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Curious if there is anyone here who genuinely sees this as short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests. That is of course the political ang

Curious if there is anyone here who genuinely sees this as short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests. That is of course the political angle, but I've yet to see an economist concur with that theory. EDIT: I can find very few voices (not currently working directly for the administration). There's Jeff Ferry who believes "tariffs imposed during the 19th century spurred industrialization and ultimately positioned America as a global superpower". (That historical view is uncommon and wouldn't account for the current realities of global supply chains.)

Scarblac 1y ago
Depends on how long term. A crash of the global economy may be the best way to prevent at least some climate change catastrophe.
- lumost 1y ago
  If economic activity is linear with co2 production, the crash would need to be the most extreme economic depression in history to have an impact eg 75% reduction in global GDP. A 75% reduction in food production would surely cause the largest global famine yet recorded.
  - Scarblac 1y ago
    Well yes, but so will climate change itself.
- izzydata 1y ago
  This will never happen willingly. Whenever it does happen it won't be by choice and will be because civilization has run out of material to produce stuff or too much of the Earth has become inhospitable. At least in the extreme long term it is a self correcting problem.
AznHisoka 1y ago
Why is this a “political” angle? If you believe its for a long term gain, then you believe in a certain economic theory that others may not believe. What does politics hace anything to do with that?
- JadeNB 1y ago
  > Why is this a “political” angle? If you believe its for a long term gain, then you believe in a certain economic theory that others may not believe. What does politics hace anything to do with that? It's a political angle because it's to the responsible politicians' advantage to push that economic theory. I think the claim is not necessarily that economists who believe this theory are acting politically, but that their voices may be amplified by politicians for, let us say, less than scientific reasons.
- inerte 1y ago
  Choosing a certain type of economic theory or having certain sectors of the economy do better than others is 100% politics. I don’t think there is an economic theory where everybody benefits equally around the same time without any downsides.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Let's assume that Trump actually has a point in divesting from China (which, I think, he has - his disastrous approach to it aside). The Democrats could never do anything against China that imposes short-term economical pain because their own voters would immediately punish them for it and the entire media from left to far-right would put them under fire. Even marginal economical pain has immediate political consequences - I'd argue that Harris' loss was mostly due to rising and unanswered problems about exploding cost of living, chiefly eggs. The Republicans however? They still have the same constraint from the left to center media and voters - but crucially, their own voter base is so darn high on their own supply (and their media has long since sworn fealty to even the most crackpot people), they are willing to endure anything because their President told them to. It's "Only Nixon could go to China" all over again, and frankly it's disgusting.
crispyambulance 1y ago
I certainly would like to see more American made products and manufacturing, unfortunately, making that happen is not just a matter of shuffling money around, capricious tariffs, and the president posturing for "deals" like a real-estate shyster. Our current situation is the result of decades of deliberate greedy systematic outsourcing of everything that can be outsourced. It's our own dumb fault. And it will take decades to reverse it if it's even possible. It's not a "short-term" kind of thing.
- JoeAltmaier 1y ago
  'Dumb' is probably the right word. That's how a free market works - every actor works in their own interest. If you try to do something moral but it profits less, then you'll be competed to bankruptcy. Just how it works. We want a more 'just' system, it requires regulation, so everybody is playing the same game. Oh! We've deregulated. That's supposed to help make folks more profitable. But, whoops, it's the same playing field no matter the particular rules. So deregulation helps who? Big players, international players. Not you and me.
  - aurizon 1y ago
    Look at the Auto work force in 1960 and in 2025. Wages became so high that it drove automation/robots and created the Japanese/Korean/European auto industries. Had huge tariffs been enacted we would still have some of those jobs in the USA, but those lost to robotics would still be lost due to the basic economics of fabrication. Can this all be rolled back - All the King's men and all the King's horses can not put Humpty Dumpty together again. I can see a possible future where people are all paid the same $$ and you can not 'shop for slaves' as we do in Asia. This level field would take a while to achieve - even now wages in China have risen a lot and they are not the cheapest labor country now, but their assembled physical plant still dominates. China now has excess physical plant and must replace the USA as a large buyer. Other countries feel the same pressures and erect tariffs of their own. I see many years of this levelling to occur. USA will have to reduce these high tariffs because the USA needs many things and it will take 10+ years to create the physical plant that was allowed to rust away over the last 20-30 years - even now a little has returned, but the 'rust belt' has been melted down and it will return slowly.
afpx 1y ago
After talking to a bunch of Trump voters over the past 8 years, I have heard a common theme. They view the policies of the past 50 years, driven by the 'uniparty', as they say, leading to eminent catastrophic collapse. To them it's existential problem and they only have one choice. Appealing to economists is the opposite of what they want, because economists look at macroeconomics efficiency which encourages globalism. They would rather be inefficient and hold on to their identity.
- soco 1y ago
  Then why were they promised cheaper eggs in the campaign? And no wars and and and? I'd say identity or not, there was still a serious amount of lying involved, which also tells me the identity gang is actually way smaller.
  - afpx 1y ago
    Honestly, I sense that they believe it's all part of the game. And, if everyone else is doing it, why should they be at a disadvantage? I'm guessing here, though. If you really want answers, best thing to do is hang out in an area dominated by Trump supporters for a few weeks. Talking to them has changed my perspective on a lot of things. I don't agree with a lot of what they say, but I understand them now. They often aren't great at articulating their thoughts. They think in terms of macro-level complex systems. I shouldn't say 'think' - more like they intuit. They feel something is wrong, and they don't necessarily know why. You have to (kindly and with curiosity) interrogate them a bunch to figure it all out. I follow a bunch of them on X, and they seem outraged by some of what Trump is doing, particularly the pro-war stance. Hence the low poll numbers? [Sorry I really geek out on anthropology and understanding cultures.]
    - hombre_fatal 1y ago
      My family is mostly Trump supporters and you might be glamorizing them. Sadly, it's mostly just cult of personality which I figure you are graciously trying to avoid assuming. Tariffs are the perfect example of this. Trump announces tariffs? Good, we need long-term investment in domestic production. Trump cancels them? Good, they are just a short-term negotiation tactic. Trump negotiates a trade deal? Good, now we get a better deal on imports from that country. Trump says tariffs are back on the table? Good, we need domestic production long-term. There are no macro-level complex system ideals here. Pinning them down to one claim is like fighting jelly where on every strike it morphs into something else.
xnx 1y ago
The long-term gain might be that this administration so significantly craters the economy and is so obviously responsible that enough voters recognize vote out enough of these clowns and accomplices to enact real useful reform (gerrymandering, electoral college, senate, filibuster, tax law, etc.)
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  > (gerrymandering, electoral college, senate, filibuster, tax law, etc.) Open a news website. Several news websites. Turn on the TV. Talk to some people about politics. How often do those topics come up?
  - akmarinov 1y ago
    When it all crashes and burns, people would wonder how they got to that point
  - xnx 1y ago
    I agree. They definitely don't come up (or campaign finance reform). I wouldn't suggest a candidate run on those issues (a better platform would be anti-chaos), but responsible politicians might be able to enact them once elected.
  - nine_k 1y ago
    /* TV is like twitter: in order to preserve one's sanity, it's best to never use it, except for highly technical things like weather forecast or watching sports live. Despite that, it's the pastime of hundreds of millions. */
  - alabastervlog 1y ago
    Yuuuup. About half of voters don't even understand how marginal income tax rates work, that is how little they know what's going on and how anything at all works in the mysterious and confusing world around them, and a lot more are barely better off than that. Worrying about gerrymandering et c. is nerd shit, most people don't know a thing about it. They're more likely to, literally, vote on whether general vibes are currently good or bad than to give any fucks about specific policies like that. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169446/democracy-for-realists https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169446/de...
joshstrange 1y ago
"I am not an economist" But from what I've read/heard/understand tariffs can have the effect of on-shoring but only if they are fixed an unlikely to change/fluctuate. On-shoring production is not quick. Some Trump rep made a comment about how they delayed the tariffs on phones/computers 3 months because "Companies would need time to move production" which is just laughable, as if anyone could move production in 3 months (let alone 3 years). None of it matters since the Trump admin changes its mind like it changes its socks. No serious company is going to do more that PR about how they are moving production back to the US because they can very easily get burned when Trump changes his mind. Moving production is a massive task and getting caught half-way through with policy changing (making it no longer profitable) could be a death blow to some companies.
FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
From an economic standpoint, completely free trade is best. From a national interest standpoint, the more key industries that are local, the better. The more inefficient, the more employment. And yes... that means higher prices for most everything.
- cjfd 1y ago
  So, a reasonable middle ground is what is needed. A country should not have so much outsourced that it is extremely vulnerable to supply chain problems. And a country should also not have so much local production that it is inefficient and poor. I think that tariffs have a role to play here but, obviously, they should not be ridiculous like the Trump tariffs. They should be a lot more predictable and if tariffs are adjusted they should change slowly over time to not cause economic disruptions.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
