Public sentiment is predominantly critical of Trump's trade policies, particularly tariffs, with strong concerns that they lead to increased consumer prices and lack effectiveness in addressing trade imbalances. Many commenters express skepticism about the benefits for American industries, fear economic harm, and advocate for a more balanced approach to international trade. There is also a small segment expressing cautious support, arguing for a need to level the playing field in trade practices.

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We need to maintain a system where we still have a couple factories to make aspirins and antibiotics.

kapuchinski

This was done to ensure China does not find loopholes from their tarriffs i.e. ship items from China to another random small island then reship to U.S. bypassing tarriffs in place.

Top_Gun7733

Apart from the "reciprocal" rates, the plan is to establish a baseline 10% tariff on all goods entering the US.

fullstep

Because it is not just tariffs but other barriers to trade:

* Certain goods being forbidden for import.
* VAT taxes that apply only to imported goods.
* Intellectual property rights.
* Documentation and Licensing Requirements that are slow or impossible to pass.
* Insurance, banking, and transportation restrictions and undo red tape.

There are 1000s of ways to restrict trade. Tariffs are the tip of the iceberg.

whateverisgoodmoney

The fact that so many well-stated answers by conservatives are downvoted on this sub makes me remember why I want most Redditors sent away to a salt mine.

Trump2028-2032

The 10% tariff is to reduce production leaving the US, encourage production to return home, and compensate for any trade barriers or tariffs which do exist the other direction.   The UK for example tariffs US goods between 3% to 10% depending on the product.

JoeCensored

I would assume this is an assault on trade barriers erected by these other countries. The UK, for instance, has pretty substantial trade barriers [https://iea.org.uk/media/britain-must-eliminate-non-tariff-barriers-to-trade-urges-new-paper/](https://iea.org.uk/media/britain-must-eliminate-non-tariff-barriers-to-trade-urges-new-paper/)

[Tariffs.pdf](https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&amp;&amp;p=48051642750495ec698ac592acfec5c7802f384e0921094d44404dc294d67123JmltdHM9MTc0Mzk4NDAwMA&amp;ptn=3&amp;ver=2&amp;hsh=4&amp;fclid=1e077c74-c92a-6525-1f2e-6cb5c8546428&amp;psq=exhibit+5+%22free+trade%22+bofa+g20+trade+barriers&amp;u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubWNhYS5vcmcvd3AtY29udGVudC91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjUvMDMvVGFyaWZmcy5wZGY&amp;ntb=1)

You can see some of the other countries mentioned here.

KnownFeedback738

Targeted tariffs can be used to benefit the industry within a country.

The way this administration is going about it, however, is simply not that.

First off, you need a clear, cohesive plan. This requires clearly stated goals. What is the point of this administration's tariffs? Are they to replace income tax? Or are they an incentive to reshore industry? Or are they punishments to counties that have unfair trading practices? These all have very different plans, and they are mutually exclusive - you cannot have the tariffs do all three. The message shifts from day-to-day depending on the line of questioning they're answering.

So, there's no clear plan what these tariffs will do, because the goal is completely unknown. You cannot have a successful plan without an end goal.

Second, if the goal is to revitalize American industry, then you need to make it financially viable. Right now, the tariffs dropped instantly, and it seems like exceptions are rolling out over time as the president loses negotiations. This is not a steady system, and without a clear plan on how companies can reshore industry, there is no clear path for them to do so in a way that they can afford. Changing supply chains takes years, and it cannot happen overnight. Without incentives or a clear path to travel, companies are just going to hunker down and let the storm blow over. They can outlast a president, and it'll cost them less over time than the loss of revenue from supply line changes.

Third, without worker protections in place, any reshoring will involve a great deal of automation, as that's the only way to keep costs down. Additionally, what few jobs are added will likely be low paying jobs akin to Amazon store houses. This is not the way to go about building up a well paid working class.

Finally, a trade deficit does not mean what you seem to think it means. It simply means we buy more from them than they buy from us. You have a trade deficit with your grocery store. Many countries simply cannot afford to buy from the US, as our production costs are high. Meanwhile, as a rich country, the US buys a sizeable amount from fairly poor countries, especially on items that cannot be made in the US. The US cannot produce coffee at scale. Nor can it produce mangoes, chocolate, silk, tea, vanilla beans, and loads of other products. There are also vital minerals that the US simply doesn't have, and so we must buy them from those that do. Taxing these items only serves to raise the cost for the average American, as no amount of tariffs can bring that production to the US.

Close trading partners are now forming better trade deals for items we used to sell them - turn tariffs off tomorrow and that's still a customer lost that existed prior to the tariffs. That's fewer countries our farmers can export to, only exacerbating the trade deficit we have with other Nations.

Yes, tariffs can be a very useful tool to build up industry and a workforce... But it has to be done smartly. Blind, universal tariffs on all goods simply alienate trading partners and raise the cost of living for the average American. You need a clear plan and steady leadership, and that's something the US does not have right now.

I_am_the_Jukebox

&gt;It will revitalize American industry and help close the wage-productivity gap.

There are at least two huge issues with this idea. First, the things you use to make things in a factory cost money. Maybe you want to manufacture a car in America. Cool, sounds good. But where do you get the steel, the rubber, all the other things that I know nothing about because I have no car knowledge? A ton of this stuff comes from overseas. The result being, these massive universal tariffs actually make it more expensive to produce a car in America.

Second issue, factories take awhile to build. I don't think it's rational to expect these massive tariffs, which cause a substantial deadweight loss in the American economy, to persist. Any democrat and, honestly, a lot of Republicans, are likely to get rid of them once they come into office, assuming Trump doesn't get rid of them himself. The result is that, at best, a factory builder is planning around a deeply uncertain future, and, at worst, the competitive advantage they hope to reap will definitely not be there when the factory is built.

&gt;The uneven trade balance is unsustainable, especially with China, and tariffs will help bridge that gap. The US's trade deficit with China is approximately $300 billion dollars. That's $300 billion that goes to a foreign adversary rather than being reinvested in American businesses. 

Trade deficits are not a bad thing. The classic joke is that I'm in a wild trade deficit with the local Wal-Mart, because I only give them money and they only give me stuff. That's all a trade deficit is. It means we're getting a bunch of stuff. Which is good. The whole point of money is getting stuff. There was a point in our grand history where we recognized that mercantilism is silly, and we live in the world produced by that understanding.

&gt;I understand that tariffs can come with tradeoffs like higher prices or potential retaliation, and I’m open to hearing arguments about whether the long-term benefits outweigh these risks.

On the scale of the overall economy, it's basically impossible for benefits to outweigh harms. Any money gained by individual industries gaining a competitive advantage is necessarily dwarfed by the loss incurred by the general public. If you're really truly desperate for America to specifically be building those cars, then you're hurting a lot of people to get to that goal. And I honestly don't see why it's in our interest to push car manufacturing, or any other arbitrary industry you can name, at the greater expense of everyone else.

eggynack

I will do my best, but something tells me it will be next to impossible to CYV:

**1. Consumers bear the brunt**

Tariffs function like a tax on ALL imported goods, and businesses typically pass these costs onto us (the consumers). Recent [studies](https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/where-we-stand-fiscal-economic-and-distributional-effects-all-us-tariffs-enacted-2025-through-april?utm_source=chatgpt.com) even say the avg U.S. household could face an additional $3,800 in annual expenses due to tariffs, with lower-income families disproportionately affected. 

