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Time To Tackle Trump's Trade Tariffs?

Should the U.S. repeal Trump's trade tariffs?

  • Total voters
    28
  • Poll closed .
I voted no and I guess Biden has said he wouldn't either.
 
antiquity said:
How to solve the so-called tariffs....demand moving manufacturing goods back to the US...problem solved.
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No.

Why do you outsource your clothing by buying shirts and pants from other people?

If you make your own shirts and pants you'll give yourself another job, but you will make yourself worse off, because it's smart to buy something from somebody else if doing so is cheaper than making it yourself.

If some other country can make a product cheaper than Americans can make it, then it's smart to buy it from them.
 
aociswundumho said:
Terrible. Tariffs, in the end, are just another tax on the American people. The fact that so many politicians believe tariffs are beneficial is evidence that democracy is nothing but a clown show.
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Tariff's, when used appropriately, are beneficial. Buy American right?
 
mrjurrs said:
Buy American right?
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If you want to buy American go ahead, but the US government should not be taxing you if you choose to be rational, and buy from whomever gives you the most for your money.
 
Hahaha if you expect Democrats to end tariffs. That's why you could tell Trump was still a Democrat...he thought tariffs were effective trade policy.
 
aociswundumho said:
If you want to buy American go ahead, but the US government should not be taxing you if you choose to be rational, and buy from whomever gives you the most for your money.
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Protective tariffs are meant to protect American business. In general, it is good for the government to protect American businesses. You, along with most Americans, appear to be willing to throw your neighbor out of a job to save a nickel.
 
aociswundumho said:
Terrible. Tariffs, in the end, are just another tax on the American people. The fact that so many politicians believe tariffs are beneficial is evidence that democracy is nothing but a clown show.
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Tariffs are a problem with trade, not politics. How do you get from tariffs are bad to democracy is bad? It is not just democratic countries that use tariffs.
 
mrjurrs said:
Protective tariffs are meant to protect American business. In general, it is good for the government to protect American businesses. You, along with most Americans, appear to be willing to throw your neighbor out of a job to save a nickel.
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Is the american economy so weak that it needs protection? Are your businesses selling such junk that no one really wants it and you end up having to use tariffs to give an equal playing field so american junk can compete with good stuff.
 
I think we should trade with a nation or we should not. I see no good reason why we should trade with a hostile nation, but simply place a burdensome tax paid for by the average consumer upon that trade.

If China is so rapacious, hostile and dangerous, we should decouple from the country and halt trade with them at the soonest available opportunity.

We did not trade with the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany on the eve of World War 2. We did not seek to become dependent upon the Soviet Union for cheap manufacturing during the Cold War.

We should not leave our jugular in the hands of our adversaries.
 
Trade tariffs almost never work. The truth of that does not change based on the party affiliation of the presidency.

Obama whacked China with massive tariffs on steel, and it didn't work. Chinese companies routed their steel through Vietnam to avoid the tariffs; American steel manufacturers raised their prices, because they didn't need to compete against super-cheap steel. Global demand for steel also didn't change much. Companies that used steel paid the price, and passed on some of that cost to consumers. End result: No major benefit to the US.

Trump whacked China with tariffs. US manufacturers and consumers paid the tariffs, despite all his BS about it costing China. China retaliated anyway, targeting Trump-friendly agricultural regions. China eventually promised to buy billions of US goods, and agreed to cracking down on Chinese companies that infringe intellectual property rights... and did nothing of the sort.

The reality is that Biden simply doesn't have a lot of leverage here. The same would be true if Trump had won re-election. China just makes too much stuff, and has too much US capital, to be bullied by tariffs. I can understand how Biden can't just lift the tariffs at the drop of a hat, but whatever concessions he might wring out of China won't be honored, so it's kind of pointless anyway.
 
I am really laughing here. Americans despise the thought of socialism yet want tariffs ie. government control of trade. . Americans pride themselves in being capitalists but cannot even seem to meet the most basic of capitalist ideology that of supply and demand. They need government control to trade.

The reason you cannot compete on the world market is because you only have a free trade agreement with 20 countries and most of them are second tier economies.
 
antiquity said:
How to solve the so-called tariffs....demand moving manufacturing goods back to the US...problem solved.
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Winner in one simple response. That is EXACTLY what we've needed to do for a long time coming.

We've become so dependent on external production that IMO we are living in a false front of prosperity.

Many of our current "Representatives" have come to think all one needs to do is print more money, and that will "save the economy." Yet anyone notice how our drug stores, supermarkets, and superstores have less and less product on the shelves?

If our economy is not built on a firm foundation of GOOD jobs in manufacturing, development, energy production, transportation, and other home-grown production so that we are back to exporting more than we import? Then much like Britain's "Industrial Era" our economy will eventually fall to the next industrial giant (currently China).
 
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Mycroft said:
Sure. End the tariffs...if you want to completely surrender to China.
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The tariffs are a dismal failure and keeping them is surrendering to China. Punishing Americans will not improve China's behaviors it has only made them more belligerent.
 
iguanaman said:
The tariffs are a dismal failure and keeping them is surrendering to China. Punishing Americans will not improve China's behaviors it has only made them more belligerent.
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Trump's tariffs did not punish Americans.
 
antiquity said:
How to solve the so-called tariffs....demand moving manufacturing goods back to the US...problem solved.
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The problem is this: The US government does not have to power to "demand moving manufacturing goods back to the US".

No...the solution is to make moving manufacturing back to the US more profitable to US and international companies while, at the same time, making it less profitable for the Chinese to manufacture goods for the US.

That is what Trump was doing, at least as far as he was able without the cooperation from Congress.

The Biden puppet masters...and Congress...don't want to do any of that. They are being paid to doing whatever the globalist corporations...and China...want them to do.
 
Mycroft said:
Trump's tariffs did not punish Americans.
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It is a fine on the American consumer so how do you figure that? Fines are a form of punishment here last time I checked.

In general, then, Trump’s tariffs have helped some workers and hurt others. Nothing is particularly surprising about this; trade policy almost always has important distributive effects, and any change in trade policy is a choice to benefit some groups at the expense of others. Yet, overall, when economists have attempted to add up the net effect of Trump’s tariffs on jobs, any gains in importing-competing sectors appear to have been more than offset by losses in industries that use imported inputs and face retaliation on their foreign exports. And even those jobs that have been created have come at great cost: studies suggest American consumers paid about $817,000 in higher prices attributable to the tariffs for every job created in the washing machine industry and $900,000 in the steel industry. While policy interventions to support manufacturing jobs may be warranted, there are cheaper ways to do so.

https://www.brookings.edu/policy202...nefit-american-workers-and-national-security/
 
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