Tariffs kinda make sense when you have a deficit in a widely available item. Big trade deficit with Bangladesh? Sure you can buy cheap textiles from Thailand or Vietnam or something.
Unfortunately this approach does not work when you lack a viable domestic alternative and you're up against a monopoly.
What will the US do if TSMC does not blink? Not buy TSMC made chips? Obviously that is impossible, so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs.
>so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs.
That’s been the point all along… they are significantly raising taxes on the bottom 90% of Americans and most are too stupid to even understand it. Gotta pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy somehow.
It has nothing to do with stupidity. Stop painting people as idiots because they exist in one of the most information hostile environments in human history.
This isn't some natural state that's unrecoverable. The people you describe have been given a highly addictive media environment tailor made to engender outrage and drive behavior. It shouldn't be a shock when most people cannot resist it. The first step to changing it is not writing them off or insulting them for being had.
> most information hostile environments in human history
Is it though? East Germany comes to mind as well as the rest of the Cold War countries behind the Iron Curtain. China seems to be pretty hostile as well. In the US, it is still much easier to find real information that counters the propaganda than it is in any of those other countries. There's no Great Firewall to bypass. You don't even need to do anything anonymously. Yes, the current administration is doing its damnedest to pull the wool over the eyes of their followers, but it's only effective for them. Nobody else is fooled nor stopping their publishing of the opposition to the propaganda.
What you're describing is an Orwellian dystopia, where a boot forces you to think a certain way. We live in a Huxleyan dystopia where there is so much so much to distract you that you become submissive.
The demographic collapse will likely lead to artificial wombs and llm powered vulcan style teaching pits crossed with diamond age primers. Huxley was more prescient than I thought when teading brave new world. I think the nation that has its primers teach the vat-made labor force rhetoric, logic and critical thinking will have lower gdp, but higher stability.
Yes, this, precisely. Our increasingly dystopian present features a fair amount of Big Brother, but Brave New World's soma is what drives and enables it, along w/ aspects of Gilliam's "Brazil"....
There is also so much that's womderful and amazing and positive. No light w/out darkness, "no mud, no lotus", etc. -- which IMHO it's increasingly important to focus on, deliberately.
> East Germany comes to mind as well as the rest of the Cold War countries behind the Iron Curtain
Psychology around ads and how to manipulate peoples thoughts were not nearly as well understood at the time. Large scale studies based on data collected of peoples behavior on computers has lead to dramatically better ability to manipulate and nudge people to do what you want.
The information environment was more oppressive there, but it was easier for people to have their own thoughts since the marketing was forced and blatant but way less manipulative and devious.
> East Germany comes to mind as well as the rest of the Cold War countries behind the Iron Curtain.
Typical American response confidently knowing literally nothing of what they speak of. RFE/RL[1] was widespread behind the Iron Curtain, and the situation of today has very little in common with the situation of back then (where my parents fought in a revolution, and I come from, fwiw).
I never said or meant to imply by not specifically saying something that the opposing view was unavailable back then. That's just willfully trying to twist the narrative to a purpose I don't know why it is necessary. But since we're here, we can compare/contrast.
RFE/RL could broadcast whatever it wanted. If you received it and heard the contrary views from what official stance was, you can pretty much just accept it. You couldn't just go and search for more information in a browser/app. Seeing video of things just wasn't happening over the air on your wireless. You couldn't jump onto social platform of choice and see images in real time. Information is so freely flowing today it is a joke to compare the two.
>Typical American response confidently knowing literally nothing of what they speak of
Sadly, this reads from someone with a person grudge that has nothing to do with the conversation. If you honestly think there was more information freely available then as compared to know, you've just disillusioned yourself for whatever reason. Yes, there was resistance back during the Cold War. Fax machines FTW. That still just does not compare to how freely flowing information is today. To call today the "most information hostile environments in human history" is just nonsense. How can you even compare it?
Honestly, you have no idea what you're talking about. Speaking as someone who was born and raised in a communist country that has since become a democracy, I can tell you firsthand: people living under those regimes are not stupid, blind, or easily manipulated, quite the opposite. When you grow up surrounded by propaganda, you learn to recognize it. You have to. It becomes second nature.
The idea that people in authoritarian countries are clueless about what’s really going on is arrogant and frankly ignorant. You think access to information equals awareness? That's naive. In reality, people under repressive governments are some of the most resourceful and skeptical thinkers you'll meet. They’ve spent their lives decoding lies and reading between the lines, because their survival often depends on it.
Even in places like China, people use VPNs, follow international news, and talk in coded language online — and they’re doing it knowing full well what’s at stake. They’re not buying into propaganda, they’re navigating it more carefully than most people in the West could ever imagine.
So before you talk down from your bubble of freedom and assume everyone else is brainwashed, take a step back. People who've lived under oppression often see through propaganda faster than those who’ve never questioned their own media. The difference is, some people just don't realize when they’re being spoon-fed a narrative — and that’s not usually the people you're pointing fingers at.
> Honestly, you have no idea what you're talking about.
> The idea that people in authoritarian countries are clueless about what’s really going on is arrogant and frankly ignorant.
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. The guidelines clearly ask us to avoid swipes and name-calling like this. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
This kind of personally-attacking comment is against the guidelines on HN, no matter what you're replying to. We've asked you before to avoid posting comments that break the guidelines, so it's annoying to have to ask you again. HN is only a place where people want to participate because others make the effort to keep the standards up. Please do your part if you want to keep participating here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Up until recently with SCOTUS saying age verification is not rights infringing, I would have disagreed. Even with that, what else is blocked by default? It's easy to get hyperbolic in partisan discussions, but seriously, what else is being blocked that counters administration propaganda? Yes, Trump admin is changing data on the websites it controls. That's the right of any sysadmin to control and publish content they want. It would be a real bit of censorship if the admin said no other websites anywhere in its jurisdiction could publish contrary data. You can scream about FB/Twitt...er,X/socialPlatformOfChoice making decisions on its website, but again, I go back to it's their site to manage. You can choose to use it based on those decisions, but again, those are not the only sites offering contrary data.
I mean, maybe this way is worse. I can see how it could be far more obvious that the propaganda is BS when it's being pushed at you from every outlet and every form of media. Makes it more clear that it's controlled.
Yet at the moment where there is still diversity, people can make the mistake of thinking that the propaganda is just a difference of opinion so perhaps trust it more.
To me the propaganda is still blatant and there is only an engineered illusion of diversity, only inasmuch as it keeps people opinionated on the things that don’t matter. There’s also no foundational or universal desire for diversity, so alternative propaganda contexts may induce different focus areas.
While i take your point about playing nice, it has a lot to do with stupidity: specifically ignorance, intellectual laziness, lack of curiosity, bias, anti intellectualism, inability to think abstractly, lack of education, lack of critical thinking, ideology, and a host of other things.
Almost all of which correlate in some way to 'stupidity'.
I posit that your first line is wildly wrong, but your message is broadly valid.
