7 ms·

I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. 1. They're massively unpopular and likely to cause electoral losses in '26 and '28 which will immedia

I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. 1. They're massively unpopular and likely to cause electoral losses in '26 and '28 which will immediately undo them 2. Consumers know the tariffs will likely cause a recession, and will likely be undone in 4y. Pretty much every major spending purchase that can be delayed, will. 3. Companies know 4y is not enough time to invest in new supply chains or new manufacturing plants. Given sinking demand they will shed jobs and hunker down for the duration. I can tell you, for myself? Any major purchases are now off the table. I will happily keep my 18 year old car running instead of buying a new honda civic. I'm perfectly content with the devices I currently have. I will root and install a third party rom instead of buying a new phone. My 3090 will happily play old / AA games for the duration. Travel will likely be reduced thanks to the weak dollar and anti us sentiment in general.

Workaccount2 2y ago
Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. He most likely intends to pull out the financial pillar of income tax, and replace it with tariffs. He is likely waiting for the price crunch to blow up so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax.
- piva00 2y ago
  It would only make sense if consumption of tariff-imposed goods would keep steady to make up for the loss of income taxes, with consumer confidence cratering there's no way consumption keeps steady. On top of that you have inflation which will cause the Fed to raise interest rates, further lowering credit offering for consumption, bond yields raising which costs more of the budget for interest payment, requiring more taxes, it's a stupid plan all around...
- andsoitis 2y ago
  Income taxes are progressive while tariffs are regressive, so those under $150k are likely to be worse off.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    He's not particularly intelligent.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    About 3/4 of households make under $150k/year. Having no income tax will be hugely popular with them. It would kill the argument that Trump is only interested tax breaks for the rich.
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      It would also make it politically untenable to get rid of tariffs and reinstate income tax.
      - yurishimo 2y ago
        Yea, this is the thing. Can you imagine transitioning over to a 0 income tax situation and then adding all of that infrastructure back? You know DOGE is going to nuke the servers that do it and rm -rf the repositories so if it's ever returned to law, everything will need to be done from scratch (likely making it untenable). If you're an IT professional in the US Government, I would argue you have an obligation as a concerned citizen to make some local backups of the code powering the systems you work on every day and keep them somewhere safe...
      - tzs 2y ago
        Or it would make it politically quite tenable to get rid of tariffs and greatly raise income taxes on people making over $150k.
        SoftTalker 2y ago
        They already do pay the vast majority of income taxes.
        sorcerer-mar 2y ago
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Yes, with Trunp everything is a lever he's using in a negotiation to get what he really wants. I'm not claiming he's playing "4d Chess" or is some kind of wizard but everything is a "deal" to him.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  >Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. Trump has openly talked about his plan to replace income tax with tariffs for years. Not just for "earnings under $150k" -- that was some post-facto inventions by Howard "Used Car Salesman" Lutnick on some news program appearance after tariffs were proving spectacularly unpopular -- but Trump has constantly ruminated on the grand old days of the 1890s, at least when he isn't talking about that ol' timey word "groceries" or showerheads, light bulbs and coal. And every economist save a few nuts like Pete Navarro (or his associate Ron Vara) have soundly announced that it's an incredibly stupid plan. Here in reality, thus far the only tax break offered up has been an extension on tax reductions for the super rich. No tax free tips, overtime, etc. Only the super rich have benefitted. Further, it economically makes zero sense and Trump has repeatedly argued completely contrary "wins" from his tariffs: both that all of the manufacturing and other production will return to the US (ignore that the US has effectively full employment, and such would be massively inflationary without a dire reduction in US quality of life), yet somehow he's going to make trillions from tariffs, which would require such an egregious tariff rate that there would be no imports at all and thus no tariff income. Federal spending would have to drop by almost 80% for tariff funding of the government to be remotely rational, and that means demolishing the military and social security. >so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax Yeah, that isn't at all how Trump operates. Much like DOGE and their hilarious "$5000 cheques for all the savings" that will never, ever happen -- and quite the contrary the government financial position is more dire than ever -- Trump makes all of his promises up front. Like his tips and overtime tax claims, both of which are never going to happen. Or his amazing healthcare plan that's coming in two weeks. Or how about that line of countries offering everything and their 90 deals in 90 days. This guy is the definition of overpromising and underdelivering. There is zero scenario where tariffs even cover the current deficit. And as Trump demolishes the credibility of the USD and US TBills (people don't realize that US banks have been increasingly forced to buy these as the global market as dissolved), it's going to get drastically worse.
