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Other Countries Seem to Like Tariffs. So Why Are People Opposed to Trump’s Tariffs?
Daily Signal ^ | 04/05/2025 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 04/05/2025 7:40:43 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Edited on 04/05/2025 8:14:39 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]

April 3, President Donald Trump announced it as “Liberation Day.” And by that he meant we were going to be liberated from asymmetrical tariffs of the last 50 years. And it was going to inaugurate a new what he called “golden age” of trade parity, greater investment in the United States, but mostly, greater job opportunities and higher-paying jobs for Americans.


(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: europe; tariffs
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1 posted on 04/05/2025 7:40:43 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Because of the TDS ....


2 posted on 04/05/2025 7:42:37 PM PDT by SkyDancer ( ~ Am Yisrael Chai ~)
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To: SeekAndFind

I have been told that is a simplistic way of looking at it, and it is much more complicated than we mere citizens can know.

Just call me simple.


3 posted on 04/05/2025 7:44:44 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of anger, hate and violence.)
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To: SkyDancer

Yep, these are not like the other tariffs, these are Trump Tariffs!


4 posted on 04/05/2025 7:47:07 PM PDT by Paladin2 ( )
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To: SeekAndFind

Because these “people” are either members of Democrat Party or part of the Rent-A-Mob.


5 posted on 04/05/2025 7:48:09 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Because they hate Trump. They hate the USA.

Because of hatred. We call it Trump Derangement Syndrome

Because of TDS.


6 posted on 04/05/2025 7:48:50 PM PDT by stanne (Because they were mesmerized by Obama, the man for whom this was named, whose name they left out of )
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To: SeekAndFind
One reason for the hand-wringing is that people are looking at the short-term effects. Yes, the price of imported products are going up right now. United States companies are now hurt because Trump has changed the slope of the playing field...and it takes time to on-shore that which has been off-shore for some time. In terms of tariffs on materials (as opposed to the products of labor) the source country is driving the rate of tariff.

Some US based companies already have manufacturing assets on-shore; they can ramp up CONUS output as quickly as they can retool, such as with auto makers that have plants both here and across the borders.

Other companies, both foreign and domestic, can invest here in the USA; the effect is less immediate because of the time it takes to build the manufacturing plants. Think semiconductors.

Finally, the off-shore governments can adjust their tariffs, both in their own interests and in the interest of USA companies that manufacture stuff overseas. This can be done literally on Monday -- no delay at all.

There are a lot of knobs that everyone can turn to reduce the pain of the trade war in the long term. Reduction of the pain in the short term is less sure, because it involves the national pride of the off-shore countries.

As one social media posting put it, Donald Trump has thrown the dice and determined the point he needs to roll to win; let the game of craps continue.

7 posted on 04/05/2025 8:08:10 PM PDT by asinclair (It's too bad there will never be a RICO indictment of the DNC.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Simple, because Trump is doing it and orange man bad..if Trump came out in favor of single payer healthcare the Dems would come out against it..if Harris had won(God forbid) and she had imposed the same tariffs the media would call her a hero for finally fighting China and trying to bring back jobs to America..they would say what they said in 2020 and 2021 “the stock market is NOT the economy”


8 posted on 04/05/2025 8:08:53 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: asinclair

People want a quick fix thats NOT gonna happen..it took decades for countries to basically own our asses, it will take time for us to fix everything


9 posted on 04/05/2025 8:09:46 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: All

They are afraid they will work


10 posted on 04/05/2025 8:16:10 PM PDT by escapefromboston (Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.)
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To: Sarah Barracuda

Yep. If Trump cured cancer, they’d immediately go ballistic about how he put all the oncologists out of business, and probably owns stock in the cure.


11 posted on 04/05/2025 8:22:08 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady (The greatest wealth is to live content with little. -Plato)
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To: SeekAndFind

If tariffs are “bad”, why every country charges tariffs on USA exports to those countries? On average American products are charged 5 times compared to what USA charges imports.


12 posted on 04/05/2025 8:30:06 PM PDT by Bobbyvotes (I am in mid-80's and I am not gonna change my opinions.)
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To: Bobbyvotes

Trump could have gone the full Monty and tariffed these countries exactly what the tariff us but trump was kind and cut it in half


13 posted on 04/05/2025 8:51:09 PM PDT by Sarah Barracuda
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To: Sarah Barracuda

I saw that on the chart he held up. Wonder why not make tariffs exactly reciprocal?


