r/Economics • u/ResponsiblePumpkin60 • 1d ago
Tariff question: Trump supporters keep saying that other countries had tariffs on the US prior to his new tariffs. Is this true at all and to what degree?
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/04/02/politics/fact-check-trump-tariffs-trade572
u/Emergency_Cry5965 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes the world has tariffs but what trump presented on his big chart on Thursday has nothing to do with tariffs. Take Madagascar as an example. Trump chart said 94%. Truth is 8.8%. Trump tariffs imposed: 47%. Japan: Trump says 46%. Truth is 4%. Tariff imposed: 24%. Europe: 1%. Imposed: 20%.
The formula they used had nothing to do with tariffs. Existing tariffs did not enter the formula at all. 0% or 1000% yields the same result. At best, some very incompetent people came up with it. More likely, intentionally deceptive people are lying to the ignorant and unwilling-to-learn voter base.
It is the most abhorrent piece of economic policy I have encountered in my long career as an economist.
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u/truckingon 20h ago
The President of the United States does not know what a trade deficit is. He has consistently for decades described it as a subsidy that we pay other countries without receiving goods or services in return. That's why the trade deficit is the primary factor used to calculate the "virtual tariffs" that are the basis for determining the reciprocal tariffs. It's complete nonsense. It's natural to think that "intentionally deceptive people are lying" because this explanation is so hard and disheartening to believe.
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u/sylvnal 1d ago
They tried to make some shit up about the calculation also accounting for "trade barriers" and things, too. Whatever the hell that means, they probably think the VAT in the EU is a trade barrier, for example.
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u/Zealousideal_Oil4571 1d ago
They assume that any trade imbalance is due to trade barriers. They have no understanding of true comparative advantages other countries have when it comes to certain products and services we want, and are willing to pay for.
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u/kittenTakeover 23h ago
They don't believe a lot of the things they say. They're shady salespeople.
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u/ComingInSideways 20h ago
“I’d like to offer you the undercoating package on your country.”.
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u/MeechDaStudent 15h ago
Undercoating is needed in my state. Not their snake oil.
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u/ComingInSideways 15h ago
That has to be expensive to lift the whole state.
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u/Demastry 10h ago
"Wow I'm not really a fan of how much more I'm buying from you than you're buying from me, I'm going to make all of your things more expensive because of it" the grocery store owner said to the farmer.
How are many of these countries supposed to come even close to how much we buy? They know it's ridiculous but still push on with an insane narrative
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u/sheltonchoked 22h ago
They did it because he wanted a simple table. Because he’s a “fucking Moron”
A real “reciprocal Tarrifs” chart would have been 10,000 pages. As there are different Tarrifs on different items in different countries. Most of the real tables are out there.
But that didn’t fit Trump’s beliefs. Or attention span.
So they made up numbers he could understand, and that looked good to him on a couple posters.Until Congress or the courts check his power, this is only the beginning. He’s ruined the Faith and Trust in the United States. He’s crashing the economy. He’s demolishing the social safety nets. And he won’t stop. There are no adults to tell him no. Or tell him he cannot do anything.
This will get much worse before it gets better.2
u/Good_kido78 6h ago
Our state rep knows that tariffs hurt farmers, but he is secretly going to negotiate exclusions or like Trump’s last term, farmer aid to the tune of 23 billion dollars.
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u/Infamous_Employer_85 16h ago
Here is the exact equation, same for every country
0.5 x (Export to US - Import from US)/(Export to US)
or
10%
which ever is greater.
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u/Emergency_Cry5965 13h ago edited 9h ago
Not even despite what the column heading said.
The formula for the “tariff they charge us” column on Trump’s big table is simply trade deficit divided by imports in the US for a given country.
In other words, if Madagascar sold 100 million of stuff (mostly vanilla) in 2024 and the US sold one bulldozer worth $2m then the number in Trump’s first column would be (100-2)/100=0.98. Note that it does not matter at all if Madagascar has 0% tariff or 500% tariff. This is just a ratio of dollar value of imports and exports.
The so-called “discounted tariff” the US then imposed on The country is simply and stupidly 0.98/2=0.49.
Nothing in these calculations reflect any tariff charged by other countries whatsoever.