Just because someone has a different point of view than yours does not make them stupid. I know plenty of people that have different views of mine that are much smarter than I am, and engaging with them leads to interesting conversations. I can still think they are "wrong" at the end of these conversations, but I'd never call them stupid. Hell, the lottery is often described as a tax on poor people. Yet the vast majority of lottery players would never call it a tax. The vast majority of people that I've talked to that don't understand tariffs are not incapable of understanding the concept. They've only ever heard their information from one source that does not discuss tariffs in this manner. Once they hear other viewpoints not from a single source, they typically admit they are taxes and do not argue against it. It does not change their mind that they are still a good idea.
> Just because someone has a different point of view than yours does not make them stupid.
True, but I'm not sure what that proves. Some people who have different points of view than I do have come to those points of view via reasonable means, and some of their PoVs might even be more consistent with reality than some of mine.
But some people are actually just stupid. Sometimes it's for understandable reasons, but sometimes it's for reasons that the GP laid out, and that's sad and unfortunate, and makes life difficult for the rest of us. I think there are a lot of people like this, and I'm afraid that public policy is in no small part driven by these people's susceptibility to propaganda, and their inability to think critically.
It’s not “a different point of view” to think that tariffs get paid by the other country. It’s not “a different point of view” to loathe Obamacare and like the ACA. It’s just ignorance. When the information is easily available, it’s willful ignorance. When they won’t obtain the information and they still hold strong opinions and vote accordingly, it’s at best stupidity.
How is it not a different point of view to think that healthcare should be tied to one's employment as opposed to all people should have access to affordable healthcare? We can discuss if Obamacare achieved what it wanted to do as I believe it was not very successful, but it at its core is a different view point. Yes, people believing other countries pay the tariffs are clearly not understanding of how tariffs work. But then you went made some clearly erroneous comment that ruined everything else just to get back to stupidity. Which by your standards means you must be stupid too for continuing to put forth a clearly wrong point.
That’s not what I was saying. Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing. The ACA is the official name and Obamacare is an attempt at a derogatory nickname which became common. Hating one and liking the other is an inherently contradictory position. And yet it’s one a lot of people hold. That’s not a different point of view, that’s not having even the most basic understanding of the thing you have an opinion about.
Right, but it puts rational people who seek to govern in a very uncomfortable position when they're up against an adversary who is happy to seize power at all costs, including weaponizing ignorance, ideology, polarization, conspiracy theories, and a complicit media apparatus, and then engages in blatantly un-democratic tactics like gerrymandering and the filibuster, and all the rest of it.
Basically when all or most of the facts are on your side, how do you balance the need to indulge stupid talking points and perspectives so that you can "reach" people, while also not inadvertently conceding ground in an attempt to meet a person where they are?
IMO it’s an incentive problem - it takes effort to be knowledgeable but the practical benefits are next to nothing. But being in a group of ignorant people is actually probably pretty fun, not to mention the dopamine hit of outrage.
Ideally being informed would be both easier than it is today (less misleading crap, more trustworthy structure to think about what issues are relevant) while also being more rewarded somehow.
I disagree with your blanket assumption that consumers always pay for tariffs. In my experience working for a major garment importer, we kept retail prices the same even after tariffs were added. Why? Because competition from local brands forced us to absorb the cost ourselves. Sure, that's not how every industry works, but saying consumers always pay is an oversimplification. It really depends on the industry, pricing power, and competitive pressure.
Whether tariffs are paid by the consumer is a bit pointless. The incontrovertible fact is that tariffs are paid by someone in the importing country, whether the importing business or their customer or a middleman or some combination. These dingbats are out there thinking that these tariffs will be paid by China or Canada or whatever.
"Tariffs are paid by someone in the supply chain" is the most accurate way to put it because it reflects how things really work in practice. Sure, the importer is the one who physically pays the tariff at the border, but that cost doesn't always stay with them. Depending on the situation, that expense can be shared, passed on, or absorbed by others involved in the trade.
For example, if there's a 35% tariff on a $100 item, the importer technically owes $135. But the exporter might lower their price, maybe selling it for $70 instead to help offset the tariff and keep the business deal going. In that case, the exporter is basically covering part of the cost. On the flip side, the importer might just raise the final price and make the customer pay more...or better yet, assume the cost due to intense local competition.
So even though the importer pays the duty upfront, who actually feels the cost depends on how the parties involved respond. That's why it makes more sense to say someone in the supply chain pays. It's not always the same person every time.
Even if you assume perfect competition costs like tariffs can be passed back to producers.
Imagine a demand and a supply curve.
From the perspective of a producer outside the country the tariff effectively shifts the demand curve, but doesn't affect supply. That's going to lead to a lower price at equilibrium.
Of course, from the perspective of the consumer it's the opposite situation, the supply curve shifts which leads to a higher price at equilibrium.
Both happen simultaneously, who pays most of the tariff depends on the elasticity of the supply and the demand
they were not arguing for or against obamacare, they were pointing out the laziness of people that don't realize that Obamacare _is_ the ACA, but somehow hate the former and love the latter.
> How is it not a different point of view to think that healthcare should be tied to one's employment as opposed to all people should have access to affordable healthcare?
Please explain how members of a low-income household would rationally and knowingly advocate to eliminate the only access to healthcare they can afford.
Then, if you are able to present a coherent argument, try to explain that in a stupidity vs diverse point of view, this stance is indeed not founded on stupidity.
> Just because someone has a different point of view than yours does not make them stupid.
He never suggested that. You defended these voters by saying they gladly accept the propaganda information diet, not that they have well-reasoned differences of opinion.
No, that's not my defense. You're putting words in my mouth. I'm saying that because they voted for someone that you disagree with for whatever reasons does not automatically make them stupid. They could have voted for someone for a totally different reason than tariffs. Now their guy is doing something they don't know anything about and now they are personally getting attacked. Whether they know anything about that topic or not does not make them stupid. If they attempt to argue without being fully versed by quoting what the face on TV tells them, again, that doesn't make them stupid. It just makes them very bad at debating. Look at all of the "man on the street" comedy interviews that are out there. Most of these people have no clue about what they are talking about, but just want to argue against the other side. A lot of the people are definitely not "very smart" but that's because they are cherry picked for that purpose. There are a lot of people that voted for this guy because the last guy was just unable to articulate much of anything and did not put forth a lot of confidence in pretty much anything. Knee jerk reactions usually have some pretty negative consequences. Just looking at current polling suggests there are a lot of people that voted for this administration yet are not happy with what is going on. Yet you are saying they are stupid. If these people were really onboard with "other countries pay the tariffs" there would not be negative polling numbers.
All I'm saying is stop painting with a broad brush in that anyone voting for a party is stupid. I'll defend people voting for who they want or even voting against someone they don't want. To call them stupid is just stupid.
Ugh I did put words in your mouth because I was reading nosignono's comment. Apologies.
Still, arbitrary_name seems consistent about not judging people for ideological differences but rather for choosing not to be accurately informed. I.e. he is not saying "they're dumb because I don't agree with tariffs" he's saying "they're dumb because after Trump promised to make us rich with tariffs, they didn't bother to check how duties are collected." You seem to agree with this to an extent.
> All I'm saying is stop painting with a broad brush in that anyone voting for a party is stupid.
