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Aside from everything else one thing what strikes me as particularly insane is how it’s not even defensible as a protective measure. My favorite everyday olive

• _heimdall 2y ago
  > There are no out of work olive farmers in the US. Is that because we can't grow olives here, or because we don't have federal subsidies propping up a domestic olive industry that can compete with corn and soy? I ready don't know the details well enough there, but it feels like this could just be selection bias at play.
  • yifanl 2y ago
    Surely the null hypothesis isn't "The USA would have a domestic industry for every crop known to man if not for external factors"
    • apexalpha 2y ago
      Oh that's 100% what Potus thinks. There's no other rationale for this other than thinking this.
      • jredwards 2y ago
        You're assuming he has any rationale at all
        • overfeed 2y ago
          Leverage over importers, i.e. all of industry. If you're a captain of industry and want an exemption or a lowered rate, they you approach the deal table, cap in hand, with tears in your eyes and beg like a dog. "Please, sir..." In return for a minor reprieve, you ensure your factory bathrooms and hiring policies are aligned with the president's agenda, among many other things. This can be a cudgel over the heads of the Apples and Costcos of this country who dare to defy the edicts of POTUS on social policy.
          • phtrivier 2y ago
            Other popular options are very publicly taking your card of the Party, writing odes and poems to the Great Leader, and give your firstborn daughter's virginity as a token of vassality. The problem is not so much that people don't like doing such things - they get by - it's that, at some point, enough people will start getting more favours than you do, and you'll start feeling the need to stage a coup, which is a lot of work. I wonder how it will work out in a world where tiktok is always there as a much less exhausting form of entertainment than revolutions.
    • _heimdall 2y ago
      Let's ignore whether we'll actually get there, that's a very deep question and entirely theoretical for now. If we could snap our fingers and domestically produce most or all of our own products, would you not prefer that?
      • scratchyone 2y ago
        No, because it is far more expensive to domestically produce our own products. I would rather not have a huge increase in the cost of living.
        • giantg2 2y ago
          I don't want a cost of living increase either. However, this raise the question of what the real cost is. The prices might be cheaper, but is that only because we're exploiting poorer people in markets with fewer worker protections and fewer environmental protections? Is it just because I'm greedy and I'm not willing to pay someone a liveable wage here or go without whatever it is? I'm not sure, but it makes for an interesting thought experiment.
          • rthomas6 2y ago
            I worry about this, but I started worrying about it less when I read about Purchasing Power Parity. The same stuff costs less in poorer countries.
            • giantg2 2y ago
              For some things that's true. For others it is not, or at least not enough to make up for the difference. For example, "housing" might cost less, but the definition of housing might be different. Even if we adjust the standards and built the exact same thing, it would be cheaper, but likely still out of reach for the average person in the poorer market.
          • anonfordays 2y ago
            Shhhh, you're not supposed to ask those questions!
    • blitzar 2y ago
      Or (more likely) they would not have access to many crops at all. Personally I don't mind not having strawberries in the middle of winter, but for some they care about that.
      • hombre_fatal 2y ago
        Sure, but that's the rationalizing of someone who can't get strawberries in winter. Getting food that's not grown locally much less in the current local season is one of the most QoL-improving parts of the modern world. Kinda sad to go from that back to "well I guess I don't really need these nice things we took for granted. I suppose I can live off jellied eels again."
      • me_again 2y ago
        Donald Trump, champion of the locavore community. Now I've heard everything.
  • roxolotl 2y ago
    You can grow olives in the US and there are some farms in CA. The quantities produced are orders of magnitude off though and given the time it takes to grow olive orchards we cannot replace our imports of olives in a reasonable time period. There's a lot of examples like this. Coffee, and bananas come to mind. You can only grow those in Hawaii, or maybe Flordia, and there's absolutely not enough land to sate our imports. The whole theory behind international trade is that some countries do things well and others don't. In the case of food the reality is more that others can't.
    • lupusreal 2y ago
      There are olive farms as far north as Oregon. I visited one a few years ago and bought some olive oil; it was very good.
