Tariffs …. Good or Bad?

[mtalbot_ca]

Computers have now a 25% tax (at midninght). Overall canadian additionnal counter tariff are on 29.8 Billions worth of products, bringing the total to close to 50 Billions. Glad I purchased my IPAD in november....

[68Camaro]

Don't most computers get assembled in China? Why would there be a 25% tariff on them for you?

[Doctor Steuss]

Don't most computers get assembled in China? Why would there be a 25% tariff on them for you?

There's actually a sizable industry in the US that supplies the market for high-end semi-custom computers (for gaming, graphic design, engineering software, etc.). Origin PC, iBuyPower, Digital Storm, Xiotic, and Maingear to name a handful of the gaming-centric brands that are in the US.

There are also some pretty big computer parts companies that are based in the US. Corsair's corporate office is in California, and their manufacturing plant is in Atlanta (they do cases, water blocks, all-in-one cooling, fans, lights, etc.). I don't know how they compare to other companies (they're just one I've bought from before), but they did $1.32 billion in revenue last year.

[mtalbot_ca]

Exactly, I was told that in fact, the 25% tarif for my IPAD is around 20% price impact, on that I get taxes 15% for sales tax and it amount to 23%….

[mtalbot_ca]

Quick fact. This is the top 10 from Canada to the USA (in US $), for 2024:

Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products — $131B
Vehicles other than railway, tramway — $50.76B
Machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers — $30.31B
Commodities not specified according to kind — $19.30B
Plastics — $14.18B
Wood and articles of wood, wood charcoal — $11.59B
Aluminum — $11.49B
Electrical, electronic equipment — $11.24B
Aircraft, spacecraft — $9.25B
Pearls, precious stones, metals, coins — $9.11B

For dairy products, CNN reports that Canada has tariffs above 200% on dairy products imported from the US but that it only applies if the yearly quota is surpassed. Since those high tariffs kick in only after the US has hit a certain negotiated quantity of tariff-free dairy sales to Canada each year – and as the US dairy industry acknowledges, the US is not hitting its allowed zero-tariff maximum in any category of dairy product.

In many categories, notably including milk, the US is not even at half of the zero-tariff maximum.

Do you think it is true?

[Doctor Steuss]

Wood and articles of wood, wood charcoal — $11.59B

A quick note on this particular one (from a construction standpoint). Generally, Canadian wood is stronger, taller, and thicker than American wood due to its slower and denser growth rate. Canada also has an absolute crap load compared to America, which makes it a lot less expensive. America does have some areas that can provide fairly decent inexpensive construction-grade wood, but most of it is within national forests, and would be depleted incredibly quick if we were to rely solely on our own lumber. This is why Trump's last haphazard tariff tantrum ended up pricing tens of thousands of Americans out of the dream of home ownership. Incidentally, it ended up accomplishing nothing economically positive for America.

He constantly complains about these "terrible" trade deals, and how we're being treated unfairly. He's literally the person that negotiated and signed USMCA. He called it the "best" trade deal ever made, and that it was "good for everybody." What boggles my mind in all of this is we don't even have to guess what the outcome of Trump style tariffs is. We already have an example from his last administration.

His last little piss-on-our-allies limbic trade war raised the cost of U.S. intermediate goods 10-30%, reduced real income in the U.S. by $1.4 billion every month in deadweight losses, cost consumers an additional $3.2 billion in added taxes, caused a net loss of American jobs in the manufacturing sector, resulted in foregone American stock market capitalization of at least $5 trillion dollars (i.e. people's 401k accounts), reduced our exports, decreased the average real household income of Americans, created a trade vacuum that was filled by other countries which the US has never fully regained, soured relations with long-time allies, and necessitated billions of socialist bailouts of our agricultural industry.

The only positive, as far as the US as a whole goes, is his taxing American consumers without legislation or representation put a modest dent in his mind-blowing inflation inducing money printing record deficit. Biden and the Dems were all too happy to continue most of the China tariffs because the economic damage was already done, so might as well keep on taxing Americans to line the coffers. If there's one things Dems will fall all over themselves for (other than appeasing the corporate overlords of neoliberalism) is clinging to newly gained taxes.

This time, the US is likely to lose even more trade market share as our allies search out for trade sources that aren't so fickle and emotionally unhinged. When all of this is over, do people really think Canada is going abandon their newly created supply-chains to go back to the ever-lingering threat of mindless chaos?

[68Camaro]

Wood and articles of wood, wood charcoal — $11.59B

A quick note on this particular one (from a construction standpoint). Generally, Canadian wood is stronger, taller, and thicker than American wood due to its slower and denser growth rate. Canada also has an absolute crap load compared to America, which makes it a lot less expensive. America does have some areas that can provide fairly decent inexpensive construction-grade wood, but most of it is within national forests, and would be depleted incredibly quick if we were to rely solely on our own lumber. This is why Trump's last haphazard tariff tantrum ended up pricing tens of thousands of Americans out of the dream of home ownership. Incidentally, it ended up accomplishing nothing economically positive for America.

