Tariffs Catch-All

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Analysis shows Trump's tariffs would cost US employers $82.3 billion

www.wral.com

Analysis shows Trump's tariffs would cost US employers $82.3 billion

WASHINGTON (AP) — An analysis finds that a critical group of U.S. employers would face a direct cost of $82.3 billion from President Donald Trump’s current tariff plans, a sum that could be potentially managed through price hikes, layoffs, hiring freezes or lower profit margins.
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nycfan said:
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[Not clear of anything is signed]
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Vietnam is not a giant market in any event, and the cost of U.S. goods and services may be prohibitive even with no tariffs, but there is room to grow the market in niches where we actually produce items Vietnam imports below cost (or availability) of similar imports from the region:

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Meanwhile, even if the USA magically took over the entire Chinese business with Vietnam, the US would still have a trade deficit with Vietnam.


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In other words, opening U.S. opportunities in Vietnam could help a limited number of U.S. businesses, but won’t resolve the trade imbalance. Meanwhile, now the U.S. will pay 20% tariffs on imports from Vietnam (and 40% for imports that are being trade washed through Vietnam).

PS — dropping the tariff rate on U.S. imports to zero is virtually meaningless except for a handful of products — the average tariff rate charged by Vietnam on U.S. imports was already only a little over 1%.
 
US runs a pretty big deficit with Vietnam. Slapping a tariff on Vietnam imports is pretty dumb and only passes the buck to the American consumer. Fighting for better access to their market should be the priority.

I always thought Japan was the country that never gets addressed when talking about deficits. They use all sorts of tricks to limit access to their markets: they have staunchly defended their agricultural sector. This is a bilateral negotiation that was overdue. But sure slap tariffs on 170 countries instead.
 
CRHeel94 said:
Fighting for better access to their market should be the priority.
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We already have access to their market. US firms don't want to import into Vietnam.

All the SE Asian countries have high tariff rates, especially on textiles. Those aren't to protect their economies from the US, who isn't a player. It's to protect against other countries.

IIRC -- and there's a real chance that it isn't correct, as the memory is hazy -- in the last round of GATT negotiations, the US delegation didn't even bother participating in the negotiations among less and least developed countries. It simply doesn't matter.
 
I'll preface this by saying I haven't looked at US-Vietnam trade agreements in detail. Broadly speaking, the Asian markets, like any other country, use tariffs to protect certain industries. But the Asians in general are experts in using non tariff barriers to restrict. So even if you have access in theory, in practice it becomes much more difficult.

I'm pretty sure there are US companies that would love to knock out some of those protective tariffs and barriers. Looking at the 2024 US Trade Rep comments on Vietnam there are still concerns about protection in agricultural goods, pharma, banking, telecom and energy among others.
 
Aren't we overthinking this?

2025 Vietnam : 2025 US :: 1770 American colonies : 1770 England.

Trump tariffs on Vietnam :: Townshend Acts
 
CRHeel94 said:
I'll preface this by saying I haven't looked at US-Vietnam trade agreements in detail. Broadly speaking, the Asian markets, like any other country, use tariffs to protect certain industries. But the Asians in general are experts in using non tariff barriers to restrict. So even if you have access in theory, in practice it becomes much more difficult.

I'm pretty sure there are US companies that would love to knock out some of those protective tariffs and barriers. Looking at the 2024 US Trade Rep comments on Vietnam there are still concerns about protection in agricultural goods, pharma, banking, telecom and energy among others.
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I doubt there are US - Vietnam trade agreements. The vast majority of trade relationships are determined by the GATT. CAFTA and NAFTA are exceptions, even in today's world of increasing regional trade pacts.

I also doubt there are significant NTBs. Vietnam has relied heavily on US (and other western) capital, to a much greater extent than Japan or China ever did. While NTBs are not exactly related, I would imagine that the foreign capital would frown on NTBs because they potentially inhibit national competitiveness and foreign capital would be looking for fewer NTBs. And Vietnam is a price taker in foreign capital negotiations -- as this "deal" illustrates.

The Asian countries that are "experts in NTBs" are China, Japan and Korea. They are richer and not such small economies to be price-takers. SE Asia generally does not, unless one counts Indonesia. I mean, there are some NTBs but the US has more.
 
apparently I'm wrong about Vietnam/US bilateral trade agreement. There is one. It was signed in 2001 but that was before Vietnam's accession to the WTO. So I'm not sure it's in effect any longer. WTO rules generally prohibit bilateral trade agreements as they violate MFN status, a core WTO principle (that Trump has destroyed for the US at least). I mean, who knows really. We used to have international trade law. Not so much any more.
 
altmin said:
The average salary in Vietnam is 17.3 million Vietnamese Dong (VND) per month or 697 USD/month.

What the hell are they going to be buying from the US?
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I've seen that line of reasoning, and I'm not sure I agree with it.
US has a trade surplus with many developing countries (or much smaller deficit). Peru and Guatemala have a similar GDP per capita as Vietnam and have a surplus with the US. There are many in that same range of GDP per capita that run very small deficits. Vietnam has the third highest trade imbalance with the US. Part of it is just a geographic reality...their imports are dominated by China, South Korea and Japan but their imports from the US are pretty darn low.
 
CRHeel94 said:
I've seen that line of reasoning, and I'm not sure I agree with it.
US has a trade surplus with many developing countries (or much smaller deficit). Peru and Guatemala have a similar GDP per capita as Vietnam and have a surplus with the US. There are many in that same range of GDP per capita that run very small deficits. Vietnam has the third highest trade imbalance with the US. Part of it is just a geographic reality...their imports are dominated by China, South Korea and Japan but their imports from the US are pretty darn low.
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I cannot speak to Peru, but Guatemala is a poor example because of all the remittances -- 20% of the GDP!

Remittances are measured on the current account, but they are more like a capital flow in function. If we count them as capital flows, then Guatemala would have a very substantial capital flow deficit and thus it would have a large current account surplus, just like Vietnam.

But unlike most capital flows, the remittances don't really finance capital projects, and thus they give Guatemala a surplus of dollars with no real outlet. So what happens is that Guatemala buys most of its oil from the U.S., and a lot of corn too. Those count as US exports but they aren't really specific to Guatemala. It's a world market and it's sort of random how the oil money flows, even without the remittance factor.

In general, the US has small trade surpluses with a lot of underdeveloped countries across the world, but remittances complicate the story a lot because they uncomfortably fit into the traditional current/capital accounting. I bet if remittances were zeroed out, the US would run small trade deficits. I have no idea about remittances from the US to Vietnam.
 
"Vietnam will pay a 20% tariff on any and all goods sent into our Territory..."

Does this dolt actually believe the government of the shipper pays the tariff, or is he just repeatedly lying so the stupid fools who support him will not understand that the importer (and US consumer) pay these tariffs? Is he actually this stupid or does he just think we are?
 
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