I mean, it's four broad brushes right? The dupes, the single-issue voters, the identity voters, and the ones who believe in whatever his policy happens to be. I don't think it's fair to say they fall into a single bin but they're not all snowflakes who cannot be characterized en masse.
> I'll defend people voting for who they want or even voting against someone they don't want.
Okay but what about the ones who vote for what they don't want. The ones who voted Trump to release the Epstein files. Or to balance the budget. Or to end the Ukraine war day one? They took a look at his first term, listened to his campaign promises, and decided, "surely he will deliver!"
I appreciate you trying to "remember the human" which is one of the top rules of hackernews and every single comment replying to you isn't bothered that they call a whole swath of people stupid.
How can we heal, change, and recover from this without reaching out and understanding their POV.
As Orwell has stated ages ago, there is a group of people who will only accept the truth when it confronts them on the battlefield. The unshakeable belief in previous priors leads many people to only face certain truths when forced to through lived experience.
There is la video circulating of a business owner making fun of the Amazon concept of showing thd amount tariffs add to the final price to the consumer. This guy in this video says that number is going to be 0 on his website because his product and the stuff used to make it is "Made in America". The next video is literally him bitching about how some of the Made in America stuff he needs to make his product increased by a grand in just one month. And he like, "why in the fuck are these Made in America affected? Something's messed up here."
At the end of the day, this is a business owner who was aware that the biggest online retailer in America said tariffs are going to affect the price of products the American consumer buys. If this guy can't be bothered to dig a little deeper to save his business, it's hard to expect other people that are a couple degrees removed from the action to do so as well.
In addition to being rude, its not a particularly clear word.
So I coined "idiodidact", to specifically describe people who have personal selectivity with regard to being teachable. (Greek/English usage: "idios"/personal choice + "didact"/taught)
Any resemblance, to any other word, would be a coincidence.
In a way it kinda does though - like definitely the information ecosystem distorts things, but some people do not have (or do not exercise) the critical reasoning skills to decipher what's true from what's not. Or what issues are actually important from those that are meant to just distract - not everyone can tell the difference and see how the incentives actually point to what's going on.
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The education system failing people is part of the issue. Why would you want people to have critical reasoning skills if you want to control their behavior through outrage.
Looking at the agenda of the party currently in charge, the system isn't failing people. It's performing as intended. When you do not want the masses to be educated, you defund those that are in charge of educating to the point it has no other outcome than to come to a grinding halt. As intended. After all, the numbers stop going up when you stop counting.
I'm often reminded of a conversation my arrogant younger self had with an Englishman I was having a bit of back and forth banter about Yanks vs the sun setting on the English empire. I asked if the Empire was so great, why did all of the colonies end up revolting? His answer was simply, "we taught them how to read." Once the masses can read and think for themselves in an educated manner, they tend to no longer put up with being trodden over for much longer. So the answer is clearly simple to stop educating the masses.
Those people may not be innately stupid in the sense of not being able to learn or understand things. But they have been rendered functionally stupid by the media, propaganda, and politics. I actually find that state quite unrecoverable.
> Stop painting people as idiots because they exist in one of the most information hostile environments in human history.
Two things can be true at once. Being force-fed bullshit doesn’t necessarily make somebody an idiot but it also doesn’t necessarily make them not an idiot.
I see things as incentive problems, including this.
People are incentivized to be intellectually lazy since there isn’t really any personal reward for making the effort (your vote is on the margins practically meaningless, even if you’re “right,” whatever that means).
But there is great reward for staying ignorant (dopamine hits from outrage media and camaraderie with the large plurality of similarly intellectually lazy people).
How do we make it so that having well reasoned opinions is actually rewarded commensurately?
Perhaps, but the problem is that Americans really love their propaganda environment. The anger makes them feel alive. In some ways it's worse than the USSR, where everyone knew the propaganda was dull bullshit and all the interesting artistic work was in trying to subvert that.
> The people you describe have been given a highly addictive media environment tailor made to engender outrage and drive behavior. It shouldn't be a shock when most people cannot resist it.
Although I also take issue with labeling people "stupid," I also take issue with the blanket assumption that people are victims of the media environment. Both take away people's agency in their own way.
Instead, I'll ask this uncomfortable question. What if a good chunk of these people would prefer to believe a convenient lie over an inconvenient truth? If so, what does that say about them and their morals? Is that better or worse than being labeled stupid or a victim?
Tough spot when every feed is engineered for outrage, but it also feels too easy to say folks have no choice in what they lean into. You could try Loyally ai to think about it like habits and rewards, small nudges change what we return to. Over time that can shift preferences toward stuff that holds up, not just what feels good in the moment.
Absolutely there is a strong component of cognitive dissonance: the truth hurts, lies are soothing.
The truth? They do not care about basic right and wrong. They voted for a rapist, a felon, a vile insurrectionist. There’s no morality and we know this based on how they’ve voted.
But also the unwillingness by their friends and family to call them out promotes non-accountability. For everyone.
And, imo key, is the fact that this goes both ways. I've had conversations with both blue-collar types as well as white-collar types where both groups fail to grasp nuances and economonico-historic context. It's TikTok turtles all the way down. Breaking through echo chambers is harder than ever and there are no incentives to do it.
I’m not in the US, so I don’t know what it’s like from the inside but from the outside it’s so comically obvious how straight up stupid and brazen trump and his cronies are that it beggars beleif.
They're not gullible. They are in full agreement with the leadership's desire to punish the "undesirables" in their society and purge the values they don't agree with. That they too will eventually suffer the consequences eventually is less urgent than knowing that the "others" feel threatened right here and now.
But also, they’re being misled. Most non-Trumpers coddle, forgive in advance, and invite Trumper friends and family to the usual social functions. This is permission. It’s helping everyone normalize the depravity.
In a very real way there’s no conversation happening because one party has removed themselves from rationality and the other party has broadcast they don’t care.
There will need to be enormous amounts of pain to get either party to snap out of it.
This is bullshit. It would be partly valid if it were just about "information hostility" but its not. People are making choices not just due to ignorance or misinformation, but based actively on spite, hatred and "fuck you got mine". People are deciding not to necessarily better their own situation but to harm others. It is selfish, myopic and yes, utterly fucking stupid.
Normalising this way of behaving means that yes, if you're in the group that benefits from today's decision you're ok, but nothing stops you from being in the out-group tomorrow. And if your goal is inflicting harm, well tomorrow that harm will be inflicted upon you.
Sure instead of calling them stupid I’ll just tell them they’re addicted to toxic media and we need to regulate the media for their own good because of their inability to resist it.
At this point they're not "being had." They are deliberately and belligerently ignorant. It's way past time to stop giving anyone a free pass on supporting this malevolent clown.
Why do you think this was the first step? That these folks have not been engaged with: information, compassion, alternative news sources, pleas to think twice about what they read on Facebook? Why do you think these folks haven't listened to Trump himself over the past 10+ years, or lived through previous elections cycles, including Trump's previous term? There's no way you can claim the wool was pulled over people's eyes this time around.
