Posted on 08/13/2025 3:10:54 AM PDT by TBP
The proper response to foreign tariffs is nothing. Here is why.
1. A tariff is a tax on your citizens. Retaliation means you tax your buyers and your producers to “punish” a foreign government. You hurt the innocent to spite the guilty.
2. Imports are the benefit of trade. Exports are the cost you pay to get them. Blocking imports means you block the benefit and keep the cost.
3. Unilateral free trade raises real incomes. It lowers input costs for businesses, speeds innovation, and forces domestic firms to win by serving customers, not by lobbying.
4. Tariff tit for tat creates a spiral of higher prices and uncertainty. Even if others later drop theirs, you have already damaged your economy.
5. If another country taxes its people or subsidizes you with cheap goods, they harm themselves. Let them. Do not copy their mistake.
6. A rights-protecting government does not violate peaceful trade among its citizens to chase geopolitical leverage. Its job is to protect consent, contract, and property, not ration who may buy what.
Foreign tariffs are their mistake. Retaliation makes it our mistake too. Do nothing, buy freely, get richer.
You are a lying traitor. You do not take into account domestic supply.
That's true. But you're going to be paying the taxes one way or another. I would prefer to pay taxes through tariffs because I have more control over what I must pay than if I pay through income taxes.
True, to a point, but
1) There are certain products we simply cannot produce here. Putting a tariff on those simply increases the cost of living.
2) Let’s say we put a 15% tariff on a foreign product. Yes, you can buy American and escape it, but if you think the US producer isn’t going to raise prices (say 10%), guess again. They can raise prices less then the price increase we impose on their foreign competitors and be more competitive.
This is like “cutting spending” in DC. It always means cutting the increase.
So because the other countries are penalizing their citizens to fund Big Government, we should follow their lead?
We know that when you tax something you get less of that thing. Tariffs are taxes. That means whatever product you put a tariff on, you will have less of that product. If there’s less of it produced (here or abroad), there is less supply, which drives the price up.
Tariffs are just mercantilism in a better coat.
Why we needed a tariff to pass the real cost of silly regs on to the consumer instead of running away like greedy little piggy cowards.
I guess we’ve decided we don’t.
Although, if you have to subsidize farmers to keep them in business, then maybe we have more than the market will bear.
….:until domestic suppliers increase production.
Yes, I do. And I have posted on that exact subject repeatedly every time you make an ignorant statement like that.
1. "Domestic supply" is non-existent for many raw materials and agricultural products (bauxite ore for aluminum production and cocoa beans, for example).
2. For industries that are built on complex supply chains and multiple manufacturing processes, "domestic supply" is meaningless because they aren't going to move entire manufacturing processes to the U.S. over short-term tariff policies.
3. For some of these industries, the tariffs are completely destructive because they end up being more favorable to the foreign producers. The recent tariff agreement with Japan is a perfect example of this. The Japanese government presented a public face of humility and duress when it signed an agreement for 15% tariffs on exports to the U.S. Meanwhile, their entire auto industry is laughing their asses off because they get to pay a 15% tariff on their exports while their U.S. competitors are now paying tariffs of 25% to 50% on imported steel, aluminum, and other automotive components.
THERE IS NO MANUFACTURER GOOD THAT CAN’T BE MADE IN THE USA.
That’s a complete misunderstanding of how tariffs work. Tariffs work like a VAT, which is one of the worst, most insidious kinds of tax.
The other country doesn’t pay it; the importer does. Then he passes that on to the shipper, who passes it on to the merchant, who passes it on to you and me. The price is going up at every stage.
but sure, let’s keep doing that to ourselves to hurt the Chinese.
All of you Free Traitors need to move to China. Do it ASAP
“And Unions.”
Yeah. And Unions. It’s hard to calculate the drain unions caused by inflated wages (needed to pay union dues) and The way unions compartmentalize work (i.e. in order to lift 21lbs, if your contract says 20lbs is the most you have to lift, you have to call over a fork lift operator to lift it, taking valuable time)
At a higher price than the pre-tariff price.
You Free Traitors are getting restless because the inflation just hasn’t happened. Hence the tirade.
Unions are a non factor because of really low participation rate (8%)
A one time adjustment. Tariffs are not like inflation. The rate stays the same every year.
You free traitors are just itching to say I told you so. Well you’ll have to wait because inflation is dead. Go back to fornicating your Adam Smith blow up doll.
Is economics about money or about goods and services?
Inflation is dead? Then why are prices still going up?
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