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Still missing the forest for the trees a bit but you're right, my wording could have been better. What I'm getting at is tariffs are generally unrelated to fore

Still missing the forest for the trees a bit but you're right, my wording could have been better. What I'm getting at is tariffs are generally unrelated to foreign sellers: they're not charged to them, they're not responsible for them, and the entire narrative about how "we're going to make foreign producers pay tariffs" is false. Just like "pass" is the wrong verb, because there's nothing to pass: the tariff was charged to the importer/consumer in the first place. It's no different than, say, the state of Oklahoma deciding to increase taxes on new vehicle sales by 10%, and playing it as "we're going to make Toyota pay more to sell vehicles here!" Toyota isn't paying anything, is unlikely to change its global pricelists in response, and won't really care... because it's a state charging its own citizens more tax, nothing more. Just like these tariffs were a country charging its own importers more "tax" to punish them for buying abroad.

dghlsakjg 9mo ago
You're talking about the trees (who literally pays taxes) I'm talking about the forest (which parties in the entire system end up less economically well off because the tax exists, AKA tax incidence) I'll use your example. Your argument is that when Toyota sells fewer cars as a result of a new tax increasing the landed cost of their products, that they aren't being made worse off? Sure Toyota isn't literally cutting the check to the state, but unless they are selling a product that is perfectly inelastic (they aren't, no such product exists in the real world), they will have less revenue, ceteris paribus. I get that the suppliers aren't literally paying for the tariffs via transferring dollars to the US CBP. I am saying that reduced demand and sales for a product as a result of a higher cost is an actual realized loss for the producer caused by the tariff. The producers are paying an economic cost for the tariffs by either reduced volume or reduced margin. My citation is the article you are commenting on. This is a well known, demonstrable and universally accepted concept in economics you are trying to argue against. It is called tax incidence, and it very intentionally discards who pays the tax directly, and concentrates on the respective proportions of consumer and producer surplus that are claimed by the increased tax. This is literally what the paper this post is linked to is about; what proportion of the economic cost of the tax is borne by the seller and what portion is borne by the buyer. Go get

dghlsakjg 9mo ago

You're talking about the trees (who literally pays taxes) I'm talking about the forest (which parties in the entire system end up less economically well off because the tax exists, AKA tax incidence) I'll use your example. Your argument is that when Toyota sells fewer cars as a result of a new tax increasing the landed cost of their products, that they aren't being made worse off? Sure Toyota isn't literally cutting the check to the state, but unless they are selling a product that is perfectly inelastic (they aren't, no such product exists in the real world), they will have less revenue, ceteris paribus. I get that the suppliers aren't literally paying for the tariffs via transferring dollars to the US CBP. I am saying that reduced demand and sales for a product as a result of a higher cost is an actual realized loss for the producer caused by the tariff. The producers are paying an economic cost for the tariffs by either reduced volume or reduced margin. My citation is the article you are commenting on. This is a well known, demonstrable and universally accepted concept in economics you are trying to argue against. It is called tax incidence, and it very intentionally discards who pays the tax directly, and concentrates on the respective proportions of consumer and producer surplus that are claimed by the increased tax. This is literally what the paper this post is linked to is about; what proportion of the economic cost of the tax is borne by the seller and what portion is borne by the buyer. Go get