**2. Manufacturing jobs are not COMING BACK TO AMERICA (the way you think they will)**

While the intent is to boost manufacturing here in the states, the reality is there is no future that exists where Americans are going to be willing to work in factories making iPhones or sneakers. While there might be some gains in manufacturing employment, these are often offset by job losses in other sectors, leading to a net negative impact on overall employment. (​[Fox Business](https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/how-trumps-tariffs-could-impact-labor-market?utm_source=chatgpt.com)) The point is simple: with mass deportations, and the fact there are not even enough people here in the country to DO THOSE JOBS, not to mention a lack of factories and infrastructure to support it, the biggest issue you will see with tariffs this high is the death of thousands of small businesses who will not be able to afford moving manufacturing here domestically. 

Add to that the fact tariffs can (and ARE) disrupting global supply chains, it will further lead to increased costs and delays for U.S. businesses. This uncertainty is hindering investment and growth across many industries. 

I hope I am wrong. But I doubt it. Not to mention, what happens in 3.5 years when we have a new president, and they reverse course everything Trump is doing?

TyGuyy

&gt;This influx of manufacturing will bring plenty of skilled full-time jobs with livable wages, driving up real wages, and reviving the dying middle class.

How exactly do you believe this will impact the consumer market, if the wages paid for wares increase by such a notable amount?

AleristheSeeker

&gt;**1**. It shows geopolitical strength against China, an adversary. Being the sole global superpower, it's unsustain able for America to heavily rely on China, and starting these tariffs is an effective way of reducing this issue.

The United States have geopolitical strength because we are a beacon of openness and stability.  Underpinning that is that we are very wealthy and buy a lot of shit from other countries.  Trump's tariffs are not just against China, but against basically the entire world, which incentivizes them to orient their trade towards China \*at the expense\* of trade with the United States.  The unpredictable nature of the tariffs, are they 145%? are they 20%? are they including AI chips and automobiles?? disincentives companies from investing in the US while the economic enviroment is so uncertain.  Showing strength is fine, but this show of strength is to the detriment of the primacy of the American economy.

&gt;**2**. It will revitalize American industry and help close the wage-productivity gap.

No it won't.  There may be some increase in manufacturing jobs in certain industries, but americans are not going to pay the increased cost of US manufactured widgets at US wages, so production is going to \*decrease\* and American's will be worse off.

&gt;**3**. The uneven trade balance is unsustainable, especially with China, and tariffs will help bridge that gap. The US's trade deficit with China is approximately $300 billion dollars.

Who cares what the trade deficit is.  If you aren't a farmer, you have a trade deficit with your local grocery store because they aren't buying anything from you.  The $300 billion dollars going to Chinese businesses for cheap goods means there is more dollars to spend within the United States.

dbandroid

You can believe whatever you want. Reality is what happens regardless of your beliefs. And what is happening is that the whole world is on a fast track to economical turmoil and disaster.

"unsustainable trade deficit"

Also, you clearly don't understand how trade deficit works. You can't compel the trade deficit to be more in favor of USA by using tariffs. Actually you can't compel it with anything. Some places just buy more of something from USA or sell more of something to USA, and there is hardly anything you can really do for that. Some countries that got hit by humongous tariffs literally only produce goods that are of very low value, with economies that literally can't buy much of high-value stuff that USA produces. There just is no way that you could change that.

339224

If professional economists by consensus disagree with you, along with virtually all of the premier banking and analyst firms in the world, would that change your mind? 

Or are you looking for us to help you find out the exact puzzle pieces that they are seeing and you are missing?

bluelaw2013

What makes you think bringing manufacturing jobs to america will create more livable wage jobs? Why would those companies not just manufacture their goods in places with less tariffs? If you are making a $2 good for .01 of labor,  how are you going to move that manufacturing to america?

puffie300

Why do you people think that we will be better off working sweatshops to produce physical goods when every developed country on earth has transitioned to a service economy?

This is common sense level shit

Dankdanio

China is only one country. Most of the other tariffs seem to not have been implemented, so there are many other lower wage countries. Cheaper options abroad remain.

Fit-Order-9468

Not unless you build the industrial capacity before hand.

EH1987

You can’t use tariffs as a negotiating tactic and as an instrument to return domestic manufacturing. If Trump is willing to make deals with other nations (i.e., reduce the tariff) then the incentive to shift production is gone. 

Moreover, there’s no world where companies will plan multi-year construction projects based on the whim of Trump.

CMMVS09

This could all be true in 15 years if Washington keeps policy.


The pain of the next few years isnt going to inspire people to vote red.  China knows this and the whole world is just waiting this shit out. The realistic **max** timeline is 4 years.  

HappyDeadCat

&gt;It shows geopolitical strength against China, an adversary. Being the sole global superpower, it's unsustain able for America to heavily rely on China, and starting these tariffs is an effective way of reducing this issue.

Picking a fight =/= showing strength. That is the mentality of bullies and untrustworthy people. 

If we wanted to reduce reliance on China, we'd have done something else with our debt first. Also, if this were really about reducing our dependence on China, the tariffs would be targeted to products that are strategically important, and we'd invest to ensure that we were proactively ready to fill the gap. 

Creating supply chain disruptions for critical pharmaceuticals is an absolute failure of national security. It is not like people can just wait a year or two for factories to be built here in the US and ingredients to be sourced in the US.

&gt;By making it significantly more expensive to manufacture things overseas, companies will be incentivized to move to the US. 

But it's not more expensive to manufacture overseas. It's more expensive to buy things manufactured overseas. And there is no reason to expect that making something more expensive to import means that it is automatically less expensive to manufacture it in the US, especially when you consider the capital investment required and the skilled labor training.

&gt;This influx of manufacturing will bring plenty of skilled full-time jobs with livable wages, driving up real wages, and reviving the dying middle class.

This is just patently false unless you term a living wage as $4-6 per hour, which is the average factory worker's wage in China.

&gt;Granted, it will take other actions (like deregulation and subsidies) and years 

Awesome. So we'll just pause everyone's bills for years, right? People can wait til the 2030s to buy groceries or access medical/pharmaceutical care.

Even if you were 100% about this view, you are endangering huge sectors of the economy and many small businesses with this approach.  You are endangering American people and families with this approach.

&gt;That's $300 billion that goes to a foreign adversary rather than being reinvested in American businesses.

Who says that $300B will come back to the US just because it leaves China? Some of that economic activity will just vanish as businesses close in the US. Bigger companies will look to some other country for cheaper labor and more exploitative conditions than they can find in the US.

Also it's not like we gave China $300B for free. We received goods and resources in exchange. We used those goods and resources. They generated more economic activity for us. They gave port workers and truckers and retail workers jobs.

MeanestGoose

Do you really expect average American to start working in factories? Considering Trump is kicking immigrants out who will do those jobs?

Zerguu

Any factories that come back to America will be heavily automated. All the jobs are a pipe dream.

Ninjorp

&gt; It shows geopolitical strength against China, an adversary.

Geopolitical strength comes from having a robust network of alliances. No country is an island and while there could be benefits to tariffs on China, indiscriminate tariffs against everyone at once is not helpful.

&gt; It will revitalize American industry and help close the wage-productivity gap.

Building out an industrial base requires significant amounts of time, investment, raw materials, educated manpower, and Trump's behavior runs contrary to all of that. It can take easily 30-40 years to build industry within America to substitute for China, and a rapidly changing and broad spectrum tariff policy makes it undesirable to invest in the US. If it is going to take you a decade to see an investment on a new factory you build in the US then are you going to make that bet with Trump's chaotic policy decisions? You could be bankrupted tomorrow by some bullshit he posts to social media from the toilet!