    Since there is no way for the US to compete based on cost or capacity (we just don't have the workforce numbers) with China, then the only other option is to force domestic supply chains to spring up through restrictions. I think we should do pretty much exactly what China does: 1.) you want to sell a product to the US? You have to produce it here and the facility must be partially owned by a US company. Also you must transfer IP. 2.) Since we can't get away with massive forced and/or slave labor (legally), then create a new visa class for temporary workers that is excluded from minimum wage, worker protections, social security, etc. (yes, basically a slave class) Once we build capacity and knowledge back, then start shift back to a more domestic workforce. Very very nasty... but doable. The other option is to just nuke China.
    - selimthegrim 1y ago
      I suppose those U Chicago economists who proposed adopting an immigrant, might be onto something in this climate.
    - porridgeraisin 1y ago
toss1 1y ago
There is a reason high tariffs are only implemented after very long, multi-generational intervals, e.g., 1820s, 1890s, 1930s, 2020s. The consequences are so bad that everyone who remembers the disasters brought on by high tariffs must be dead for anyone to think it is a good idea. So, even if the purported goals are good, even achieving them will be outweighed by the disaster. Plus, companies in countries protected by high tariffs inevitably become globally uncompetitive. Edit, add: Even worse, most high tariff schemes have distinguished between placing the high tariffs on only finished goods and exempting the raw materials or components from the tariffs. This administration makes almost no such distinctions, just sprays tariffs everything, so harms US manufacturers as well. The only exemptions are the ones who pay tribute (e.g., sponsoring inauguration, etc.), so it is almost more of an extortion scheme than a tariff plan. A particularly bad example was revealed as the Japanese delegation came to negotiate, asked what concessions the US wanted, and could get no straight answer [0]. It seems the US group just expects the tariffed nations to supplicate and bring adequate gifts, not make adjustments according to a master plan. Very strong indication there is no plan, which is the worst possible case. So, while I completely agree with the concept of looking for a silver lining, I'm not seeing any... [0] https://petapixel.com/2025/04/21/japan-cant-get-an-answer-on-what-the-us-wants-from-a-trade-deal-report/ https://petapixel.com/2025/04/21/japan-cant-get-an-answer-on...
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >There is a reason high tariffs are only implemented after very long, multi-generational intervals, e.g., 1820s, 1890s, 1930s, 2020s. You need to read more history. The link between tariffs, or any specific federal policy, and how a time period looks to the next generations is iffy at best and probably not really correlated much or at all. The 1820s-40s were looked upon by following generations the way many look at the 1950s today. From the POV of the mid to late 1800s it was seen as uncomplicated and peaceful because the tension and strife leading up to the civil war and the cultural messiness that followed had yet to build. From the POV of the industrial economy of the late 1800s and early 1900s it was seen the same way but with a heavier emphasis on cleanliness and purity because even if you were nominally poorer and subject to more chance of starvation living and working on a farm you owned was arguably nicer than a tenement and factory you didn't. The 1890s on through the 1920s were also looked upon fondly by subsequent generations as a time of massive progress. Mechanical power via fossil fuels and steam became the norm, railroads were everywhere, factories sprung up, all manner of goods and services formerly reserved for the wealthy became the domain of the everyman. Obviously the 1930s don't get looked fondly upon and the jury is still out on the 2020s.
evo_9 1y ago
Kevin O’Leary, Aka Mr Wonderful, has appeared on CNN a number of times defending tariffs.
- bayarearefugee 1y ago
  I think of him more as an FTX Spokesperson and TV talking head who got absolutely wrecked playing Celebrity Jeopardy by... Aaron Rodgers. Not exactly an economist of note.
  - massysett 1y ago
    I wouldn't measure much by someone's ability at Jeopardy. It's called trivia because it's trivial.
    - rudedogg 1y ago
      There’s also the boating accident: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6174808 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6174808
- breadwinner 1y ago
  ...against China specifically. He appeared to be more anti-China (because of IP theft and so on), than pro-tariffs.
_bin_ 1y ago
Hi, studying economics :) The issue is that labor productivity (level of tech) in American mfg hasn't broadly increased at the rate we'd need to manufacture many things at reasonable prices for the American consumer. This makes Baumol's cost disease a huge issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect You can see this manifest in healthcare as one of the most egregious examples; the top cause of margin pressure for hospitals is labor: https://www.hfma.org/press-releases/health-systems-near-their-breaking-point-labor-costs-continue-to-increase-while-dollars-collected-from-payers-decreases/ https://www.hfma.org/press-releases/health-systems-near-thei.... While we can still manufacture things that require comparatively high levels of skill, technology, and capex, it's never again (absent a depression greatly outstripping the 1930s) going to be profitable to pay American workers to make t-shirts rather than Bangladeshis. There's a good argument to be made that a combination of outsourcing and illegal labor caused problems by suppressing investment in tech and automation for thirty years plus, and there are certain things we probably should make here. But ultimately the stuff we actually need to manufacture are things core to sustaining life and the military. Medical supplies, weapons, food, oil, metals, chemicals, etc. We can, with time and good industrial policy, bring back some manufacturing. That would be a case of short-term pain for long-term benefit. But even then, that's true only insofar as we give people a shot to actually buy American. Moonshot investments in roboticization and industrial automation for a few years would really make this easier, along with using the huge amount of post-HS education dollars we spend to focus on training skilled engineers to implement this sort of thing, along with things like skilled machinists. But these tariffs don't really give American companies a shot. We cannot, with any reasonably-good outcome, bring back manufacturing jobs. That midwest factory worker is never going to be paid $30/hour plus pension/retirement contributions, good medical, etc. to make regular, el cheapo consumer goods.
- nine_k 1y ago
  > factory worker is never going to be paid $30/hour plus pension/retirement contributions, good medical, etc. to make regular, el cheapo consumer goods Well, this is possible, but it will take very few workers to produce the huge amount of goods to make it profitable. Case in point: e.g. a Novo Nordisk factory that produces like half of the EU supply of insulin employs like 15 workers per shift, who mostly oversee automation at work, handle incoming / outgoing trucks, and ensure physical security of the plant. It's the same thing that happened to the US agriculture: in 1800, it used to employ like 80% of the population, in 2000, 2% to 3%. Machines replaced human labor almost fully.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
I think that even if tariffs were the solution this administration is not competent enough to make it work.
mrangle 1y ago
[flagged]
- pphysch 1y ago
  I think it's the other way around.
  - mrangle 1y ago
    [flagged]
zmgsabst 1y ago
I think this depends on what you mean by “American economic interests”, ie top-line numbers or the economic future of individual Americans. I genuinely believe that this will be a decade long struggle to generate a long-term benefit to the American nation (ie, the average person) via tariffs as a tool of class warfare and economic restructuring. If you read around MAGA forums, you’ll see this described as a “Mag7 problem, not a MAGA problem”. But that may not be what you’re asking.
snowwrestler 1y ago
Very few and here is why. Making structural changes to an economy requires a lot of investment. But tariffs reduce investment in two ways: 1. Tariffs directly take money out of the coffers of private companies and move it into the government. Private companies therefore have less money to invest. 2. Tariffs are a tax on economic activity and therefore suppress it. This causes companies to want to hold more cash and invest more conservatively. Major changes take appetite for risk, which tariffs reduce. In addition, the arbitrary, legally questionable way in which this particular set of tariffs has been imposed means they are not affecting long-term corporate planning. Instead most companies are seeking to just “wait them out” while issuing hollow press releases with big numbers they think the president wants to see.
- AtlasBarfed 1y ago
  Yes, factories do not teleport. Skilled and willing workers (except, ahem, Mexicans) don't grow on trees in a couple months. Motivation for companies to pay real wages to Americans doesn't exist Tariffs are a consumption tax that will probably be highly regressive. Honestly, it seems like the Trump administration thinks he's they're just playing a game of civilization or some other 4x game and just needs to adjust the slider for a couple cities in order to enact broad-scale production changes.
- AlexB138 1y ago
  There is also the fact that tariffs are protectionist and reduce competition in the market. It allows lesser products to succeed due to where they're made, rather than on the merit of the product. This inherently makes companies less competitive and less required to respond to consumer demand. That means long-term weakness and even less ability to compete.
  - danaris 1y ago
    It's important to be careful with value judgements like this. Tariffs allow otherwise more expensive domestic products to compete against cheaper products from abroad. In and of itself, that says nothing about quality one way or another. In practice, it often means the opposite of what you suggest: domestic goods are often of higher quality, and/or are made by workers in better conditions, because of stricter laws here than in the places manufacturing has moved to. (And not by coincidence—the cheaper labor and looser laws are exactly why manufacturing moved to those places.) Of course, all of this only applies when tariffs are carefully considered, strategically applied, and left in place for a long and predictable length of time.
op00to 1y ago
No, no one with a brain thinks that. Our economy is built on interconnected trade and cheap crap from developing economies.
billy99k 1y ago
Yes. China already dropped some of their tariffs today. More to follow. The goal was never to bring manufacturing back to the US. It's to negotiate new tariffs. With China specifically, I could also see a deal that included stricter enforcement of US IP laws, which is definitely destroying businesses and the job loss that comes with it.
- dboreham 1y ago
  Very clever 4D chess. But you wouldn't plan to make that come about by repeatedly punching yourself in the face, would you? Oh, and also punching all the allies you'd need to help you in the face too.
- timeon 1y ago
  > The goal was never to bring manufacturing back to the US. It was or at least it was stated as goal. However the narratives changes quite often with these tariffs. > China already dropped some of their tariffs today. Such as?
dboreham 1y ago
You won't find anyone because one of Trump's defining themes is to always do the opposite of what smart people say you should do (and meanwhile denigrate smart people as a class). So by definition whatever he is doing will only be supported by dumb people.
JohnFen 1y ago
> Curious if there is anyone here who genuinely sees this as short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests. I don't. I see this as the intentional razing of the US economy and interests.
ferguess_k 1y ago
