power declines 5. Through one or more wars, another power takes over

Proponents of tariffs argue that Trump is trying to take us back from Step 3 - run out of money to Step 2 - promote free trade. In order to understand this thinking, it's important to understand that your empire's colonies aren't supposed to be allowed to promote their own industries and limit free trade by enacting duties on your own high value exports. To enforce free trade, you then fight wars, you can send gunboats (Opium Wars) or invade (Gulf War). But you can't invade and fight everyone, and rising powers protect their own industries through various measures as they build up.

But power is most powerful when it's not used. The threat of action is much more powerful than the actual action. That's why I'm more than surprised and not too happy that tariffs on a large scale have actually gone forward. Ideally, the threat of tariffs would be used to actually cause other countries to drop their tariffs, and free trade ensues. I'm not sure about historical examples of this working for getting other countries to drop their tariffs. You could certainly try suppress the growth of other countries, I'm not sure how well that works in a global marketplace scenario.

The flip side of that is that if you threaten for too long and never actually do anything you may lose some credibility. But I don't think anyone is arguing that the Americans are gaining credibility by enacting tariffs. It's a big world, and unless Americans have the power to influence their trading partners not to trade with others, then everyone can just trade with each other instead of trading with the Americans.

I'm taking bets, do you think the tariffs will:

1. be rescinded/paused in [0,2) days;

2. be rescinded/paused in [2,4) days;

3. be rescinded/paused in [4,7] days;

4. not be rescinded/paused.

I guess I didn’t want to buy any new tech anyways.

Thanks Tim Apple.

If Paul Graham is calling out conservatives for being driven stuff other than data, then you know people are losing it lol.

Usually on here you see a bunch of apologia for when republicans do inane economic policy and I am not seeing that bs on here for once...

Guess Trump really wasn't the crypto, AI, chips, wtv you wanna say president lmao. But nah all the naysayers just had TDS.

Guess Wall St and others are going to have to re-learn that sound policy beats vibes.

25% on South Korea, 32% on Taiwan, 36% on Thailand, 46% on Vietnam

What a massive and moronic blow to our soft power.

[flagged]

This historical period will be remembered by being a cause for legislation to introduce strict testing for mental illness in government positions. Ask any psychologist and it’s clear what it is, but they won’t say it publicly because of Goldwater “rule”. fact is they have the most dangerous and destructive mental illness known, and they captured the power exactly because of their disorderly mindset. Yet for months and years everyone is observing and discussing what people with a serious mental illness are doing when they are given highest post in power and unlimited money.

can't wait to read all the bad HN takes on this one

Why haven't we questioned the asymmetric high tariffs imposed by the EU on America for decades?

The EU imposed a 10% tariff on US cars for decades while the US only imposed 2.5% on the EU. And this happened while the EU exerted a significant trade surplus against the US on automobiles.

I don't advocate trade wars, but I can understand the case for some rebalancing, given the historic context. Hopefully Trump will only use tariffs as a negotiating tool, and they will soon be lifted. He's a dealmaker.

I understand the "and 10% on everyone else" part of the tariffs.

Do you think the media is too dumb to understand that, or are they just playing games when they point out a 10% tariff in someone who does not export to the US?

The next phase is likely geopolitical. Countries will begin negotiating directly with the U.S. administration to secure exemptions or reductions in tariffs. In effect, it’s the formation of a new American sphere of influence / empire.

I'm surprised by how many concerns there are here related to how the tariff amounts were calculated.

It seems like they used a pretty simple algorithm to do it. Isn't that a good thing? Countries were treated the same and the tariff was decided primarily by the trade imbalance (with a minimum of 10%). Would we rather them use a combination of completely incomprehensible calculations and backroom deals?

Its open season for debating whether tariffs will work, or even what the underlying motivations are. Attacking the use of a simple algorithm across the board just feels lazy and either emotionally or politically charged.

If we could manage the country using HN experts, we'd be incredibly prosperous. People here know so much more than the actual professionals in the government.

Only a few people pointed out the obvious. Trump aims to bring everyone to table to renegotiate global commerce. Every country's economic strategy today is to have positive trade with the US and that is unsustainable.

A risky tactic, but refreshing after decades of the old tired policies that brought us the collapse of parts of US manufacturing and so much pain during COVID due to a complete dependence on foreign suppliers for... Well, everything.

I don't know if this will work. But I know what we had before wasn't working. We'll see.

Current EU tariffs on US goods...

  Product Category              Tariff Rate
  ----------------------------- --------------
  Dairy Products (e.g., cheese, butter)             Up to 50%
  Processed Foods (e.g., chocolate, confectionery)  30-40%
  Alcoholic Beverages (e.g., whiskey, bourbon)      25%
  Steel and Aluminum Products                       25%
  Automobiles                                       10%
  Industrial Goods                                  5-10%