Nobody is going to trust their money to Trump's pandemonium, what you are talking about cannot happen overnight, the raw materials are suffering from tariffs themselves, and the manpower is being attacked on all sides by expelling immigrants (even legal ones), shattering relationships with developed countries which would otherwise hugely augment American industrialization, and even tearing down education within the USA.

&gt; The uneven trade balance is unsustainable,

Of course it is sustainable. First is the concept that money can go different places than straight back and forth between two countries. My grocery store has never bought a thing from me and yet I am untroubled by the trade deficit. It is also self-regulating in that if China started to reach its capacity of desire for US dollars then the amount they would require for additional purchases would start to rise, devaluing the US dollar which would begin to curb trade and advantage industries elsewhere such as within the USA.

Finally it is good for the security of the US if China holds a bunch of US money. If China has built up this huge mass of US money, if China does something to make the US want to take action against them that stack of cash is at risk. Spending decades running up a huge debt from someone only to alienate them and void the debt is foolish.

Phage0070

If used with extreme care, tariffs "could" have positive effects. But slap dash tariffs are just scare tactics on a global scale. 

Say a country sells us a product that we need and can't get cheaper anywhere else. Say this country is not China. How can a third world country with no money buy American goods at the same rate that we're buying theirs? They don't even want what we have to sell.

Half of the problem is China flooding the market with cheap goods and not following the rules of the WTO. The other half of the problem is American consumers. We do not realize how ridiculously luxurious our lifestyle is compared to most the world.

Yes, a tariff driven trade war could eventually, after much chaos, balance the world economy better. But, to do that, consumer expectations across the world would also equalize. 

So you can have your manufacturing job building cellphones and computer chips, but no one will be able to afford them.

VyantSavant

The strategic threat of China is only magnified by detangling our economies. Without their reliance on US consumers and the American consumer's reliance on cheap goods, there is no leverage against China's military adventurism. There is no more detriment to acting against US interests. Furthermore, the trade war is only driving more nations into closer relationships with China and away from the US. 

&gt;The uneven trade balance is unsustainable

China is the largest consumer market in the world. The trade deficit will remain, if not grow larger under these tariffs. The US needs to export goods somewhere. Having alienated the entire world, the future of American industry is grim because the domestic market is not sufficient to sustain a vibrant economy. 

The main problem with your view, however, is that it relies on the false premise that bringing back manufacturing would be possible. The simple fact is that Americans will not be willing to work at a wage that would make American products competitive. Our standard of living is too high and we are not willing to nationalize aspects of our living standards that would make such an endeavor more viable. Nothing produced in an American factory will be anywhere near as cheap as something produced in SE Asia. Americans will be paying exorbitant prices for goods that cost a fraction in every other country. 

These tariffs schemes are empirically terrible and the last tie it was attempted it deeply impoverished Americans. You know who suffers the most from tariffs? Poor and middle class Americans who watch the prices of basic necessities skyrocket. 

Your view also requires that Americans are willing to suffer massive price increases for ten or twenty years and that the next administration won't say "that's enough" and open trade back up. The price increases required for your project would cause another depression and there is hardly a guarantee that factories are going to spring up in a country that has basically been barred from exporting goods and has spend a decade impoverishing the consumers.

Biptoslipdi

The US is already investing in the MFG that actually will benefit the US. Technology and semiconductor MFG is huge and will be the most beneficial to the US. Tariffs aren't needed for this. 

We don't need to make hot wheel cars in the US, we don't need to make raw steel. We need that raw steel to turn into high precision piping, tubing and valves for the semiconductor industry.

eggs-benedryl

in an ideal perfect world with a totalitarian government? maybe

no company is going to move to the USA where labor and manufacturing is higher to get around tariffs. 

large companies dont just up and decide to move because of something like tariffs in the timeframes were looking at.

companies are looking at 2-3 years to build a factory and produce from them. by which time tariffs may be over from trumps own hand, or the company would be looking at one year of possibly cheaper production (though probably not as wages and equipment that still needs to be sourced from other countries will probably cost as much as just eating tariffs) before whoever replaces trump removes tariffs. 

they will eat the short term cost of the tariffs. 

they would rather be unprofitable in the short term, than up-end entire operations to be unprofitable forever. 

which brings up the materials for building the cars, 2-3 years to get american only (very expensive) supply chains up and running before any factory would even consider moving, because if they arent in place. they still get tariff'd to hell anyways.

GibbyGiblets

So, the first thing, you talked all about China, but nothing about that applies to all the other tariffs on all the other countries. 

But the basic issue is what you’re proposing is a violation of man’s unalienable right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights include the right to buy the goods you think are best for yourself. It doesn’t include the right to buy goods when that violates the rights of your fellow Americans, so trade embargoes (not tariffs) are appropriate for actual enemies like during war. 

And yes, the US government needs to be funded through taxes, but the taxes shouldn’t penalize you for buying the best goods just because they are produced abroad. If the US federal government wants to fund itself through a tax on goods, then it should be a flat sales tax on both foreign and domestic goods and services. But implementing a new tax, even if it partially replaces the income tax, is just a waste of effort. 

&gt; **1**. It shows geopolitical strength against China, an adversary. 

How? It shows weakness instead, particularly the way that Trump has done it. 

&gt; Being the sole global superpower, it's unsustain able for America to heavily rely on China, 

Only because Americans are doing an awful job of standing up for their own right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, so they have a hard time persuading Chinese citizens to support their own rights. 

&gt; and starting these tariffs is an effective way of reducing this issue. 

What leads you to this conclusion? That’s not how it worked with Trump’s previous tariffs.

&gt; American industry has heavily declined over time, since companies can easily offshore it to cheaper countries. 

American manufactures more than it ever has had before. American manufacturing has been steadily on the rise. https://www.cato.org/blog/united-states-remains-manufacturing-powerhouse 

China manufacturers roughly double the amount of the US, but it has roughly four times the population, so it’s roughly half as productive on a per capita basis.

Tariffs are going to gut the current American manufacturing industry because all of those manufacturers rely on overseas imports in one way or another. 

&gt; and help close the wage-productivity gap. 

There is no wage-productivity gap. Show me what evidence lead you to this conclusion and I can show you the flaws in the evidence. 

&gt; **3**. The uneven trade balance is unsustainable, especially with China, and tariffs will help bridge that gap. The US's trade deficit with China is approximately $300 billion dollars. That's $300 billion that goes to a foreign adversary rather than being reinvested in American businesses. 

Yes, China gets stupid fiat currency paper that the US government devalues overtime through inflation. But Americans get real goods that are more valuable to Americans than the currency. That makes the alleged “uneven” trade balance complete nonsense. It’s like if you said your relationship with the grocery store is unsustainable because you always buy groceries from them and they never buy anything from you. 

And what does China do with the America dollars it receives? China can’t spend them in China because that’s not their currency. They are used to buy American goods and invested into Americans (either in private businesses or as loans to the Us government). 

&gt; I'm also aware that the implementation of these tariffs were rough and could've been better. 

Rough?

The stated basis for the reciprocal rates, trade barriers, is a complete lie. They are based on trade deficits. Trump has mutually contradictory goals that he says tariffs will achieve (revenue and replacing the income tax, negotiating tactic, bringing manufacturing home). Trump says they are a negotiating tool, but the idea that the US can run an even trade balance or trade surplus with every country is simply impossible and would be disastrous to even attempt. So countries can’t actually satisfy any of Trump’s stated demands.

the_1st_inductionist

With all the responses that you have received, you still seem to be blind. For what answer are you searching?

The stark reality, outlined by other respondents in detail, is that the cost of goods go up from the tariffs and/or stateside manufacturing.

