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Do other countries not have tariffs? Is it only when the U.S. chooses to retaliate that it enrages certain people?

JohnFen 1y ago
This isn't the US "retaliating" (retaliating against what?). This is the US swinging a club in an attempt at beating up the rest of the world and hitting itself on its head.
fragmede 1y ago
You mean the certain people that are affected by those tarrifs? How enraged do you get by something that doesn't affect you?
jagged-chisel 1y ago
It’s not they exist. We’ve had tariffs. They’ve had tariffs. It’s raising them arbitrarily high on a whim - that’s the problem.
gameman144 1y ago
The parent isn't objecting to tariffs, as far as I can tell. They're objecting that tariffs, which are a power vested in Congress, are being driven by one man (the President) in the executive branch.
- klipt 1y ago
  Congress has the ability to rein in presidential power. In extreme they can threaten impeachment. Republicans control Congress so they are complicit in what Trump is doing.
  - gameman144 1y ago
    Totally, they have the ability to rein in the executive branch for sure! I think the parent's frustration is very justified (and might even be more valid -- there exists a clear path to not have tariffs imposed by edict, and our representatives just aren't taking it).
- bilbo0s 1y ago
  If the people wanted congress to rein in Trump they would not have voted the opposition out. This is very much what we wanted. And we clicked "yes" on the question at every electoral level. I understand everyone's got a little buyer's remorse. At the same time however, if someone clicked through 4 or 5 dialog boxes all saying "Are you sure you want to do X, Y, and Z?" And then, upon the system's execution of X, Y, and Z, suddenly complained that X, Y, and Z are not what they wanted? I don't know? I guess I'm just saying I'd be a bit surprised at their disappointment.
yieldcrv 1y ago
the goal post typically moves to "but our soft power as a world leaaaaderrrr" which... yeah, I could do without. I'm fine reaching parity with the level of market access in trade that other countries offer us, as well as the level of apathy in funding programs and conflicts that other countries have. I do think its absurd to apply a different standard to the US, by people that don't really seem to notice what the standard other countries they respect are using. I can also acknowledge that its disruptive. even at a blanket 10%, that's too much too fast for market forces to adjust adequately. but the overall idea of having domestic supply chains and velocity of wage payments and wage growth is something I like.
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  I think that the really weird (economically speaking) thing is that the US has built a global order that has made them incredibly successful at an aggregate level, and it's all being thrown away carelessly for goods production. Like, I agree that more manufacturing in the US would be better overall, but the way in which this is being done seems really poorly thought through.
- bloppe 1y ago
  The prevailing trade doctrine pre-Trump is called the most favored nation system, by which the countries of the WTO agreed to treat all other members by the same rules. That didn't preclude tariffs at all, but for instance China could not apply a tariff on America without also applying the same tariff on all other WTO members. American multinationals flourished under this system far more than the companies of any other country, including China. Now we have a system of bilateral agreements that encourage market fragmentation and are complicated and cumbersome to enforce, which is a big part of the reason we moved away from that system in the first place. Now, they're also created revoked on a whim by one man with a knack for giving exemptions to his pals and extracting big personal gifts from world leaders in exchange for favors. Even if you support moving back to a bilateral tariff system, the way it's being handled should concern you
  - hollerith 1y ago
    >American multinationals flourished under this system far more than the companies of any other country, including China. International trade has never been a critical or essential component of the US economy -- or at least not during the last 170 years -- because there's always been a healthy domestic consumer market in the US. In the US, the consumer market has constituted close to 70% of all economic activity for over a century. In contrast, when China was starting to get rich in the 1990s and 2000s, the consumer market was tiny. Ditto postwar Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. International trade was way way more important to those countries in the post-WWII era that it has been to the US: the US would have remained a rich country even if there was zero international trade (although granted probably not quite as rich). Free trade was used by the security establishment in Washington during the Cold War as a bribe to induce countries to side with the US against the USSR. The bribe was relatively easy to make because the US ended WWI with the world's dominant navy (needed to fight piracy and to guarantee that the smaller countries of the world could engage in international trade on the world's oceans). Some Americans are "globalists", meaning they think the idea of the nation state is obsolete or undesirable, and of course they try to promote economic interdependence between countries as much as possible. Also, even though they have never been essential to the US economy, the big multinationals have significant influence on the public discourse in the US and on Washington. So, the general public estimates international trade as more important than it actually is to the US.
aniviacat 1y ago
The US tarrifs against the EU were not retaliatory, they were proactive (unless you want to consider them retaliatory tarrifs because of the EU's retaliatory tarrfis. However, this dispute was, again, initiated by the USA). I'm sure some of the countries hit did attack first, but many didn't. Additionally, the way Trump sets up tarrifs creates major uncertainty (which I can only assume is intentional), that can clearly be seen in the way the stocks develop. This also sets these tarrifs apart.
- no_wizard 1y ago
  I have yet to hear a logical argument as to why we needed tariffs against Canada, Mexico, EU member states, the UK and basically every other ally we've had existing trade agreements with for decades. To be honest, this calls into any legitimate claims of using tariffs against China - the one country that I've seen logical, consistent arguments for enacting tariffs against - because they're implemented so haphazardly across the board there was no chance of building consensus with other countries, which would be a requirement for tariffs to actually work to change behavior. It seems that the belief is that somehow because the US is the largest economy currently, that access to it is so desirable that countries will be falling over at the negotiation table to regain access to the US market and thereby willing to agree to new things that are supposedly 'more fair' (re: more desirable for what the current administration believes to be desirable). Largely that doesn't seem to be happening, which is no surprise, but more over, when negotiations do happen, like we have seen with China, and now they're getting a better deal than we are, from everything I've read thus far. It seems this administration can't even stick to its own guns, because China called the bluff and the US capitulated to their core demands with relatively little resistance seemingly.
rsynnott 1y ago
Weighted mean applied tariffs in developed countries are normally in the 0.5-3% range; the US was a little under 2% pre-minihands, Europe's a little less than that, as was China pre-minihands. In general, tariffs which work out to >10% mean applied are only found in the poorest countries (where high tariffs arguably _can_ make sense if practically all industry is extractive/agricultural, on the basis that they may spur development of local secondary industry), or in weird micronations.