    • jm4 2y ago
      Hawaii is the only U.S. state where you can grow coffee and their coffee costs a fortune. You need tropical weather and high altitude. Florida won't cut it. Besides, we already have fruit rotting in the fields in Florida because there's no one to pick it. Want to put tariffs on Chinese electric cars or batteries? Ok, fine. But tariffs on all imports? It's the most brain dead policy in my lifetime. I can't think of any products that are produced 100% domestically without any foreign inputs. These tariffs will drive up the price of just about everything.
      • baby-yoda 2y ago
        Puerto Rico (yes not a state) has active coffee farms.
  • kochb 2y ago
    The exact growing conditions for olive production aren’t common in the US, so most of the production comes from California - west of Sacramento and south along the San Joaquin river. There are a lot of barriers in bringing specialty crops to market related to know-how and contracting sale of product, so even in other areas where growth may be possible it may be infeasible. https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/fruits/olives https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/fruits/olives https://croplandcros.scinet.usda.gov/ https://croplandcros.scinet.usda.gov/
    • Yeul 2y ago
      I mean if you could make olive oil cheaper in America wouldn't someone have done that by now? The US never lacked for smart entrepreneurs looking for a business opportunity. See wine.
      • newyankee 2y ago
        Most likely the answer in many such examples is it needs cheap human labor. US seldom lacks anything in terms of natural resources and always comes down to this.
        • Yeul 2y ago
          So basically all you need to do is pay Americans less... Sounds like a race to the bottom. In Italy it is not Italians who work in agriculture they also have (illegal) migrants.
  • fnord77 2y ago
    Almost all the olive oil in my local Costco comes from California
  • bavarianbob 2y ago
    Hard for me to believe that even with a surplus of domestic production that comparative advantage of importing still wouldn't be better.
  • Beretta_Vexee 2y ago
    An olive tree reaches the peak of its productivity after 15 years and can live for several centuries. An adult tree can be so expensive that there are cases of theft. It takes a heavy truck and a tree puller to steal an olive tree.
• e40 2y ago
  California produces very high quality olive oil. I buy it at Costco. The Kirkland brand likely comes from outside the country.
  • rtkwe 2y ago
    California produced 1.94 million gallons of olive oil in 2023. That same year the US used ~98.5 million gallons of olive oil. There just isn't enough space to produce that much olive oil in CA much less produce it profitably or in ways that wouldn't devastate the environment. And all that is ignoring that it takes around 10 years for an olive tree to get to consistent production.
    • e40 2y ago
      Oh, I agree. I was just pointing out we have some, and it's going to get a lot more expensive now.
      • andreygrehov 2y ago
        > it's going to get a lot more expensive now why? local producers don't pay the tariffs.
        • e40 2y ago
          Because they will price their product to be just a little cheaper than the imported alternatives. This has been discussed to death, with citations, and I believe it to be true. We will see, I guess.
          • andruby 2y ago
            And even if they don't raise their prices to below the imported alternatives immediately, the increase in demand means they'll sell out so quickly, they'll raise their prices anyway
        • rtkwe 2y ago
• myvoiceismypass 2y ago
  So, we can and do grow olives here in California, but it is a very small industry compared Spain, Italy, etc. However, one thing we absolutely cannot grow here in any sort of money-making way, is coffee. So 32% tariffs on imports of coffee from Indonesia.... when we do not even export coffee.
• mkoubaa 2y ago
  I would happily pay 38% extra for high quality Tunisian olive oil, it is already super undervalued because it's reputation is lower than it should be. It's gotten so bad that Tunisian olives are shipped to Italy, pressed into oil, and labelled as Italian Olive oil.
  • xxX6hacke9rXxx 2y ago
    Except none of that 38% extra in price is going to the farmers. It's a tax not extra profit for the producer. Crazy how many people still do not know how tariffs work.
    • jimmydorry 2y ago
      You may want to re-read GP's comment because they did not indicate whether they cared if the 38% went to the government or the farmer. Reading their comment as written, they simply said they would happily pay the tariff to continue enjoying Tunisian olive oil. It's "crazy" of you to imply they don't understand how a tariff works when you're the one mis-reading what they wrote.