When costs increase, companies need to make decreases in other areas. Any potential jobs “gained” will not replace current jobs maintained. Store chains are already making decisions and having less staff work to attempt to maintain their bottom line. I’ve seen it first hand at my local stores. They’re making the employees deal with less. I witnessed a robbery at a drug store where the singular employee couldn’t do anything to prevent it because he couldn’t abandon the cash register.

To bring a different conversation into perspective, let’s consider a fictional toy company, based on the ones states. Theoretically, they employ 300 people between QA, Design, Admin, Sales, HR, and Customer Service. They’ve decided to have manufacturing completed in China due to the low cost. Chinese manufacturing is the only available option for their product, they cannot bring it anywhere else, and do not employ any engineers other than design (there are different types), and operate on slim margins since they pay their staff a good wage to keep them happy, productive, and to ensure that the business runs smoothly.

Enter tariffs. The company does not have the funds to make their own factories, nor do they have anyone on staff who is knowledgeable about how to implement factory construction, what machines to buy, how to set up a line to maximize production and minimize risk. 

The company first will fire anyone deemed not essential, and put the onus on the rest of the staff to pick up the tasks the others were doing. They’ll do this in operations first - the sales team is how they make money/profit.

With less design, QA, admin, and other employees, the company now opens themselves to risk. Quality drops since it cannot be scrutinized. Product lines faulted since they don’t have enough of a design team to keep pumping out concepts. Admin staff, like accounting, misses fees or even cooks the books.

Even if someone was able to build a factory locally, the cost doesn’t go down. To maintain costs, the company continues to operate with less. Staff that did work for the company cannot get comparable income jobs because other companies in their industry made the same decision.

Not only that, the factory, with automation, doesn’t need as many potential hires. Also, those people that were fired? They don’t know and don’t have the credentials to work there.

We’re left with higher overall unemployment and higher product costs. Couple that with the decision to remove long standing assistance programs that help people in unemployed positions. To spell it out clearly - you’ve got less of a base to pay taxes that go towards maintaining infrastructure.

Welcome to the road to a now state/nation that goes bankrupt because it couldn’t protect the jobs it had, and failed to create comparable jobs for people that lost theirs. Net loss.

ImportanceLow7841

Although the USD's status as a reserve currency provides the US with access to very cheap capital by recycling dollars from all over the world invested in US assets and allows for living beyond means by endless debt, but it also leads to an overvaluation of the USD, which prevents US industrial production from being competitive, because US goods are more expensive.   
On the one hand, the USD-based system and open trade created by the USA have made US industrial production unprofitable. On the other hand, thanks to the USD, US capital has free access to the global labor market and can invest where the rate of return is higher due to low production costs.  
Due to the debt, the US must maintain the dominance of the USD just to not go bankrupt, but in order to be competitive in the export of industrial products, the value of the USD should be reduced. These two goals seem to be contradictory.

Modern industry v.4.0, driven by automation and AI, does not need a mass of simple workers, but an army of engineers and qualified mid-level employees. 60% of Americans have reading comprehension at a sixth-grade level,. The US lacks a technical culture for "blue collars" and the quality of an industrial worker at a sufficient level, comparable to Asia or Europe. Assuming that universities cooperate, how long will it take to educate an adequate number of skilled workers?

USA does not have sufficient infrastructure and capacity for mass production, e.g. of ships. Single one - the largest Chinese shipyard produced more tonnage last year than the entire US shipbuilding industry since 1945. China produce over 50% of the world's ships, and replacing them will take years. How does the US plan to export its production, lagging behind on that field? Reindustrialization of shipyards requires the purchase of machinery and equipment. Current tariffs may make this difficult - they should rather be reduced in the first phase.

There may still be elements of the tariff plan that we do not know yet, the whole thing has been well thought out and planned and will end with the reindustrialization of the US. However, at that point it looks more like tariffs are a tool to forcefully weaken the Chinese economy (which does not have to succeed) and to force allies to bear the higher costs of maintaining the global financial system based on USD, which mostly US benefits from.

Tariffs may also be a way to force other countries to accept this model and of course participate in the costs in the form of some kind of mobster tribute that will go to the US in exchange for basically nothing.

sh00l33

1. Trump has tried this before. In his first administration, he imposed higher tariffs for steel and aluminium. Both then and now, the reasons were said to “protect domestic steel and aluminium makers in the US” and create jobs for Americans. There was an immediate price spike, and it remained elevated in comparison to the global steel and aluminium prices, and even then it took more than ten months to normalise. As for employment, there were temporary job gains in the metal sector, but net manufacturing jobs lost 75,000 jobs due to higher input costs. The new tariffs are broader and much higher in comparison, which will likely lead to similar short-term domestic boosts but long-term trade-offs. 

1. The concern about the US’s reliance on China is understandable, but quite frankly, trade deficits are not unsustainable or damaging or indicative of a weak economy. They are a normal aspect of global trade, and often viewed by economists as a natural result of global economic systems, especially when a country has a strong currency or attracts foreign investment. The trade deficit with China doesn’t necessarily mean that $300 billion is lost to China—it’s often reinvested in U.S. financial markets and helps fund U.S. government debt. The suggestion that tariffs will simply solve this issue doesn’t take into account the complexities of global trade and the potential disruption to global supply chains. 

1. Bringing manufacturing back to the US requires more than just higher production costs in foreign markets; it will require significant investments in infrastructure, technology, and workforce training. Instead of relying on tariffs as a quick fix, it might be more effective to focus on policies that boost productivity, innovation, education and job training to meet the demands of the modern manufacturing sector. However, the wage-productivity gap isn’t just about job quantity but also job quality. Even if jobs are brought back to the U.S., they won’t necessarily be high-paying or high-skill jobs. Automation and technological advancements could further reduce the number of jobs available, even as factories return.

	TLDR: Tariffs won’t do what you think they will.

snail_avi

"American industry has heavily declined over time."

[Adjusted for inflation, median personal income is currently the highest in history.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N) 

[Average working class wages are currently highest in history.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AHETPI)

ShotPresent761

Tariffs in general can be a good or a bad thing, but applying blanket tariffs to all countries on all goods and then piecemeal walk them back is a nonsensical position that everyone knows is untenable.  

1.  Trump’s tariffs are literally having the opposite effect - long-time American allies are now forming trade agreements that exclude the United States and in some cases include China (Japan and South Korea, for example).

If the tariffs exclusively targeted cheap Chinese goods then maybe you’d have a point, but Trump’s general antagonism towards foreign countries is creating a vacuum for China to step in and assume greater roles in the international order.  The belt and road initiative was an example of this, and the destruction of USAID will create a lot more opportunities for China to make inroads in places that the United States has abandoned.

2.  How long do you think it will take to “reshore” American manufacturing jobs?  Do you think that any business will commit millions of dollars to build domestic factories if they know that a new president may totally reverse course in 2028? 

Moreover, the tariffs make no exception for raw materials, even goods that we cannot produce domestically, so if you want to start making suits or something domestically, you’re still at a competitive disadvantage because America doesn’t have any mills and also doesn’t really produce wool.  So you’re still struggling against companies in China and Vietnam (who pay lower wages) because you have to have to pay tariffs on all of your raw materials.  The tariffs don’t benefit you at all unless you can source everything domestically. 

3.  The trade imbalance argument makes no sense.  Why is having a trade deficit a bad thing, specifically?  Am I being ripped off by Home Depot or the grocery store because we have a “negative trade balance” (I buy goods from them and they don’t buy anything from me)?

Ice_Like_Winnipeg

Realistically, how long will it take for enough manufacturing facilities to be built in the US before they start producing the items that China currently makes?

