If Trumps tariffs go thru would that not cause the countries the tariffs are imposed on just raise their prices? And a result of that hurt the american consumer? Why do it to begin with? : explainlikeimfive

[–] pixxelkick@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

No, not really.

That logic only holds if american consumers have infinite money, which they dont. You cant just raise the prices indefinitely, eventually people just cant afford to buy the product so they dont buy it at all.

So it hurts everyone, the actual outcome is the product straight up just vaporizes off the proverbial shelves, you're supply dries up.

For canada this heavily includes:

Automobiles, enjoy going back to having year long + waits for getting your car you wanna buy
oil, gas prices will skyrocket because the US has its own supply, so people will still buy it but yeah, prices will just go sky high
Machinery, including construction equipment, refinery equipment, turbines, etc etc. So this will result in massively hiked up city level taxes as your local power plants, processing plants, etc find their repairs skyrocket in costs. Also potentially a lot of refineries and plants will no longer be able to afford operating costs so they'll just shut down, so unemployment will skyrocket
Medication, Im sure you see where that one ends up going...
Aircraft and Spacecraft

I don't know how the US thinks this isn't just shuffling money around as the primary money for this is from federal spending, so they're literally just imposing tariffs on themselves, which is pretty stupid. Par for the course though.

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[–] Klanky@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 day ago

Just to add, I work with this stuff all day as a Licensed Customs Broker. The US already has a lot of low tariffs (duties) on a huge range of goods. There are also a lot of free trade agreements in place that reduce or eliminate these tariffs if certain requirements can be met. The first round of tariffs on China are still around, tons of products from China already have 25% duty on top of the ‘normal’ duty rate for a said product.

I am curious what mechanism they will use to try and impose the tariffs quickly - there are only certain legal ways to do this and they take time and some need Congressional approval and investigations.

[–] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Well, this may just be what Canada needs to finally start selling their oil to China!

[+] blazera@lemmy.world -7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Higher prices incentivises alternative suppliers.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

If you apply blanket tariffs, the only alternative suppliers are domestic, and the current reality is that domestic production of all affected goods is either severely lacking or literally impossible.

There isn't a magic phrase that makes it possible for farmers to grow lettuce under 2 feet of snow, unfortunately.

[–] blazera@lemmy.world 0 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I aint here to defend the tariffs, just provide some basic economic literacy. If alternative suppliers arent possible, why arent they charging more already?

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

If alternative suppliers arent possible, why arent they charging more already?

In the context of blanket import tariffs, the alternative to foreign suppliers are domestic suppliers, and it does already happen. For example, produce prices fluctuate depending on whether the produce is "in season" or not. If something can't be sourced locally or the local supply is reduced, the grocery store charges you more for it because of the additional costs in sourcing it from elsewhere.

Food aside, adding tariffs to everything imported is intended to disincentivize importing goods over domestic production. When demand exceeds domestic supply (and it will*), importing is still going to be necessary to meet that demand. This happens all throughout the supply chain, too. The only difference between now and then is that right now the consumer isn't paying a bonus fee for those imported goods or the imported raw materials used to create them.

*There is not a single industrialized country that is entirely self-sufficient and without imports.

[+] Kaboom@reddthat.com -7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The goal is to incentivise American manufacturing. Off shoring has hurt Americans a lot. Tariffs are supposed to help that

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Consider for a moment that the largest industrial import is crude oil, accounting for 164 billion dollars in 2023 [1].

Slapping a tariff on imports sounds good in theory, but domestic production is not currently capable of supplying an equivalent amount of oil. Ramping up production to that scale takes a long time, and imports are going to be necessary in the meantime.

So, what happens when an X% import tax is introduced? Gasoline refineries pay X% more and pass the cost down to the consumer by raising prices at least X%.

In the short term, this is going to fuck the average American. And unless America fights hard against non-renewable energy and EVs, it's also going to fuck America in the long run by investing in the production of something with (ideally) dwindling demand.

And that's just oil/gas. There's a lot more raw materials that are difficult and/or expensive to extract domestically but cheap to obtain through global trade.

[1] https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/ft900/final_2023.pdf

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