      • xxX6hacke9rXxx 2y ago
        I did not misread. He used `undervalued` which implies that there is a difference between quality of the product and its price. Slapping on 38% tax to Tunisian olive will undermine this value proposition without improving the producer or the consumers product experience. If anything the relative price (due to the repetitively high tariffs on Tunisia vs Italy) will ruin the value to price ratio that attracts GP to the Tunisian olive oil. Moreover, his use of the word 'happily' suggests he is not aware of the negative consequences for both the Tunisian exporter, who may have to lower prices or even reduce product quality standards to compete with the now relatively similar-priced Italian olive oil, and the American consumer, who ends up paying more without any improvement in value. Why would someone be happy with a price increase if it is not helping the producers of the good (which his comment implies he is sympathetic to) or adding any value?
• xnx 2y ago
  > There are no out of work olive farmers in the US. You should be using America corn oil. /s
  • mrguyorama 2y ago
    Well, no you see vegetable oils are actually bad and we should cook everything in beef fat or butter. Surely that's not stupidly expensive, right?
    • jollyllama 2y ago
      Producing tallow is cheaper than producing olive oil in most of the USA.
• belter 2y ago
  The US has a trade surplus with the UK, and the UK got a 10% tariff :-) Who's ripping off who?
• srj 2y ago
  >> There are no out of work olive farmers in the US. I'm not sure this is true. I buy olive oil specifically from California. It's niche but could be larger if they weren't competing with lower overseas labor costs.
  • ncruces 2y ago
    [flagged]
  • Cyph0n 2y ago
    It takes time to ramp up olive oil production, so it’s way more cost effective to just import olive oil from countries with established crop.
  • woah 2y ago
    Don't olive trees take decades to reach maturity?
  • rtkwe 2y ago
    Not 50 times larger which is what it would need to be to supply the current domestic consumption. California only produced 1.94 million gallons of olive oil in 2023, that same year the US used ~98.5 million gallons of olive oil. Even if we could snap our fingers and create the orchards out of thin air there's not enough land and water to grow 50x our current production. Then where's the worker population coming from? They're also trying to drive overall immigration to essentially zero.
• Cyph0n 2y ago
  Tunisian here. Tunisians on social media are baffled/amused because olive oil is basically the only product imported by the US.
  • nonethewiser 2y ago
    And apparently the US bought 33% of it >Onagri data show that Spain is the leading destination for Tunisian olive oil, with 47.4 percent flowing to Spanish ports, followed closely by Italy at 42.2 percent and the United States in third at 33.8 percent. https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/business/africa-middle-east/as-value-of-tunisian-exports-soar-packaged-olive-oil-struggles/132891 https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/business/africa-middle-east/as...
    • dcrazy 2y ago
      This is interesting to me, because Spain and Italy are also exporters of olive oil. And there have been famous discoveries of fraud in the EVOO market as it has boomed. I wonder what percentage of Spanish and Italian EVOO exports are actually blended with (or wholly!) Tunisian imports?
      • Cyph0n 2y ago
        Many Spanish and Italian oil blends do indeed use (unprocessed) olive oil from Tunisia. This is a problem for Tunisia because we’re missing out on the meat of the profit margin generated by the final bottled product. We have had recent successes with developing & selling our own bottled products directly - Terra Delyssa is one good example that has gained traction in the US market.
    • distances 2y ago
      Those numbers don't add up.
    • andruby 2y ago
      Tunisia is so productive it exports 123.4% of olive oil. Or perhaps I don't understand what they're trying to say in that sentence
• wayeq 2y ago
  If Jan 6th didn't dissuade people, I don't think anything will. Additionally, his base will not blame him, they will swallow whichever of the many narratives the propagandists are currently cooking up that suites their fancy.
  • boringg 2y ago
    One thing worth noting is that congress isn't pleased about the executive branch high jacking the powers of appropriations from them (i.e. imposing a tax on the people in the form of a tariff).
