- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Summary
Trump’s proposed tariff hikes on Chinese imports, potentially reaching 60%, could accelerate China’s shift to alternative markets and offshore production.
Exporters in Yiwu, a hub for small goods, report declining U.S. sales and are increasingly targeting regions like Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Trump also plans to close tariff loopholes, such as the $800 duty-free exemption, which would heavily impact low-cost exporters and American consumers.
Many Chinese manufacturers are relocating production to countries like Vietnam and Mexico to evade tariffs, but further restrictions could disrupt these strategies.
Yep. A 10% tariff will mean that every other country has 10% more purchasing power compared to the US. It’s basically shooting your own economy’s competitiveness in the foot.
It’s not meant to make the US competitive, it’s to make it isolated. Like I’m all for domestic manufacturing, but their goal here is to knock the US down a few pegs in every metric.
Yesterday I saw on Fox News someone saying that we could save $1t by eliminating the department of education… But nothing about how much it would cost us in competitive advantage against other countries.
“we could save $1t by eliminating the department of education”
[x] doubt
If we were spending that much on education, we wouldn’t even be talking about this.
Usually they say “save x amount” but neglect to say over what time period we would save it. 10 years is common but not universal. It’s more about “sticker shock” than the actual truth
Even 100B/y would be shocking.
How do you propose we achieve a healthy domestic manufacturing sector? It’s not possible for US Companies to compete on price when they pay higher wages and deal with a dramatically more expensive regulatory burden relative to global competitors who are farcically still labeled as “developing” so they can skirt WTO rules.
To pick an example and lay it out plainly it’s not possible for Ford / GM / Chrysler to make and sell vehicles for $30,000 USD while paying their workers $40USD per hour and conforming to US Labor and Environmental laws. This is also why vehicles built in the EU are so fucking expensive for Europeans to purchase.
Auto manufacturing is a single example but the same things holds true for nearly all manufacturing sectors and its why so much production shifted to other areas of the world.
If we want to continue this “race to the bottom” on consumer prices then we must accept the consequences of doing so. If we want to have healthy domestic manufacturing sectors that keep people employed while paying them living wages and protecting both them and the environment then we must accept the consequences of doing so.
It would save the Federal Government a trillion dollars and likely costs the States in aggregate at least a trillion. We wouldn’t really “save” anything, just cost shift it back to the States themselves. Which may, or may not, be a fair trade off. Both Red and Blue states seemingly want more control of their education systems and arguably we should give it back to them…as long as they themselves are willing to pay for it.
Some of this is likely to be grandstanding, no?
Either way, even if he goes through with this, it’s not like this will have any noticeable impact on his support.
Who the hell knows with Trump.
He makes so many random and often contradictory statements, it’s hard to predict what he will actually do, and what he won’t.