  - bloomingeek 2y ago
    You stumped most everyone when you used the word "reality". (Which is correct.) Most are so scared of where the country is heading, reality is pretty foggy. "Criminality", now there's a timely word we can all understand, except the big orange dummy has manipulated the supreme court so much we're not sure if we can trust it to maintain the rule of law. (After all, the tariffs seem to be a tool to crash the stock market, buy low/sell high, no?) Shamefully, it doesn't take much to completely fool the boomers (My generation, the stupidest of all time.) by making enemies of almost anything or anyone.
- wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  >Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26? Also, remember when the British government tried to pass a massive tax cut funded with debt? Remember how that went down? The chances of the US being able to get rid of income tax in the next 4 years is basically zero.
  - alabastervlog 2y ago
    > Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26? Their chances will maybe be higher, if they cut income taxes. All it'll cost is moving our already-nigh-inevitable debt crisis a few decades closer to today. > Also, remember when the British government tried to pass a massive tax cut funded with debt? Both Republican administrations this millennium have done exactly that. I see no reason to expect they won't do it again.
  - ivewonyoung 2y ago
    > Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26? The optics of Democrats voting against a full tax cut for those earning less than $150K would be interesting to say the least.
    - wing-_-nuts 2y ago
      I mean someone's gotta be the responsible adult in the room right? Every projection I've seen on tariffs doesn't put the revenue generated anywhere near enough to cover cutting income tax. You want to rework the tax system, be my guest, but pay for it, and don't tank the world economy in the process.
      - FLT8 2y ago
        If the tariffs are able to act as a sustained source of revenue then they're not working to bring manufacturing back to the US. If they work to bring manufacturing back then they're not going to raise much revenue (long term). Either way, the bulk of the pain is going to be borne by average people.
- tzs 2y ago
  But he also says the tariffs will bring manufacturing back. If that works then the tariff money tanks.
- Isamu 2y ago
  He wants to get rid of his taxes, reducing other people’s taxes is part of the deal. Tariffs are moving taxes around, everyone pays but he’s hoping that he will be the least affected.
  - alabastervlog 2y ago
    Actually-rich people pay little or no income tax. Most of what they pay is capital gains, and usually the long-term rate (15% or 20%, depends), which is lower than all but the lowest two (0%, 12%) of seven brackets applied to people who actually work for a living. Plus they don't pay FICA on that, which is another ~7.5% for W2 and ~15% for contract workers. Also, they often manage to avoid even paying the long-term capital gains rate.
    - Whoppertime 2y ago
      It depends what you mean by rich people. Do you mean people like Doctors and Lawyers who work for their money, or do you mean investors and CEOs who created a company worth millions/billions, and the shares they own in that company mean they are also worth millions/billions. Because I can tell you the former certainly pay income tax, and I have heard from many doctors and lawyers that they weren't planning on working on that weekend because that marginal tax rate made the juice not worth the squeeze so they spent the weekend on the golf course instead
      - alabastervlog 2y ago
        You're not really rich if you have to work for pay to maintain a (relatively) expensive life style. It's the distinction between the rich and the "professional class" or "upper-middle class". The really rich are capitalists, in the sense of making their money from owning stuff. Looks like the top marginal rate's about 50% (including the top state rate of ~13%), but that's also way past the point where FICA's dropped off so it's not quite as bad (relative to middle tax brackets) as it looks. I can definitely see turning down ~50% of (say) $2,000 in exchange for a free Saturday if I'm already making north of a quarter-million a year (individual—brackets are higher for joint filing). Hell, when I was a freelancer, for every single vacation I took the main cost was foregone income, so I've even done basically that exact thing, though without being in that high a tax bracket. In fact, even today, I could probably take on paying work many weekends, and never do, so I make the same choice all the time despite being well under the top tax bracket. Like, working the weekend normally isn't worth it for most people who can possibly afford not to do it, tax bracket be damned. Did these doctors and lawyers work a pretty normal number of hours that week? If so, I don't really understand what you're getting at. Seems like they just wanted to frame a normal thing most people do as a complaint about taxes.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  This is entirely contrary to their other supposed goal, which is to bring back manufacturing. If we bring back manufacturing, tariffs won't pay our bills, because nobody will pay them. It's almost like it's bullshit.
- throw310822 2y ago
  Well, just to play the devil's advocate a bit, this is definitely a crazy idea but it might have some logic to it: 1) taxing consumptions instead of income has the advantage of being much harder to evade. It puts an end to tricks like living off loans or even simply detracting expenses- you cannot detract anything if you're not taxed at all; 2) only taxing imported goods means that anything that benefits the local economy can be purchased tax-free; while imports from abroad become, say, twice as expensive as before. However, you also have a much higher disposable income and, at least at the beginning, no other option. So the gist of it would be: we levy the same amount of money as before by taxing exclusively consumptions, and we exempt from taxation all domestically produced goods because it's still money reinvested in the economy.