    • dcrazy 2y ago
      I see no evidence of your claim. A total of 4 senators of the President’s party voted symbolically on a non-binding resolution against his Canada tariffs. The Speaker of the House, who also belongs to the President’s party, won’t even bring it up for a vote. There has been no motion from the legislative branch to undo the President’s direct subversion of the power of the purse by effectively eliminating the staff required to disburse Congressionally-approved funds.
      • DFHippie 2y ago
        > There has been no motion from the legislative branch ... Surely you mean there is no motion from those in power in the legislative branch, namely the Republicans. The Democrats and Democrat-aligned independents make motions which are blocked by the Republicans. People's inability to recognize who is responsible for bad acts leads to throw-the-bums out elections. People are disgruntled, whether based on facts or false beliefs fostered by propaganda. They throw the bums out. They hope for better things. If we want the government to function better, we need to assign responsibility, not let Senator X and his pals, or Representative Y and her pals, screw everything thing up and then hide in the crowd. "Oh, look what the legislative branch has done! Throw them all out!"
    • betaporter 2y ago
      I'm sure they are working on a very strongly worded letter about this right this very moment.
• tim333 2y ago
  Maybe we can make British olive oil by getting Tunisian olive oil and putting it in a British bottle? Then it's only 10%. The whole thing is kind of nuts.
• IMTDb 2y ago
  The orange man is saying: "Looks like you are sending a lot of $$$ to those olive oil farmers in Tunisia. With my tariffs you now have two choices at your disposal: either you keep buying their Olive oil but then you are going to have to give me $$$ as well to pay for our national debt. You are going to buy less of it; and help your country in the process. Alternatively, you can decide that maybe you don't need olive oil all that much. We have this amazing product called 'corn oil' which is produced locally and is now comparatively less expensive, buy that instead and support your local farmer. Choice is yours". Maybe you don't like either of these choices; but at the same time; saying "I believe that having cheap access to product produced halfway across the globe is a god given right to American people; how dare you imposing me to make such a choice" is part of the reason why we need 13 earth to sustain the modern US lifestyle. I am really not a Trump supporter at all. But at the same time the gradual reduction of tariffs has been a key factor of increasing global trade; which in turn is a key component of the increase of CO2 emissions. Finding a way to dampen a bit the international component and making sure that locally sourced products and services are not affected seems not that bad.
  • throwway120385 2y ago
    The whole "decide that maybe you don't need olive oil that much" thing is what's going to crush the economy in the US. The problem is that demand does not shift to alternative supplies elastically. It takes years and sometimes decades to build an alternate supply chain for some industries. So what you're saying is that an entire generation of children in the US are going to have to grow up materially worse off than their parents and grandparents. And that's assuming that a bunch of businesses magically start overnight to fill the enormous gaps caused by a lack of access to international supply chains. If you look at other countries such as in South America or for example Italy where there are huge protective tariffs, the industries you expected to magically appear didn't. Instead people just have less and work less. So your dichotomy applies, but it's not some magical ratchet out of globalization unless there's a corresponding push on the federal or state level to build competitive domestic industries to replace the international supply chains we've been cut off from.
  • ben_w 2y ago
    > I am really not a Trump supporter at all. But at the same time the gradual reduction of tariffs has been a key factor of increasing global trade; which in turn is a key component of the increase of CO2 emissions. Finding a way to dampen a bit the international component and making sure that locally sourced products and services are not affected seems not that bad. I'm not sure about that part. International shipping in particular isn't a huge part of the energy cost of the goods that get shipped, so making the same things locally doesn't save much. This is from 2016 so things will have changed since then, but back then it was 1.6% of emissions from shipping, vs. 11.9% from road transport: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector What trade does increase directly is the global economy, and that in turn means more money is available to be spent on energy; historically the energy has been carbon intensive, but everyone is now producing as much green energy as they have factories to work with, and are making factories for those green energy systems as fast as they have bureaucracy to cope with.
• electriclove 2y ago
  There are small olive oil producers in the US. Do they see this as a good thing?
