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The whole table doesn't make sense. We (NL/EU) don't charge the US 39% to import . Apparently orange guy (not the Dutch) doesn't understand VAT rates. Car? ma

The whole table doesn't make sense. We (NL/EU) don't charge the US 39% to import . Apparently orange guy (not the Dutch) doesn't understand VAT rates. Car? max 4.5 + 21% VAT = 25%. But it simply doesn't matter bc we don't want their cars.. Except for thee Dodge RAM, which can be converted to a tax efficient company car (crazy).. What amazes me even more is that Elon doesn't seems to understand it either.

0xy 2y ago
It doesn't make sense because you didn't read the original board. It clearly states 'including trade barriers'. You're attacking a strawman. Countries, including the EU, like to have 'low tariffs' and then have sneaky backdoor taxes or outright bans on US goods through things like milk quotas (Canada), 'biosecurity' (Australia) or EU courts issuing spurious fines on US companies (based on vague laws that only get enforced against US companies, like DMA).
- reaperman 2y ago
  I think you might be granting the administration too much benefit of the doubt. They aren't based on "tariffs + trade barriers", they're just based on trade deficit alone. https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1907559189234196942 https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1907559189234196942 https://archive.ph/kRkRh https://archive.ph/kRkRh
- energy123 2y ago
  VAT isn't a trade barrier.
  - 0xy 2y ago
    DMA is. GDPR is. Both are applied principally against competitors using arbitrary fines invented by the EU. No compliance guidance is given, because the laws are inherently vague.
    - jbverschoor 2y ago
      It's not. It is not anything specific against for example the US. We have many consumer protection laws. Has nothing to do with the US.
      - 0xy 2y ago
        Link me to a single example of an EU company getting fined under DMA. After all, you said it was applied equally so it should be easy :)
        CorrectHorseBat 2y ago
        None of the gatekeepers are EU companies. You might say that's proof of it being unfair, but can you name a EU company which should be one? I can't really think of one, US companies are just so much bigger on the internet, even in the EU. Looking at the other law you mentioned, GDPR, there are many EU companies receiving GDPR fines.
        0xy 2y ago
        Absolute nonsense, of course. Your case disintegrates completely given Spotify was given a specific and targeted carve-out in DMA. The law is written to arbitrarily tax US "gatekeepers" while explicitly excluding EU gatekeepers. Booking.com is another, also carved out.
        Ragnarork 2y ago
        If a city enforces a new speed limit somewhere and only people living outside of the city break that speed limit, you argue that the law isn't applied equally because no resident of the city has been fined so far? That's the most backward way of trying to prove a point (without even addressing whether DMA and GDPR are a good thing or not, just based on that...)
    - yard2010 2y ago
      That's not just some bs - the other side of the coin is crooked billionaires and other reptilians taking advantage of anything in their way blinded by their massive greed and psycopathic traits. Excuse me, this is not how a society should roll. Not a sustainable one at least.
- Epa095 2y ago
  It doesn't make sense because it is not a table of tariffs (including or excluding trade barriers) at all. It is a table of the current trade deficit against each country as a ratio.
- cwillu 2y ago
  > milk quotas (Canada) You mean the milk quota on imports that (a) trump negotiated and (b) the us has never hit?
  - 0xy 2y ago
    No, I mean the trade dispute that the Biden admin began. [1] [1] https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2022/january/united-states-prevails-usmca-dispute-canadian-dairy-restrictions https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-...
    - cwillu 2y ago
      Ah, so a practice that ruled on years ago, and which it turns out still didn't have any significant impact on imports anyway? Also, remind me, when was the last time that the US actually complied with an unfavourable ruling from the trade panel?
- marceldegraaf 2y ago
  VAT is not a "sneaky backdoor tax", it's imposed on all goods, regardless of where they're produced or imported from. DMA (and similarly, GDPR) are enforced in EU countries just as much. It's just that the US tends to have more gigantic tech companies that do shady things with user data. Apparently the US doesn't care, but the EU actually does, and so it enforces its laws.
  - pembrook 2y ago
    We’re talking many 10s of billions in “fines” specifically levied against US tech firms where there is no EU competitor. I don’t necessarily disagree with all of the laws themselves (some are incompetent EU risk aversion, some are good protections) but given the massive never ending fines being applied in bad faith and constantly moving goalposts it is indeed a defacto tariff on US tech firms.
