Everyone is entitled to their opinion so in keeping with that maxim, I would suggest everyone get a solid grip on this part of OP's post:
The numbers are not what other countries are tariffing us, but rather, a formula based on our trade deficit with a variety of countries.
It's the formula that nobody seems to be paying that much attention to and why the media thinks they have a gotcha when it comes them restricting their reporting to other country's tariffs. Other country's tariffs are just one aspect of the whole picture.
Say, for example, a country's government gives an industry a substantial subsidy that competing American companies in that same industry don't get from our government. Canadian lumber is a good example of this. Canadian lumber mills produce lumber sometimes BELOW the cost to harvest it because the government subsidies make that possible. Canada's tariff on US lumber is low or nonexistent because they've made their lumber so cheap it's uncompetitive. Trump's formula takes other country's subsidies into account.
Doing a tariff vs tariff comparison is disingenuous, at best, because it doesn't take subsidies, tax policy, regulatory environment, and a host of other factors that make competition difficult into account.
Getting Redditors, especially liberals, to understand such a nuanced situation is going to be tough, but I applaud you for trying. Treasury Secretary Besset has done a great job of explaining the situation, but most people aren't paying attention to those kinds of detailed explanations from experts, rather they are taking cues from liberals, who always get this stuff wrong, like this poster did. Thing is, we don't even have to worry about other nation's retaliatory measures much here because the imbalances are so significant with US being the main importer on the planet that in all situations we have the leverage. This is going to be a win/win for US when the dust settles.
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u/Euroranger Texas Conservative 1d ago
Everyone is entitled to their opinion so in keeping with that maxim, I would suggest everyone get a solid grip on this part of OP's post:
It's the formula that nobody seems to be paying that much attention to and why the media thinks they have a gotcha when it comes them restricting their reporting to other country's tariffs. Other country's tariffs are just one aspect of the whole picture.
Say, for example, a country's government gives an industry a substantial subsidy that competing American companies in that same industry don't get from our government. Canadian lumber is a good example of this. Canadian lumber mills produce lumber sometimes BELOW the cost to harvest it because the government subsidies make that possible. Canada's tariff on US lumber is low or nonexistent because they've made their lumber so cheap it's uncompetitive. Trump's formula takes other country's subsidies into account.
Doing a tariff vs tariff comparison is disingenuous, at best, because it doesn't take subsidies, tax policy, regulatory environment, and a host of other factors that make competition difficult into account.