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.
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.
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.
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.
Many manufacturing parts used by US companies are sourced in China. This is especially true for parts containing rare earth metals and the metals themselves for which China is practically the sole source. If the trade war becomes very difficult for the Chinese they could basically cut the amount of these items supplied to the US which would have a crippling effect on US high-tech and our military. We have foolishly ignored this problem for many years which could come back to bite us.
Maybe the tariffs will not be noticed by Americans, but especially next year if the they are raised to 25% and cover basically everything from China they may well cause a very noticeable inflationary effect for many of us. Then the question is how would our population react? There could very likely be a strong and popular push against Trump’s tariff policies. The Chinese people would also feel the effects of the tariff war. In this situation it would be a matter of which population has the greatest fortitude. Over here the will of the people matters, but in China the state is much more impervious to such pressures. My gut feeling is that we would fold first.
——The Trump tariffs target items available from sources outside China. Buy from a supplier outside China, avoid the tariff.——
Ths is a restatement of several “bert” posts weeks ago and at least one I think today.
The anticipated revenue from tariffed china goods will be small, and certaainly not enough to tun the country.
Most U.S. taxpayers are “consumers”, so add in the $50./per family...”farmer tariff bailout bill”. 1000 nickels right there. ($12 billion/244.3 million family tax returns).
I get the author’s point but the headline is disingenuous.