News Tech giants call Trump tariffs 'big headache

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I think that's the point of tariffs. They are meant to inconvenience both the consumer and producer of foreign goods, trying to steer people to produce and consume domestic goods, which it can tax, while collecting tax revenue on foreign purchases. The government wins either way. Usually, governments impose tariffs on goods that already have substantial domestic production, like car parts and wine, not things like computer chips.

I don't agree with heavy-handed governance tactics, like tariffs. Government meddling in markets tends to lead to black markets and crime rings because people are just that way. They want what they want and they will find a way. That said, tariffs are actually very common across the world. We just don't hear about them very often because of political politeness.
 
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I think that's the point of tariffs. They are meant to inconvenience both the consumer and producer of foreign goods, trying to steer people to produce and consume domestic goods, which it can tax, while collecting tax revenue on foreign purchases
The producer is not inconvenienced by tariffs all that much.
A government can collect revenue from sales of a foreign goods within its own borders with.... a sales tax.
The only persons who get the short end of the stick are the consumers.
And it's a double whammy if the parts are purchased abroad, but are assembled in the USA because the factory/builder is going to pass the extra cost on consumers.

Lastly, it doesn't help that the implementation is bonkers and changes by the day.
 
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US labor wages is orders of magnitude more costly than other countries labor wages, so the tariff needs to be very high to force manufacturing to return to US, otherwise they just move to Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc... You still have a trade deficit, just moving it to a different low-cost supplier, doesn't solve the job issue.

Also, it takes on average 1 year to build a factory, and 2-3 years to scale up production. Trump will be long gone before you even remotely see the benefit.
 
The tariffs bring financial pain, higher costs, and uncertainty - in the short term. But they also bring back jobs that were never coming back any other way to America. Such is the deal.

I just wish I had predicted people would pearl-clutch in reaction to the uncertainty and I could have profited more off the stock market drop!
 
A government can collect revenue from sales of a foreign goods within its own borders with.... a sales tax.
Yes, but why settle for a sales tax when you can have that and payroll, property, corporate, etc. taxes or the tariff on top of it? Like I said, It is garbage market meddling to appear virtuous to a voting base. All presidents do it and by some strange luck, their peer-group happens to get rich in the process. Its just louder now, so we're forced to be more aware of our government's misdeeds. I just wish people would be more upset in the off-season (when their preferred guy is in office) instead of cheerleading the consolidation of power that will inevitably be used to their displeasure during the next cycle.
 
But they also bring back jobs that were never coming back any other way to America. Such is the deal.
That's the thing though, unless you have a person and party in power longer than 4-8 years, you simply cannot push that massive a change. So, what is far more likely to happen is that we get hit with the tariff penalty now for basically nothing.

And if you think people are going to put up with significantly higher prices for these onshore products you weren't paying attention to what caused the last administration's downfall.
 
"The US government's unpredictability flummoxes many of the tech top dogs."

There is currently no US government. It's like you take out all the top admins of a company and replace them with some monkeys that just destroy the office's furniture and computers. During the first Trump's term, the monkeys were being kept in cages and watched by more or less responsible people. This time around they are completely loose and free to do anything they want, and after only two months it's already a nightmare.
 
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The tariff issue is sadly a necessary one to deal with in order to avoid hollowing out the economy. A country cannot rely on an entirely intellectual property economy as during global economic turmoil, those aspects of an economy easily crash.

A leading cause of trade issues where the US is largely unable to effectively make things locally and export them, is due much of the rest of the world establishing various unions and trade blocks which allows them to effectively establish high tariffs with countries like the US, but low or no tariffs with their friends. With an international market environment like that, regardless of labor costs or with the current push to match corporate tax rates with many European countries, if a company wants to expand beyond the US market, then they will be strongly incentivized to move as much of their operation outside of the US as possible, especially if the US maintains low or no import tariffs, as that will allow them to still have cheap access to the US market, while having lower tariffs with many other nations. It is overall a convoluted web of loopholes where they can still technically comply with WTO rules while maintaining tariffs rated that those countries will find otherwise offensive if imposed on them. The loudest international voices opposing the move, are often the ones with very high base tariff rates and numerous regional agreements and international pacts. This leads to heated emotions as it means those nation cliques will end up experiencing their CET being imposed upon them by the world's largest importer.