He constantly complains about these "terrible" trade deals, and how we're being treated unfairly. He's literally the person that negotiated and signed USMCA. He called it the "best" trade deal ever made, and that it was "good for everybody." What boggles my mind in all of this is we don't even have to guess what the outcome of Trump style tariffs is. We already have an example from his last administration.

...

Not going to go tit for tat on every item of your rant - its fairly one sided but you're entitled to your own opinion. But I'll just summarize my view in that my family and most people I know were doing quite well (even with covid) by the end of Trump's first term, but that our standard of living and extent of opportunities declined significantly during Biden's term. As to housing opportunities for first time buyers, an increase in lumber prices on the price of a house is the dwarfed by the cost associated with the doubling of mortgage rates under Biden - that is still the big cost driver.

I don't know about the country overall, haven't done the research, but in the eastern half of the country and especially the SE, almost all construction grade lumber is sustainably grown on domestic tree farms. I don't recall ever seeing Canadian wood in the lumberyard (though perhaps I just wasn't paying attention). On the other hand I have vivid recollection of seeing Georgia (especially) wood.

[mtalbot_ca]

I believe you are right about the wood. From what I could understand :
1- some wood more prone to insect cannot be transported outside specific regions of not quarantined, cut and dried
2- USA has enough wood but the issue are locations and number of sawmills
3- the region from memory was the midwest that needed Canadian wood.

Your thoughts?

[68Camaro]

I believe you are right about the wood. From what I could understand :
1- some wood more prone to insect cannot be transported outside specific regions of not quarantined, cut and dried
2- USA has enough wood but the issue are locations and number of sawmills
3- the region from memory was the midwest that needed Canadian wood.

Your thoughts?

Haven't done the research, but that would make sense. The Midwest and southwest have minimal construction sized timber (but that's also why the home construction styles traditionally were Adobe or masonry). The pacific NW and parts of California and the mountain west had large amounts of timber, but a lot of the old growth was logged and I'm not sure if they consistently replanted such that it was sustainable.

[Doctor Steuss]

I don't know about the country overall, haven't done the research, but in the eastern half of the country and especially the SE, almost all construction grade lumber is sustainably grown on domestic tree farms. I don't recall ever seeing Canadian wood in the lumberyard (though perhaps I just wasn't paying attention). On the other hand I have vivid recollection of seeing Georgia (especially) wood.

I reached out to our primary framing trade partner (here in Southern Nevada) because I was genuinely curious how different it was regionally. He said it fluctuates a lot, depending on season. During the summer months, he estimated that about 80-90% of framing lumber for their operation ultimately comes from Canada. As weather shifts, more and more is sourced stateside, with the winter months being solely sourced from within the US.

Also learned something kind of wild. We have a special building style that's rolling out in California where the framing lumber is actually sourced from Sweden. It has to be acclimated in CA for at least a year before cut to final length. I guess the tolerances are going to be about 1/32 inch per 8 feet for horizontal stretches. To put that in perspective, our preferred tolerance is about 1/8 inch per 8 feet (I think code allows up to 1/4 inch). 1/32 is insane.

[mtalbot_ca]

I don't know about the country overall, haven't done the research, but in the eastern half of the country and especially the SE, almost all construction grade lumber is sustainably grown on domestic tree farms. I don't recall ever seeing Canadian wood in the lumberyard (though perhaps I just wasn't paying attention). On the other hand I have vivid recollection of seeing Georgia (especially) wood.

I reached out to our primary framing trade partner (here in Southern Nevada) because I was genuinely curious how different it was regionally. He said it fluctuates a lot, depending on season. During the summer months, he estimated that about 80-90% of framing lumber for their operation ultimately comes from Canada. As weather shifts, more and more is sourced stateside, with the winter months being solely sourced from within the US.

Also learned something kind of wild. We have a special building style that's rolling out in California where the framing lumber is actually sourced from Sweden. It has to be acclimated in CA for at least a year before cut to final length. I guess the tolerances are going to be about 1/32 inch per 8 feet for horizontal stretches. To put that in perspective, our preferred tolerance is about 1/8 inch per 8 feet (I think code allows up to 1/4 inch). 1/32 is insane.

Amazing. Thaks for sharing.

[mtalbot_ca]

I saw an eye-opener interview from on of the key person in the room when discussion happened between the secret art of commerce and the Canadian delegation. Simply stated, tarrifs are going to be used on an industrial-basis to do two things:
1- enhanced investment in the US for the industrial sector to get economic growth;
2- if not possible, get tariff-revenues from US taxpayers and businesses (off that sector) to off-set the 2 trillion dollar/year deficit.

The latter being seen as the key objective.

What do you think?

[mtalbot_ca]

Good article that seems to describe the imbroglio about canadian oil that the US is facing : https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news ... it-happens

[mtalbot_ca]

In Québec, Tesla is under investigation for environmental credit misuse... (40M$). No longer eligible to credit as long as tariffs are in place. See: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada ... -1.7493434