This isn't the US "retaliating" (retaliating against what?). This is the US swinging a club in an attempt at beating up the rest of the world and hitting itself on its head.

fragmede 1y ago

You mean the certain people that are affected by those tarrifs? How enraged do you get by something that doesn't affect you?

jagged-chisel 1y ago

It’s not they exist. We’ve had tariffs. They’ve had tariffs. It’s raising them arbitrarily high on a whim - that’s the problem.

gameman144 1y ago

The parent isn't objecting to tariffs, as far as I can tell. They're objecting that tariffs, which are a power vested in Congress, are being driven by one man (the President) in the executive branch.

klipt 1y ago
Congress has the ability to rein in presidential power. In extreme they can threaten impeachment. Republicans control Congress so they are complicit in what Trump is doing.
- gameman144 1y ago
  Totally, they have the ability to rein in the executive branch for sure! I think the parent's frustration is very justified (and might even be more valid -- there exists a clear path to not have tariffs imposed by edict, and our representatives just aren't taking it).
bilbo0s 1y ago
If the people wanted congress to rein in Trump they would not have voted the opposition out. This is very much what we wanted. And we clicked "yes" on the question at every electoral level. I understand everyone's got a little buyer's remorse. At the same time however, if someone clicked through 4 or 5 dialog boxes all saying "Are you sure you want to do X, Y, and Z?" And then, upon the system's execution of X, Y, and Z, suddenly complained that X, Y, and Z are not what they wanted? I don't know? I guess I'm just saying I'd be a bit surprised at their disappointment.

yieldcrv 1y ago

the goal post typically moves to "but our soft power as a world leaaaaderrrr" which... yeah, I could do without. I'm fine reaching parity with the level of market access in trade that other countries offer us, as well as the level of apathy in funding programs and conflicts that other countries have. I do think its absurd to apply a different standard to the US, by people that don't really seem to notice what the standard other countries they respect are using. I can also acknowledge that its disruptive. even at a blanket 10%, that's too much too fast for market forces to adjust adequately. but the overall idea of having domestic supply chains and velocity of wage payments and wage growth is something I like.

