HN Reader

In the end it's the biggest leopard ate my face moment ever:

China has very high growth momentum that surpasses American living standards soon, and not long before it will surpass American security standards too. China's purchasing power is probably more comfortable than most western countries, with extensive housing and high speed rail and electric cars etc. When a country becomes rich, inevitably other countries ask for their help. That's why China's growth must be curbed, fast > tariff them to their death or so. But I really don't think it will work at all. And personally I don't even think it's a good idea at all to begin with.

In NYC, for the first 6 months of 2025, 994 new private sector jobs were created [1]. During the same period last year, there were 66,000 new jobs created.

Higher cost of doing business from tariffs has frozen hiring. With a frozen job market, there’s less revenue coming in.

NYC is a leading indicator for the rest of the country.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/nyregion/nyc-jobs.html

FWIW, we’ve been affected by the tariffs (10% for now; we import mainly from Vietnam and Thailand at this point). Did our second price increase a few weeks ago. We’ll probably test out how much the market will bear because operating in this market really demands a risk premium. So far it’s not as crazy as the pandemic supply chain crisis, but it’s close. The most insane ending to all of this that I can imagine is that the tariffs get conclusively ruled unconstitutional and all the tariffs payed get returned. Would be a huge wealth transfer from consumers to businesses.

> Repricing, though, isn’t as easy as changing a tag—in part because suppliers and big-box stores are engaged in an epic tussle over who will pay what.

> Retailers, including Lowe’s and Home Depot, buy Thompson Traders’ wares and set the retail price themselves. And they have been reluctant to pay Thompson Traders more.

It seems like this sort of scenario would benefit from some kind of risk protection, like insurance, or a futures market

If you listen to any oil and gas experts and ask them which president was the best for the oil and gas industry, do you know who they'll say? Trump? Absolutely not. Bush? No. It's Obama.

Why? Because policy was stable during Obama. Whatever the policy is, if it's predictable, businesses can work around that. This was a real problem during the Biden term when there was constant policy shifts.

We're seeing that now with the tariffs. The problem isn't the tariffs so much as it is the uncertainty. They change from day to day.

One might be tempted to think the administration is intentionally trying to crash the economy. No, they just have absolutely no idea what they're doing and there's a dementia patient in charge nobody can so no to.

I'm really hoping the SCOTUS wrecks his whole plan on this. We've had enough kings down through history. We'll know once and for all if they are truly sold out or not when they make this decision because clearly he has been violating the Constitution for months now with these executive orders

I don't understand why there isn't a market or company that develop already to move all items to low tariff area before sending to US.

I know that manufacturing things here in Europe, there already used to be round trip by airplane and co to try to lower VAT paid on purchases to the maximum.

Think about the fact that inflation was effectively killed and rates were set to come down by 2%. Then this clown comes in and does this. Inexcusable. Biggest economic policy blunder in history. Don’t let sky high stock market fool you.

As well as big business, this is just shutting down or radically altering many small industries. FIlmmakers, authors/book publishers, musicians etc. are negatively incentivized to ship product to the US, so good luck if you are an American consumer with niche cultural hobbies or a specialized importer who does a lot of small-batch orders.

Because the cost of goods continues to fluctuate wildly due to ongoing tariff wrangling that nobody asked for or needed.

Also farmers can’t sell anything because retaliation has destroyed international demand (I’d say decimated but it’s way worse than reduction by a tenth)

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Haven't tariffs been paused since they've been announced?

Trump is even using Tariff threats to strong-arm other countries to retreat on their climate goals [1]. If the Supreme Court agrees that the Trump can do this then that means we have a dictator — one that will do way more harm than the one in North Korea.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-internation...

Funny how there is a post-it with a password glued to the screen of the computer in the lede image, now in plain sight for thousands of readers.

Somebody give my man Trump a fiddle.

Spending nights figuring out which tariffs apply to which imported goods is surely a well spent time for any business owner.

Yeah, complicated, costly and always changing regulations are great for doing business... /s

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I kind of welcome this. Corporations panicking and being afraid to raise prices too much, and perhaps having to take a loss because they're essentially giving away product, is the LEAST that could happen to them after their naked and abusive COVID-era gouging.

EDIT: You had years of corporate stimulus and ZIRP expanding M2, but the inflation floodgates only opened after a paltry return of a small fraction of the real wage losses the middle class and lower sustained over that period? Live by the macro grift, die by the macro grift. And I wrote-in Bernie both times.

Now that I think about it, creating confusion and uncertainty is actually a pretty effective move if you want to play protectionism. Any "known" tariff would just be paid as far as still profitable.

So rise up the prices to build a buffer war chest and strangle the economy

80 percent plus of economic activity is domestic: all its inputs are entirely unaffected by tariffs.

This is a Premier Cru Red Herring.

This is how you know most economic theory is a total lie, if it wasn't they would just "price what people are willing to pay" and be forced to eat the loss. Is that cause copper bathtubs are a special item or are you just making up more rules after the fact to patch holes in your leaky theory.

Clutching at straws but one silver lining from the accelerationist perspective is that the global economic damage of US Tariff War 2.0. will speed up the adoption of AI / automation. Payroll is one of the most expensive, high risk and illiquid commitments to the organisational budget, so the idea of replacing it with dial up / dial down Saas subscriptions will move from 'good idea' to 'business critical'

The effect will probably be similar to Covid / Remote Work - marginal idea until an externality made it essential. Does mean sh1t tons more unemployment though, so like I said, straws being clutched

I’d like to lay out an argument about why tariffs are good.

The only businesses that are derailing with tariffs issues are those that import goods to sell. The argument against tariffs is that they make goods more expensive.

Of course, this argument is true. But that’s not the end of the story.

Because prices are higher for imported goods, demand for domestically produced goods increases. This increase in demand leads to increased demand for labor, which can increase wages. Additionally, the money multiplier effect is higher when money is kept domestically vs paid to offshore parties.

Finally, I think it’s ridiculous to expect that this nation can maintain its wealth without producing anything. We act as if the producers of food are fungible cogs that businesses can swap out. But I think we’ll find that management is the fungible part. Anyone can sell a quality good. Knowing how to make it is what’s important. I’m surprised that mindset doesn’t resonate more with software engineers.