    - jonathanstrange 2y ago
      The fines are not imposed in bad faith, they're imposed for actual, provable violations of the law. Companies who do not violate the law are not fined. Complaining about fines is another way of saying "We'd like to trade in the EU while violating EU laws that every EU company also has to adhere to."
      - pembrook 2y ago
        The laws are specifically designed to target US firms without affecting EU ones and enforcement of fines and the size of them is highly selective -- the most attractive targets with the highest willingness to pay without getting to the point where they would pull out of the market. If you do not see the moral hazard in this, I don't know what else I can tell you. If the EU had a seriously competitive tech industry, many of these laws would have never been created, as the EU is not some moral believer in privacy (they fight against encryption domestically), they are just run-of-the-mill protectionists like all governments.
        2y ago
- 52-6F-62 2y ago
  Comments like this make me wonder why some Americans think they should be able to move on every other country “like a bitch”. In some places, dollar is not god. Important, but not god.
photonios 2y ago
> Except for thee Dodge RAM, which can be converted to a tax efficient company car (crazy) You can no longer do that since 1st of Jan 2025. The BPM discount for company cars was removed.
- GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
  Thank god, I'm so tired of seeing those things parked around Amsterdam when the original loophole was for farmers :eye roll:
GeneralMayhem 2y ago
As found elsewhere on this thread, the rate is based on trade deficit. Trump believes that having a negative trade balance with a country means that they're cheating somehow, as opposed to meaning that you just buy a lot of manufactured or raw goods for them. And no, that does not make any sense, and you're not missing anything. He believes this because he's a fucking idiot. He's aggressively racist, comically petty and thin-skinned, and overtly authoritarian, and as far as I can tell actively wants to permanently destroy American science and civil society out of spite, but he's also really, really, really dumb. In this case, he's managed to combine his powers to take a goal that's born out of racism and xenophobia and then implement it in the most idiotic way possible, and somehow the result is even worse than the sum of its components.
blatantly 2y ago
But then by the same logic isn't income tax a tariff.
blux 2y ago
Seems he is using trade deficit percentages in his chart instead of tariff percentages ... :/
tossandthrow 2y ago
The thing is that Europeans wanted the Tesla cars. They fit perfectly into the Europeans identity - had Tesla kept on and kept the Tesla cars competitive without any political interference, then that could have been great car exports from the US to the EU.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  Tesla built a factory in Germany to produce their cars.
  - sebazzz 2y ago
    Yes, but only later and only for the Model Y. The irony is that the most popular model, the Model 3, is manufactured in China, across the red sea (houti’s!) to West Europe.
    - jbverschoor 2y ago
      They still exist? The houtis and the toutsies.
- jbverschoor 2y ago
  They wanted it because at the launch until 2018 it was basically free because of all the tax incentives. You got the following benefits (Netherlands): Model-S was about 85K excluding VAT (21%) for the plain version Added tax incentives of 36% MIA Added tax incentives of 28% KIA Accelerated depreciation of 75% in the first year VAMIL Free parking in the cities (normal hourly rate 5 - 7.50/hr) More/better parking options A free charger in front of your house regardless where (basically your private parking spot until maybe 4 years ago). 0 BPM tax (can be up to 40% of the price) 0 road tax (could be anywhere from 80-150 per month for type of car) 0 personal fiscal penalties of 25% of the new value of the car, including VAT (which would be a virtual 26K/year extra salary. At 51% tax that's about 1000 per month AFTER taxes) The 85K car resulted in 90K deductibles in the first year. The 85K car, including everything was cheaper to drive / own than a FREE car. Almost all of that stopped in 2022, and what do you know? People stopped buying. THIS is politics. Setting policies which drive behavior. The government "decides" what you will want to buy / drive / etc.
croes 2y ago
They calculate (export-import)/import also they try to hide it behind complicated formulas https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/114272487006550281 https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/114272487006550281 On top of that they excluded services and only recognize goods for the calculation.
axegon_ 2y ago
Brave of you to assume that comrade muskov understands anything.
vagab0nd 2y ago
> But it simply doesn't matter bc we don't want their cars.. But is that cause or effect?