Additionally, considering unemployment in the US is under 5%, who will be working at these new factories?

L11mbm

1. Based merely on both how average people and political leaders in other countries are reacting, we look like total clowns to the entire world. We are broadcasting unprecedented instability and incompetence, and that is a subtle but serious detriment to our economy as investors will demand higher interest rates for our treasury bonds, pull capital from our markets, and shift away from the US dollar.

2. Tariffs, without any exception whatsoever, always increase prices and cost more jobs than they add. That is why their only proper use is to protect specific industries, not being applied to the entire planet. The historical consequences of tariffs track with this.

3. There is nothing inherently wrong with a trade imbalance. Trade is always beneficial because if both parties did not benefit from a trade, they wouldn't do the trade. It is a terrible and infuriating failure of our politicians that free trade blew up wealth inequality and did not benefit the working class like it should have, but that doesn't mean it is a bad idea. It's also worth noting that the US trade deficit is only so large if you focus on goods; we are a service economy that exports a lot of services.

There is a real concern about the security of our supply chains, but fixing that takes time, and tariffs are the worst way to go about it.

If we want a resurgence in US manufacturing (and I do, as an enthusiast follower of geopolitics and an engineer who would benefit), then the way to do it is exactly what the Biden administration did. Under Biden, investment in US manufacturing tripled (!!!) and supply chains were being diversified away from China to other countries like Vietnam and India. They were preparing us for a world where China is more hostile and less reliable as their population collapses and they rise as a geopolitical threat, using the lessons learned from Covid.

Few_Quantity_8509

1.  Our leaders, in concert with capital have spent decades outsourcing our industrial capacity.  If you were around for Ross Perot, this is what he warned us about.  He ran as a third party because both parties were complicit in devasting our manufacturing capacity for their own reasons but primarily to help out donors.  

We agree that we need to be self-reliant and we need the capacity to make more goods here in America.  However, we need a policy in place to promote reindustrialization before putting a tariff in place to protect these new fledging industries.  

Trump has put the cart before the horse.  

2.  The productivity issue is dire indeed.  This isn't simply about good factory jobs.  This is about tax policy.  We overtax folks who work for a living while under-taxing capital gains and investment income.  We need a wealth tax that takes into consideration assets and we need a solution to these billionaires who have massive wealth but have next to no "real" income when it comes to taxation.  

3.  The trade balance is a red herring and is being used dishonestly.  Our entire economy is based off consumption.  Our large population of consumers is always going to force us into a trade imbalance with smaller nations because their population can't consume an amount, especially of our types of good/services to balance the equation.  

Another issue is that our trade balance is an example of how we use "soft" power to influence other countries.  We purposefully have weaponized our trade balance in the past to "encourage" other nations to see our point of view.  We are weakening ourselves and our influence around the world with these tariffs.  

Trump is essentially forcing future Americans into a situation where military might will be our only resort when it comes to disputes, not our last.

ctbowden

Assuming that the tariffs are intended for the reshoring of industries back to the US, how long do you think are Americans willing to bear the pain? How accepting are the Americans of tax hikes to fund the infrastructure to support the supply chains needed for re-shoring? Can the American population sustain a 5, 10, 15 year contraction in the economy (recession)?

If a recession kicks in there will be less revenues from taxes that will be collected. Are the Americans willing to increase deficit spending to shoulder the lost revenue and the expenses of major infrastructure expansion? Even if tariffs are in place the reduction in consumption means people aren't going to buy local or imported goods. We aren't even accounting for retaliatory tariffs that hurt local industries that export.

The Trump strategy, if ever there was a serious attempt for reshoring, was wrong. It should have expanded infrastructure first e.g expansion of rail and road, established trade agreements for the supply chains, incentivized companies thru subsidies to reshore their factories there before it imposed tariffs. All of which takes decades as what China did. However, the strategy that I mentioned is contrary to Trump's policy of reducing deficit spending. In order to expand infrastructure either you take on more debt or increase the  tax rates both of which are what the American people hate most.

A state doesn't declare a trade war on the entire world in the hopes of isolating China because what happens is that said state will isolate itself instead which is devastating to its economy without achieving their intended goals.

Trump's stupidity isn't on the intention, it's on the execution. He's all over the place without a clear and definitive roadmap on how he will achieve his goals.

Gracchus0289

How is the US even going to fill these manufacturing jobs? Unemployment is like 2.5%....even if you could snap your fingers and magically create all of the necessary infrastructure who is going to man these factories? 

How much more will businesses have to charge in order to make goods in America? Realistically the price of a T-shirt is going to get insanely high if the workers are all making $20+/h (which is only like $40k/year). Consumer goods in general will have to increase drastically in price. $80k/y are jobs worth bringing back but goods are going to triple in cost with wages like that. 

Are Americans really better off with manufacturing jobs moving home if they're paying 20%-100% more for everything they buy? Regular people aren't suddenly going to get paid more because washing machines are being manufactured domestically. 

Point Form:
-Missing 10s of Billions in infrastructure that will take time to build. 

-Only 2.5% of people who want a job don't have one and a huge chunk of these ppl aren't interested in manufacturing. 

-How high paying are these jobs really? And how much is it going to cost to buy consumer goods if everyone is making $20/h ($40k/y)? What about $40/h?

-Even attempting this is coming at the cost of the country's global soft power and is irreversibly harming America's relationships with their closest allies. (Japan and Korea working with China) 

-Mass immigration would solve a lot of these problems but I personally don't want an underclass of people in my country and it's pretty clear America doesn't want to go that route either. 

-A billionaire sex pest, real estate mogal / reality TV star teaming up with the worlds richest man is not the duo to take on the oligarchs on behalf of the working class.

runescapelover12

So I work in manufacturing and we're feeling the pain.

One of the biggest issues facing industry is a [large shortage of workers](https://www.scmr.com/article/labor-shortages-remain-an-ongoing-concern-in-many-parts-of-u.s-manufacturing). Not many people are interested in manufacturing. There are just other, better jobs out there. 

Right now, US unemployment is low. So in order for manufacturing to take off we need to poach people from other industries. A software developer becomes a CNC lathe programmer, but now we lose a software dev. To entice the software developer, the company has to pay more, so they're going to charge more for their product, and consumers lose out.

Worse, there's a further 25% aluminum and steel tariff. Aluminum and steel are what my machines cut, they're what welders weld and what bridges are made out of. The cost of our raw materials went up significantly, to the point that our metal suppliers canceled our quotes when the tariffs hit.

Steel and aluminum mills are ridiculously complex facilities. They don't just need big machines, they need reliable sources of ore and energy, they need railroads to get material in, they need specialized staff who learn the exact processes for the facility. Lining all this up will take years, probably decades, and during that time American manufacturing will be wholly uncompetitive because the metal they need is still tariffed. 

Compare that to the industries that use steel and aluminum, where it's pretty straightforward to plop down a CNC mill, learn to program it and start up your own shop. There's a good half-dozen people who do it for YouTube. The only guy I know of who's refining metal for YouTube is Primitive Technology, and I don't think we want to go back that far.

Pseudoboss11

Here's my two cents: The bottom line is that tariffs are taxes, and taxes discourage trade. The government will spend that money, but with additional managerial waste, and will likely not spend it on things that improve the economy. 

1. This is probably the most compelling argument for tariffs. US securing strategic resources makes sense, but I'm not convinced that tariffs will actually do the trick. There are ways to work around this. Like for example, now China sells steel sheet to Korea, who forms it into tubes, and then sells it to the US as Korean steel. 