  - tempestn 2y ago
    The problem is that you massively distort the economy, making it less efficient aka poorer. And that's even before considering the fact that other countries will retaliate.
    - Whoppertime 2y ago
      Wasn't the income tax introduced as a temporary measure in WW1, and prior to that the majority of state income was generated via tariffs? Shifting the burden can certainly cause distortions, but we already caused those distortions getting into this situation in the first place.
      - tempestn 2y ago
        Tariffs were done in the past because they were easier, but I think they distort less than an income tax. You're literally favoring domestic producers, right?
davidw 2y ago
People keep acting like there is some plan or higher thought process. Sometimes, people are just morons. Look at how Bessent had to sneak in and try and get the tariffs paused: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navarro-bessent-lutnick-b9e864fb https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navar... There's no coordinated strategy there.
- amelius 2y ago
  Apparently the guy is playing 3d chess. But they didn't say he's not very good at it.
  - davidw 2y ago
    We're more at the level of him looking at the chess board and trying to snack on the pieces.
  - Integrape 2y ago
    Yes, but in this case the 'd' stands for dementia.
  - 1659447091 2y ago
    He's not playing chess, his only interest in chess in getting the game manufactures to stop their DEI policy of insisting on equal dark and light squares/pieces.
- sorcerer-mar 2y ago
  You know he’s an actual idiot based on his latest proclamation that he won’t escalate further against China because “then people won’t buy.” We’re already way, way beyond levels that effectively freeze all trade between the two countries. Which, if we’re to believe the sycophants, is just the price to pay to onshore manufacturing.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  There's no coordinated strategy anywhere. The people with real power voted him in to lower taxes, and in return he is nuking the economy, neutering the Pentagon, trashing public health, isolating the US from tourists and skilled immigrants, walking public education back at least a century, killing the next generation of R&D, murdering rational climate policy with a coal-powered chainsaw, and handing government software and data to enemy powers. The entire machinery of governance - official and public, as well as off-the-record "do as I say and I'll fund your campaign" private - has folded like tissue paper. The only pushback is from the judiciary, and their orders are as likely to be ignored as implemented. And parts of academia. It's astonishing.
amelius 2y ago
Sounds like a win for the climate, as a nice side effect.
- watwut 2y ago
  Unlikely. The other policies is literally designed to remove as much environmental protection as possible, I guess to own the libs.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  Except that solar deployment in the US will be massively impacted by this. And that at a time where we are supposed to bring back energy-hungry manufacturing and in theory would need to expand the electrical grid.
  - ChoGGi 2y ago
    Good thing there's lots of coal-fired power plants that Trump just exempted from stronger emissions controls.
- wing-_-nuts 2y ago
  Yes well, covid was a nice win for the climate. It was also a massive and devastating recession which we basically money printed our way out of. It would be nice if we could address climate issues with direct legislation instead of suffering on the population level (I will be fine)
- bigbadfeline 2y ago
  Here come those pesky direct effects: "US to impose tariffs of up to 3521% on south-east Asia solar panels" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/22/us-huge-tariffs-south-east-asian-solar-panels-energy-summit https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/22/us-huge-tar... Edit: added title
ks2048 2y ago
Trump now has knobs he alone (unless congress stops him) can turn to save or wreck any country, even specific businesses and people (i.e. those that don’t surrender more power to him). For a power obsessed, extreme narcissist, that is worth more than economic success.
- testing22321 2y ago
  The only country he is wrecking is the US. Every other country can still happily trade with every other country. Sure, for some countries it will hurt short term, but long term they will all just increase trade between each other and do perfectly fine. China’s exports to the US are only 7% of their GDP. Even if all that went to zero, they’ll still have the highest GDP soon enough.
  - Yeul 2y ago
    I don't think a lot of Americans know this: the EU is China's biggest trade partner. And the EU has free trade in it's DNA.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      cough mostly protectionism, I'm afraid cough. The EU roleplays as free traders (for exports), but if you look at their actual behaviour (particularly around agriculture) then you can see that they're also a big fan of protectionism at times.
    - gspetr 2y ago
      Free trade? They put tariffs on China in October 2024, before the US Election. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-votes-favour-hefty-tariffs-china-made-ev-imports-2024-10-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-vot...
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    > The only country he is wrecking is the US. Every other country can still happily trade with every other country. I mean, sortof. Unfortunately both the EU/China/everyone else has been running an export led growth strategy which relies on the US consumer buying their exports. So, buckle up everyone, it's gonna be a wild ride (and maybe read Trade Wars are Class Wars to understand where the administration may be coming from).