Also, acting self righteous while demanding decorum is rich considering how this admin promised to and followed through on completely dehumanizing huge swathes of people as its base cheers on. Please, display one ounce of good faith.
1/3 of the voting population elected a known criminal, known sex predator, suspected child rapist, and known economically illiterate imbecile. The information may be hostile but it was widely and easily available.
At least 1/3 of the US voting population are idiots. Obviously there is a subset of that voting base that made an intelligent decision knowingly and complicitly elected Trump despite the extremely serious red flags, but I would still consider them to be idiots.
"Stupid" seems like a pretty fair way of describing that. If someone watches media that outrages them, misinforms them then causes them to make stupid decisions then the consequences are very much on their head. It is well know that the people peddling strong outrage are basically scumbags in it for the money and not the sort of people who should be listened too if you want to achieve long term success (which is mostly the domain of trusting optimists).
There are a lot of high quality media sources out there that don't promote outrage.
> It has nothing to do with stupidity. Stop painting people as idiots because they exist in one of the most information hostile environments in human history.
No. Someone refusing to spend 30 seconds understanding how a tariff works is the result of an idiot. My 10 year old figured out how they work in under 5 minutes. There’s literally no excuse for a grown ass adult to refuse to educate themselves on the subject.
“This media environment” doesn’t prevent them from typing “how do tariffs work?” in their search engine of choice and reading the first result.
I just googled "How do tariffs work?" I got hit with several college level vocabulary words describing tariffs in both the AI summary and my first result. It might be less of a problem, if we had adequately funded schools.
The full AI summary from DuckDuckGo for "How do tariffs work?"
>Tariffs are taxes imposed by a government on imported goods, making them more expensive to encourage consumers to buy domestic products instead. The costs of these tariffs are typically passed on to consumers, resulting in higher prices for imported items.
I don't see any "college level vocabulary words" and it directly says that it makes goods more expensive and the costs are passed on to consumers. Maybe Google's complicated answer is part of the "media environment" being criticized.
The LLM systems being what they are, you can ask google "how do tariffs work, using eighth grade words" and you get a very clear and correct explanation without the college level words.
In simple terms, think of a tariff like a special tax a country puts on goods it buys from another country.
Here's how it works:
When a country wants to import something, like cars from Japan or clothes from China, it has to pay an extra fee (the tariff) to its own government before those goods can come into the country.
This extra fee makes the imported goods more expensive than products made in the country itself.
Why do governments do this?
To protect local businesses: By making foreign products pricier, the government hopes people will choose to buy things made in their own country, helping local businesses grow and create jobs.
To make money: Tariffs can also be a way for the government to collect some extra cash.
To get other countries to change their ways: Sometimes, countries use tariffs as a way to pressure other nations to follow certain rules or to stop unfair trade practices.
Example
Imagine a bicycle store in the US wants to import a bicycle from another country that costs $1,000. If the US has an 11% tariff on bicycles, the store would have to pay an extra $110 (11% of $1,000) to the US government, making the total cost to bring the bike in $1,110. This makes bicycles made in the US seem more affordable by comparison.
I can't tell if this is a sarcastic comment. Not only is "domestic" a relatively simple word with a straightforward definition, but also the point of the original comment that "consumers will end up paying the tariffs" is still clear from the summary regardless.
>> What is a tariff? A tariff is essentially a tax imposed by a government on imported goods. When a product crosses a country's border, the importing company pays this fee to the customs authority before the product enters the domestic economy. (start of Google summary)
For crying out loud, information is so accessible. The inability to find and discern at least some level of truth (or at least gather multiple contrasting perspectives) is laziness, AND stupidity.
I'm all for better schools, a better information ecosystem, and more tolerance, but why are we bending over backwards to tell malignantly underinformed people it's not their fault? It is! It is their fault.
I asked Google to "explain tariffs in simple terms" and it sure did. A sixth grader would easily get it. Here's the response (and now I'm wondering whether a GenAI system could create a short animated video or slide deck that could become a TikTok):
Tariffs in simple terms
A tariff is like a special tax that a country places on goods it buys from other countries.
Imagine this
You're buying a toy made in another country.
The government of your country might add a tariff to that toy's price when it enters the country.
This makes the imported toy more expensive than a similar toy made in your own country.
The company importing the toy pays this tax to the government.
However, they might then pass some or all of that cost onto you, the customer, by raising the price of the toy.
AND stupidity is you being intentionally ignorant.
People have much better things to do than look up words, look for dissenting opinions one something the face on their TV tells them. There's taking the kids to _______ practice. There's TV shows to keep up with. There's an infinite feed of content to scroll through. There's plenty of other things that they would prefer to do themselves than whatever it is you would prefer them to do. That does not qualify as stupid. To me, what is stupid, is everyone here calling others that have differing view points than their own stupid. You are willingly using that term in the same way you say they are willfully not looking things up.
If you’re too busy to find out what tariffs are, fine. I get it. But then don’t have an opinion on the matter. Don’t vote for an absolute shithead because you think these things, which you’re too busy to find out about, will be great for the country.
Having an opinion is a constitutional right. You can't tell people not to have an opinion. That is stupid. People vote for many reasons while a lot of those vote on a single issue. If the person receiving their single issue vote means there's baggage to get their one hot button item then so be it. I voted for someone not for what they represented so much as it was a vote not for the other person. The person receiving my vote definitely didn't make me all smiley and thinking panacea was on the way. In fact, my last 3 votes were this way.
To paraphrase Randall Munroe, “it’s not literally illegal to do this” is the weakest possible defense of something.
I sure as hell can tell people not to have an opinion. That is my constitutional right. If someone has strong beliefs about something and votes accordingly, and they don’t put in the effort needed to find out the basic facts about the matter, then they are stupid and that’s bad.
Man, I really feel like people are deliberately obtuse in this thread. You can have a single issue while that issue is not tariffs, yet everyone is harping on you about why you voted for someone so in favor of tariffs. That's not why you voted for him. Just look at the polling. MAGA world is not a fan. That's the die hard base. Some of these people's single issue was Epstein and now they're really pissed. They know everything about their one single issue. You're the one that can't keep it straight
Talk about deliberately obtuse! We’re not criticizing these people for voting for someone in favor of tariffs for other reasons. We’re criticizing them for voting for that person because they’re in favor of tariffs despite not knowing what tariffs actually are. Your response of “maybe people voted for other reasons” is completely missing the point here.
The original post was painting anyone that voted for the current admin as stupid. The conversation also assumed that anyone that voted for POTUS did so because of tariffs. That's clearly not true. Are there people that voted for POTUS while also having no clue about tariffs, yes and this is not in dispute. What is in dispute is that anyone that voted for the cheeto-in-chief is automatically stupid. It helps to keep up with the thread. This assumption that everyone that voted opposite of how you did is automatically stupid is what is actually stupid.
==giving more money to an underperforming school only makes it worse.==
Is there no circumstance where more funding would help an underperforming school? It certainly “can” make it worse in instances, but there are many reasons that a school might be underperforming. To imply that more resources would fail to help any of those problems is quite a leap.
What if the student-teacher ration is 40-1 and more funds allows for another teacher, might that make the school better?