If the US implements a policy if reciprocal tariffs, then those countries that like to export to the US, but want to discourage imports from the US that will compete with their local industries, they will be pressured to lower their tariffs in a way where they have no leg to stand on to complain, this is why the criticism of the policy avoids going into specifics, and is often just emotional expressions of anger, with no self awareness, as the nature of the policy, puts the US tariff rate entirely in the hands of the foreign country, since the foreign tariffs are simply being mirrored. Things get muddied though when the idea of it leads to retaliation, which leads to many new tariffs that are not reciprocal in nature.

Outside of situations like this, tariffs have one other protective function, which is to prevent nation state market manipulation. For example, there are actions that are hostile in nature but have a short term positive impact on the target. For example, suppose one nation sells a refined material to another nation at well below market value, e.g., refined material at almost the same cost as the unrefined material. In such a case, all of the buyers will jump at the opportunity to purchase cheap refined materials; often never passing those savings onto the consumer, and instead pocketing additional profits. In cases such as those, often the hostile foreign actor will subsidize the their local industry to allow it to sell items at below cost prices. Since governments have deep pockets, a dumping operation by a nation state can be maintained for quite a long time, while a private company in the target country will eventually go bankrupt. In situations like that, the hostile country then will switch to charging well above market rates and make back all of the subsidies and vastly profit.
 
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The tariffs bring financial pain, higher costs, and uncertainty - in the short term. But they also bring back jobs that were never coming back any other way to America. Such is the deal.

I just wish I had predicted people would pearl-clutch in reaction to the uncertainty and I could have profited more off the stock market drop!
I think someone has to do this in order to prevent jobs from flowing out of the country. Big corporate have raked in a lot of money outsourcing work to cheaper locations. So while people can buy these products cheaper due to the lower cost, it also means less work in the country since more and more jobs will start "leaking" to these cheaper countries. This is exactly what we can observe for decades.
 
WSJ called part of this the dumbest trade war in history, and that was before the on/off insanity + escalation.
Rupert Murdoch (FOX) owns this outlet, so if that doesn't say all that is needed, I don't know what does.

Also in the tech-sphere context, if we're about bringing jobs back, why try to kill the CHIPS Act?
It's specifically intended for this purpose and was a bi-partisan response to supply chain issues from Covid.
 
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The tariff issue is sadly a necessary one to deal with in order to avoid hollowing out the economy. A country cannot rely on an entirely intellectual property economy as during global economic turmoil, those aspects of an economy easily crash.

A leading cause of trade issues where the US is largely unable to effectively make things locally and export them, is due much of the rest of the world establishing various unions and trade blocks which allows them to effectively establish high tariffs with countries like the US, but low or no tariffs with their friends. With an international market environment like that, regardless of labor costs or with the current push to match corporate tax rates with many European countries, if a company wants to expand beyond the US market, then they will be strongly incentivized to move as much of their operation outside of the US as possible, especially if the US maintains low or no import tariffs, as that will allow them to still have cheap access to the US market, while having lower tariffs with many other nations. It is overall a convoluted web of loopholes where they can still technically comply with WTO rules while maintaining tariffs rated that those countries will find otherwise offensive if imposed on them. The loudest international voices opposing the move, are often the ones with very high base tariff rates and numerous regional agreements and international pacts. This leads to heated emotions as it means those nation cliques will end up experiencing their CET being imposed upon them by the world's largest importer.

If the US implements a policy if reciprocal tariffs, then those countries that like to export to the US, but want to discourage imports from the US that will compete with their local industries, they will be pressured to lower their tariffs in a way where they have no leg to stand on to complain, this is why the criticism of the policy avoids going into specifics, and is often just emotional expressions of anger, with no self awareness, as the nature of the policy, puts the US tariff rate entirely in the hands of the foreign country, since the foreign tariffs are simply being mirrored. Things get muddied though when the idea of it leads to retaliation, which leads to many new tariffs that are not reciprocal in nature.

Outside of situations like this, tariffs have one other protective function, which is to prevent nation state market manipulation. For example, there are actions that are hostile in nature but have a short term positive impact on the target. For example, suppose one nation sells a refined material to another nation at well below market value, e.g., refined material at almost the same cost as the unrefined material. In such a case, all of the buyers will jump at the opportunity to purchase cheap refined materials; often never passing those savings onto the consumer, and instead pocketing additional profits. In cases such as those, often the hostile foreign actor will subsidize the their local industry to allow it to sell items at below cost prices. Since governments have deep pockets, a dumping operation by a nation state can be maintained for quite a long time, while a private company in the target country will eventually go bankrupt. In situations like that, the hostile country then will switch to charging well above market rates and make back all of the subsidies and vastly profit.
Finally!
To those dropping one line sentences screaming "Tariffs are bad" should really go do some research especially if you dont know what the purpose, cause and benefits are.

Screaming the bad orange man and his boy Elon are bad for the US is not very productive and meaningless, and usually ends up with a mod lock. He is here for four years, get used to it, it may turn out better than you think.

Why do you all think Foxconn started a manufacturing plant here and then gave up on it?
 
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Finally!
To those dropping one line sentences screaming "Tariffs are bad" should really go do some research especially if you dont know what the purpose, cause and benefits are.

Screaming the bad orange man and his boy Elon are bad for the US is not very productive and meaningless, and usually ends up with a mod lock. He is here for four years, get used to it, it may turn out better than you think.

Why do you all think Foxconn started a manufacturing plant here and then gave up on it?
He could just tax the 1%… most of the countries money is tied up in the stock market gaining “value” and not in circulation.
 
It does not solve the problems. If you want to trade, you need products trade partners actually want. And you need friendly relations and mutual trust (which Trump just utterly destroyed). Being an a-hole is a sure way to kill your business. Something Trump never learned.
 
I think that's the point of tariffs. They are meant to inconvenience both the consumer and producer of foreign goods, trying to steer people to produce and consume domestic goods, which it can tax, while collecting tax revenue on foreign purchases. The government wins either way. Usually, governments impose tariffs on goods that already have substantial domestic production, like car parts and wine, not things like computer chips.

I don't agree with heavy-handed governance tactics, like tariffs. Government meddling in markets tends to lead to black markets and crime rings because people are just that way. They want what they want and they will find a way. That said, tariffs are actually very common across the world. We just don't hear about them very often because of political politene

I think that's the point of tariffs. They are meant to inconvenience both the consumer and producer of foreign goods, trying to steer people to produce and consume domestic goods, which it can tax, while collecting tax revenue on foreign purchases. The government wins either way. Usually, governments impose tariffs on goods that already have substantial domestic production, like car parts and wine, not things like computer chips.

I don't agree with heavy-handed governance tactics, like tariffs. Government meddling in markets tends to lead to black markets and crime rings because people are just that way. They want what they want and they will find a way. That said, tariffs are actually very common across the world. We just don't hear about them very often because of political politeness.
I wonder what you mean by your comment. Do you or don't you agree with tariffs?
If the latter, what is the reason? Because other countries do it too?

I live in Europe and won't experience any impact. No price hikes on MacBooks, phones, etc. We might even get cheaper stuff from China when they 'dump' it in Europe.
Just puzzled by the American willingness to pay a LOT more money for mundane articles like computers and cars.
 
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