2. Heavy industry takes a long time to spin up. 5+ years in many cases. Best case scenario is that the large companies invest in US production, and eventually we get a workable industry dependent on government market manipulation. But the other option is that it makes more sense to find loopholes, or just not sell to US. Worst case, we effectively sanction ourselves, prices just go up, and we have nothing to show for it. 

3. We don't need an even trade balance with every country. I have a trade deficit with my grocery store, but it's not a problem. Running trade deficit with everyone in the world means we are going into debt, but having a trade deficit with China specifically doesn't really mean much. Balancing this will just cause inefficiency. You could argue that tariffs balance this issue, but at the end of the day it's just higher taxes. I think it's helpful to imagine the extremes. Say 1000% tariffs on everyone. Long term that would incentivize each country to make everything themselves, which reduces efficiency and raises prices for everyone.

Dry-Tough-3099

I actually agree that reducing reliance on China and boosting American industry are really important goals—but tariffs just aren’t a smart or effective way to get there. They’re a blunt tool that ends up hitting American consumers and businesses harder than the countries we’re targeting. Prices go up across the board because so many U.S. manufacturers rely on imported materials, so now they’re stuck paying more too, which makes them *less* competitive, not more. And yeah, offshoring hurt American jobs, but bringing them back isn’t just about making foreign goods expensive—it’s about tech shifts, supply chains, and a global economy that tariffs can’t magically fix. Most companies don’t re-shore because of tariffs; they either automate even more or move operations to other cheap-labor countries. As for the trade deficit, it’s not automatically a bad thing—it mostly reflects investment flows and consumer demand. Forcing it smaller with tariffs just slows down growth and hits regular people in the wallet without guaranteeing real wins for American workers. Honestly, if we actually want to rebuild industry and strengthen the middle class, we need investments in education, infrastructure, tech, and R&amp;D—not clumsy market manipulation that just makes life more expensive. Your goals make sense, but tariffs are kind of the worst way to get there. Have you thought about how smarter investments could do the job without all the collateral damage?

lowkeylye

1. American manufacturing is very advanced and produces high value. By bringing less value-added manufacturing back, you are lowering American manufacturing wages.

2. With tariffs, goods will inevitably be more expensive. Combined with more expensive goods, workers are losing purchasing power even more rapidly.

3. This is tariffs without a coherent industrial policy. No technical schools to educate workers, no industrial zoning, building out industrial infrastructure, all of which take decades to do *with* state subsidies. What's a disparate bunch of private companies are supposed to do? Band together and fund a new rail network? Powerplants? Open up their own trade schools? Operate for decades at a loss until their *American only* arm becomes profitable?

4. The American economy is an inefficient, financialised wealth-extracting mess. Healthcare and rent alone make it completely uncompetitive with anywhere else in the world, not to mention education. The fact is, tariffs will need to go into the hundreds to create sufficient drive for manufacturers to come back in numbers. Even at over 100% tariffs it will still be more economical to import from China many items.

5. Any manufacturing will be for the USA internal market *only*.

6. Trump wants both the USD to be the reserve currency, balance the trade deficit and bring manufacturing back, which are fundamentally incompatible goals.

7. You want to lower the trade deficit, so you put tariffs on everyone, they will now buy less from you in retaliation and because your goods are more expensive. So you buy less but also sell less, the deficit (difference) remains the same.

ParticularClassroom7

A US auto worker average salary is $47K a year.

The Mexico auto worker average salary is $6k a year.

If labor costs are the primary driver for manufacturing, you will need to have a $683% tariff to move manufacturing to the US from Mexico and break even.

Tariffs are nowhere near this level.

Companies can do basic math.  It is more cost effective to keep manufacturing in Mexico, and have the US apply a tariff to the components or products made there at 40% or whatever and pass that cost onto the consumer or US businesses that are buying the products.

Audi, BMW, General Motors, Ford, Kia, Masada, Volkswagen all manufacture in Mexico and import into the United States currently.  Mexico makes 3.9 million cars a year.

And where is the US manufacturing capacity to make all of this stuff?  I work in Aerospace, we are forced to use American manufacturing labor, and quality machine shops are slammed.

Adding Tarrifs with no infrastructure in place to transfer the manufacturing capacity to is not a plan to increase US manufacturing.

It is a plan to increase the tax collection base for the US, and shift the tax burden it from Income tax and capital gains taxes to products.  And that is a shift from tax on the wealthy, to the middle class.

So who wins here exactly?  Is it you and I, the regular citizen?

Co-flyer

Tariffs are seriously damaging the American economy, to a point that we may not be able to recover.

1) The US trade imbalance is due to what is called the Dutch Disease. Our export of natural gas results in our exports being more expensive and our imports being cheaper. Our labor can't compete.  Putting tariffs in place won't solve this problem. Instead we need to diversify our economy and energy supply. Reduce natural gas production. This will happen anyway as we deplete our natural gas, so we should be plaining ahead. 

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch\_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease)

2) We have plenty of jobs to be done. Our problem is that wages aren't high enough to cover living expenses. Placing tariffs increases living expenses without increasing wages enough to offset the difference.  A better solution is to decrease living expenses by subsidizing health care and child care and by taxing and regulating real estate in a way that increases housing.

  
3)Tariff are pay by importers and ultimately by consumers, not by China. That money is taken from living expenses of working Americans, not from a foreign adversary.

For a sustainabe solution, we need free trade for luxury items(elastic demand) coupled with regulation and subsidies for necessities (inelastic demand)

tidalbeing

Wanna know a secret?

These jobs arent coming back to the US.

The US economic system is not one to support mass factory line workers.

These are lower tier jobs, dont require much education, and they dont pay that well.

The thing is, china is communist so they have a very huge middle class, and their taxes fund a lot of their daily necessities, From affordable public transport, health care, housing and education .

So people can make a living from a modest salary.

The US aint like this.

You might create jobs, but these will be low tier jobs that will have shitty pay and terrible benefits.
But unlike a communist system that provides you with most basic needs through collective taxes, the low tier workers in the US will be screwed...



Tarrifs are a way to tax the American people without calling it a tax.

You tax foreign countries, businesses from that country now have to pay extra tax to import to the US.

In turn, they raise the price of their goods in the US.

And unless a local US business steps up and provides that product cheaper, you're just going to buy the foreign item, and pay for the price difference yourself.

This is a tax increase that oblivious americans will root for cause they think it's patriotic, when in fact, its just increased sales tax

s_wipe

I just don't understand where a manufacturing job is now supposed to be a high paying job with livable wages. Wages rise with the complexity of the task and how difficult one is to replace. If these jobs are being performed by low qualified workers overseas then why would we pay our workers any more for the same job? At best these will be additional minimum wage jobs.

  
Additionally for every job created, other jobs are lost. If cost to perform business goes up then hiring and growth slow in other sectors. 

Economies go from agriculture-&gt;manufacturing-&gt;service (this is where America is, we still have agriculture and manufacturing but we are primarily a service economy). Services are skilled positions with higher wages and the world is our customer. Everyone points to the trade deficit but what about the influx of cash to our economy from financial services, entertainment, healthcare, consulting, travel etc. The current administration is not accounting for service economy when looking at trade deficits. If we make goods more expensive in America then there is less money for operation and investment and the service economy suffers.

TheMightyAndy

I thought the point of the tariffs was to force China and other countries to negotiate trade deals with the US? Or something fentanyl something something

MercurianAspirations

&gt;Being the sole global superpower, it's unsustain able for America to heavily rely on China

Why is that?

&gt;By making it significantly more expensive to manufacture things overseas, companies will be incentivized to move to the US. 

