Thogey wrote:Jesus you spend a lot of words explaining the obvious.
Tariffs, especially Trump's tariffs, don't work. Tariffs are a tax on Americans and American businesses. They arbitrarily raise the cost of consumer goods and result in less purchasing power for Americans. They help a select few industries/businesses hand-picked by federal politicians at the expense of nearly everybody else.
Is that concise enough?
Thogey wrote:Chinese lives on 10 bucks a day.
So?
Thogey wrote:They make crap (except for Norinco AK's).
They make whatever you want at whatever level of quality you want. Lots of advanced electronics, precision instruments, and high quality consumer goods also come out of China. Just depends on what you are willing to pay.
You are probably viewing this site on a device constructed of components made primarily in China, which may have been assembled in China, connected to WiFi coming from a router made in China, connected to a Chinese-made modem with a cable made in China, and the site is likely hosted on server equipment made primarily in China.
Does it work?
Are you willing to spend 5 - 10+ times more money on devices that do exactly the same thing but are made in the US? (And yes, it really is that much more expensive for a lot of industries). Or would you just pay the 25% tax (tariff) to the federal government to buy the Chinese goods? Most consumers understandably choose the latter, and the only winner is the federal government.
Thogey wrote:We need to shift manufacturing here and learn to do business better So we are not dependent on Chinese imports and their market manipulation.
Automation and rising wages in China were already starting to shift some manufacturing back here, and Trump's tariffs have thrown a wrench into that. There are several examples of this in the articles I posted above, and that's just from skimming two days worth of news
. I know other instances personally from my work. Plans to add, reshore, or expand manufacturing here that have been scrapped because of the cost (or expected cost) of tariffs added to materials and components, and/or because of overall disruptions in the company caused by the tariffs.
Thogey wrote:They(the Chinese) are not our friend. Their goal is to get the US dependent on 700 million chinese slave workers then pull the rug out from under us. Their long term goal is to bury us. Our goal should be to put them in their rightful natural place. Doing business with the Chinaman is murder! They make a deal, shake hands on it, then shop it. I could care less how this is fixed, tariffs or otherwise. But it needs to be fixed, doesn't it?
I understand this perspective and I know a lot of people who share it. But there is a lot of manufacturing that simply will not return to the US, no matter what kind of trade policies we try. It is simply not viable to make a lot of non-essential / luxury / recreational / disposable goods in the US at a price point that will sell. They either get made overseas, allowing for a US company to employ designers/engineers/marketers/salespeople/shippers here, and consumers get a product they want, or it doesn't get made at all and those jobs go away completely. That's it. There is no magic tariff to fix it.
I would certainly like to close the gap in manufacturing elsewhere, but we don't "fix" this disparity by shooting ourselves in the feet. Thinking we can "punish" China this way is laughable. If we want more domestic manufacturing, we have to make the US a more hospitable place to establish and grow manufacturing businesses. That would mean reducing payroll taxes, reducing fuel and energy taxes, reducing regulatory and compliance burdens, NOT increasing the cost of raw materials and components through tariffs, not giving overpaid unions government backing, and reducing or eliminating many other government barriers, burdens, and nickel-and-diming. Putting tariffs on raw materials and components is pretty much the opposite of making manufacturing more viable here.
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This was supposed to be a thread more about keeping up with the consequences (good or bad) of the tariffs than debating the motivation behind them or the economic theory of them. I work with a lot of small and medium manufacturers and business owners (and a few bigger companies) and we do some limited manufacturing runs in house. I'm watching this unfold from the perspective of a small business owner / employer / manufacturer who has been competing with China for a long time, but also services a lot of domestic businesses that will shrink significantly or close completely if 25% tariffs are widely implemented. China is used as a boogeyman/scapegoat/excuse far too often. Our problems stem first and foremost from our own government's policies.