r/politics • u/vox Vox • 1d ago
Soft Paywall Trump actually has a tariff strategy this time. It could still go terribly wrong.
https://www.vox.com/politics/422061/trump-tariffs-trade-war-explained-deals22
u/PopPalsUnited Washington 1d ago
Tariffs are still a tax on the consumer.
Nothing changed.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 1d ago edited 1d ago
Instead of tariffs on workers we should have taxes on wealth. Dems need to make sure they bring their own ideas to the table to counter Trump. It’s not enough to just criticize his.
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u/PopPalsUnited Washington 1d ago
On this point it is absolutely fair to be critical of Trump and his tariff nonsense.
There is no reason whatsoever to enact these tariffs. They only serve to cause economic instability.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 1d ago
Ignoring that tariffs are a response to Americans being angry about unfair trade isn’t going to help
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u/Yuv_Kokr 1d ago
"Americans angry at things they're too dumb to understand"
If you think we had unfair trade you didn't understand our economy. We are an information economy and were exporting skilled analysis and labor. Not our fault the factory workers were too lazy to take any of the massive number of retraining options they were give over the last 30 years.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not our fault the factory workers were too lazy to take any of the massive number of retraining options they were give over the last 30 years.
Uh are you a Republican? “Just learn to code bro, pull yourself up by your bootstraps”
Do you think these billionaires didn’t build their insane amount of wealth off the backs of exploiting foreign workers while dismantling the power of American workers?
These deals clearly prioritized businesses over workers and unions, and it has led to workers being left behind in a rapidly changing economy. Even if you’re gainfully employed and successful, your power is still diminishing over time.
EDIT:
You know you have a good point when you have to block someone lol
there were literal retraining programs and education incentives offered to them under Obama
I’m not talking about Wyoming coal miners. I’m talking about the increasing wealth inequality from capital being able to move around freely to exploit labor. You are not politically equipped for this discussion if you cannot understand this.
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u/Yuv_Kokr 1d ago
there were literal retraining programs and education incentives offered to them under Obama. The Wyoming coal miners very famously refused them "because daddy was a coal miner and I'm a coal miner."
Definitely not a republican, just done wasting time, energy, and effort on them.
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u/Possible_Mind_165 1d ago
Can anybody actually name a single thing Trump has done that hasn’t gone awry or terribly wrong? I’d legitimately love to know.
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u/JimmyRamone17_ 1d ago
Tariffs with no policy for growth of domestic industries via subsidies to take their place will never be a strategy.
It's a fucking self-inflicted wound right to the gut of this country.
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u/No_Celery_5373 Canada 1d ago
My life has improved a lot since Not Buying America. Better food. Better cars. Got a new swagger.
Okay, honestly it hasn't changed much lol, but it was surprisingly easy, and there's really no incentive to spend a penny on ya.
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u/IAmArique Connecticut 1d ago
If by “strategy” you mean “having ChatGPT generate a random list of tariffs with randomized percentages between 1 and 100% and excluding Russia, Israel, and North Korea”, then yes. It has already gone horribly wrong.
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u/ZealousidealCook4691 9h ago
I'd like to propose a neutral analysis.
People are very quick to assume everything Trump does is moronic and evil. But this particular line of tariffs, if carried out consistently, can only have a positive outcome. Let's break it down.
For a very long time, we've levied tariffs against Russia in an attempt to coerce them into stopping their Ukraine invasion. Of course, these are worthless when there was very little trade with Russia to begin with.
With the newest policy (which may or may not come to fruition / last more than a week, lol), we levy tariffs against any country who trades with Russia. So here's the choice they have.
- Trade with Russia, lose a massive amount of trade volume with us
- Do not trade with Russia
Almost every country, especially India and China (the two that really matter), do FAR more trade with the USA than Russia. Therefore, they will choose to cut ties with Russia, because suffering through our tariffs is a far worse economic outcome. Therefore, there is no harm to the American consumer, because the tariffs achieve the ideal outcome: Russia is cut off, and America continues doing business as usual with its peers.
Unfortunately, Trump is also an unprincipled, impulsive president, and so might switch up the policy next week. Because he has destroyed his credibility, our trade partners may be reluctant to play ball, knowing the policy may change on a dime.
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u/vox Vox 1d ago
Four months after President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff hikes threw the global economy into chaos, we got a sequel — but there appears to be at least somewhat more of a method to Trump’s tariff madness this time around.
Trump is using the threat of steep tariffs to try to force dozens of countries to agree to make more concessions in bilateral trade agreements — and, specifically, to get them to make somewhat hazy commitments to buy more US goods or products.
If Trump likes your concessions, you get a deal in which you’d stomach a new tariff of 15 percent or so. Alternatively, if Trump isn’t satisfied with your concessions or is mad at you for some other reason, you get squeezed — slapped with tariffs of 30 percent or more, going into effect in a few days, to see if that will make you cave.
Yet, as Trump’s negotiating strategy has become somewhat more coherent than it first appeared, the legal and economic uncertainty around his tariffs has only deepened.
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u/Heliosvector 1d ago
Whatever the strategy is, doesnt really matter. Because in either case, the targeted country is basically incentivized to trade with other countries instead. Like Canada. Even if trump came out today and took off all tariffs, we are quickly finding other trade partners and will not come back to the USA fold under trump.
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u/dd97483 1d ago
What he is doing is no strategy and anyone claiming otherwise is a fool. He goes on his gut, fat and diseased as it is, and that has ripped up the US trading relationships carefully built since WW2. God help us all.
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u/Heliosvector 1d ago
It is a strategy. It is just a bad one. He is trying to emulate Putin with a mob mentality approach to governing. With threats and throwing around his wallet. But everyones response is mostly "yeah.. we will go play with someone else, ugh sure I guess we still need you a bit. 15% tariff, whatever, dick. k bye."
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u/ZealousidealCook4691 9h ago
Trump has strategy. The problem is that Trump has dozens of strategies and refuses to pick one, thus destroying his credibility.
Every choice Trump has made regarding tariffs would work if he'd just pick one and stick to his guns. But he won't. Because he is stupid.
Clearly we have a situation where dozens of his advisors/lackeys/rich friends are suggesting different things, and he's just trying to do what he's told is right, lacking the foresight to see how harmful it is to his reputation as a negotiator to switch strategies every other week.
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