14 posted on 04/05/2025 9:26:31 PM PDT by Bobbyvotes (I am in mid-80's and I am not gonna change my opinions.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Obama, Pelosi, Schumer all praised tariffs in the past. As did their main media lackeys. These people are all disgusting pretenders with no core values. Well, maybe hate counts as a core value.


15 posted on 04/05/2025 9:53:28 PM PDT by citizen (A transgender male competing against women may be male, but he's no man.)
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To: SeekAndFind

So Why Are People Opposed to Trump’s Tariffs?

___________________________________________________

Because they are Trump’s tariffs....duh!


16 posted on 04/05/2025 10:58:01 PM PDT by Bishop_Malachi (Liberal Socialism - A philosophy which advocates spreading a low standard of living equally.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Two questions:

1. If Tariffs really are that bad, why do all these other countries have them? (theirs are still twice what ours are even after President Trump raised ours considerably)

2. If consumers are stuck paying the tariff in the form of higher prices, why are all these other countries upset that we’re raising our tariff rates?


17 posted on 04/06/2025 1:02:17 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: SeekAndFind

The building up of China, and before China, Russia, started in the early 1930s right after FDR (D) recognized the USSR’s government as legitimate and opened diplomatic relations. On top of that, the way was paved for massive investments by US corporations in the Soviet Union. I’ve documented many of those deals in this site’s thread as documented in Antony Sutton’s books The Best Enemy Money Can Buy and National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union. To inform those who did not read any of those posts, some examples of “investments” in the USSR in the 1930s included:

Caterpillar Tractors: Tractor Plant a Chelyabinsk, Russia. Output included tanks and other armored vehicles.

Ford Motor Company: Automotive Plant at Gorki, Russia: Output the same as Caterpillar Tractors and the Ford Gorki Plant produced engines for other plants to place in Russian military vehicles as documented in the War Department manual for US troops concerning how to identify foreign nation’s armored vehicles entitled: “Basic Field Manual: Identification of Foreign Armored Vehicles: German, Japanese, Russian, Italian, and French” published June 20, 1941.

What the manual did not document was the fact that the Commerce Department had to approve this deal and that all components of each manufacturing facility were provided by United States corporations and all construction and plant engineering was provided by other US corporations. US banks and quasi-government corporation, the International Monetary Fund helped out with financing. The State Department also had to approve the deals along with Commerce Department licensing.

US Steel Corporation: A copy of the US Steel plant in Gary, Indiana area was constructed near Stalingrad. It was the largest steel facility in Europe. It takes mass-produced steel to make modern weapons of all kinds.

Nitrogen Engineering and Dupont Corporation: Facilities for the production of refined nitrogen which is useful for three things: fertilizers, propellants for ammunition, and refined nitrogen for explosives. In WWI, Russia lacked the means to mass produce refined nitrogen.

General Electric: Modernized the Russian power network, which is required for modern manufacturing then and now.

There are other examples of 1930s “investments” in Russia, and there are some from the 1970s documented by Sutton:

Bryant Chucking Grinder Company: Was approved in the late 60s to provide machines called Centalign B machines, to mass produce precision miniature ball bearings that are required in the guidance systems of Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles, or MIRVs. Those are small nuclear warheads for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (IBM), like the smaller bombs released by a cluster bomb, only each small bomb has a targeting system.

All we did with China is to provide them the means to produce trade goods as well as military goods, which enabled the Chinese to raise foreign exchange which could then be used to make their production system self-perpetuating. Russia didn’t make things for foreign trade to raise foreign exchange. Someone wanted the Russians to produce for their military, right in time for WWII. The US corporations had to refurbish the Russian plants a few times after WWII. Basically, what we did for China mirrors what we did for Russia.

Finally, what was done for Russia by our corporations, with the District of Columbia’s blessing, was done during the depth of the Great Depression, while our workers languished in bread lines, hobo jungles, and in trickle-down New Deal jobs in the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration.

Some things never change.


18 posted on 04/06/2025 3:02:30 AM PDT by roughrider (Free Trade, East-West Trade, China Trade, )
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To: roughrider

Excellent post! What particular Anthony Sutton books did you get this info? I’ve read a couple of the Wall STreet Trilogy


19 posted on 04/06/2025 3:48:50 AM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: Jan_Sobieski

On Amazon:

National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union

The Best Enemy Money Can Buy


20 posted on 04/06/2025 6:22:23 AM PDT by roughrider (Free Trade, East-West Trade, China Trade, )
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