Or, companies will leave the US and do business elsewhere. They dont need to do business with american consumers, especially ones that will have less money, at least in the short term, because of the tariffs

&gt;The US's trade deficit with China is approximately $300 billion dollars. That's $300 billion that goes to a foreign adversary rather than being reinvested in American businesses. 

Thats 300 billion dollars worth of services and assets being invested in American businesses. And those assets and services are way more valuable than the money. Thats why the businesses buy them.

If i sell you 100 rocks for a dollar that you can make it a shiny rock that sells for 2 dollars, the trade deficit between you and me is gonna be 100, or maybe 98 if i buy a shiny rock. But you will profit 100 dollars. Thats a good deal for you

Nrdman

I would try to educate you, but I have learned that people like you cannot be educated.  I am already wasting my time just posting this comment.  Google is a vast expanse of information and Global Economics is a subject that can be found within a search, and within that search, another search for the effect of tariffs on the economy, on the consumer, on the exporter, on the importer, can all be found within the search.  There are many, many results which all say the same thing, and are non-biased, actual, truthful, factual results, not politicized opinions or propaganda to pump up one's agenda.  There are free classes you can take online to learn about these things so you can be loaded down with knowledge and not have to post ridiculous things like this which show you have no clue how global economics work, nor how tariffs work, nor how they affect consumers, farmer, american workers, and many of the workers and business owners in the countries that are being tariffed.  Have a nice day.

Far_Ad_5262

A blanket tariff is not a good way to do industrial policy. There are so many practical problems. How can an economy suddenly be able to produce everything that used to be imported in days without creating supply shocks? What is supposed to be done about resources that the US just doesn't have that much of like coffee plantations and rare earth minerals? Who will American producers sell to if every country implements counter-tariffs? And is it even a good idea for the US to try to make everything?

That last point is why it's bad economic policy. Say the goal here is to boost American manufacturing of cars. Putting tariffs on car parts, the equipment that makes cars, and the raw materials used for cars will increase the cost of the US-built car. It will be less cost competitive because extra taxes are now baked into the cost of making a car. This is why countries that use tariffs, tend to use them to protect a specific industry rather than going after everything.

MedicinalBayonette

It doesn't show geopolitical strength. It shows geopolitical incompetence. We benefit from our trade with China more than China does.

China is not our adversary except in so far as administrations like Trump make them our adversary.

A trade deficit is not a problem and is completely sustainable. The things we import then \*get sold here.\* That wealth still exists in our economy.

TheVioletBarry

Just going by the first five sentences of your post I judge you the poster to be a complete moron.

The only thing that will happen is increased cost. Bring back manufacturing? You stupid? They're going to shift to India, Vietnam etc.

Let's just assume you were right about manufacturers coming back. They will be heavily subsidized, expensive and inefficient. It's just like how the US is a formidable army compared to China because the former have operational experience. The same can be said about manufacturing. 

They will not be able to compete internationally. It also takes a year or two to build a plant and it takes multiple years to get your ROI. By the time you get your money back, a new government will be in place to take away these dumb policies which would result in the collapse of the manufacturers.

About your point on trade deficit. uS was already in a deficit  before China joined the WTO lol. Putting blames on others make a whole load of sense. China bought your bonds during 2008 so that you guys can spend more.

I wish Americans were more educated. Most are so bad with finance it's no wonder not having debt is nearly a treason.

Addition-Impossible

Let's see how tariff + no immigration works out for you guys. You will no doubt lose some economic output simply because you don't have the inputs necessary to create output in the short run. 

You wave away all operational difficulties as things that happen in the short term and magically go away with time. However, below replacement rate fertility does not change by simply wishing it away. Same for rare earths, which you may be able to produce internally (but to do that you gotta have people working on it and the proportion of americans that aspire to working in mines seems slim to me).

Essentially all of this is due to paranoia about China ("the adversay"TM as per your description). Whenever I read this stuff I am perplexed. Beyond frictions about Taiwan, what is so hostile about China? What do you think the final stage of this confrontation is going to be?

bernabbo

&gt; It will revitalize American industry and help close the wage-productivity gap

It will crash all American industries, because they heavily rely on all kinds of imported materials (e.g. steel or semiconductors). There would be a civil war if Americans had to pay 245% tariffs on iphones, I guarantee that.

As explained by Milton Friedman himself:  
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws)

&gt; The uneven trade balance is unsustainable, especially with China, and tariffs will help bridge that gap. 

Trade deficit is in fact good for the US, the Fed being the sole printer of the world reserve currency, the government can basically buy anything for free (given that USD holders pay the price later as their currency devalues - but USD holders are not necessarily Americans, the biggest ones are in fact national banks of foreign countries).

fomo2020

One point 2, i have 2 objections.

The first objection i think is strong.  To revitalize American industry the tariffs need to be well known and long lasting.  At the moment there is no way that I'm going to invest serious money into an industry based upon protectionist tariffs.  Because i don't know if those tariffs are going to last through the next election or even if they are going to last through the week.  I would need at a minimum an act of congress.  If tariffs passed with 80% voting in favor, now we're talking.

Second objection i won't go into much detail, because I'm sure others have, but the experts say they don't work and its not hard to imagine how cheap labor means low-cost goods, which is good for people who buy stuff.

jatjqtjat

The discussions are a bit esoteric, so let's get an example: 95% of US ibuprofen is imported from China.

Let's say the current tarrifs stay there forever. Someone will be incentivised to build a US based pharma facility for ibuprofen.

Okay. That would cost 120-250 m$ intially and about 3-5 years to build.

Given labour costs, supply chains, FDA compliance that adds 15-20% op costs, you're probaly looking at a 70-120% increase in price.

This facility would probably give you an extra ... 200 jobs.

---------------------

So you're basically paying ibuprofen VAT of 145% for 4 years and 100% afterwards.

You invested 200 m$.

You are losing probably around 20 bln$ anually because they're not buying your soybeans and iPhones.

For an extra 200 jobs.

Is it worth it?

Angry_Penguin_78

Tariffs are stupid. U keep pointing out China, but as many US companies have already been doing, they've just been moving supply chains to different countries in Asia. Those jobs aren't gonna come back to America, as basic economics guarantees that.

America won't revitalize its factories, it won't happen.

The trade balance doesn't matter, as American businesses actively profit from buying from cheaper countries. If it won't be China, then it'll be Vietnam or India. And no one wants to buy overpriced american shit. And thats fine for america, as we sell shit to ourselves or other large companies.

KilaManCaro

&gt; It shows geopolitical strength against China

Nothing the Trump administration has done is showing it is stronger than China. The tariffs were placed, China placed some of their own, and now they are sitting back while Trump flagrantly lies about negotiations that are not actually taking place. They even put out a statement saying he was lying. 

How is it showing strength if the person you are strong arming is totally ignoring you and calling you out for lying about how strong you are? 

&gt;unsustain able for America to heavily rely on China,

We've been sustaining it for decades.

destro23

The idea that companies will close down the production plants they have in China to avoid the tariffs and build new plants in the U.S. where they will then employ lots of U.S. citizens, pay them a higher wage than what they pay overseas workers, not to mention having to pay benefits like healthcare and etc. is a fantasy. One company already said it closed its production plants in China and is now moving them to India. As someone who likes wealth, Trump should have known these companies were not going to spend more for U.S. based plants and workers. It's not going to happen.

Decanthus

If i remember correctly, back in October 2024, when i was reading article about BRICS and its incentives to create a new currency, there was a line that says US "retaliates" by allowing companies that are from the BRICS affiliated countries to build their factory in US with less to no tax for X amount of years.
Is this info that i have correct? 
I pulled this line of thoughts to reach the conclusion (at that time) to: US selling their "high consumerism strength" to the world and hoping the world bite.

