Posted on 09/25/2018 9:29:11 AM PDT by MaxistheBest
Past administrations have called out China for violating the internationally agreed-upon rules of trade for decades. After countless high-level talks, admonitions and appeals, China did nothing to change its cheating ways. President Trump has dispensed with the talk and taken action, slapping tariffs on billions of dollars of goods China exports to the United States at artificially low prices.
Naysayers predicted the president’s tariffs would tank the stock market and drag down the economy. But the Dow is posting record gains, unemployment is at a 49-year low and the economy remains strong.
The forecasters are at a loss to explain why reality isn’t conforming to what they learned in school. A Wall Street economist tells Reuters, “It’s like we have nothing to fear, but we should.”
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Now, as to why tariffs won’t necessarily mean higher prices for consumers:
The Trump tariffs are designed to inflict maximum damage on China while sparing American businesses and consumers. For the most part, they don’t target consumer goods.
And here’s the beauty part, how the tariffs are designed to hurt China: The Trump tariffs target items available from sources outside China. Buy from a supplier outside China, avoid the tariff. President Trump’s surgical strike tariffs are sending companies a clear message: Do business anywhere but China.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
And the DNC just lost another bullet for the mid-terms:)
Right. Because we all know the cost of componant parts never affects the cost of the end consumer good.
The Trump tariffs target items available from sources outside China.
Thank goodness we have politicians who can teach our businesses the best place to source their inputs.
componant = component
Define "best."
“Right. Because we all know the cost of componant parts never affects the cost of the end consumer good.”
I’m guessing you didn’t read the whole article. The tariffs are placed on the first sale not the last and they are spread out so much that the hit to the consumer is minimal and in a good economy, can be absorbed easily.
Plus if they are sourced outside of China no one gets hurt at all, except for China.
Team Trump is cutting the legs out from China’s manufacturers, just like he did with Mexico and China sourced items. Canada will be next.
My view is that trade is what got Trump into the presidential race in the first place. Every other issue was secondary. He saw immigration as an opportunity to fill a void left by every other politician. He knew that the life issue was foundational to the GOP and to the evangelical vote. But trade is his personal passion. And he promised again and again during the campaign to get the best negotiators in America on the case, and that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s not a protectionist; he just doesn’t like us getting “ripped off”. As long as other countries reciprocate on free trade, we’re all good. But he’s not going to tolerate other countries waging unilateral trade war against us.
It is a good article, with a dumb headline. Odds are it will cost the consumer a nickel here and a nickel there. But who cares, it is worth it to get control of the China problem.
Protectionist, (Patriots) understand that a tariff will increase prices. We get it. WE WANT THAT. It's a one time inflation due to higher labor costs in the USA. Again, we understand the economists. We are not stupid. But the payoff from higher import tariffs comes in lowered social costs and higher quality products. We are willing to pay more for a strong viable industrial base. I WANT TO PAY MORE.
I am not so greedy as to destroy the USA industrial base, cause social havoc, lower GDP growth, in order to buy a cheaper poor quality Coolie made consumer goods. IT'S NOT WORTH IT AT ANY PRICE.
Which is it? Do they affect the consumer cost or not?
Don't forget, the claim is they won't cost a nickle.
Hurt? Paying $32.50 instead of $29.00 for a toaster is not ‘hurt’. Hurt is watching your home town go into ruin because Hamilton-Beach closed down production and moved to China.
Trump is a consummate negotiator. His opening offer is never his final position. His tariffs are only a shot fired across the bow of a trading partner, an enticement to voluntarily renegotiate before the Trump hammer comes down. His end-game is to encourage all partners to drop their own tariffs on US products and trade truly freely, which eventually will reduce the costs of foreign goods.
Yep. These guys are fooling themselves. The best you can say for it, I think, is that it might be a small enough impact that it won’t matter in the scheme of things.
In Chicago we had a street market. You could buy anything sheaply there. Number ten cans of any canned food at half price. Lots of meat and fish as well. Who cares that there was no tax to pay. That the cans had some dents. That the meat had no stamps. It was cheap. It was like buying from China. Then one day they closed the market. And opened it again with inspectors. Somehow the prices in the market went up. But the prices at the distributors went down.
“Which is it? Do they affect the consumer cost or not?”
Do you have trouble reading english? I’m not going to get into a ridiculous argument with you...read the article.
There are no one-sided free traders in the rest of the world. They are ALL MERCHANTILISTS. Only here do we have stupid one-sided "free trade". Weird and stupid.
Politics and economics mesh, they are really the same thing. Whether you pointy headed green eye shade arm banded ledger types like it or not, that is reality.
The 30 year globalist experiment in "Free Trade" is an abject failure. Why? because the rest of the of world did't play along and used the USA.
In the USA, to be an economist requires a myopic view of everything. This stupidity is how we got here...
I didn’t know much about trade and trade deals until I started reading and following Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/
He explains it all pretty well.
Take it up with the economic illiterate who wrote the article.
It will cost exactly as much the value of the tariffs levied.
Either the consumer will pay this tax or the American business owner will absorb it by making less profit.
It's a fundamental economic principle.
Or the Chinese supplier will absorb it by cutting their price. But yes, someone ultimately pays, and that isn’t the government it is a person.
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