What if the school is only open for 4 days due to low funding, might an additional day of school make it perform better?
What if a school has multiple disabled students slowing down the curriculum, but no funds to give them personal support, might more funds help it perform better?
It's a good thing we, the enlightened of HN, can see through the bullshit clearly though. /s
With tariffs, it's entirely possible that the loss of blue collar jobs due to offshoring more than offsets the cheap toys those folks get to import in exchange. Especially when the cost of housing, education, and medical care is rising regardless. It's not uncommon to hear labor leaders rail against NAFTA and be pro-tariff[1] for this reason.
It's also possible to be pro-tariff and recognize that Trump's policy is whatever keeps him at the center of attention, downstream consequences be damned.
A concept of a plan, a verbal agreement, even just a phone call is better than a binding trade agreement that lasts 20y. Because the former provides what matters most: distraction from the things that will put Trump in jail and a feeling of power and importance.
I started in like December or January... Was COVID 5 years ago fuck me. Also, COVID weight gain would be during lockdowns, and ALSO my job went fully remote. Being fully remote was an issue for sure. So it's like COVID was extended for me.
I never really weighed myself and then felt weird like a big mechelin man and I saw I was 10-12 kg heavier, makes sense why I feel bad I thought, and I did not weigh before and just decided to lose it, was easy when I decided.
That's my story.
I was always slow on the uptake on things, hygiene, clothes etc.
Weight too, I grew up always being skinny, but getting to 30+ I never noticed when I got heavier as it takes a long time, you talk as if everything is obvious, but it is not.
But it is easy once you know.
So, if you have already identified weight as being the issue, losing weight is easy, in my experience. As I said, fasting feels good, skip meals, skip the beer, drink sugar-free. 10 kg gone fast, I promise you.
The issue for me is identifying the problem.
Love the downvotes, btw.
>It took you five years to do that though. Why did it take that long if it was easy
I should specify, I have been BMI 19-20 for 3–4 months now, again, as from teenager to 25-ish thats my range, thats "me", it feels like myself, so.
So that's what I mean when “recently”, not yesterday.
Time warps when you get old. So fast.
ALSO, easy things can still take a long time. You understand the words?
I’d wager that you’re getting downvoted for two reasons, first because current science is strongly indicating that “obesity is a moral failing” is factually untrue, so being smug while dead wrong is off putting.
And second reason would be the framing of the issue of obesity as being solved by just losing weight. A lot (maybe most? Almost all?) of people that are overweight have at some point lost weight, the bigger challenge is keeping it off long term.
So you kind of just Kramer’d into this thread and loudly volunteered unprompted that you don’t understand this stuff on a basic level, aren’t in a position to understand it, and you definitely feel like you’ve accomplished something so enormous that it makes you smarter and better than everybody else. It’s kind of like if you show a kid Google Translate and they start lecturing you about how easy it is to move to Mallorca because Catalan isn’t that hard to pick up
Yes, there is an issue of easy access to calorie rich foods, but at a certain point it is the individual.
I can listen to brain rot gangsta rap all day or baroque classical both on Spotify. It's what I click on that determines it. The hard part is learning what is good.
No, they are idiots. Not at media consumption, but idiots at life.
There are certain life skills that can be considered “smart” like revisiting your established opinions when presented with new information, or knowing that encountering a new piece of information from a single source doesn’t carry the weight of encountering it in dozens of places, or that making a mistake doesn’t guarantee that your existence is doomed but been presented with a learning experience.
The “stupid” folks refuse to take the simplest steps to better themselves. They refuse to self-evaluate honestly. That’s the root cause. This stupidness results in them being duped and misinformed.
Therefore, when one encounters an uninformed and duped person, it’s not out of line to consider that person “stupid”.
So when people like OP say that people are stupid, it’s not a dig via victim blaming. It’s a judgement that they’re clearly being stupid, that their poor life skills need work because they ended up misinformed.
it feels fair to call tariffs a VAT that goes away if the manufacturer produces things domestically which seems… reasonable? raise revenue and encourage domestic manufacturing.
yeah, it sucks that I can’t buy a JetKVM right now. otoh being dependent on (often) adversarial nations for everything we buy is also not ideal.
Manufacture domestically and whatever the price increases is goes back into the local economy. Somebody is going to be paid for that work. Also, money circulating is what makes an economy strong.
Sure that's potentially one effect- but I'm not sure it's the most important.
The other effect is to reduce international trade and the kind of national interdependency that creates, and so makes, large scale war highly unlikely.
The US is also trying to use it's economic power to force people to choose sides ( cf secondary sanctions on India ).
So while Trump might be anti-forever wars he is busy creating a world where WWIII is much more likely.
With this administration, it's probably just more blackmail, in the form of "it would be a pity if nobody came to the rescue when China eventually puts its Taiwan plans in motion! (Not that playing ball is a guarantee of anything either)".
Every promise of this administration is worthless, so why even bother? Either they protect you, because they don't want the chip tech to fall to China or they don't.
Buying half of Intel isn't going to change anything
People will forever take every bluff and proposition at face value though so it gets exhausting following online discourse, where everyone is trying to rationalize it at face value or spinning it into some grander conspiratorial geopolitical scheme. Doesn’t seem to matter how many times the outcome is dramatically different than the starting point with Trump, people want to believe and that’s what Trump hopes they do to get what he wants (basically some marginal gains through intimidation but largely what one could achieve through more traditional civil approaches when negotiating from a power position).
Exactly. I've made the case before that while it may be a temporarily winning approach in business (aside from becoming persona non grata with most banks' risk departments), it's a losing strategy in international geopolitics.
Because counterparty countries will still exist, you'll need to make future deals, and they'll remember the last time you fucked them over.
> it would be a pity if nobody came to the rescue when China eventually puts its Taiwan plans in motion!
Wouldn't that just mean that Taiwan has to choose between two villains, and China can take the advantage of this by changing its narrative and taking the position as a hero, protecting Taiwan from the US.
Taiwan really, really does not want to be part of China.
Or rather, they see themselves as the legitimate government of China, which is undergoing a temporary Communist junta. The separation was extremely violent. I mean, you saw the Three Body Problem.
The US fosters this, to retain a toehold there. Taiwan doesn't exactly love us for it, but they know which side their bread is buttered on.
> they see themselves as the legitimate government of China
No, they don't. But formally renouncing that position[1] makes them officially secessionist in the eyes of Chinese conservatives, adding pressure to invade. The One China fiction matters, though how much it matters is definitely up for debate. But it's a local minima, and rolling the dice comes with significant risk.
[1] At the state level. AFAIU, it's been renounced by several of the major parties in Taiwan, and when in power they've made movements at low levels of government that arguably contravene the policy. But it still remains the official position and its still enshrined in the Taiwanese constitution. And, yes, the US adds pressure to maintain the status quo as it would (might?[2]) be on the hook for the defense of Taiwan. But the majority of the population isn't in favor of formally renouncing it, either; the potential negative consequences are existential, and the material benefit is slim to none.
[2] During Trump's first term it was claimed he privately admitted that if China invaded Taiwan he wouldn't intervene.