0xy 2y ago

It doesn't make sense because you didn't read the original board. It clearly states 'including trade barriers'. You're attacking a strawman. Countries, including the EU, like to have 'low tariffs' and then have sneaky backdoor taxes or outright bans on US goods through things like milk quotas (Canada), 'biosecurity' (Australia) or EU courts issuing spurious fines on US companies (based on vague laws that only get enforced against US companies, like DMA).

reaperman 2y ago
I think you might be granting the administration too much benefit of the doubt. They aren't based on "tariffs + trade barriers", they're just based on trade deficit alone. https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1907559189234196942 https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1907559189234196942 https://archive.ph/kRkRh https://archive.ph/kRkRh
energy123 2y ago
VAT isn't a trade barrier.
- 0xy 2y ago
  DMA is. GDPR is. Both are applied principally against competitors using arbitrary fines invented by the EU. No compliance guidance is given, because the laws are inherently vague.
  - jbverschoor 2y ago
    It's not. It is not anything specific against for example the US. We have many consumer protection laws. Has nothing to do with the US.
    - 0xy 2y ago
      Link me to a single example of an EU company getting fined under DMA. After all, you said it was applied equally so it should be easy :)
      - CorrectHorseBat 2y ago
        None of the gatekeepers are EU companies. You might say that's proof of it being unfair, but can you name a EU company which should be one? I can't really think of one, US companies are just so much bigger on the internet, even in the EU. Looking at the other law you mentioned, GDPR, there are many EU companies receiving GDPR fines.
        0xy 2y ago
        Absolute nonsense, of course. Your case disintegrates completely given Spotify was given a specific and targeted carve-out in DMA. The law is written to arbitrarily tax US "gatekeepers" while explicitly excluding EU gatekeepers. Booking.com is another, also carved out.
      - Ragnarork 2y ago
        If a city enforces a new speed limit somewhere and only people living outside of the city break that speed limit, you argue that the law isn't applied equally because no resident of the city has been fined so far? That's the most backward way of trying to prove a point (without even addressing whether DMA and GDPR are a good thing or not, just based on that...)
  - yard2010 2y ago
    That's not just some bs - the other side of the coin is crooked billionaires and other reptilians taking advantage of anything in their way blinded by their massive greed and psycopathic traits. Excuse me, this is not how a society should roll. Not a sustainable one at least.
Epa095 2y ago
It doesn't make sense because it is not a table of tariffs (including or excluding trade barriers) at all. It is a table of the current trade deficit against each country as a ratio.
cwillu 2y ago
> milk quotas (Canada) You mean the milk quota on imports that (a) trump negotiated and (b) the us has never hit?
- 0xy 2y ago
  No, I mean the trade dispute that the Biden admin began. [1] [1] https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2022/january/united-states-prevails-usmca-dispute-canadian-dairy-restrictions https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-...
  - cwillu 2y ago
    Ah, so a practice that ruled on years ago, and which it turns out still didn't have any significant impact on imports anyway? Also, remind me, when was the last time that the US actually complied with an unfavourable ruling from the trade panel?
marceldegraaf 2y ago
VAT is not a "sneaky backdoor tax", it's imposed on all goods, regardless of where they're produced or imported from. DMA (and similarly, GDPR) are enforced in EU countries just as much. It's just that the US tends to have more gigantic tech companies that do shady things with user data. Apparently the US doesn't care, but the EU actually does, and so it enforces its laws.
- pembrook 2y ago
  We’re talking many 10s of billions in “fines” specifically levied against US tech firms where there is no EU competitor. I don’t necessarily disagree with all of the laws themselves (some are incompetent EU risk aversion, some are good protections) but given the massive never ending fines being applied in bad faith and constantly moving goalposts it is indeed a defacto tariff on US tech firms.
  - jonathanstrange 2y ago
    The fines are not imposed in bad faith, they're imposed for actual, provable violations of the law. Companies who do not violate the law are not fined. Complaining about fines is another way of saying "We'd like to trade in the EU while violating EU laws that every EU company also has to adhere to."
    - pembrook 2y ago
      The laws are specifically designed to target US firms without affecting EU ones and enforcement of fines and the size of them is highly selective -- the most attractive targets with the highest willingness to pay without getting to the point where they would pull out of the market. If you do not see the moral hazard in this, I don't know what else I can tell you. If the EU had a seriously competitive tech industry, many of these laws would have never been created, as the EU is not some moral believer in privacy (they fight against encryption domestically), they are just run-of-the-mill protectionists like all governments.
      - 2y ago
52-6F-62 2y ago
Comments like this make me wonder why some Americans think they should be able to move on every other country “like a bitch”. In some places, dollar is not god. Important, but not god.