kashunstva 2y ago
> I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs Nor, seemingly, does the U.S. president. It’s the same rhetoric we’ve heard from him since the mid 1980’s onward. “We’re being ripped off,” “We’re being laughed at,” “We need to fix the trade deficit…tariffs…” A case of arrested development. Going back to his earliest projects as a nominal real estate developer, the same inability or unwillingness to capitalize on the expertise of others to the detriment of most of his endeavours. Except for image-making. There he excels. This time, the project he is inevitably destroying is the global economy. And there’s no Fred C. Trump to bail us out.
diego_moita 2y ago
> I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. They are being implemented by people that think that "evolution is just a theory", "global warming is a hoax", "vaccines cause autism and are dangerous", etc. Free trade is a core belief of Economics as a science, from Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" until the Nobel Prize of Economics in 2024. And discarding inconvenient science is a standard among Republicans (viz their attack on universities). They're just morons.
- bloomingeek 2y ago
  I think you're only half right. Most people are woefully undereducated or unwilling to gain knowledge for the sake of understanding things in the modern world. A fatal flaw, because then they rely on smart sounding people, dressed in nice clothing, to tell them how to think. > I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs.> At the risk of sounding rude, why the hell don't you understand the point of tariffs?!? Look up as many source as you can on the internet and learn something! You could also read some books.
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
    The "the" in "point of the tariffs" is enough to say that a specific collection of tariffs is being referred to, not the general concept of tariffs. Given the Trump tariffs are the subject of the article this discussion is attached to and those tariffs are a major current event, they're the obvious default expansion of "the tariffs."
    - bloomingeek 2y ago
      Er, the "the" is in my sentence. You either don't understand tariffs or you don't understand "the point" of tariffs. Let's clear this up, shall we? (And don't try to wiggle out of your original statement, please.)
      - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
        wing-_-nuts 10 hours ago | prev | next [–] I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. wing-_-nuts said it, diego_molta quoted it, then you quoted it again and went off about it for some reason, ignoring the 'the' in the process. Have you considered decaf?
tzs 2y ago
> I can tell you, for myself? Any major purchases are now off the table. I will happily keep my 18 year old car running instead of buying a new honda civic. Aren't Civics made in the US, with mostly US and Canadian parts? They might come through the tariffs without too big a hit.
- echoangle 2y ago
  As long as the tariffs reduce competition, the prices will still increase. Stuff isn’t priced at cost.
- floxy 2y ago
  Apparently the hybrid hatchback Civic was made in Japan, but now Honda is moving production to the U.S. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/honda-shift-production-us-bound-5-door-civic-hybrid-indiana-japan-5068901 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/honda-shift-product...
rsynnott 2y ago
Trump's been obsessed with them since the 80s. That seems to, er, be... about all the rationalisation that is required. No-one thinks this is a good idea; he managed to dig up the world's weirdest economist to give his blessing, and that's about it.
- sorcerer-mar 2y ago
  The world’s weirdest economist who then made up an even weirder economist to bolster his case. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/peter-navarro-ron-vara.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/peter-navarro...
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Bigly smart, everyone's saying it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_used_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_used_by_Donald_Trum...
sidewndr46 2y ago
Donald Trump does not need to win an election in any of the years you named
whateveracct 2y ago
I read recently the tariffs are the policy of some guy Trump latched onto because Kushner likes the title of his book ("Death by China")
- fzzzy 2y ago
  Trump took out full page ads about this in the 80s.
  - whateveracct 2y ago
    The guy in charge of them is still the guy I'm referring to though lol
    - fzzzy 1y ago
      Ah, I see. Wow.
NoPicklez 2y ago
Pretty much, it will only look great for the next incumbent president to remove the tariffs that were put in place immediately. And realistically even if major companies moved their businesses to the US, they would still need to pay US prices for the goods and people that would make them. I am sure someone has done a simple cost analysis, but prices would be higher regardless as it costs more to make the stuff in the US. Although a 3090 is still a kickass GPU, it should still play new AA games for a long time (someone with a 3080).
mystified5016 2y ago
I'd wager that some people in this administration are banking on there not being a next administration
frogperson 2y ago
You are not thinking like a mob boss. The tarrifs have no economic purpose, they are a bullying tactic. Congress controls the ability to levy taxes for a good reason, which is to prevent executive abuse. Trump and his republican supporters are using the tarrifs like the kings of old to negotiate favors and support. The tarrifs were applied across the board, and will slowly be trimmed back as people kiss the ring.