This isn't blackmail. A security guarantee has value. Exactly what value is hard to say since the US is the only credible seller of such guarantees in this world order
Like with Ukraine? Like with Iran? The US has proven its word is literally worthless and beholden to the whims of a dictator.
At this point, Taiwan would be foolish to not start working on a secret nuclear bomb program. North Korea has proven its the only way to actually protect yourself.
No need to give them. TW can absolutely make them on their own, in fact they had at least one active project to do that and were forced to stop by the US.
I wouldn’t be even slightly surprised to learn they have a few MIRVs stashed away, pointed at Beijing, just in case.
> Tariffs kinda make sense when you have a deficit in a widely available item. Big trade deficit with Bangladesh? Sure you can buy cheap textiles from Thailand or Vietnam or something.
Sorry, how do they 'make sense'?
What's the problem with a trade deficit with Bangladesh? And in your example, you'd just shift bilateral trade balances around, without impact the overall trade balance of the US?
I could perhaps believe that an overall trade deficit is bad (maybe..), but I've yet to hear why bilateral trade deficits should matter, especially with places like Bangladesh that are not strategic rivals or are even allies like Japan or Taiwan or NATO.
Trade deficits in isolation aren't good or bad but because the US has the world reserve currency it must supply it's currency to the world.
This basically forces it to have a trade deficit with everyone which over time can hollow out manufacturing sectors. Making the whole economy vulnerable to shocks and ultimately causing it to fail.
It's similar to "Dutch disease," where external demand overvalues the currency and harms tradable sectors.
It's not sustainable without careful policy management, and attempts to weaken the currency via tariffs, devaluation, or some other mechanism.
You might not like Trump or his approach but he is directionally correct and does have a powerful bargaining chip (access to the US market - which is basically on track to be the only 1st world consumer driven economy 5 years from now).
Doesn’t this assume tariffs are efficiently adapting to changes in the market? Markets, trade, innovation, even currency prices change all the time. Tariffs change every decade if you’re lucky and when they do there’s a thousand conditional statements baked in that make it even more disconnected from reality
> You might not like Trump or his approach but he is directionally correct and does have a powerful bargaining chip (access to the US market - which is basically on track to be the only 1st world consumer driven economy 5 years from now).
Interestingly, though, Robert Triffin International put out a paper essentially arguing that Trump's tariff approach is all wrong.
On what sort of basis do you make the claim that the US is on track to be the only 1st world consumer driven economy 5 years from now? What do you mean by a 1st world consumer driven economy, as opposed to what exactly?
I do agree that having tariffs on certain items to encourage domestic production definitely does work. The tariffs have to be consistent and on things that can actually be produced in the country.
The issue with Trump's approach is that its not consistent, has nothing to do with which products can be made domestically. Changing tariffs daily/weekly/monthly is not going to encourage domestic production.
> I do agree that having tariffs on certain items to encourage domestic production definitely does work. The tariffs have to be consistent and on things that can actually be produced in the country.
Huh? The US gets to print money for free. They don't even need to have printer's ink any more, since it's all entries in a database these days. And in return they get real stuff from overseas.
And you want to tell me that this is somehow unfair for the US?
The US can print an arbitrary amount of dollars, if there's demand for them in the rest of the world.
Btw, focussing on dollars is actually a bit narrow. When Americans sell stocks or bonds to the rest of the world, that's also part of the trade deficit. So Americans aren't just exporting dollars, they are also exporting stocks and bonds and options and futures. Financial engineering is one of great American manufacturing industries.
Interestingly enough, despite exporting so many financial products (= 'trade deficit'), Americans as a whole still make more money from their foreign investments abroad that foreigners make on their American investments. To simplify a bit too much: foreigners buy low yielding American government debt, while Americans make savvy investments abroad.
> It's not sustainable without careful policy management, and attempts to weaken the currency via tariffs, devaluation, or some other mechanism.
Oh, magical tariffs! They can strengthen or weaken your currency, just as the plot demands. They also prevent hollowing out of industry, and cure toothache.
If you want to weaken your currency, just print more of it. It's much simpler.
> You might not like Trump or his approach but he is directionally correct and does have a powerful bargaining chip (access to the US market - which is basically on track to be the only 1st world consumer driven economy 5 years from now).
What does 'consumer driven economy' even mean? Could you make your prediction more concrete. Perhaps we can even have a little bet.
To the same extent that other forms of taxation make sense. I wish people had this same sudden interest in protecting the free market and maximizing trade when we're taking about income tax or sales tax or property tax, etc.
> I wish people had this same sudden interest in protecting the free market and maximizing trade when we're taking about income tax or sales tax or property tax, etc.
But people do have these interests!
Different taxes distort markets differently. Tariffs are one of the worst ways to tax. Similarly transaction taxes, like a Tobin tax or stamp duty, are bad.
Income tax ain't great, but it's ok. (Details depend on implementation.) Property tax is one of the best taxes, only beaten out by land value taxes. VAT is ok.
And, btw, a tariff designed to raise revenue is very different from a tariff designed to change the balance of payments.
Glad to see someone with economics knowledge! The best taxes are Pigouvian taxes on externalities. They not only raise revenue but distort the market in the right direction. Carbon tax comes to mind (though that's a tricky case as there is no world government, tax works best for local externalities like air pollution).
Well, for Pigouvian taxes to make sense, you first have to argue why in your specific situation Coasion bargaining breaks down.
Similar to how, if you want to use 'market failure' to justify your favourite government intervention, it actually comes with lots and lots of restrictions and only justifies a very narrow slice of possible interventions.
If there's one product we have domestic alternatives to it's semiconductors. We're a couple nodes behind TSMC. Using US only foundries or paying a premium for TSMC is not the end of the world.
More people need to hear this. Similar argument when they tried to stop China from buying certain types of silicon - "Oh well... anyway!".
I am not American, nor am I Chinese. Both of those countries have the capability to make enough compute to do whatever the hell they want. I am, however, European...
Semiconductors are not fungible. Using US alternatives also means dropping all the AI plans and subsidies, at least on US soil. The big AI data centers would all end up in China, owned and managed by subsidiaries and leased back to the parent.
> The big AI data centers would all end up in China, owned and managed by subsidiaries and leased back to the parent.
Well does it matter where industry & technology are located (and who controls them) or doesn't it? The anti-protectionism crowd thinks no, it makes no difference if we make something locally, or import it. A stance not shared by any of the countries currently leading the semiconductor industry - or in the case of China, rapidly catching up.
We couldn't make an iPhone because apple would refuse to cooperate, not because of a technical limitation. We could make a similarly capable phone though.
Apple’s putative refusal to cooperate is surely not the only barrier here. I doubt U.S. consumers would pay a premium for a U.S. iPhone whether Apple thought it wise or not. But when the U.S. president’s branded Made in America phone comes out later this year I guess we’ll see. I’m sure the release is just around the corner.
If the tariffs are high enough there won't be a premium. It also solves the deficit spending problem which needs to happen since no one seems to be able to handle the idea of any spending cuts.