  • scotty79 2y ago
    Why wouldn't they? They can immediately raise prices by however many percent the tariff is. Probably a bit less because higher price causes lower demand. So let's say raise by half of the tariff. Maybe it will partially offset the increased cost of everything they need to buy and sell olives. Now when I think of it it might be a wash.
    • jm4 2y ago
      They still probably use equipment, packaging and other materials that come from overseas. Or they work with suppliers impacted by tariffs. Their costs are going up. Everyone's costs are going up, although some more than others.
  • faizan-ali 2y ago
    I've put together a directory of olive oil producers from California:) https://www.californiaoliveoil.info/ https://www.californiaoliveoil.info/
• mrtksn 2y ago
  IMHO the idea is that they are ready to accept the suffering of Tunisian oil lovers for the greater good, which is the empowerment of certain type of people like them. It's basically Europe but hundred or more years ago.
• jancsika 2y ago
  > My favorite everyday olive oil comes from Tunisia. They now have a 38% tariff on them. "Silver lining:" there's a good chance that oil was either rancid or doesn't pass basic quality tests for the "extra-virgin" part: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/imported-olive-oil-quality-unreliable-study-finds https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/imported-olive-oil-quality-unre... The COOC web site lists California olive oils that they've certified. Last time I checked California Gold Olive Oil was certified, and they even sell it in half and full gallons. That's just one I've tried and liked-- there are a bunch of others listed on the COOC web site. (Edit: there are probably certification trade associations for other countries/regions, COOC is just the one I'm familiar with.)
• yeahwhatever10 2y ago
  You are right about olive oil. So why did he do it? The trade imbalance with Tunisia. Why is there are trade imbalance with Tunisia? US consumers have money to buy products from Tunisia, Tunisian consumers don't have the ability to afford products from the US. Why can't Tunisian's afford US products? This is the central question for every country in the trade war and it has myriad factors, but two of the biggest are: A higher cost US dollar, suppression of wages in countries like Tunisia (and Germany, and China, etc).
  • pyrale 2y ago
    > Tunisian consumers don't have the ability to afford products from the US. They do use products from the US, just not physical ones. It's weird to read such takes on HN of all sites.
    • tverbeure 2y ago
      It's not a weird take if you reasonably assumed that OP meant: "they don't have the ability to afford the same value of products from the US." Which makes total sense because their income per capita is only a fraction of that of the US.
    • yeahwhatever10 2y ago
      There is this group-think on HN today that services are intentionally left out as part of the US trade balance. That confusion likely comes from tax and corporate structures. Ie all those profits are locked into sub-corps, so Apple-Cayman Islands or Google-Ireland (corporate tax havens) which is why they don't show up on the balance sheet as "trade" into the US (typically those sub-corps buy financial assets with those profits). Read the first chapters of Trade Wars are Class Wars for more depth.
      • Sabinus 2y ago
        So they are left out, but not intentionally?
• andreygrehov 2y ago
  US does produce olive oil, particularly in states like California, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Oregon, and Hawaii. So you do have a few options: 1. Support local producers. There are high-quality olive oils made right here in the US that might surprise you. 2. Work with Tunisia manufacturers to move their production to the US 3. If you don't want to support local producers, pay extra and enjoy your Tunisia olive oil as much as you want 4. If politics is the real issue for you, move to Tunisia, there is no "orange man" there That said, refusing to support local production out of principle isn’t really a solution.
  • mschoch 2y ago
    [dead]
  • dreghgh 2y ago
    Difficult to move the production of olive oil. I don't know how much you know about olive oil, but it comes from olives, which grow on olive trees. Olive trees are famously long-lived and, together with the very specific types of land that they grow on, they represent extremely persistent and valuable investments for the people who produce olive oil.
    • Jun8 2y ago
      This is not true. Next time you grab an olive oil bottle read the fine print: unless it’s very expensive it will be a blend of oils from 4-8 countries, ie production doesn’t have to be in the same country where olives grow on olive trees, as you eloquently put.
      • Sabinus 2y ago
        What's your point? The olive imports from these 4-8 countries will all be tariffed also.
    • jay_kyburz 2y ago
      There are a few olive trees in my neighborhood. I should plant some too. It would be fun to watch them grow.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• SpaceManNabs 2y ago
  > what strikes me as particularly insane is how it’s not even defensible as a protective measure You must not have read many of the comments here. Way too many people are trying to defend this just because they don't want to have to admit that they were wrong on Trump being better for the economy.
• froggertoaster 2y ago
  I think you started to form a persuasive argument, but you discredit yourself by saying "orange man".
  • p_j_w 2y ago
    Yep, that’s the problem. If only people treated the man who mocks disabled reporters with respect then he would have lost.
    • poincaredisk 2y ago
      It's not about a respect, it's about not sounding childish. I swear discussions about American politics are the most infantile and tribal things on the internet, and that says a lot. If someone can't even express their opinion without restoring to ad-hominems I assume they can't be readoned with.
      • p_j_w 2y ago
        > I swear discussions about American politics are the most infantile and tribal things That’s what wins elections now, sorry. If you don’t like it you’ll have to take it up with the voting public.
      • edgarischatting 2y ago
        Are you truly upset that someone called Trump "orange man"? Trump? The individual who led the way in childish name calling such as Sleepy Joe, Pocahontas, and who mocked a guy who is disabled? I hope you were equally as outspoken about his childish name calling.
        • RobKohr 2y ago
          It is called being the bigger person. The comment above was clearly constructive criticism. If you want to be taken seriously, don't recite name calling (if you are going to resort to name calling, at least don't join the mob and be original). I along with a large portion of people who saw your comment immediately wrote off what you said because of name calling. You could be a nobel prize winning economist well versed in tariffs, but if you make fun of the person you disagree with because of his spray tan, then you just seem like a foaming at the mouth radical that can be ignored.
• Aschebescher 2y ago
  According to Trump Tunisia has to buy olive oil from you for the same amount of money that you spent on Tunisias olive oil. Otherwise one side has a trade deficit and that's unfair!
• carabiner 2y ago
  We get a lot of titanium from China. That's because the largest natural Ti deposits are in Eurasia. That is due to geology, not politics, and now US companies who need it (read: high performance transport, medical products) will pay substantially more for it.
• burgerzzz 2y ago
  No offense, but the benefits may outweigh problems like getting your favorite Tunisian olive oil.
• tootie 2y ago
  Olive oil, coffee, chocolate, vanilla, tea, lots of fruits, sugar. These will all be massively stressed.
• buzzert 2y ago
  Why do you think it's a good idea to buy olive oil from Tunisia instead of from California? Are you aware of how much CO2 is released to ship a trivial commodity across the atlantic ocean?
  • Freedom2 2y ago
    Help me understand your viewpoint here - is the assumption that an entire ship is dedicated to shipping trivial commodities and the cargo isn't co-mingled with anything else? At the same time, what isn't counted as a "trivial commodity", and should ships _only_ be used for those items?
    • buzzert 2y ago
      It just seems like the only things we should be importing from across the globe are things that absolutely cannot be produced domestically. For example, I've heard that coffee beans only grow in certain climates, so that would be a commodity that makes sense to import. Pretty much everything else, including this supposed Tunisian olive oil, just sound like luxury goods to me, and should be priced accordingly.
      • scrivna 2y ago
        GHG emissions from boat transport are actually a very low % of the total GHG emissions from producing that food. Moving it across the country on a truck would certainly produce more emissions than shipping it by boat from abroad. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
        • buzzert 2y ago
          You do realize it still needs to be transported from a port to customers inland, right?
  • 14 2y ago
    Just a guess as he said his favorite olive oil so could it be one tastes better? I imagine like many other things taste can be effected by the region it is grown in. As for your other point in a perfect world we would all care about global climate change but many are not going to eat something they don’t like to do their part. But really cargo ships are small fish in such a big problem. Ban private jets or cruise ships would be way more beneficial.
• EasyMark 2y ago
  His approval numbers will decrease 20-30% over the next few months. Only the most cultish cultists will stick with him when inflation spikes to 15%.
• jumpman_miya 2y ago
  [dead]