There is an old saying that a man lost his precious sword when sitting on a moving boat. Instead of jumping into the water, he simply left a mark on the side of the boat where presumably the sword slipped into the river. "What are you doing?", his friends asked curiously. The man replies, "Oh, I think it's too dangerous to get into the water right now, so I'll mark the place and get into the water when the boat arrives. It's safer!"
bsimpson 1y ago
Jon Stewart talked a lot about this on Monday, both in his monologue and interview with Chris Hughes. If you were thoughtful about economic policy and truly believed a trade war was the solution, you'd prepare ahead of time (e.g. by stockpiling things like rare earth metals that are important to your economy and likely to be impacted by retaliatory tariffs). That they haven't done that is one more indicator that they are thoughtlessly winging this. Even if there's a solution that involves tariffs, that's not the play they're running.
- sam_goody 1y ago
  I know nothing of economics, and am not trying to defend Trump's moves. But, it is possible that his policy of "do everything at once, without taking the time to do it right" is more reflective of his belief that whatever he tries [even just being president] will be fought, so his options [from his POV] are "do it now" or "don't do it at all", not "do it right". EDIT: Am willing to be learn, would the downvoters explain - do you disagree that this is his view? Or does his understanding not matter when he acts upon it?
  - alextheparrot 1y ago
    That’s a premise that would make me consider the wiseness of my actions.
  - jillyboel 1y ago
    Have you listened to the guy talk? There isn't a comprehensible thought in there, and there hasn't been for years. He's old, older than Biden was when he started his term, and probably suffering from dementia. edit: The pro trump voting bloc showed up. Comment went from +2 to -3 in a minute. This chain will probably be flagged to death within the hour.
    - thejazzman 1y ago
      I used to believe this. Now I believe we're supposed to believe this, and continue ignoring how calculated this mess actually is... and it's always too late when enough people catch on :(
BurningFrog 1y ago
This genuinely looks like a real "emperor has no clothes" scenario. Trump is 100% convinced his (long disproven both theoretically and empirically) trade theory is true, and no one can talk him out of it. So it has to play out until the effects are unbearable. Or until congress votes to take his tariff powers away: https://www.kwch.com/2025/04/30/senate-voting-resolution-that-could-block-trump-tariffs/ https://www.kwch.com/2025/04/30/senate-voting-resolution-tha...
- dralley 1y ago
  >Trump is 100% convinced his (long disproven both theoretically and empirically) trade theory is true, and no one can talk him out of it. Also nobody tries particularly hard. The secret to longevity in a Trump administration is to effusively praise the boss constantly and minimize direct contradictions. Which turns into "good tzar bad boyars" - the boss is never wrong, only badly advised.
tuyguntn 1y ago
> "tariffs imposed during the 19th century spurred industrialization and ultimately positioned America as a global superpower" it's not "the one thing", which contributed to it. There are multiple factors which spurred industrialization, some of them are: * Europe and Japan was destroyed and they had other problems to deal with * Soviet Union was seen as an enemy * Many US soldiers returned home from war and they needed a job * When many people started working in manufacturing, they needed different optimizations for their process, which lead to more manufacturing Tariffs may have helped, but they were not the only reason. as an example, look at Brazil today, they have lots and lots of tariffs
- ascagnel_ 1y ago
  > Many US soldiers returned home from war and they needed a job It was a combination of US soldiers returning home after drawing government pay while fighting abroad, rationing limiting what could be purchased by those who remained home, and the one-two-three punch of the GI bill subsidizing land purchases, the interstate highway system effectively creating the American suburb, and process improvements from the war making automobiles drastically cheaper.
Auracle 1y ago
I'm not an economist, but I think the theory has merit. I don't think the execution does, if only because we almost certainly only have 4 years until the tariffs are mostly reversed. The complete lack of long-term planning is a major failure of out political system compared to places like China. If I were Trump, I instead would have pushed congress to take away the power of tariffs back from the presidency and make something like the Fed to manage them instead, with some checks added in. I normally don't like unelected officials making policy like that but in this case I don't see what else would work. As we've seen, broad tariffs are very unpopular even if they might be necessary, and we'd need them to have the potential to stick around much longer for them to be effective. That said, I'm willing to bet this will finally put the nail in the inflation coffin. Taking money away from consumers and "burning it" by returning it to the government is the best way to deal with inflation.
- ascagnel_ 1y ago
  > If I were Trump, I instead would have pushed congress to take away the power of tariffs back from the presidency and make something like the Fed to manage them instead, with some checks added in. I normally don't like unelected officials making policy like that but in this case I don't see what else would work. As we've seen, broad tariffs are very unpopular even if they might be necessary, and we'd need them to have the potential to stick around much longer for them to be effective. The power of the tariff is typically reserved for Congress; the executive has declared an emergency giving itself that power, while Congress (specifically the House) has abdicated its responsibility by redefining "legislative days" to extend the length of the emergency. > That said, I'm willing to bet this will finally put the nail in the inflation coffin. Taking money away from consumers and "burning it" by returning it to the government is the best way to deal with inflation. Long term, maybe; short term, it'll spike inflation as the price of both raw materials and finished goods will rise to account for the tariffs.
- cyberax 1y ago
  > That said, I'm willing to bet this will finally put the nail in the inflation coffin. Taking money away from consumers and "burning it" by returning it to the government is the best way to deal with inflation. Nope. Tariffs are associated with higher inflation, as consumers have to pay more. Over long term, if tariffs depress the economic growth and cause a recession, they indeed _might_ lower the inflation.
fencepost 1y ago
The problem is the chaos. No competently run company is going to invest in more-expensive domestic production based on what the administration is doing because there can't be any expectation that policies will remain in place until production can be brought online. It doesn't even make sense to consider planning to onshore production because there's no reasonable expectation that the current policies will be in place in a month, much less in the year or more needed for a production change.
tim333 1y ago
I believe tariffs could be helpful in certain areas if done carefully, but don't think the current administration is up to it. Examples of successful use of tariffs might be South Korean industries like car making.
csomar 1y ago
No. Most of these goods are things like blankets and spoons. Do you really want to manufacture those to be at the lead? Even if you hate China, you can offshore them somewhere else (ie: South of America). Instead, the policy should have been a targeted one: That is target a few key industries that are critical (ie: ship building) and put forward a plan to move capacity back to the US.
bz_bz_bz 1y ago
Ray Dalio disagrees with the current Trump implementation but does think that a trade rebalance is necessary. I would say he “concurs with that theory” more than most traditional economists, but he thinks there are much better routes we can take to lessen the pain.
chasing 1y ago
The Trump/Musk administration is a superb example of how big ideas alone aren't enough to accomplish major goals. You could agree with the need to bring back manufacturing jobs. You could agree with wanting to stick it to China. You could agree our federal government is too large and inefficient. You could agree that free speech is under attack or that our borders are insecure. Or that penguins are inherently untrustworthy and should not be engaged with economically. Whatever. When people actually want to solve large problems they want information and input. They move with deliberation and precision so they can accomplish the goal without creating unnecessary harm or stress. They communicate. I know: Techbro doofuses will be, like, "I know everything already, just do it all right now YOLO!" But that's not how the world works. There is no evidence that these major actions are being taken with any amount of care. They're erratic. They're often illegal. They're clearly creating destructive side-effects. Instead of engaging with real information, the administration seeks to destroy it. Musk, in my opinion, has big ideas he thinks are good but no mechanism to actually implement them in a good way. Trump is just an ignorant, self-serving man. He neither knows nor cares except to the degree that something can make him feel powerful in the moment.
codazoda 1y ago
Here's just one example where I think, "maybe". I've been shopping for an Airbrush. These were a dream of mine as a kid. Back then the major brands were Made in the USA and were expensive enough that they were out of reach for 14 year old me. Today the main companies from back then have "Made in the USA" on their websites but Badger (https://badgerairbrush.com https://badgerairbrush.com) doesn't look like it's been updated since 2018 and Paasche (https://www.paascheairbrush.com https://www.paascheairbrush.com) seems only slightly better. Another popular and slightly newer brand is Iwata from Japan. I suspect that Chinese imports have been eating these companies lunch for decades. I suspect that the Chinese government is subsidizing the products and their shipping and artificially lowering the cost and that they have been doing this for a very long time.
- adwn 1y ago
  > I suspect that the Chinese government is subsidizing the products and their shipping and artificially lowering the cost and that they have been doing this for a very long time. Why would the Chinese government be subsidizing airbrushes of all things? Is that a strategically important industry? Are they planning on capturing the global airbrush market? To what end, exactly?
  - photonthug 1y ago
    My first reaction also but think about it. An airbrush isn’t an airbrush but a pneumatic system. An electronic toy isn’t a toy but an electronic system. At a large enough scale and over a long enough time frame.. lots of things are strategically important when you’re talking about the basic ability to manufacture stuff independently
    - vel0city 1y ago
      Right? Its like a ballpoint pen. A basic commodity. But there's a lot of challenge in manufacturing the tiny balls and the tips to such a high amount of precision to mass produce quality ones cheaply. Just looking at the diagram of the airbrush, there's a little bit of complexity there in machining all of that good, quickly, and at scale. Lots of little parts to control it which to work well need to have high quality machining. https://badgerairbrush.com/images/101_Illustration.jpg https://badgerairbrush.com/images/101_Illustration.jpg
jollyllama 1y ago
The better question to ask is for which American economic interests. What you're witnessing is a form of explicitly non-socialist class warfare led by conflicting groups of elites.
strathmeyer 1y ago
It's a bargaining tactic from a lunatic. Trump thinks countries will call him offering to do things to have the tariffs removed. You are applying reason to someone who has been showing signs of dementia for decades.