I don't know why analysis like this doesn't go a bit deeper. Yes americans will pay more, but TSMC will also see less demand. Intel has it's own foundry, maybe it can start competing against TSMC, because now TSMC costs a lot more and intel's cost of manufacturing in the US to compete against TSMC can be recouped much better thanks to the new market prices set by the TSMC tariffs?
Government's shouldn't put up with monopolies either, if it wasn't for trump's political baggage, HN would be all over this I'm sure, TSMC is already investing on US factories which even without purchasing a share of intel, it would force them to use those factories and bring them online sooner. We've had multiple unfortunate wars due to dependence on foreign resources that don't have good/sufficient competition state-side, that is not a good pattern to repeat.
If TSMC doesn't blink, maybe they'll get their way for now but all their American projects and in general doing business in the US will be unpleasant and costly until 2028+. Which is cheaper? I don't know, I'm asking because a lot of opinion on the subject isn't talking/explaining about the actual numbers and nuanced economic considerations.
It doesn't work if you don't have 1:1 product, which Intel foundry absolutely doesn't. Not in performance, price or just ease of use. No one is going to risk years and billions to get it working on Intel, that's a sure way to lose your edge.
Companies (like Nvidia) will just raise prices and if demand drops they will divert more of it to countries like China and EU. And demand isn't going to drop much anyway for in-demand stuff like Apple chips or AI stuff. Best case scenario, they (not TSMC) temporarily eat the cost or spread it around.
This has nothing to do with Trump, it simply doesn't result in competitive local manufacturing. Increasingly rent-seeking AND subsidized, with no pressure to compete.
You didn't address the fact that they have state-side facilities slated to open in 2026? You also said intel "doesn't" not "can't" isn't it more reasonable that demand will force supply to adapt. Why couldn't intel compete before? and why can't it going forward? China is working on TSMC rivals (if they haven't succeeded already), the west should just sit on its hands and wait for a military conflict with china because of TSMC dependence? in the short term you're right, but change is long due.
Their US facilities are purposefully NOT bleeding-edge, and also cost more.
And this version of Intel can't, maybe a different one that fully separates design and foundry could. The best solution long-term would be to directly subsidize foundries, with the right incentives to acquire different customers (how TSMC or Samsung operate). They just might get lucky if everyone hits a hard scaling wall.
Whatever happens, tariffs and bans are the absolute worst incentives for innovation and growth.
Monopolists or companies with some degree of Monopoly will absorb some of the tariffs as opposed to passing on. Putting tariffs on monopolists makes some economic sense.
Monopolies with strong demand for their products will happily pass on the costs, and then some. The delicate balance between encouraging demand while maintaining margins.
On the political side of things, they can use their influence and customer base to pressure the government. Silently eating the costs isn't good for them or the market as a whole, long-term.
I think the problem with Intel's foundry is that it cannot produce the same quality and quantity at the level of TSMC.
I was looking through the list of fabrication technology for the latest CPUs, and while they say they are 3nm, it is using TSMCs technology (Arrow Lake S: Fabrication process: Compute Tile (Contains the CPU cores) TSMC's N3B node.)
My guess is that Trump is trying to save Intel by forcing TSMC to buy them under the guise of "I'm forcing companies invest in the US".
If they could no longer sell in the USA than they would no longer have a reason to care about US restrictions on selling chips to other countries. China would be happy to buy many of the chips the US was no longer buying.
We can use older processes if we have to. We'd be taking a step back of... maybe 5-10 years? Computers 10 years ago were not that much slower than they are today. Volume would be a bigger concern than performance. Maybe it'd force the tech industry to start writing more efficient user-facing software instead of depending on the incremental advancements made by chip designers and semi fabs.
> We'd be taking a step back of... maybe 5-10 years? Computers 10 years ago were not that much slower than they are today
There’s more to the world of computing than your laptop.
Stepping back to 10 year old GPUs and server CPUs would be a massive handicap on the country.
> Maybe it'd force the tech industry to start writing more efficient user-facing software instead of depending on the incremental advancements made by chip designers and semi fabs.
It’s not about the speed of your laptop loading Slack. Large scale compute is already squeezing as much performance as we can out of server hardware.
> Is “don’t buy stuff with TSMC chips” really a valid option we have?
Not sure that TSMC would want to do that either! We're probably their biggest market, even allowing for China.
> Isn’t that basically “stop buying high technology” to a large degree?
I think you're right, to an extent, at leastt in the near term.
However, we do have (and especially used to have) various fabbing here in the States, from Samsung to Intel. Especially the latter has been neglected, but these changes would probably accelerate on-shoring and perhaps bring some of it back here.
Don't forget that TSMC is in a country that is probably going to go through some significant instability in the next few years. From a business continuity perspective, we'd need to consider availability and supply chain management with the strong possibility of a major vendor being located in the middle of a hot warzone.
“ What will the US do if TSMC does not blink? Not buy TSMC made chips?”
I think their assumption is that TSMC will certainty give in to any demands. Taiwan needs US support to defend against a much worse (and unfortunately just next door) adversary.. China.
I've been using Intel hardware on Linux for more than 10 years. The instances of driver issues that I can think of are very very few and they were never related to anything Intel did.
I wonder what hardware you've been buying. I've tried Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Intel OEM, Toshiba, ASRock, and a half dozen others. I never saw any of them run Windows (OEM or from Microsoft), Linux, or MacOS X (on the Mac) reliably.
The most recent Intel machine that did work reliably is now 15 years old (and humming along nicely, for what it's worth).
Sure, they had Linux drivers, but they also would do crap like kernel panic, unsuspend in my laptop and overheat, screw up USB, and so on. They did it under all operating systems.
My current desktop is an AMD system on chip. It's great, except it has an Intel WiFi/Bluetooth module. There's been a bug open against all Intel Bluetooth modules for about a decade:
They fail to advertise themselves in a timely fashion at boot, so the intel driver (Linux or Windows) doesn't see them so you have to keep rebooting until it does (or write a bash script that retries modprobe).
Here's the manual for the wildly popular ASUS bluetooth dongle that works around this crap by not using an Intel part. Look at page 1 where they show you how to disable the Windows driver for your existing Bluetooth radio, which apparently can't coexist with a second bluetooth adapter under windows:
The most important pieces, IMO: Asus or Gigabyte motherboards, integrated video (because GPU drivers are usually unstable), Intel Ethernet (avoid realtek), Intel K series unlocked processors - not overclocked, if anything I run them underclocked for cool, quiet and efficient operation. And use quality RAM, that's pretty important. Debian Stable.
Yes it's a tax on consumption and when applied to everything the same way it's essentially a VAT. The admin keeps telling that EU will pay, India will pay but at best they can do is to weaken their currency so the goods become cheeper and it compensates for the tariffs US importers pay.
Arguably, US consumers are super consumers and maybe it will be better for everyone if Americans consume a bit less? I don't think that it should be necessarily bad for business, maybe it's time to switch to world building instead of consuming, maybe as so many people works so hard we as species should gradually move on to use our output for longer and enrich our lives with each new tool instead of consume more and more and keep working the same or more. Eastern Europeans are or used to be a bit likte that, have a slow paced life, have low GDP output, on paper economy and everything is bad but actually have a great life if you have a house with a garden and some stuff you bought 30 years ago and still functioning good enough.