disgruntledphd2 1y ago
I think that the really weird (economically speaking) thing is that the US has built a global order that has made them incredibly successful at an aggregate level, and it's all being thrown away carelessly for goods production. Like, I agree that more manufacturing in the US would be better overall, but the way in which this is being done seems really poorly thought through.
bloppe 1y ago
The prevailing trade doctrine pre-Trump is called the most favored nation system, by which the countries of the WTO agreed to treat all other members by the same rules. That didn't preclude tariffs at all, but for instance China could not apply a tariff on America without also applying the same tariff on all other WTO members. American multinationals flourished under this system far more than the companies of any other country, including China. Now we have a system of bilateral agreements that encourage market fragmentation and are complicated and cumbersome to enforce, which is a big part of the reason we moved away from that system in the first place. Now, they're also created revoked on a whim by one man with a knack for giving exemptions to his pals and extracting big personal gifts from world leaders in exchange for favors. Even if you support moving back to a bilateral tariff system, the way it's being handled should concern you
- hollerith 1y ago
  >American multinationals flourished under this system far more than the companies of any other country, including China. International trade has never been a critical or essential component of the US economy -- or at least not during the last 170 years -- because there's always been a healthy domestic consumer market in the US. In the US, the consumer market has constituted close to 70% of all economic activity for over a century. In contrast, when China was starting to get rich in the 1990s and 2000s, the consumer market was tiny. Ditto postwar Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. International trade was way way more important to those countries in the post-WWII era that it has been to the US: the US would have remained a rich country even if there was zero international trade (although granted probably not quite as rich). Free trade was used by the security establishment in Washington during the Cold War as a bribe to induce countries to side with the US against the USSR. The bribe was relatively easy to make because the US ended WWI with the world's dominant navy (needed to fight piracy and to guarantee that the smaller countries of the world could engage in international trade on the world's oceans). Some Americans are "globalists", meaning they think the idea of the nation state is obsolete or undesirable, and of course they try to promote economic interdependence between countries as much as possible. Also, even though they have never been essential to the US economy, the big multinationals have significant influence on the public discourse in the US and on Washington. So, the general public estimates international trade as more important than it actually is to the US.

aniviacat 1y ago

The US tarrifs against the EU were not retaliatory, they were proactive (unless you want to consider them retaliatory tarrifs because of the EU's retaliatory tarrfis. However, this dispute was, again, initiated by the USA). I'm sure some of the countries hit did attack first, but many didn't. Additionally, the way Trump sets up tarrifs creates major uncertainty (which I can only assume is intentional), that can clearly be seen in the way the stocks develop. This also sets these tarrifs apart.

no_wizard 1y ago
I have yet to hear a logical argument as to why we needed tariffs against Canada, Mexico, EU member states, the UK and basically every other ally we've had existing trade agreements with for decades. To be honest, this calls into any legitimate claims of using tariffs against China - the one country that I've seen logical, consistent arguments for enacting tariffs against - because they're implemented so haphazardly across the board there was no chance of building consensus with other countries, which would be a requirement for tariffs to actually work to change behavior. It seems that the belief is that somehow because the US is the largest economy currently, that access to it is so desirable that countries will be falling over at the negotiation table to regain access to the US market and thereby willing to agree to new things that are supposedly 'more fair' (re: more desirable for what the current administration believes to be desirable). Largely that doesn't seem to be happening, which is no surprise, but more over, when negotiations do happen, like we have seen with China, and now they're getting a better deal than we are, from everything I've read thus far. It seems this administration can't even stick to its own guns, because China called the bluff and the US capitulated to their core demands with relatively little resistance seemingly.

rsynnott 1y ago

Weighted mean applied tariffs in developed countries are normally in the 0.5-3% range; the US was a little under 2% pre-minihands, Europe's a little less than that, as was China pre-minihands. In general, tariffs which work out to >10% mean applied are only found in the poorest countries (where high tariffs arguably _can_ make sense if practically all industry is extractive/agricultural, on the basis that they may spur development of local secondary industry), or in weird micronations.