Workaccount2 2y ago

Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. He most likely intends to pull out the financial pillar of income tax, and replace it with tariffs. He is likely waiting for the price crunch to blow up so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax.

piva00 2y ago
It would only make sense if consumption of tariff-imposed goods would keep steady to make up for the loss of income taxes, with consumer confidence cratering there's no way consumption keeps steady. On top of that you have inflation which will cause the Fed to raise interest rates, further lowering credit offering for consumption, bond yields raising which costs more of the budget for interest payment, requiring more taxes, it's a stupid plan all around...
andsoitis 2y ago
Income taxes are progressive while tariffs are regressive, so those under $150k are likely to be worse off.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  He's not particularly intelligent.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  About 3/4 of households make under $150k/year. Having no income tax will be hugely popular with them. It would kill the argument that Trump is only interested tax breaks for the rich.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    It would also make it politically untenable to get rid of tariffs and reinstate income tax.
    - yurishimo 2y ago
      Yea, this is the thing. Can you imagine transitioning over to a 0 income tax situation and then adding all of that infrastructure back? You know DOGE is going to nuke the servers that do it and rm -rf the repositories so if it's ever returned to law, everything will need to be done from scratch (likely making it untenable). If you're an IT professional in the US Government, I would argue you have an obligation as a concerned citizen to make some local backups of the code powering the systems you work on every day and keep them somewhere safe...
    - tzs 2y ago
      Or it would make it politically quite tenable to get rid of tariffs and greatly raise income taxes on people making over $150k.
      - SoftTalker 2y ago
        They already do pay the vast majority of income taxes.
        sorcerer-mar 2y ago
SoftTalker 2y ago
Yes, with Trunp everything is a lever he's using in a negotiation to get what he really wants. I'm not claiming he's playing "4d Chess" or is some kind of wizard but everything is a "deal" to him.
llm_nerd 2y ago
>Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. Trump has openly talked about his plan to replace income tax with tariffs for years. Not just for "earnings under $150k" -- that was some post-facto inventions by Howard "Used Car Salesman" Lutnick on some news program appearance after tariffs were proving spectacularly unpopular -- but Trump has constantly ruminated on the grand old days of the 1890s, at least when he isn't talking about that ol' timey word "groceries" or showerheads, light bulbs and coal. And every economist save a few nuts like Pete Navarro (or his associate Ron Vara) have soundly announced that it's an incredibly stupid plan. Here in reality, thus far the only tax break offered up has been an extension on tax reductions for the super rich. No tax free tips, overtime, etc. Only the super rich have benefitted. Further, it economically makes zero sense and Trump has repeatedly argued completely contrary "wins" from his tariffs: both that all of the manufacturing and other production will return to the US (ignore that the US has effectively full employment, and such would be massively inflationary without a dire reduction in US quality of life), yet somehow he's going to make trillions from tariffs, which would require such an egregious tariff rate that there would be no imports at all and thus no tariff income. Federal spending would have to drop by almost 80% for tariff funding of the government to be remotely rational, and that means demolishing the military and social security. >so he can step in an give everyone the "gift" of no income tax Yeah, that isn't at all how Trump operates. Much like DOGE and their hilarious "$5000 cheques for all the savings" that will never, ever happen -- and quite the contrary the government financial position is more dire than ever -- Trump makes all of his promises up front. Like his tips and overtime tax claims, both of which are never going to happen. Or his amazing healthcare plan that's coming in two weeks. Or how about that line of countries offering everything and their 90 deals in 90 days. This guy is the definition of overpromising and underdelivering. There is zero scenario where tariffs even cover the current deficit. And as Trump demolishes the credibility of the USD and US TBills (people don't realize that US banks have been increasingly forced to buy these as the global market as dissolved), it's going to get drastically worse.
- bloomingeek 2y ago
  You stumped most everyone when you used the word "reality". (Which is correct.) Most are so scared of where the country is heading, reality is pretty foggy. "Criminality", now there's a timely word we can all understand, except the big orange dummy has manipulated the supreme court so much we're not sure if we can trust it to maintain the rule of law. (After all, the tariffs seem to be a tool to crash the stock market, buy low/sell high, no?) Shamefully, it doesn't take much to completely fool the boomers (My generation, the stupidest of all time.) by making enemies of almost anything or anyone.
wing-_-nuts 2y ago
>Trump wants to get rid of income taxes for those earning under $150k. Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26? Also, remember when the British government tried to pass a massive tax cut funded with debt? Remember how that went down? The chances of the US being able to get rid of income tax in the next 4 years is basically zero.
