Tariffs Catch-All

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superrific said:
So we're back to square one, huh?
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Not that I know of.
superrific said:
Didn't pay any attention to what's been going on?
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What day is it??
superrific said:
The trade deficit is not something to "fix."
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I've said nothing about the trade deficit, only tariffs.
superrific said:
It is a consequence of American choices, mainly the political choice as to deficit spending but also the personal choices about savings rates.

There are two ways to address the overconsumption. First is to make consumption more expensive. Tariffing foreign goods will create a one-time jump in price level, and then consumption will fall. If the consumption can be replaced by domestic production, then consumption will rebound somewhat due to import substitution. But to the extent that domestic production cannot fill the void, what happens is a forced reduction in consumption by Americans. That could come in the form of inflation, or unemployment, or both.

So that's the tariff strategy: make everyone poorer to make imports decline, and hope to make it up through domestic supply.

Another strategy to reduce the trade deficit would be to lower the federal deficit. If we have to borrow less from abroad to finance our public spending, then our trade deficit will also shrink (as they are mirror images of each other). And one way to do that would be to not cut taxes for the rich people yet again. We need more tax revenues, period. If they were serious about the trade deficit, they wouldn't basically be ending all tax enforcement. They would step it up, over and above Biden's increases, since it's a tremendously profitable investment. More taxes paid by Americans to the government = fewer dollars need borrowing from abroad.
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The strategy, in general, should be to come to agreements with each country so we aren't getting hit with large tariffs while charging low tariffs.

China is a separate issue...
 
I'd ask again what we are to glean from the example of lots of Americans purchasing Japanese cars while few Japanese residents purchase American cars?

With zero tariffs in place, the imbalance is staggering...is the suggestion that we should tariff Japanese car purchases in America to nearly the point of not existing? If Japan isn't already purchasing American cars with no tariffs at all, how does any tariff policy induce them to do so?
 
politicalwire.com

U.S. and China Held First Trade Talks in Secret

"The first meeting to break the U.S.-China trade deadlock was held almost three weeks ago in the basement of the IMF headquarters, arranged under cover of secrecy," the Financial Times reports. "The previously unreported encounter
politicalwire.com politicalwire.com

“The first meeting to break the U.S.-China trade deadlock was held almost three weeks ago in the basement of the IMF headquarters, arranged under cover of secrecy,” the Financial Times reports.

“The previously unreported encounter was the first high-level meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials since Donald Trump’s inauguration and the launch of his tariff war.”
 
IMG_6933.jpeg

“… Since the start of the fiscal year in October, the U.S. has collected $63.3 billion in customs duties, a $15.4 billion increase from the same period a year earlier.

Although positive for the government’s balance sheet, the deficit for the current fiscal year through April is still about $1.05 trillion—about 23% wider than the prior year.

New tariffs generally take about a month to show up as receipts in the government’s accounting. The April increase likely reflects a host of tariff increases levied by the Trump administration earlier this year, including tariffs on steel and aluminum, products from Mexico and Canada, and the rollout of the reciprocal tariffs during the month. …”

 
ZenMode said:
The strategy, in general, should be to come to agreements with each country so we aren't getting hit with large tariffs while charging low tariffs.
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We did that. Eight times actually, plus an attempt at a ninth.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The US is not subject to high tariffs abroad. That is just a mistake of fact. There are countries that have high tariffs on goods we don't make. In theory, Bangladesh has high tariffs relative to ours in textiles. But we don't sell textiles to Bangladesh and we don't want to. Those tariffs are insulating the Bangladeshi domestic market from, say, India or Burma. It doesn't affect the U.S.

Understand that, in all of those rounds of negotiating, the overriding US goal was a reduction in trade barriers around the world. For decades we worked with other countries to lower tariffs, and it worked very well as evidenced by the achievements of the negotiation rounds. It is not the case that those tens of thousands or people (or more) involved in those discussions were idiots. Trump is an idiot, and he's lying to you about the world economy. Or someone is lying to you.
 
heelinhell said:
Were you worried about Biden's mental status ?

Trump says "hold my Adderall "

www.rawstory.com

Trump admits flubbing figures in rambling trade war speech: 'I misunderstood'

President Donald Trump spoke Monday about negotiations with China that resulted in a dramatic step back from a tariff trade war — but in a rambling speech, he revealed the talks had left him confused.First, he told the press, "Both sides now agreed to reduce the tariffs imposed. After April 2nd...
www.rawstory.com www.rawstory.com
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update:

www.rawstory.com

'Sleepy Don has no clue!' Trump mocked for nearly forgetting to sign executive order

President Donald Trump raised eyebrows and concerns about his mental fitness after wandering away from a White House event.The president announced an executive order Monday morning intended to lower the price of prescription drugs by up to 80 percent, but he nearly walked out of the gathering...
www.rawstory.com www.rawstory.com

remember when the GQPers were laughing at Biden ?

remember when the media were fixated on Biden's mental status ?

not so good times...
 
ZenMode said:
Because other countries put significant tariffs on US imports, while the US rarely, if ever, does the same?
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Several posters have referred to this claim and I doubt it holds up. Before April 2, I looked at the lists on the internet for what countries were charging and what we charged. The most economically engaged countries generally were about the same as ours with one major exception. That being India. But India has been lowering theirs over the last two decades. They tried to protect their economy after Independence and found it was a loser for their economy and started reducing their tariffs in the 90's.

Interestingly, the countries and Islands that had the worst economies are the ones with the highest tariffs. Doubtful we would be selling much to those countries anyway.

All of which brings up a point. If Trump doesn't straighten out trade (whatever that means) and leaves his new tariffs on, then he's hurting our economy as India found out. And its obvious that his real intent is to leave tariffs on so he can pay for his tax cuts.
 
nycfan said:
IMG_6933.jpeg

“… Since the start of the fiscal year in October, the U.S. has collected $63.3 billion in customs duties, a $15.4 billion increase from the same period a year earlier.

Although positive for the government’s balance sheet, the deficit for the current fiscal year through April is still about $1.05 trillion—about 23% wider than the prior year.

New tariffs generally take about a month to show up as receipts in the government’s accounting. The April increase likely reflects a host of tariff increases levied by the Trump administration earlier this year, including tariffs on steel and aluminum, products from Mexico and Canada, and the rollout of the reciprocal tariffs during the month. …”

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I've read this is primarily increased orders to beat the tariffs. If the tariffs go away there will be a down period to rebalance inventories.
 
superrific said:
This you?

"Ok, but that's still what he's presumably looking to fix, right?"

"That" being the balance of trade.
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"That" being the discrepancy between tariffs we're charged and tariffs we charge.

We have 300 million people and we have lots of money. We will have a trade deficit with certain countries indefinitely.
 
superrific said:
We did that. Eight times actually, plus an attempt at a ninth.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

The US is not subject to high tariffs abroad. That is just a mistake of fact. There are countries that have high tariffs on goods we don't make. In theory, Bangladesh has high tariffs relative to ours in textiles. But we don't sell textiles to Bangladesh and we don't want to. Those tariffs are insulating the Bangladeshi domestic market from, say, India or Burma. It doesn't affect the U.S.

Understand that, in all of those rounds of negotiating, the overriding US goal was a reduction in trade barriers around the world. For decades we worked with other countries to lower tariffs, and it worked very well as evidenced by the achievements of the negotiation rounds. It is not the case that those tens of thousands or people (or more) involved in those discussions were idiots. Trump is an idiot, and he's lying to you about the world economy. Or someone is lying to you.
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Wikipedia as a source: DENIED
 
ZenMode said:
"That" being the discrepancy between tariffs we're charged and tariffs we charge.

We have 300 million people and we have lots of money. We will have a trade deficit with certain countries indefinitely.
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Which tariffs? Nobody here seems to know, but maybe you do.
And you’ll need to talk about tariffs that existed before Trump started his 2nd term.
 
superrific said:
You are contesting that there have been eight rounds of successful multilateral negotiations per the GATT? Which one of the eight listed on the Wikpedia page doesn't count?
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No, I'm contesting that there isn't still a gap between what we charge and are charged.

I don't trust the go-along-to-get-along beurocrats to do what's best for the country, even after 8 tries.
 
ZenMode said:
"That" being the discrepancy between tariffs we're charged and tariffs we charge.

We have 300 million people and we have lots of money. We will have a trade deficit with certain countries indefinitely.
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This was what you were replying to:

"The balance of trade looks very different when you include everything."

Now, it's likely that you don't understand what the balance of trade means. It's not the same as tariffs. It's the trade deficit. Sorry. This isn't another case of arguing over words. You are literally wrong. Now, if you want to say that you misunderstood, fine.

I promise you that the tariffs we charge and are charged are in balance. That's what 9 rounds of multilateral trade negotiations achieved (the 9th being unfinished as of yet and will probably never finish). During those rounds, I'm quite certain that the US didn't spend much time fretting over Bolivia's tariffs on alpaca wool, because they are economically insignificant. Literally nobody cares. So you will undoubtedly be able to pull some dumbass tariff rate that some country somewhere charges on something, which has no relation to the real world at all.

You might even be able to find a high tariff rate on some product in the deal between industrial countries. As I've explained to you, trade barriers are mostly about politics, and in some countries, some industries have enormous clout. The sugar industry in the US, for instance, has long been able to convince Department of Agriculture to maintain low quotas on imported sugar, which is why most of our sugar comes from beets (inefficiently) and we pay higher sugar prices than many other places. Or it did come from beets. Maybe there are other sugar sources now but we aren't importing much sugar, because trade barriers.

Or the deal between the US and other economies on cars: passenger cars are tariffed by Europe; trucks are tariffed by the U.S. The truck tariff is considerably higher, because there is considerably more volume in cars. When the deal was made, the two concessions were likely of similar value, because that's how negotiations work.
 
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