photochemsyn 1y ago
The one economic theory of trade that seems most solid is competitive advantage but it does rely on trade between independent equal partners, rather than trade between a dominant superpower and a client state run by a puppet government controlled by said superpower. Fundamentally, the neoliberal project created a lot of billionaires in the USA and associated wealthy enclaves by pushing manufacturing out to US-controlled client state sweatshops while also importing lower-paid workers, from H1B visa holders in tech to undocumented labor in construction and agribusiness. The resulting wealth inequality has led to political instability and unexpected consequences (eg the Rust Belt not backing Democratic candidates who promoted TPP etc.) The reality is, reversing de-industrialization and abandoning neoliberalism would require a massive state-sponsored effort to update the basic infrastructure - electrical grids, roads, high-speed rail, ports, bridges, fiber-optic networks, schools for engineers and researchers - everything that makes competitive industrial manufacturing possible. The notion that tariffs alone could accomplish such a massive transition by pressuring private capital to build all that infrastructure is ludicrous. Capital flight from the USA is far more likely - so a massive socialist project would be needed, including high taxes on the wealthy and cross-border capital controls to prevent capital flight (as existed in the USA in the 1960s) - all of which is heresy to the acolytes of Milton Friedman. Maybe I'm wrong and Apple will open an iPhone factory in the USA this year with entry-level living wages of $35/hr (inflation-adjusted to 1960s factory wages) and the shareholders and executives will take a massive cut in renumeration to avoid iPhone prices spiking to levels where consumers won't touch them. I rather doubt it, though.
coliveira 1y ago
Tariffs may be helpful for some areas of the economy, but the scorched earth strategy used by this administration is guaranteed to hurt the economy more than it helps. First of all, the US is posing as an enemy for every other nation, including so-called "allies". It is an isolationist program that will inevitably weaken the status of the dollar (no need for dollars is the US is not interested in trading).
sanderjd 1y ago
My two cents is that if this had been, from the start, a dedicated effort to decouple the US economy from Chinese producers, for national / economic security reasons, then they might have been able to convince me that the short term pain might result in something long-term beneficial. The major problem they have with that, though, is that they started with Mexico and Canada, and then progressed to declaring (trade) war on the entire world, moves which are exactly the wrong thing if the goal was to painfully but beneficially decouple with China. In order to achieve that goal, we would have needed to strengthen our trading appliances with other countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. But they've done exactly the opposite. (Note, though, that even this strategy wouldn't be getting much if any love from economists. It's hard to find credible economists who think tariffs are anything but dumb, economically. But we would see a lot more support from foreign policy folks, many of whom do think that economic decoupling from China would be good for non-economic reasons, despite being painful economically.)
- tootie 1y ago
  Renegotiating trade with Mexico and Canada was one of his most prominent achievements of his first term. Fair to say that deal wasn't substantially different from NAFTA, but it was a deal that he approved. To come back a few years later and blow it up as being completely unfair is just screaming that he is acting on pure emotion and not logic. Even if he were capable of giving a coherent justification for his actions, he's proven himself to be a completely unreliable negotiating partner. Other countries are refusing to deal with any intermediaries like Lutnick or Navarro because they are all pushing separate agendas and Trump has not held to any of them. They're just going to wait for him (or Congress) to break.
  - sanderjd 1y ago
    Yep, the giant Canada tariffs, in particular, as his first act on trade, was probably the most deeply weird and inexplicable thing I've seen a major world leader do in my lifetime. I've seen lots of policies I've disagreed with or despised, but very few that are just weird.
  - donavanm 1y ago
libraryatnight 1y ago
The trouble with people who keep trying to show me the potential positives with this administration are that even if they were there, and they often are not, they're an accident if they exist - not an intended result. These guys are just wrecking shit based on their own interests - looking for a silver lining is helping them out.
matwood 1y ago
> Curious if there is anyone here who genuinely sees this as short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests. I think at a base level someone must think that isolationism is good. Personally I think the world should be building deeper connections not less in order for humanity to move to the next level. I fear that we'll never reach that level without an existential force (like aliens showing up a la Star Trek). Until then, our petty differences will continue to get in the way.
masto 1y ago
I think it is the permanent end of American economic/political/cultural dominance, which is a long-term gain for the world, but it's going to put the hurt on a lot of people (myself included). I am not quite altruistic enough to celebrate being sacrificed in this way, but I can see that when the future history books are written, they may look back at this as the end of a blight.
TuringNYC 1y ago
>> short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests That only works if the policy isnt changing day to day (or across presidential cabinets / administrations.) It takes a lot of capital and time to build local factories, and I would not feel comfortable with that investment w/o assurances there will still be a market for local goods next week, next month, or in 10yrs
- tootie 1y ago
  Yeah this is the biggest issue. No one is going to make a long-term investment to accommodate such a capricious policy maker. And certainly not with Congress making noises about overriding him. The upfront costs of reshoring manufacturing need to be amortized over many years to make sense and there's no belief these policies will be in place that long.
legohead 1y ago
From an economic perspective these new blanket import tariffs are a classic own-goal: tariffs are good for developing industries, but these levies hit huge, mature supply chains, so the main outcome is higher consumer prices, squeezed real wages, and slower growth. A common example is Smoot-Hawley’s tariffs deepening the Great Depression, and early 2025 data already show trade and hiring slipping, but we won't know the full effect for a while. As for the "bring manufacturing to the US" argument - tariffs often reroute, not reshore. GoPro moved from China to Mexico, Apple from China to India, Hasbro from China to Vietnam, to name a few.
- thoughtstheseus 1y ago
  Funny thing about a recession now is you can have standards of living increase for 10s millions of people due to how concentrated consumption and wealth is. Weird times
nostrademons 1y ago
The benefits of it are almost entirely “resilience during wartime”. Economists tend not to consider war very much, because it is chaotic, tends to strike at random moments that are only loosely related to economic conditions, and involves people actively destroying productive capacity instead of building it up. But of war is a given, you can see some fairly obvious benefits of having critical supply chains entirely contained within your borders. There’s ample historical data to back that up too: Japan (with its energy supply chain almost entirely outside of its borders) was forced to embark on wars of conquest in the rest of Asia to secure its energy needs, while the U.S. (which at the time was both a large oil producer and a large manufacturer) could sit behind its oceans and only enter the war when Japan’s territorial ambitions collided with it. Likewise, if you take “WW3 is going to happen in the near future” as a given, almost all of the Trump administration’s actions make sense, from the crackdown on dissent to the effort to deport any foreign nationals to the saber rattling against Greeenland and Panama to “drill baby drill” to appeasement of Russia to the increased defense budget to the tariffs and efforts to bring semiconductor and drone supply chains stateside to the elimination of climate change programs. The strategy is very clearly to hole up between our two oceans and produce everything ourselves while the rest of the world destroys itself. Of course, you can’t say “WW3 is imminent” without making it significantly more likely and scarring your populace to boot, which creates some very strong information distortions and illogical actions.
j45 1y ago
Don't see how this will be short term pain. Supply chains took a long time to get established again after covid for things coming in. Do Americans really want to do the manufacturing they don't want to do anymore?
rayiner 1y ago
What makes you think economists know everything? How long did doctors lobotomize people? You think economics as a field is more scientific today that medicine was in the mid-20th century? Economists across the political spectrum also agree that investment taxes and corporate taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-policies-economists-love-and-politicians-hate https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Where was the appeal to economists when Trump cut the corporate tax rate during his first term?
inciampati 1y ago
> EDIT: I can find very few voices (not currently working directly for the administration). There's Jeff Ferry who believes "tariffs imposed during the 19th century spurred industrialization and ultimately positioned America as a global superpower". (That historical view is uncommon and wouldn't account for the current realities of global supply chains.) IIRC At the same time (early 20th c.), the US was a major net importer of people. This led to a very low effective tariff rate.
indoordin0saur 1y ago
Maybe long-term gain, but it would take a long time. And businesses aren't going to invest if they think policy might completely reverse in 3 years with a new government.
dismalaf 1y ago
There was literally centuries of European history where every European government had massive tariffs on the others. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism This era also featured lots of wars between European nations and spurred foreign conquests/colonialism.
Havoc 1y ago
Given the shoddy execution I doubt there will be gain even if there was a hypothetical path in the theory
EasyMark 1y ago
We could have sensible policies if that's their goal, we are too reliant on our primary adversary for far too many things, but there could have been a controlled separation of economies instead of this slit our own wrists and see what happens policy from the Big Brains who brought us Project 2025. I swear I used to not think that Putin had kompramat on Trump, but every day that theory seems more and more solid rather than whack conspiracy theory.
krapp 1y ago
Yeah, what positioned America as a superpower was nuclear weapons and having an infrastructure not reduced to slag by World War 2.
arcmechanica 1y ago
Wilson drummed up the idea in the early 1920's, but didn't really follow through putting tariffs in place, Hoover did and combined with the dustbowl, sent America into the Great Depression. This is typical of what tariffs always do, but that little extra disaster almost made it impossible to get out of it
rustcleaner 1y ago
For me I see short term gain long term pain, as volatility pays my account but my local economy is going broke and my account isn't big enough to offset the negative effects of it.
deleted 1y ago
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Scarblac 1y ago