There's no problem with having a trade deficit against one country. There's no need to balance each country, just as there's no need for people to have no imbalance in daily exchanges. It's as if you were going back to a barter economy where there was no money.
more likely than not I think this ends with a vague promise, a loudly declared victory, and a quiet defanging of the promise or just outright ignoring it in the future
> Tariffs kinda make sense when you have a deficit in a widely available item. Big trade deficit with Bangladesh? Sure you can buy cheap textiles from Thailand or Vietnam or something.
Different countries have different considerations.
Most of these "deals" aren't deals and rather frameworks. And given the tumultuous nature of bilateral trade where countries might not follow on their promises. Happens all the time and countries end up arguing at the WTO. So, it is hard to say whether Europe or Japan "blinked". Given the timing of the European deal it might be to help Trump so that he does not have egg on his face for not having 200 deals by 1st August.
India wants to cozy up to US and was one of the first countries to start trade negotiation. Trump-Modi dynamic has been good. The sticking point is agriculture and dairy. Both countries subsidize agriculture and diary. And in both countries farmers form a big chunk of politically aware voters. For the Indian government it is political suicide to even nod along like Japan and Europe. But if you hear Trump he keeps saying it is about Russian oil.
Brazil might have the same issue. Historically, US was the largest soyabeans exporter. But last time Trump got into a trade war with China, the country has moved away from US exports and started buying from China. So, again even the appearance of a deal might be problematic for the government.
And reading this side by side, maybe US farmers are not that economically aware?
India's issues with the US are for completely separate reason.
Bihar elections are coming up in 2 months [2]. Any incumbent government in India can't give trade concessions on agriculture during peak campaigning season in a swing state that can impact elections in 2-3 additional states as well as the general election in 4 years.
The main Indian exports to the US (pharma, electronics, and services) are all tariff exempted so the economic pain is marginal.
The only export that's hurt is textiles, but frankly, textile workers don't matter in Indian elections, especially when most of them leave for 3-4 months each year to work on the family farm and get social benefits based on their agrarian status and voter rolls that they never updated.
Realistically, India and US will sign a deal either after the Bihar elections, or after making ag/dairy a separate track from the rest of the deal.
Trump needs to keep the cheeseheads of Wisconsin happy just like the NDA needs to keep Bihari farmers happy through direct subsidizes [0] and hardline agriculture policies [1], hence why both the US and India will maintain maximalist positions on agriculture and dairy.
My hunch is a comprehensive deal will be announced during the election media blackout in the run-up of the Bihar elections or shortly after the election.
> ... American consumers will end up paying the tariffs
This has always been the case. I have never heard of a company absorbing tariffs on behalf of consumers in the day and age of "trickle down economics".
I'm actually surprised that some prices are even lower now than they've previously been.
I don't think most people actually have a solid understanding of what is and is not affected by which tariffs.
If I understand correctly, most of the tech stuff is effectively exempt; and Canada/Mexico tariffs don't apply to most items that are covered under "the rules of origin" certifications under USMCA (the successor to NAFTA).
I think the biggest hit has been the elimination of the de minimis rule, which now makes it difficult and/or impossible to get anything directly from China by USPS, be that cheap clothing or small electronics.
I don't think companies know what is affected and when... except when the invoice comes. The tariffs have been a moving target, some announced and never occurred.
Eating the tariffs to avoid punishment from the government is just price controls with the dash of lawlessness. Something will give and it will be either profits or prices.
A lot of them are "eating" them in the margins of the unreasonable "inflation" increases they used to see how much the public was willing to pay for their products. (Normally, this would be okay in a functioning capitalist market except we've let way to many companies gain a monopolistic position with no real market competition to force a reasonable middle ground between profit and elastic demand.)
These tariffs are presented as trying to bolster domestic industry but that's a smokescreen. The primary goal is to use this to replace income taxes so the rich are freed from their onerous (/s) taxation.
The bonus is that it's a tool for punishing perceived enemies and inciting interested parties to purchase favor from the regime to try and ease them back.
It occurred to me that tariffs are really a backdoor way of introducing consumption tax (aka sales tax, VAT, etc). It has been a conservative policy goal for many years, as the conservatives believe that income tax penalizes entrepreneurship, but the politics make it virtually impossible to switch to because consumption tax is regressive, and it is a huge change. The tariffs debate and the general political atmosphere created a misdirection, resulting in both income and consumption tax being with us now.
The next development will be the politicians discovering to their horror the high levels of taxation, and abolishing the income tax. Brilliant!
The baseline of no trade deficit between all countries and the US makes no sense, since countries are not uniform in resource or production. eg Lesotho/Bangladesh won't achieve a trade balance with the US when they produce what the US wants and don't consume enough to balance it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah9SrbCB7-k&t=1147s
Let's say this was the starting point. Almost immediately, this strategy of trade balance was dispensed with, leaving most countries with some random tariff rate that wasn't strategically decided.
Many recognizable countries, specifically the ones that the administration targeted for political reasons, ended up with adjusted tariffs based on politic. This was due to the administration figuring out they had overstepped or thought that they were too soft, when the influence wasn't effective. When it became clear the economics were being ignored, Trump called them some epithet that meant "unreasonable" and abandoned the tariff tactic in all but rhetoric.
What was the point? The most predictable sequence of IMMEDIATE events were likely the point. I believe the point was to try to convert the global crises (political, economic, and social) that existed around the world to purely economic concerns for simplicity. This was paired with jamming up the entire global trade system, which would allow the administration to listen for the squeakiest wheels. It was supposed to be an efficient way to prioritize immediate problems such that the administration would not have to learn about and weigh all the problems in the world.
Short and long term, the tariffs have accelerated the de-dollarization of the world economy, they has amplified income inequality, and have destroyed supply chains across multiple sectors. The replacements are necessarily less efficient (value is cannibalized by tariffs). It was a lazy and poorly considerer tactic, but it might have achieved the goal, given my assumption of purpose.
The issues that were raised to the administration were largely, left unsolved. The most prominent of which are the Ukrainian, Taiwanese, and Palestinian fronts and the weakening of the US hegemony due to trade conflicts. The good trade relations with traditionally friendly nations have been damaged, long term. Canada, India, China, most of the EU have made moves to distance themselves from the US chaos. Some strange side effects, like this weird buy in to american companies is a side effect of the show, rather than a specific intent. I can concede it wasn't all bad. The US did see some new corporate inroads into a few countries. Notably concessions from Mexico, who was willing to meet the US goals in achieving a trade balance (more or less).
Overall, it's possible the tariffs succeeded as a self-serving tool of the administration, but failed in serving the US as policy. Maybe I'm just wrong, but maybe Trump is just this simple minded and his administration is playing into the fallout, as it advances their 2025 goals (or whatever).
Unfortunately this approach does not work when you lack a viable domestic alternative and you're up against a monopoly.
What will the US do if TSMC does not blink? Not buy TSMC made chips? Obviously that is impossible, so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs.