Why are Trump's tariff's on China bad?

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by Tererune, Nov 12, 2024.

  1. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    Maybe I awm high, and maybe I am seeing things weird, why would tariffs if they made it so it is cheaper to make something more locally and not have to ship it from china to florida now that we have things like industrial level 3d printers? 3d printers are not just plastics. You can basically use all sorts of metals, glass, and carbon fiber with them.

    The only reason we need to keep doing the china thing is because a lot of people are making money off of that thing. Trump is not in on that particular grift and please explain to me like you take the effort to explain to federal farmer why a shift back to local production would be terrible if it made jobs here where people learned to manufacture through the 3d printing process.
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  2. DEI Hire

    DEI Hire Cope Harder

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    ELIFF (Explain Like I'm Federal Farmer) has a certain ring to it.
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  3. steve2^4

    steve2^4 Aged Meat

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    It's not terrible in the long run if applied consistently.

    The problem is we've spent the last 30 (50?) years moving all our production to the cheapest labor market. Business will be slow to respond by investing here.

    In the short term it's inflationary as tariff costs will be passed onto consumers.
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  4. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    I figure I would ask since so many people seem so willing to play with someone who obviously will never listen to as word you say and ignore blatant facts.
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  5. DEI Hire

    DEI Hire Cope Harder

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    It may take a while to rebuild our economy after Trump destroys it, and yeah, some people may starve. But we'll really stick it to those Godless Commies, so that's nice.
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  6. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    I get that. It is going to raise prices, but it would also bring new jobs locally, and force us to enhance our electrical grid and make more solid power plants. When I look into pollution a large part of it comes from shipping crap from over there to here. Not for nothing it makes a lot of jobs for them. It also makes a lot of jobs transporting things. It also makes a shitload of pollution.
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  7. DEI Hire

    DEI Hire Cope Harder

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    Something tells me American businesses will be more than happy to pass along the cost of the customer and leave it at that. What are we going to do? Not buy stuff? We're Americans! That’s what we do!
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  8. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    I am only dealing with what is given to me. However, if you really want my opinion if a few people die such is life. In all honesty my thought is the world would probably be great with around 2 billion people or less. You do the math on how to get to that number.
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  9. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    That is the thing, the cost is not that huge anymore when you consider 3D printing and current manufacturing.
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  10. RickDeckard

    RickDeckard Socialist

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    It's bad because China makes lots of stuff, and adding tarrifs makes that stuff more expensive. If local production could immediately plug the gap without also being more expensive it would already have done so.
    The bet of Trump and other economic nationalists, is that the short-term pain will promote local production. That's not always wrong, but its a logic that mostly applies to developing countries and it can take time.

    Also, China will retaliate, making it more difficult to sell to them as well.
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2024
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  11. NAHTMMM

    NAHTMMM eating my lemon

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    And the jobs that are created are not necessarily going to be the best. We aren't talking about 6-figure union jobs making automobiles and aircraft here.

    Also the manufacturing industry was starved for workers during the pandemic, although it sounds like it's better now. Here, scroll down a bit for a pretty blue-and-yellow graphic.

    So my knee-jerk reaction is that it might be easy to build factories (eventually -- you can't exactly go from buying an empty lot to full production in a month), but hard to fill them.
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  12. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    Yep.

    Apart from his brain being broken from having a trans daughter, I suspect that half the reason Musk supports Trump and his trade war policies is so when Tesla inevitably fails in China he can point to it being a result of Chinese retaliation, and not poor business decisions on his part.
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  13. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    International shipping does generate a lot of pollution, however that's largely due to the scale of it. Per unit mass it's one of the cheapest and most energy efficient types of transport we have.

    @Ten Lubak could probably elaborate more, I think he's chatted about shipping a bit
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  14. RickDeckard

    RickDeckard Socialist

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    He probably also wants to keep superior Chinese products out of America.
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  15. Coloratura

    Coloratura 3% Fruit Juice

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    Hell, I get most of the stuff I need from China because I can get it at 1/4 of the price it costs here as long as I can live with two week shipping times, and I can.
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  16. Jenee

    Jenee Driver 8

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    Honestly not trying to be sarcastic because I’m certain many Chinese products are very good. But, can you provide some examples? most people refer to anything from China as “cheap plastic toys”.
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  17. Crosis36

    Crosis36 Author

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    Sixth scale figures, for one.
    The-Joker-Artisan-Edition-Hot-Toys-2.jpg
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  18. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    Chinese car manufacturing still has a bunch of lemons, but it's also got a lot of brands which are rapidly becoming the best options in the more affordable side of the side, especially with electric vehicles.
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  19. RickDeckard

    RickDeckard Socialist

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    https://apnews.com/article/china-byd-auto-seagull-auto-ev-cae20c92432b74e95c234d93ec1df400

    https://www.ft.com/content/9805c539-a71e-446e-9f0c-f2f57ebaa2ae

    Don't believe the propaganda.
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  20. Coloratura

    Coloratura 3% Fruit Juice

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    Some of the best figurines I've ever purchased were from China. Excellent detail, excellent quality control, ridiculously low price compared to everyone else.
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  21. Jenee

    Jenee Driver 8

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    I don’t necessarily believe propaganda - which is why I said I’m certain there are many things made well in China.

    Thank you for the links.

    Glad there is competition for electric cars.
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  22. Bickendan

    Bickendan Custom Title Administrator Faceless Mook Writer

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    Better throw it into the nearest volcano just to be safe.
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