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  > Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26? Their chances will maybe be higher, if they cut income taxes. All it'll cost is moving our already-nigh-inevitable debt crisis a few decades closer to today. > Also, remember when the British government tried to pass a massive tax cut funded with debt? Both Republican administrations this millennium have done exactly that. I see no reason to expect they won't do it again.
- ivewonyoung 2y ago
  > Getting rid of income tax will require legislation from congress. If we're in the midst of a tariff induced recession, what are the chances his party keeps congress in '26? The optics of Democrats voting against a full tax cut for those earning less than $150K would be interesting to say the least.
  - wing-_-nuts 2y ago
    I mean someone's gotta be the responsible adult in the room right? Every projection I've seen on tariffs doesn't put the revenue generated anywhere near enough to cover cutting income tax. You want to rework the tax system, be my guest, but pay for it, and don't tank the world economy in the process.
    - FLT8 2y ago
      If the tariffs are able to act as a sustained source of revenue then they're not working to bring manufacturing back to the US. If they work to bring manufacturing back then they're not going to raise much revenue (long term). Either way, the bulk of the pain is going to be borne by average people.
tzs 2y ago
But he also says the tariffs will bring manufacturing back. If that works then the tariff money tanks.
Isamu 2y ago
He wants to get rid of his taxes, reducing other people’s taxes is part of the deal. Tariffs are moving taxes around, everyone pays but he’s hoping that he will be the least affected.
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  Actually-rich people pay little or no income tax. Most of what they pay is capital gains, and usually the long-term rate (15% or 20%, depends), which is lower than all but the lowest two (0%, 12%) of seven brackets applied to people who actually work for a living. Plus they don't pay FICA on that, which is another ~7.5% for W2 and ~15% for contract workers. Also, they often manage to avoid even paying the long-term capital gains rate.
  - Whoppertime 2y ago
    It depends what you mean by rich people. Do you mean people like Doctors and Lawyers who work for their money, or do you mean investors and CEOs who created a company worth millions/billions, and the shares they own in that company mean they are also worth millions/billions. Because I can tell you the former certainly pay income tax, and I have heard from many doctors and lawyers that they weren't planning on working on that weekend because that marginal tax rate made the juice not worth the squeeze so they spent the weekend on the golf course instead
    - alabastervlog 2y ago
      You're not really rich if you have to work for pay to maintain a (relatively) expensive life style. It's the distinction between the rich and the "professional class" or "upper-middle class". The really rich are capitalists, in the sense of making their money from owning stuff. Looks like the top marginal rate's about 50% (including the top state rate of ~13%), but that's also way past the point where FICA's dropped off so it's not quite as bad (relative to middle tax brackets) as it looks. I can definitely see turning down ~50% of (say) $2,000 in exchange for a free Saturday if I'm already making north of a quarter-million a year (individual—brackets are higher for joint filing). Hell, when I was a freelancer, for every single vacation I took the main cost was foregone income, so I've even done basically that exact thing, though without being in that high a tax bracket. In fact, even today, I could probably take on paying work many weekends, and never do, so I make the same choice all the time despite being well under the top tax bracket. Like, working the weekend normally isn't worth it for most people who can possibly afford not to do it, tax bracket be damned. Did these doctors and lawyers work a pretty normal number of hours that week? If so, I don't really understand what you're getting at. Seems like they just wanted to frame a normal thing most people do as a complaint about taxes.
mrguyorama 2y ago
This is entirely contrary to their other supposed goal, which is to bring back manufacturing. If we bring back manufacturing, tariffs won't pay our bills, because nobody will pay them. It's almost like it's bullshit.
throw310822 2y ago
Well, just to play the devil's advocate a bit, this is definitely a crazy idea but it might have some logic to it: 1) taxing consumptions instead of income has the advantage of being much harder to evade. It puts an end to tricks like living off loans or even simply detracting expenses- you cannot detract anything if you're not taxed at all; 2) only taxing imported goods means that anything that benefits the local economy can be purchased tax-free; while imports from abroad become, say, twice as expensive as before. However, you also have a much higher disposable income and, at least at the beginning, no other option. So the gist of it would be: we levy the same amount of money as before by taxing exclusively consumptions, and we exempt from taxation all domestically produced goods because it's still money reinvested in the economy.
- tempestn 2y ago
  The problem is that you massively distort the economy, making it less efficient aka poorer. And that's even before considering the fact that other countries will retaliate.
  - Whoppertime 2y ago
    Wasn't the income tax introduced as a temporary measure in WW1, and prior to that the majority of state income was generated via tariffs? Shifting the burden can certainly cause distortions, but we already caused those distortions getting into this situation in the first place.
    - tempestn 2y ago
      Tariffs were done in the past because they were easier, but I think they distort less than an income tax. You're literally favoring domestic producers, right?