photonios 2y ago

> Except for thee Dodge RAM, which can be converted to a tax efficient company car (crazy) You can no longer do that since 1st of Jan 2025. The BPM discount for company cars was removed.

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
Thank god, I'm so tired of seeing those things parked around Amsterdam when the original loophole was for farmers :eye roll:

GeneralMayhem 2y ago

As found elsewhere on this thread, the rate is based on trade deficit. Trump believes that having a negative trade balance with a country means that they're cheating somehow, as opposed to meaning that you just buy a lot of manufactured or raw goods for them. And no, that does not make any sense, and you're not missing anything. He believes this because he's a fucking idiot. He's aggressively racist, comically petty and thin-skinned, and overtly authoritarian, and as far as I can tell actively wants to permanently destroy American science and civil society out of spite, but he's also really, really, really dumb. In this case, he's managed to combine his powers to take a goal that's born out of racism and xenophobia and then implement it in the most idiotic way possible, and somehow the result is even worse than the sum of its components.

blatantly 2y ago

But then by the same logic isn't income tax a tariff.

blux 2y ago

Seems he is using trade deficit percentages in his chart instead of tariff percentages ... :/

tossandthrow 2y ago

The thing is that Europeans wanted the Tesla cars. They fit perfectly into the Europeans identity - had Tesla kept on and kept the Tesla cars competitive without any political interference, then that could have been great car exports from the US to the EU.

Symbiote 2y ago
Tesla built a factory in Germany to produce their cars.
- sebazzz 2y ago
  Yes, but only later and only for the Model Y. The irony is that the most popular model, the Model 3, is manufactured in China, across the red sea (houti’s!) to West Europe.
  - jbverschoor 2y ago
    They still exist? The houtis and the toutsies.
jbverschoor 2y ago
They wanted it because at the launch until 2018 it was basically free because of all the tax incentives. You got the following benefits (Netherlands): Model-S was about 85K excluding VAT (21%) for the plain version Added tax incentives of 36% MIA Added tax incentives of 28% KIA Accelerated depreciation of 75% in the first year VAMIL Free parking in the cities (normal hourly rate 5 - 7.50/hr) More/better parking options A free charger in front of your house regardless where (basically your private parking spot until maybe 4 years ago). 0 BPM tax (can be up to 40% of the price) 0 road tax (could be anywhere from 80-150 per month for type of car) 0 personal fiscal penalties of 25% of the new value of the car, including VAT (which would be a virtual 26K/year extra salary. At 51% tax that's about 1000 per month AFTER taxes) The 85K car resulted in 90K deductibles in the first year. The 85K car, including everything was cheaper to drive / own than a FREE car. Almost all of that stopped in 2022, and what do you know? People stopped buying. THIS is politics. Setting policies which drive behavior. The government "decides" what you will want to buy / drive / etc.

croes 2y ago

They calculate (export-import)/import also they try to hide it behind complicated formulas https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/114272487006550281 https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/114272487006550281 On top of that they excluded services and only recognize goods for the calculation.

axegon_ 2y ago

Brave of you to assume that comrade muskov understands anything.

vagab0nd 2y ago

> But it simply doesn't matter bc we don't want their cars.. But is that cause or effect?