Depends on how long term. A crash of the global economy may be the best way to prevent at least some climate change catastrophe.

lumost 1y ago
If economic activity is linear with co2 production, the crash would need to be the most extreme economic depression in history to have an impact eg 75% reduction in global GDP. A 75% reduction in food production would surely cause the largest global famine yet recorded.
- Scarblac 1y ago
  Well yes, but so will climate change itself.
izzydata 1y ago
This will never happen willingly. Whenever it does happen it won't be by choice and will be because civilization has run out of material to produce stuff or too much of the Earth has become inhospitable. At least in the extreme long term it is a self correcting problem.

AznHisoka 1y ago

Why is this a “political” angle? If you believe its for a long term gain, then you believe in a certain economic theory that others may not believe. What does politics hace anything to do with that?

JadeNB 1y ago
> Why is this a “political” angle? If you believe its for a long term gain, then you believe in a certain economic theory that others may not believe. What does politics hace anything to do with that? It's a political angle because it's to the responsible politicians' advantage to push that economic theory. I think the claim is not necessarily that economists who believe this theory are acting politically, but that their voices may be amplified by politicians for, let us say, less than scientific reasons.
inerte 1y ago
Choosing a certain type of economic theory or having certain sectors of the economy do better than others is 100% politics. I don’t think there is an economic theory where everybody benefits equally around the same time without any downsides.
mschuster91 1y ago
Let's assume that Trump actually has a point in divesting from China (which, I think, he has - his disastrous approach to it aside). The Democrats could never do anything against China that imposes short-term economical pain because their own voters would immediately punish them for it and the entire media from left to far-right would put them under fire. Even marginal economical pain has immediate political consequences - I'd argue that Harris' loss was mostly due to rising and unanswered problems about exploding cost of living, chiefly eggs. The Republicans however? They still have the same constraint from the left to center media and voters - but crucially, their own voter base is so darn high on their own supply (and their media has long since sworn fealty to even the most crackpot people), they are willing to endure anything because their President told them to. It's "Only Nixon could go to China" all over again, and frankly it's disgusting.

crispyambulance 1y ago

I certainly would like to see more American made products and manufacturing, unfortunately, making that happen is not just a matter of shuffling money around, capricious tariffs, and the president posturing for "deals" like a real-estate shyster. Our current situation is the result of decades of deliberate greedy systematic outsourcing of everything that can be outsourced. It's our own dumb fault. And it will take decades to reverse it if it's even possible. It's not a "short-term" kind of thing.

JoeAltmaier 1y ago
'Dumb' is probably the right word. That's how a free market works - every actor works in their own interest. If you try to do something moral but it profits less, then you'll be competed to bankruptcy. Just how it works. We want a more 'just' system, it requires regulation, so everybody is playing the same game. Oh! We've deregulated. That's supposed to help make folks more profitable. But, whoops, it's the same playing field no matter the particular rules. So deregulation helps who? Big players, international players. Not you and me.
- aurizon 1y ago
  Look at the Auto work force in 1960 and in 2025. Wages became so high that it drove automation/robots and created the Japanese/Korean/European auto industries. Had huge tariffs been enacted we would still have some of those jobs in the USA, but those lost to robotics would still be lost due to the basic economics of fabrication. Can this all be rolled back - All the King's men and all the King's horses can not put Humpty Dumpty together again. I can see a possible future where people are all paid the same $$ and you can not 'shop for slaves' as we do in Asia. This level field would take a while to achieve - even now wages in China have risen a lot and they are not the cheapest labor country now, but their assembled physical plant still dominates. China now has excess physical plant and must replace the USA as a large buyer. Other countries feel the same pressures and erect tariffs of their own. I see many years of this levelling to occur. USA will have to reduce these high tariffs because the USA needs many things and it will take 10+ years to create the physical plant that was allowed to rust away over the last 20-30 years - even now a little has returned, but the 'rust belt' has been melted down and it will return slowly.

afpx 1y ago

After talking to a bunch of Trump voters over the past 8 years, I have heard a common theme. They view the policies of the past 50 years, driven by the 'uniparty', as they say, leading to eminent catastrophic collapse. To them it's existential problem and they only have one choice. Appealing to economists is the opposite of what they want, because economists look at macroeconomics efficiency which encourages globalism. They would rather be inefficient and hold on to their identity.

soco 1y ago
Then why were they promised cheaper eggs in the campaign? And no wars and and and? I'd say identity or not, there was still a serious amount of lying involved, which also tells me the identity gang is actually way smaller.
- afpx 1y ago
  Honestly, I sense that they believe it's all part of the game. And, if everyone else is doing it, why should they be at a disadvantage? I'm guessing here, though. If you really want answers, best thing to do is hang out in an area dominated by Trump supporters for a few weeks. Talking to them has changed my perspective on a lot of things. I don't agree with a lot of what they say, but I understand them now. They often aren't great at articulating their thoughts. They think in terms of macro-level complex systems. I shouldn't say 'think' - more like they intuit. They feel something is wrong, and they don't necessarily know why. You have to (kindly and with curiosity) interrogate them a bunch to figure it all out. I follow a bunch of them on X, and they seem outraged by some of what Trump is doing, particularly the pro-war stance. Hence the low poll numbers? [Sorry I really geek out on anthropology and understanding cultures.]
  - hombre_fatal 1y ago
    My family is mostly Trump supporters and you might be glamorizing them. Sadly, it's mostly just cult of personality which I figure you are graciously trying to avoid assuming. Tariffs are the perfect example of this. Trump announces tariffs? Good, we need long-term investment in domestic production. Trump cancels them? Good, they are just a short-term negotiation tactic. Trump negotiates a trade deal? Good, now we get a better deal on imports from that country. Trump says tariffs are back on the table? Good, we need domestic production long-term. There are no macro-level complex system ideals here. Pinning them down to one claim is like fighting jelly where on every strike it morphs into something else.

xnx 1y ago

The long-term gain might be that this administration so significantly craters the economy and is so obviously responsible that enough voters recognize vote out enough of these clowns and accomplices to enact real useful reform (gerrymandering, electoral college, senate, filibuster, tax law, etc.)

the__alchemist 1y ago
> (gerrymandering, electoral college, senate, filibuster, tax law, etc.) Open a news website. Several news websites. Turn on the TV. Talk to some people about politics. How often do those topics come up?
- akmarinov 1y ago
  When it all crashes and burns, people would wonder how they got to that point
- xnx 1y ago
  I agree. They definitely don't come up (or campaign finance reform). I wouldn't suggest a candidate run on those issues (a better platform would be anti-chaos), but responsible politicians might be able to enact them once elected.
- nine_k 1y ago
  /* TV is like twitter: in order to preserve one's sanity, it's best to never use it, except for highly technical things like weather forecast or watching sports live. Despite that, it's the pastime of hundreds of millions. */
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  Yuuuup. About half of voters don't even understand how marginal income tax rates work, that is how little they know what's going on and how anything at all works in the mysterious and confusing world around them, and a lot more are barely better off than that. Worrying about gerrymandering et c. is nerd shit, most people don't know a thing about it. They're more likely to, literally, vote on whether general vibes are currently good or bad than to give any fucks about specific policies like that. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169446/democracy-for-realists https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169446/de...

joshstrange 1y ago

"I am not an economist" But from what I've read/heard/understand tariffs can have the effect of on-shoring but only if they are fixed an unlikely to change/fluctuate. On-shoring production is not quick. Some Trump rep made a comment about how they delayed the tariffs on phones/computers 3 months because "Companies would need time to move production" which is just laughable, as if anyone could move production in 3 months (let alone 3 years). None of it matters since the Trump admin changes its mind like it changes its socks. No serious company is going to do more that PR about how they are moving production back to the US because they can very easily get burned when Trump changes his mind. Moving production is a massive task and getting caught half-way through with policy changing (making it no longer profitable) could be a death blow to some companies.

FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago

From an economic standpoint, completely free trade is best. From a national interest standpoint, the more key industries that are local, the better. The more inefficient, the more employment. And yes... that means higher prices for most everything.

cjfd 1y ago
So, a reasonable middle ground is what is needed. A country should not have so much outsourced that it is extremely vulnerable to supply chain problems. And a country should also not have so much local production that it is inefficient and poor. I think that tariffs have a role to play here but, obviously, they should not be ridiculous like the Trump tariffs. They should be a lot more predictable and if tariffs are adjusted they should change slowly over time to not cause economic disruptions.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  Since there is no way for the US to compete based on cost or capacity (we just don't have the workforce numbers) with China, then the only other option is to force domestic supply chains to spring up through restrictions. I think we should do pretty much exactly what China does: 1.) you want to sell a product to the US? You have to produce it here and the facility must be partially owned by a US company. Also you must transfer IP. 2.) Since we can't get away with massive forced and/or slave labor (legally), then create a new visa class for temporary workers that is excluded from minimum wage, worker protections, social security, etc. (yes, basically a slave class) Once we build capacity and knowledge back, then start shift back to a more domestic workforce. Very very nasty... but doable. The other option is to just nuke China.
  - selimthegrim 1y ago
    I suppose those U Chicago economists who proposed adopting an immigrant, might be onto something in this climate.
  - porridgeraisin 1y ago

toss1 1y ago

There is a reason high tariffs are only implemented after very long, multi-generational intervals, e.g., 1820s, 1890s, 1930s, 2020s. The consequences are so bad that everyone who remembers the disasters brought on by high tariffs must be dead for anyone to think it is a good idea. So, even if the purported goals are good, even achieving them will be outweighed by the disaster. Plus, companies in countries protected by high tariffs inevitably become globally uncompetitive. Edit, add: Even worse, most high tariff schemes have distinguished between placing the high tariffs on only finished goods and exempting the raw materials or components from the tariffs. This administration makes almost no such distinctions, just sprays tariffs everything, so harms US manufacturers as well. The only exemptions are the ones who pay tribute (e.g., sponsoring inauguration, etc.), so it is almost more of an extortion scheme than a tariff plan. A particularly bad example was revealed as the Japanese delegation came to negotiate, asked what concessions the US wanted, and could get no straight answer [0]. It seems the US group just expects the tariffed nations to supplicate and bring adequate gifts, not make adjustments according to a master plan. Very strong indication there is no plan, which is the worst possible case. So, while I completely agree with the concept of looking for a silver lining, I'm not seeing any... [0] https://petapixel.com/2025/04/21/japan-cant-get-an-answer-on-what-the-us-wants-from-a-trade-deal-report/ https://petapixel.com/2025/04/21/japan-cant-get-an-answer-on...

potato3732842 1y ago
>There is a reason high tariffs are only implemented after very long, multi-generational intervals, e.g., 1820s, 1890s, 1930s, 2020s. You need to read more history. The link between tariffs, or any specific federal policy, and how a time period looks to the next generations is iffy at best and probably not really correlated much or at all. The 1820s-40s were looked upon by following generations the way many look at the 1950s today. From the POV of the mid to late 1800s it was seen as uncomplicated and peaceful because the tension and strife leading up to the civil war and the cultural messiness that followed had yet to build. From the POV of the industrial economy of the late 1800s and early 1900s it was seen the same way but with a heavier emphasis on cleanliness and purity because even if you were nominally poorer and subject to more chance of starvation living and working on a farm you owned was arguably nicer than a tenement and factory you didn't. The 1890s on through the 1920s were also looked upon fondly by subsequent generations as a time of massive progress. Mechanical power via fossil fuels and steam became the norm, railroads were everywhere, factories sprung up, all manner of goods and services formerly reserved for the wealthy became the domain of the everyman. Obviously the 1930s don't get looked fondly upon and the jury is still out on the 2020s.

evo_9 1y ago

Kevin O’Leary, Aka Mr Wonderful, has appeared on CNN a number of times defending tariffs.

bayarearefugee 1y ago
I think of him more as an FTX Spokesperson and TV talking head who got absolutely wrecked playing Celebrity Jeopardy by... Aaron Rodgers. Not exactly an economist of note.
- massysett 1y ago
  I wouldn't measure much by someone's ability at Jeopardy. It's called trivia because it's trivial.
  - rudedogg 1y ago
    There’s also the boating accident: https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6174808 https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6174808
breadwinner 1y ago
...against China specifically. He appeared to be more anti-China (because of IP theft and so on), than pro-tariffs.

_bin_ 1y ago

Hi, studying economics :) The issue is that labor productivity (level of tech) in American mfg hasn't broadly increased at the rate we'd need to manufacture many things at reasonable prices for the American consumer. This makes Baumol's cost disease a huge issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect You can see this manifest in healthcare as one of the most egregious examples; the top cause of margin pressure for hospitals is labor: https://www.hfma.org/press-releases/health-systems-near-their-breaking-point-labor-costs-continue-to-increase-while-dollars-collected-from-payers-decreases/ https://www.hfma.org/press-releases/health-systems-near-thei.... While we can still manufacture things that require comparatively high levels of skill, technology, and capex, it's never again (absent a depression greatly outstripping the 1930s) going to be profitable to pay American workers to make t-shirts rather than Bangladeshis. There's a good argument to be made that a combination of outsourcing and illegal labor caused problems by suppressing investment in tech and automation for thirty years plus, and there are certain things we probably should make here. But ultimately the stuff we actually need to manufacture are things core to sustaining life and the military. Medical supplies, weapons, food, oil, metals, chemicals, etc. We can, with time and good industrial policy, bring back some manufacturing. That would be a case of short-term pain for long-term benefit. But even then, that's true only insofar as we give people a shot to actually buy American. Moonshot investments in roboticization and industrial automation for a few years would really make this easier, along with using the huge amount of post-HS education dollars we spend to focus on training skilled engineers to implement this sort of thing, along with things like skilled machinists. But these tariffs don't really give American companies a shot. We cannot, with any reasonably-good outcome, bring back manufacturing jobs. That midwest factory worker is never going to be paid $30/hour plus pension/retirement contributions, good medical, etc. to make regular, el cheapo consumer goods.

nine_k 1y ago
> factory worker is never going to be paid $30/hour plus pension/retirement contributions, good medical, etc. to make regular, el cheapo consumer goods Well, this is possible, but it will take very few workers to produce the huge amount of goods to make it profitable. Case in point: e.g. a Novo Nordisk factory that produces like half of the EU supply of insulin employs like 15 workers per shift, who mostly oversee automation at work, handle incoming / outgoing trucks, and ensure physical security of the plant. It's the same thing that happened to the US agriculture: in 1800, it used to employ like 80% of the population, in 2000, 2% to 3%. Machines replaced human labor almost fully.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

I think that even if tariffs were the solution this administration is not competent enough to make it work.

mrangle 1y ago

[flagged]

pphysch 1y ago
I think it's the other way around.
- mrangle 1y ago
  [flagged]

zmgsabst 1y ago

I think this depends on what you mean by “American economic interests”, ie top-line numbers or the economic future of individual Americans. I genuinely believe that this will be a decade long struggle to generate a long-term benefit to the American nation (ie, the average person) via tariffs as a tool of class warfare and economic restructuring. If you read around MAGA forums, you’ll see this described as a “Mag7 problem, not a MAGA problem”. But that may not be what you’re asking.

snowwrestler 1y ago

Very few and here is why. Making structural changes to an economy requires a lot of investment. But tariffs reduce investment in two ways: 1. Tariffs directly take money out of the coffers of private companies and move it into the government. Private companies therefore have less money to invest. 2. Tariffs are a tax on economic activity and therefore suppress it. This causes companies to want to hold more cash and invest more conservatively. Major changes take appetite for risk, which tariffs reduce. In addition, the arbitrary, legally questionable way in which this particular set of tariffs has been imposed means they are not affecting long-term corporate planning. Instead most companies are seeking to just “wait them out” while issuing hollow press releases with big numbers they think the president wants to see.

AtlasBarfed 1y ago
Yes, factories do not teleport. Skilled and willing workers (except, ahem, Mexicans) don't grow on trees in a couple months. Motivation for companies to pay real wages to Americans doesn't exist Tariffs are a consumption tax that will probably be highly regressive. Honestly, it seems like the Trump administration thinks he's they're just playing a game of civilization or some other 4x game and just needs to adjust the slider for a couple cities in order to enact broad-scale production changes.
AlexB138 1y ago
There is also the fact that tariffs are protectionist and reduce competition in the market. It allows lesser products to succeed due to where they're made, rather than on the merit of the product. This inherently makes companies less competitive and less required to respond to consumer demand. That means long-term weakness and even less ability to compete.
- danaris 1y ago
  It's important to be careful with value judgements like this. Tariffs allow otherwise more expensive domestic products to compete against cheaper products from abroad. In and of itself, that says nothing about quality one way or another. In practice, it often means the opposite of what you suggest: domestic goods are often of higher quality, and/or are made by workers in better conditions, because of stricter laws here than in the places manufacturing has moved to. (And not by coincidence—the cheaper labor and looser laws are exactly why manufacturing moved to those places.) Of course, all of this only applies when tariffs are carefully considered, strategically applied, and left in place for a long and predictable length of time.

op00to 1y ago

No, no one with a brain thinks that. Our economy is built on interconnected trade and cheap crap from developing economies.

billy99k 1y ago

Yes. China already dropped some of their tariffs today. More to follow. The goal was never to bring manufacturing back to the US. It's to negotiate new tariffs. With China specifically, I could also see a deal that included stricter enforcement of US IP laws, which is definitely destroying businesses and the job loss that comes with it.

dboreham 1y ago
Very clever 4D chess. But you wouldn't plan to make that come about by repeatedly punching yourself in the face, would you? Oh, and also punching all the allies you'd need to help you in the face too.
timeon 1y ago
> The goal was never to bring manufacturing back to the US. It was or at least it was stated as goal. However the narratives changes quite often with these tariffs. > China already dropped some of their tariffs today. Such as?

dboreham 1y ago

You won't find anyone because one of Trump's defining themes is to always do the opposite of what smart people say you should do (and meanwhile denigrate smart people as a class). So by definition whatever he is doing will only be supported by dumb people.

JohnFen 1y ago

> Curious if there is anyone here who genuinely sees this as short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests. I don't. I see this as the intentional razing of the US economy and interests.

ferguess_k 1y ago

There is an old saying that a man lost his precious sword when sitting on a moving boat. Instead of jumping into the water, he simply left a mark on the side of the boat where presumably the sword slipped into the river. "What are you doing?", his friends asked curiously. The man replies, "Oh, I think it's too dangerous to get into the water right now, so I'll mark the place and get into the water when the boat arrives. It's safer!"

bsimpson 1y ago

Jon Stewart talked a lot about this on Monday, both in his monologue and interview with Chris Hughes. If you were thoughtful about economic policy and truly believed a trade war was the solution, you'd prepare ahead of time (e.g. by stockpiling things like rare earth metals that are important to your economy and likely to be impacted by retaliatory tariffs). That they haven't done that is one more indicator that they are thoughtlessly winging this. Even if there's a solution that involves tariffs, that's not the play they're running.

sam_goody 1y ago
I know nothing of economics, and am not trying to defend Trump's moves. But, it is possible that his policy of "do everything at once, without taking the time to do it right" is more reflective of his belief that whatever he tries [even just being president] will be fought, so his options [from his POV] are "do it now" or "don't do it at all", not "do it right". EDIT: Am willing to be learn, would the downvoters explain - do you disagree that this is his view? Or does his understanding not matter when he acts upon it?
- alextheparrot 1y ago
  That’s a premise that would make me consider the wiseness of my actions.
- jillyboel 1y ago
  Have you listened to the guy talk? There isn't a comprehensible thought in there, and there hasn't been for years. He's old, older than Biden was when he started his term, and probably suffering from dementia. edit: The pro trump voting bloc showed up. Comment went from +2 to -3 in a minute. This chain will probably be flagged to death within the hour.
  - thejazzman 1y ago
    I used to believe this. Now I believe we're supposed to believe this, and continue ignoring how calculated this mess actually is... and it's always too late when enough people catch on :(

BurningFrog 1y ago

This genuinely looks like a real "emperor has no clothes" scenario. Trump is 100% convinced his (long disproven both theoretically and empirically) trade theory is true, and no one can talk him out of it. So it has to play out until the effects are unbearable. Or until congress votes to take his tariff powers away: https://www.kwch.com/2025/04/30/senate-voting-resolution-that-could-block-trump-tariffs/ https://www.kwch.com/2025/04/30/senate-voting-resolution-tha...

dralley 1y ago
>Trump is 100% convinced his (long disproven both theoretically and empirically) trade theory is true, and no one can talk him out of it. Also nobody tries particularly hard. The secret to longevity in a Trump administration is to effusively praise the boss constantly and minimize direct contradictions. Which turns into "good tzar bad boyars" - the boss is never wrong, only badly advised.

tuyguntn 1y ago

> "tariffs imposed during the 19th century spurred industrialization and ultimately positioned America as a global superpower" it's not "the one thing", which contributed to it. There are multiple factors which spurred industrialization, some of them are: * Europe and Japan was destroyed and they had other problems to deal with * Soviet Union was seen as an enemy * Many US soldiers returned home from war and they needed a job * When many people started working in manufacturing, they needed different optimizations for their process, which lead to more manufacturing Tariffs may have helped, but they were not the only reason. as an example, look at Brazil today, they have lots and lots of tariffs

ascagnel_ 1y ago
> Many US soldiers returned home from war and they needed a job It was a combination of US soldiers returning home after drawing government pay while fighting abroad, rationing limiting what could be purchased by those who remained home, and the one-two-three punch of the GI bill subsidizing land purchases, the interstate highway system effectively creating the American suburb, and process improvements from the war making automobiles drastically cheaper.

Auracle 1y ago

I'm not an economist, but I think the theory has merit. I don't think the execution does, if only because we almost certainly only have 4 years until the tariffs are mostly reversed. The complete lack of long-term planning is a major failure of out political system compared to places like China. If I were Trump, I instead would have pushed congress to take away the power of tariffs back from the presidency and make something like the Fed to manage them instead, with some checks added in. I normally don't like unelected officials making policy like that but in this case I don't see what else would work. As we've seen, broad tariffs are very unpopular even if they might be necessary, and we'd need them to have the potential to stick around much longer for them to be effective. That said, I'm willing to bet this will finally put the nail in the inflation coffin. Taking money away from consumers and "burning it" by returning it to the government is the best way to deal with inflation.

ascagnel_ 1y ago
> If I were Trump, I instead would have pushed congress to take away the power of tariffs back from the presidency and make something like the Fed to manage them instead, with some checks added in. I normally don't like unelected officials making policy like that but in this case I don't see what else would work. As we've seen, broad tariffs are very unpopular even if they might be necessary, and we'd need them to have the potential to stick around much longer for them to be effective. The power of the tariff is typically reserved for Congress; the executive has declared an emergency giving itself that power, while Congress (specifically the House) has abdicated its responsibility by redefining "legislative days" to extend the length of the emergency. > That said, I'm willing to bet this will finally put the nail in the inflation coffin. Taking money away from consumers and "burning it" by returning it to the government is the best way to deal with inflation. Long term, maybe; short term, it'll spike inflation as the price of both raw materials and finished goods will rise to account for the tariffs.
cyberax 1y ago
> That said, I'm willing to bet this will finally put the nail in the inflation coffin. Taking money away from consumers and "burning it" by returning it to the government is the best way to deal with inflation. Nope. Tariffs are associated with higher inflation, as consumers have to pay more. Over long term, if tariffs depress the economic growth and cause a recession, they indeed _might_ lower the inflation.

fencepost 1y ago

The problem is the chaos. No competently run company is going to invest in more-expensive domestic production based on what the administration is doing because there can't be any expectation that policies will remain in place until production can be brought online. It doesn't even make sense to consider planning to onshore production because there's no reasonable expectation that the current policies will be in place in a month, much less in the year or more needed for a production change.

tim333 1y ago

I believe tariffs could be helpful in certain areas if done carefully, but don't think the current administration is up to it. Examples of successful use of tariffs might be South Korean industries like car making.

csomar 1y ago

No. Most of these goods are things like blankets and spoons. Do you really want to manufacture those to be at the lead? Even if you hate China, you can offshore them somewhere else (ie: South of America). Instead, the policy should have been a targeted one: That is target a few key industries that are critical (ie: ship building) and put forward a plan to move capacity back to the US.

bz_bz_bz 1y ago

Ray Dalio disagrees with the current Trump implementation but does think that a trade rebalance is necessary. I would say he “concurs with that theory” more than most traditional economists, but he thinks there are much better routes we can take to lessen the pain.

chasing 1y ago

The Trump/Musk administration is a superb example of how big ideas alone aren't enough to accomplish major goals. You could agree with the need to bring back manufacturing jobs. You could agree with wanting to stick it to China. You could agree our federal government is too large and inefficient. You could agree that free speech is under attack or that our borders are insecure. Or that penguins are inherently untrustworthy and should not be engaged with economically. Whatever. When people actually want to solve large problems they want information and input. They move with deliberation and precision so they can accomplish the goal without creating unnecessary harm or stress. They communicate. I know: Techbro doofuses will be, like, "I know everything already, just do it all right now YOLO!" But that's not how the world works. There is no evidence that these major actions are being taken with any amount of care. They're erratic. They're often illegal. They're clearly creating destructive side-effects. Instead of engaging with real information, the administration seeks to destroy it. Musk, in my opinion, has big ideas he thinks are good but no mechanism to actually implement them in a good way. Trump is just an ignorant, self-serving man. He neither knows nor cares except to the degree that something can make him feel powerful in the moment.

codazoda 1y ago

Here's just one example where I think, "maybe". I've been shopping for an Airbrush. These were a dream of mine as a kid. Back then the major brands were Made in the USA and were expensive enough that they were out of reach for 14 year old me. Today the main companies from back then have "Made in the USA" on their websites but Badger (https://badgerairbrush.com https://badgerairbrush.com) doesn't look like it's been updated since 2018 and Paasche (https://www.paascheairbrush.com https://www.paascheairbrush.com) seems only slightly better. Another popular and slightly newer brand is Iwata from Japan. I suspect that Chinese imports have been eating these companies lunch for decades. I suspect that the Chinese government is subsidizing the products and their shipping and artificially lowering the cost and that they have been doing this for a very long time.

adwn 1y ago
> I suspect that the Chinese government is subsidizing the products and their shipping and artificially lowering the cost and that they have been doing this for a very long time. Why would the Chinese government be subsidizing airbrushes of all things? Is that a strategically important industry? Are they planning on capturing the global airbrush market? To what end, exactly?
- photonthug 1y ago
  My first reaction also but think about it. An airbrush isn’t an airbrush but a pneumatic system. An electronic toy isn’t a toy but an electronic system. At a large enough scale and over a long enough time frame.. lots of things are strategically important when you’re talking about the basic ability to manufacture stuff independently
  - vel0city 1y ago
    Right? Its like a ballpoint pen. A basic commodity. But there's a lot of challenge in manufacturing the tiny balls and the tips to such a high amount of precision to mass produce quality ones cheaply. Just looking at the diagram of the airbrush, there's a little bit of complexity there in machining all of that good, quickly, and at scale. Lots of little parts to control it which to work well need to have high quality machining. https://badgerairbrush.com/images/101_Illustration.jpg https://badgerairbrush.com/images/101_Illustration.jpg

jollyllama 1y ago

The better question to ask is for which American economic interests. What you're witnessing is a form of explicitly non-socialist class warfare led by conflicting groups of elites.

strathmeyer 1y ago

It's a bargaining tactic from a lunatic. Trump thinks countries will call him offering to do things to have the tariffs removed. You are applying reason to someone who has been showing signs of dementia for decades.

photochemsyn 1y ago

The one economic theory of trade that seems most solid is competitive advantage but it does rely on trade between independent equal partners, rather than trade between a dominant superpower and a client state run by a puppet government controlled by said superpower. Fundamentally, the neoliberal project created a lot of billionaires in the USA and associated wealthy enclaves by pushing manufacturing out to US-controlled client state sweatshops while also importing lower-paid workers, from H1B visa holders in tech to undocumented labor in construction and agribusiness. The resulting wealth inequality has led to political instability and unexpected consequences (eg the Rust Belt not backing Democratic candidates who promoted TPP etc.) The reality is, reversing de-industrialization and abandoning neoliberalism would require a massive state-sponsored effort to update the basic infrastructure - electrical grids, roads, high-speed rail, ports, bridges, fiber-optic networks, schools for engineers and researchers - everything that makes competitive industrial manufacturing possible. The notion that tariffs alone could accomplish such a massive transition by pressuring private capital to build all that infrastructure is ludicrous. Capital flight from the USA is far more likely - so a massive socialist project would be needed, including high taxes on the wealthy and cross-border capital controls to prevent capital flight (as existed in the USA in the 1960s) - all of which is heresy to the acolytes of Milton Friedman. Maybe I'm wrong and Apple will open an iPhone factory in the USA this year with entry-level living wages of $35/hr (inflation-adjusted to 1960s factory wages) and the shareholders and executives will take a massive cut in renumeration to avoid iPhone prices spiking to levels where consumers won't touch them. I rather doubt it, though.

coliveira 1y ago

Tariffs may be helpful for some areas of the economy, but the scorched earth strategy used by this administration is guaranteed to hurt the economy more than it helps. First of all, the US is posing as an enemy for every other nation, including so-called "allies". It is an isolationist program that will inevitably weaken the status of the dollar (no need for dollars is the US is not interested in trading).

sanderjd 1y ago

My two cents is that if this had been, from the start, a dedicated effort to decouple the US economy from Chinese producers, for national / economic security reasons, then they might have been able to convince me that the short term pain might result in something long-term beneficial. The major problem they have with that, though, is that they started with Mexico and Canada, and then progressed to declaring (trade) war on the entire world, moves which are exactly the wrong thing if the goal was to painfully but beneficially decouple with China. In order to achieve that goal, we would have needed to strengthen our trading appliances with other countries in North America, Asia, and Europe. But they've done exactly the opposite. (Note, though, that even this strategy wouldn't be getting much if any love from economists. It's hard to find credible economists who think tariffs are anything but dumb, economically. But we would see a lot more support from foreign policy folks, many of whom do think that economic decoupling from China would be good for non-economic reasons, despite being painful economically.)

tootie 1y ago
Renegotiating trade with Mexico and Canada was one of his most prominent achievements of his first term. Fair to say that deal wasn't substantially different from NAFTA, but it was a deal that he approved. To come back a few years later and blow it up as being completely unfair is just screaming that he is acting on pure emotion and not logic. Even if he were capable of giving a coherent justification for his actions, he's proven himself to be a completely unreliable negotiating partner. Other countries are refusing to deal with any intermediaries like Lutnick or Navarro because they are all pushing separate agendas and Trump has not held to any of them. They're just going to wait for him (or Congress) to break.
- sanderjd 1y ago
  Yep, the giant Canada tariffs, in particular, as his first act on trade, was probably the most deeply weird and inexplicable thing I've seen a major world leader do in my lifetime. I've seen lots of policies I've disagreed with or despised, but very few that are just weird.
- donavanm 1y ago

libraryatnight 1y ago

The trouble with people who keep trying to show me the potential positives with this administration are that even if they were there, and they often are not, they're an accident if they exist - not an intended result. These guys are just wrecking shit based on their own interests - looking for a silver lining is helping them out.

matwood 1y ago

> Curious if there is anyone here who genuinely sees this as short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests. I think at a base level someone must think that isolationism is good. Personally I think the world should be building deeper connections not less in order for humanity to move to the next level. I fear that we'll never reach that level without an existential force (like aliens showing up a la Star Trek). Until then, our petty differences will continue to get in the way.

masto 1y ago

I think it is the permanent end of American economic/political/cultural dominance, which is a long-term gain for the world, but it's going to put the hurt on a lot of people (myself included). I am not quite altruistic enough to celebrate being sacrificed in this way, but I can see that when the future history books are written, they may look back at this as the end of a blight.

TuringNYC 1y ago

>> short-term pain / long-term gain for American economic interests That only works if the policy isnt changing day to day (or across presidential cabinets / administrations.) It takes a lot of capital and time to build local factories, and I would not feel comfortable with that investment w/o assurances there will still be a market for local goods next week, next month, or in 10yrs

tootie 1y ago
Yeah this is the biggest issue. No one is going to make a long-term investment to accommodate such a capricious policy maker. And certainly not with Congress making noises about overriding him. The upfront costs of reshoring manufacturing need to be amortized over many years to make sense and there's no belief these policies will be in place that long.

legohead 1y ago

From an economic perspective these new blanket import tariffs are a classic own-goal: tariffs are good for developing industries, but these levies hit huge, mature supply chains, so the main outcome is higher consumer prices, squeezed real wages, and slower growth. A common example is Smoot-Hawley’s tariffs deepening the Great Depression, and early 2025 data already show trade and hiring slipping, but we won't know the full effect for a while. As for the "bring manufacturing to the US" argument - tariffs often reroute, not reshore. GoPro moved from China to Mexico, Apple from China to India, Hasbro from China to Vietnam, to name a few.

thoughtstheseus 1y ago
Funny thing about a recession now is you can have standards of living increase for 10s millions of people due to how concentrated consumption and wealth is. Weird times

nostrademons 1y ago

The benefits of it are almost entirely “resilience during wartime”. Economists tend not to consider war very much, because it is chaotic, tends to strike at random moments that are only loosely related to economic conditions, and involves people actively destroying productive capacity instead of building it up. But of war is a given, you can see some fairly obvious benefits of having critical supply chains entirely contained within your borders. There’s ample historical data to back that up too: Japan (with its energy supply chain almost entirely outside of its borders) was forced to embark on wars of conquest in the rest of Asia to secure its energy needs, while the U.S. (which at the time was both a large oil producer and a large manufacturer) could sit behind its oceans and only enter the war when Japan’s territorial ambitions collided with it. Likewise, if you take “WW3 is going to happen in the near future” as a given, almost all of the Trump administration’s actions make sense, from the crackdown on dissent to the effort to deport any foreign nationals to the saber rattling against Greeenland and Panama to “drill baby drill” to appeasement of Russia to the increased defense budget to the tariffs and efforts to bring semiconductor and drone supply chains stateside to the elimination of climate change programs. The strategy is very clearly to hole up between our two oceans and produce everything ourselves while the rest of the world destroys itself. Of course, you can’t say “WW3 is imminent” without making it significantly more likely and scarring your populace to boot, which creates some very strong information distortions and illogical actions.

j45 1y ago

Don't see how this will be short term pain. Supply chains took a long time to get established again after covid for things coming in. Do Americans really want to do the manufacturing they don't want to do anymore?

rayiner 1y ago

What makes you think economists know everything? How long did doctors lobotomize people? You think economics as a field is more scientific today that medicine was in the mid-20th century? Economists across the political spectrum also agree that investment taxes and corporate taxes are bad: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-policies-economists-love-and-politicians-hate https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-.... Where was the appeal to economists when Trump cut the corporate tax rate during his first term?

inciampati 1y ago

> EDIT: I can find very few voices (not currently working directly for the administration). There's Jeff Ferry who believes "tariffs imposed during the 19th century spurred industrialization and ultimately positioned America as a global superpower". (That historical view is uncommon and wouldn't account for the current realities of global supply chains.) IIRC At the same time (early 20th c.), the US was a major net importer of people. This led to a very low effective tariff rate.

indoordin0saur 1y ago

Maybe long-term gain, but it would take a long time. And businesses aren't going to invest if they think policy might completely reverse in 3 years with a new government.

dismalaf 1y ago

There was literally centuries of European history where every European government had massive tariffs on the others. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism This era also featured lots of wars between European nations and spurred foreign conquests/colonialism.

Havoc 1y ago

Given the shoddy execution I doubt there will be gain even if there was a hypothetical path in the theory

EasyMark 1y ago

We could have sensible policies if that's their goal, we are too reliant on our primary adversary for far too many things, but there could have been a controlled separation of economies instead of this slit our own wrists and see what happens policy from the Big Brains who brought us Project 2025. I swear I used to not think that Putin had kompramat on Trump, but every day that theory seems more and more solid rather than whack conspiracy theory.

krapp 1y ago

Yeah, what positioned America as a superpower was nuclear weapons and having an infrastructure not reduced to slag by World War 2.

arcmechanica 1y ago

Wilson drummed up the idea in the early 1920's, but didn't really follow through putting tariffs in place, Hoover did and combined with the dustbowl, sent America into the Great Depression. This is typical of what tariffs always do, but that little extra disaster almost made it impossible to get out of it

rustcleaner 1y ago

For me I see short term gain long term pain, as volatility pays my account but my local economy is going broke and my account isn't big enough to offset the negative effects of it.

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