davidw 2y ago

People keep acting like there is some plan or higher thought process. Sometimes, people are just morons. Look at how Bessent had to sneak in and try and get the tariffs paused: https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navarro-bessent-lutnick-b9e864fb https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navar... There's no coordinated strategy there.

amelius 2y ago
Apparently the guy is playing 3d chess. But they didn't say he's not very good at it.
- davidw 2y ago
  We're more at the level of him looking at the chess board and trying to snack on the pieces.
- Integrape 2y ago
  Yes, but in this case the 'd' stands for dementia.
- 1659447091 2y ago
  He's not playing chess, his only interest in chess in getting the game manufactures to stop their DEI policy of insisting on equal dark and light squares/pieces.
sorcerer-mar 2y ago
You know he’s an actual idiot based on his latest proclamation that he won’t escalate further against China because “then people won’t buy.” We’re already way, way beyond levels that effectively freeze all trade between the two countries. Which, if we’re to believe the sycophants, is just the price to pay to onshore manufacturing.
TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
There's no coordinated strategy anywhere. The people with real power voted him in to lower taxes, and in return he is nuking the economy, neutering the Pentagon, trashing public health, isolating the US from tourists and skilled immigrants, walking public education back at least a century, killing the next generation of R&D, murdering rational climate policy with a coal-powered chainsaw, and handing government software and data to enemy powers. The entire machinery of governance - official and public, as well as off-the-record "do as I say and I'll fund your campaign" private - has folded like tissue paper. The only pushback is from the judiciary, and their orders are as likely to be ignored as implemented. And parts of academia. It's astonishing.

amelius 2y ago

Sounds like a win for the climate, as a nice side effect.

watwut 2y ago
Unlikely. The other policies is literally designed to remove as much environmental protection as possible, I guess to own the libs.
ajmurmann 2y ago
Except that solar deployment in the US will be massively impacted by this. And that at a time where we are supposed to bring back energy-hungry manufacturing and in theory would need to expand the electrical grid.
- ChoGGi 2y ago
  Good thing there's lots of coal-fired power plants that Trump just exempted from stronger emissions controls.
wing-_-nuts 2y ago
Yes well, covid was a nice win for the climate. It was also a massive and devastating recession which we basically money printed our way out of. It would be nice if we could address climate issues with direct legislation instead of suffering on the population level (I will be fine)
bigbadfeline 2y ago
Here come those pesky direct effects: "US to impose tariffs of up to 3521% on south-east Asia solar panels" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/22/us-huge-tariffs-south-east-asian-solar-panels-energy-summit https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/22/us-huge-tar... Edit: added title

ks2048 2y ago

Trump now has knobs he alone (unless congress stops him) can turn to save or wreck any country, even specific businesses and people (i.e. those that don’t surrender more power to him). For a power obsessed, extreme narcissist, that is worth more than economic success.

testing22321 2y ago
The only country he is wrecking is the US. Every other country can still happily trade with every other country. Sure, for some countries it will hurt short term, but long term they will all just increase trade between each other and do perfectly fine. China’s exports to the US are only 7% of their GDP. Even if all that went to zero, they’ll still have the highest GDP soon enough.
- Yeul 2y ago
  I don't think a lot of Americans know this: the EU is China's biggest trade partner. And the EU has free trade in it's DNA.
  - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
    cough mostly protectionism, I'm afraid cough. The EU roleplays as free traders (for exports), but if you look at their actual behaviour (particularly around agriculture) then you can see that they're also a big fan of protectionism at times.
  - gspetr 2y ago
    Free trade? They put tariffs on China in October 2024, before the US Election. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-votes-favour-hefty-tariffs-china-made-ev-imports-2024-10-04/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/eu-vot...
- disgruntledphd2 2y ago
  > The only country he is wrecking is the US. Every other country can still happily trade with every other country. I mean, sortof. Unfortunately both the EU/China/everyone else has been running an export led growth strategy which relies on the US consumer buying their exports. So, buckle up everyone, it's gonna be a wild ride (and maybe read Trade Wars are Class Wars to understand where the administration may be coming from).