Edit (add):Hence the tariffs policy plan going into play now to increase this movement (transfer?) of goods manufacturing to inland. Though the raw naterials itself still has to be procured/imported from other countries that produce them. Huh. Is this even balanced in the book?

applebonded

All of the points you make have to have quantitative outcomes associated with them. 

So in all cases one should follow up and ask

1) how much will the trade balance change by and by when?

2) how much additional gdp / growth will be generated be restored industry and by when?

3) again how much of an overall change to terms of trade will be created and by when? 

Without numbers and timeframes associated with these 3 points, it’s impossible to evaluate if Trumps tariff policy is a good thing. 

Have you read any economic analyses of the points you are making?

CoffeeAndLemon

When housing is scarce, it doesn’t motivate people to build houses - they don’t alter the housing market itself. Instead they attempt to satisfy their housing needs within the constraints of the preexisting market. 

Similarly, when tariffs are enacted, businesses don’t build new manufacturing sites - they don’t alter the manufacturing landscape. They instead satisfy their business needs within the constraints of the preexisting landscape. These statements are generalizations.

rhythm-weaver

&gt;By making it significantly more expensive to manufacture things overseas, companies will be incentivised to move to the US

If you're making the import of raw materials from abroad more expensive in the US, and the sale of end-products manufactured abroad more expensive in the US, why would a company move to the US? Wouldn't they be more likely to move even more of their activity outside of the US?

ragepuppy

The price of consumer goods goes up for all Americans. 

That doesn't help us. 

American manufacturing isn't being helped by these tariffs. Their supply chains are fucked and small manufacturing is in mass peril.

America is seen as an irrational actor lead by a man child who knows nothing. China is seen a rational leader.  

Our stock is falling. Theirs is rising.

anewleaf1234

Please provide the timeline you see for perceived benefits. There is 0 chance anyone alive today will see financial benefit for the average American from tariffs. Really, it's unlikely that goods will ever be as affordable to the middle class as they are today without some sort of ww3 like reset and it becomes a toss up as to who will benefit from such a scenario.

unordinarilyboring

The fetish for manufacturing jobs is insane. America has jobs. We have a 4.2% unemployment rate, which is really good. What we need are higher wages and better-paying jobs, none of which are going to come from bringing manufacturing jobs back here. Have you seen those plants in China? The ones with the goddamn suicide nets? Is that really what we wanna bring here?

CartographerKey4618

But Trump did them in a completely irresponsible way so they won't. Businesses will only change their behavior if they think the tariffs will be permanent. Trump has changed his mind multiple times on them already and has not made these changes in a bipartisan or even with the consensus of his own party so now even if he commits to a new set of tariffs billionaires are going to say we can't have this guy running the economy don't invest in anything for two years donate to a bunch of free trade Democrats and wait for the economy to crash and a blue wave in a year and a half and for the tariffs to be repealed.

OmniManDidNothngWrng

Tariffs are a consumption tax on American consumers. That's all.

Also the United States doesn't have the capacity or human resources to manufacture most of the things being hit with tariffs. The US doesn't have any of the human resources necessary to build iPhones, for example.

  
I'm not aware of any examples since the end of WWII where tariffs produced the benefits that Trump is promising. All is in Trump's imagination.

sdbest

And why are we tariffing other countries? How does it show geopolitical strength when we’ve bullying every country with tariffs? Also Japan, Korea, and China are in trade talks these three don’t mix at all. The us is making these three work with each other is big red flag.

Difficult_Dealer9276

This was discussed here just recently on the post [CMV: Trump's tariffs are a good thing for the US](/r/changemyview/comments/1ka66r2/cmv_trumps_tariffs_are_a_good_thing_for_the_us/).

You should go have a look at the arguments there.

GadgetGamer

As a Chinese, I'd like to say: you'll have supply chain disruption first.

China accounts for 40 percent of the containers imported into the U.S., and those containers disappear.

What are you going to do about that?

bjran8888

[deleted]

China isn’t the only game in town. Some companies have already moved some production away from China. Those things aren’t moving to the US, they are going to other low-cost countries.

double_blaze

It could work if the tariffs were fixed and permanent. Problem is Trump is too unpredictable for businesses to develop any type of domestic manufacturing plants. Businesses simply can't make long-term decisions based on Trump tweets.

joepierson123


1. Uniting your allies against your foes is smart. Uniting your allies and foes against you is dumb. The tariffs are strengthening China's position as a reasonable ally and the U.S. is making clear that it is no longer a reliable ally. 

2. We don't have the will, expertise, or low cost labor to effectively make lots of products. The tariffs don't change that. It would be smart if trump did something like target a specific industry that has geopolitical importance and is critical to various different industries, tariff imports from rivals for those products, and create subsidies to invest in that industry. Maybe we could like do that with computer chips and call it something like "the chips act"

3. It literally doesn't matter if we buy more from them than they buy from us. And how is it unsustainable? We can absolutely keep doing that and it won't destroy our economy. 

Countries aren't purely adversaries or allies. Chinese manufacturing has been great for a lot of Americans. I really don't think assembling iPhones in the U.S. is going to supercharge the U.S. economy. 

There is a good reason that pretty much every economist thinks the tariffs are dumb. They used a hatchet and not a scalpel, and didn't think it through.

Squaredeal91

I’ve got some land in Florida I’d like to sell you

Fit_Statistician1199

&gt;the unsustainable trade deficit

Citation needed

Finch20

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FloorSufficient9364

Luka-Step-Back

This would be appropriate to post here if the stock market was attached to reality.

twostroke1

But stocks keep climbing 😭 make it make sense

Key_Bag4533

GOOD NEWS = PUMP, BAD NEWS = PUMP, NO NEWS = PUMP.

  
Just be a bull and you win.

Interr0gate

Calamity-Bob

utilityknife101

Wow they’re such smart cookies, who would’ve thought

shiroandae

Honestly at this point I’m just wondering what hasn’t been blamed for slowing growth. Rates, AI, China, now tariffs. Global recession bingo card filling up fast.

BagpipesDontFly

Beatless7

Yeah, all true, however you have to think in the future 

So when you look at this budget they are passing. The only way it works is with hot growth. They are using the tariff revenue to try and argue that it is somewhat reasonable. Get votes, pass it to the voters 

What comes next? Well the policy doesn't work without hot growth and how can you get growth to start growing? That's right get rid of most of the tariffs right after you pass supported tax policy that is all deficit funded 

Now you're going to have an economy that just takes off. Assets up, wealth inequality up, the people who own the properties, all the stocks, all the assets, they benefit greatly 

So you can talk about the headlines today which aren't really helping or you can game out what's likely to happen and position for it

fairlyaveragetrader

By the end of the Chump administration, it will be a big and beautiful economic mess.  Too early to notice the damage forthcoming.  

Ok_Grapefruit3379

The market just keeps selling people a pile of crap wrapped in a bow

DrSenorChuckles

I sometimes miss the old Mr Obvious bit from the Bob and Tom show

DonAmecho777

softDisk-60

As per design and command of his handlers.

psyberdel

Yeah, but the US is stronger than ever. Look at the billions and billions of dollars the tariffs have generated for the US! Also, the GDP is set to crush it.  I laugh at the ignorance!

zullo77

Why would tariffs hurt the global economy if China is the biggest market and the US is only 15% of exports?

beginner75

President Trump's comments on flexible tariff deadlines highlight ongoing trade negotiations and their implications for the market and economic relationships.

US Trade Policy and Tariffs

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

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What the people want