kashunstva 2y ago

> I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs Nor, seemingly, does the U.S. president. It’s the same rhetoric we’ve heard from him since the mid 1980’s onward. “We’re being ripped off,” “We’re being laughed at,” “We need to fix the trade deficit…tariffs…” A case of arrested development. Going back to his earliest projects as a nominal real estate developer, the same inability or unwillingness to capitalize on the expertise of others to the detriment of most of his endeavours. Except for image-making. There he excels. This time, the project he is inevitably destroying is the global economy. And there’s no Fred C. Trump to bail us out.

diego_moita 2y ago

> I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. They are being implemented by people that think that "evolution is just a theory", "global warming is a hoax", "vaccines cause autism and are dangerous", etc. Free trade is a core belief of Economics as a science, from Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" until the Nobel Prize of Economics in 2024. And discarding inconvenient science is a standard among Republicans (viz their attack on universities). They're just morons.

bloomingeek 2y ago
I think you're only half right. Most people are woefully undereducated or unwilling to gain knowledge for the sake of understanding things in the modern world. A fatal flaw, because then they rely on smart sounding people, dressed in nice clothing, to tell them how to think. > I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs.> At the risk of sounding rude, why the hell don't you understand the point of tariffs?!? Look up as many source as you can on the internet and learn something! You could also read some books.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
  The "the" in "point of the tariffs" is enough to say that a specific collection of tariffs is being referred to, not the general concept of tariffs. Given the Trump tariffs are the subject of the article this discussion is attached to and those tariffs are a major current event, they're the obvious default expansion of "the tariffs."
  - bloomingeek 2y ago
    Er, the "the" is in my sentence. You either don't understand tariffs or you don't understand "the point" of tariffs. Let's clear this up, shall we? (And don't try to wiggle out of your original statement, please.)
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
      wing-_-nuts 10 hours ago | prev | next [–] I've honestly never understood the point of the tariffs. wing-_-nuts said it, diego_molta quoted it, then you quoted it again and went off about it for some reason, ignoring the 'the' in the process. Have you considered decaf?

tzs 2y ago

> I can tell you, for myself? Any major purchases are now off the table. I will happily keep my 18 year old car running instead of buying a new honda civic. Aren't Civics made in the US, with mostly US and Canadian parts? They might come through the tariffs without too big a hit.

echoangle 2y ago
As long as the tariffs reduce competition, the prices will still increase. Stuff isn’t priced at cost.
floxy 2y ago
Apparently the hybrid hatchback Civic was made in Japan, but now Honda is moving production to the U.S. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/honda-shift-production-us-bound-5-door-civic-hybrid-indiana-japan-5068901 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/honda-shift-product...

rsynnott 2y ago

Trump's been obsessed with them since the 80s. That seems to, er, be... about all the rationalisation that is required. No-one thinks this is a good idea; he managed to dig up the world's weirdest economist to give his blessing, and that's about it.

sorcerer-mar 2y ago
The world’s weirdest economist who then made up an even weirder economist to bolster his case. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/peter-navarro-ron-vara.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/us/politics/peter-navarro...
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Bigly smart, everyone's saying it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_used_by_Donald_Trump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_used_by_Donald_Trum...

sidewndr46 2y ago

Donald Trump does not need to win an election in any of the years you named

whateveracct 2y ago

I read recently the tariffs are the policy of some guy Trump latched onto because Kushner likes the title of his book ("Death by China")

fzzzy 2y ago
Trump took out full page ads about this in the 80s.
- whateveracct 2y ago
  The guy in charge of them is still the guy I'm referring to though lol
  - fzzzy 1y ago
    Ah, I see. Wow.

NoPicklez 2y ago

Pretty much, it will only look great for the next incumbent president to remove the tariffs that were put in place immediately. And realistically even if major companies moved their businesses to the US, they would still need to pay US prices for the goods and people that would make them. I am sure someone has done a simple cost analysis, but prices would be higher regardless as it costs more to make the stuff in the US. Although a 3090 is still a kickass GPU, it should still play new AA games for a long time (someone with a 3080).

mystified5016 2y ago

I'd wager that some people in this administration are banking on there not being a next administration

frogperson 2y ago

You are not thinking like a mob boss. The tarrifs have no economic purpose, they are a bullying tactic. Congress controls the ability to levy taxes for a good reason, which is to prevent executive abuse. Trump and his republican supporters are using the tarrifs like the kings of old to negotiate favors and support. The tarrifs were applied across the board, and will slowly be trimmed back as people kiss the ring.