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u/randalthor23 18h ago
Not according to the chart... They literally did a standard division formula to find out the % of trade imbalance, and called that the tariff. Exports/imports= the tariff we will apply, which has NOTHING to do with existing tariffs on us goods or barriers to us entry in markets.
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u/kick-a-can 16h ago
While I agree that the tariffs seem way out of line and reason. Non tariff barriers do exist. Like the EU/UK restrictions on US agricultural products as one example. That eliminates a sizable export opportunity for the US. They may have very good reasons for doing so, but it’s still a barrier that would have to be considered when setting “reciprocal” tariffs.
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u/Emergency_Cry5965 13h ago
Both the US and UK are signatory to the WTO treaty. They have both agreed to sets of rules that do allow actual tariffs and some non-trade barriers. All countries including the US and UK have some of those.
But now Trumpy is simply ignoring its own treaty obligations but charging economic depression inducing tariffs for no reason allowed under WTO rules.
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u/firechaox 8h ago
Well that’s just the pot calling the kettle black isn’t it? All countries protect their farmers, and the USA gives sizeable subsidies to their farming sector and blocks off imports much the same way (example: just look at the sugar sector)
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u/kick-a-can 8h ago
So we agree, non tariff barriers do exist
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u/firechaox 8h ago
Yes?
What I think is a complete and utter lunacy of what Trump is doing is that tariffs don’t create manufacturing jobs- were it the case Brazil and other developing countries would be manufacturing powerhouses - which they are not. You need industrial policy, and he’s literally scrapping that (chips act).
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u/kick-a-can 8h ago
So tariffs and non tariff barriers exist across economies. So then the question becomes if you want to bring manufacturing back to the US, how to do so? With existing barriers, you need determine to what level, how to accurately measure, how to respond. That’s the logical way to go about it. Trump wants to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. This may or may not be feasible, but that’s what he wants to do. Can not do so if you’re at a competitive disadvantage, including the relatively high wages in the US. So you can throw more tax payer dollars at it (chip act) and hope for the best. Or you can try to level the playing field via barriers. Personally I don’t think either is effective, but that seems to be the realistic options.
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u/firechaox 8h ago
You need industrial policy. The chips act was an example of that. It’s picking a few industries to start with, that maybe you think are important or you already have some edge on, investing in creating the supply chains, the infrastructure to support them, and train people to work in them. It’s creating incentives and programs. That’s how most countries who have industrialised successfully have done. And what China did with EVs. Etc…
It’s about creating and implementing the policies that will create a competitive advantage for an industry so it can stand up for itself without trade barriers. What, do you think competitive advantages can’t be built, or created via policy?
It’s not some lazy idea o applying tariffs. That’s what lazy protectionist poor countries have done, to no success. Why are you copying the industrial policy from Brazil bro?
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u/kick-a-can 5h ago
Perhaps doing a bit of both is a decent plan? Support via taxpayer funded programs (chips act) and protect (and on shoring) with tariffs. I am not advocating for tariffs btw, but do think we need to be mindful of whatever anti trade programs we face. Guess time will tell
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u/firechaox 3h ago
But that’s what was done before… tariffs were only applied to the relevant industries, and not broad based over everything… because as logic will dictate, putting tariffs on diamonds from Lesotho or coffee from Colombia will hardly help steel industry in Ohio…
The criticism has always been about how he’s doing this…
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u/OddAd7664 21h ago edited 14h ago
People need to understand this…. Trumps chart was based off a made up formula, and NOT actual tariffs
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u/watch-nerd 20h ago edited 19h ago
"More likely, intentionally deceptive people are lying to the ignorant and unwilling-to-learn voter base."
The Miran paper that is nicknamed the Mar-a-Lago Accords aims to eliminate trade deficits (believing this will re-industrialize US manufacturing), devalue the USD, but somehow maintain reserve currency status.
So I think it's some combination of:
--Yes, they really do mean to include trade deficits as part of the 'problem to fix'
--They're being disingenuous by calling deficits 'subsidies' and mixing them in with tariffs
--Glossing over what all this would do to consumer prices, demand destruction, economic growth, and current account surplus outflow from US capital markets
So I don't think it was a mistake or just being lazy, but an intentional obfuscation of the objective.
Which, if you're trying to keep your plans secret from your geopolitical rivals and trade partners might make sense, but it becomes hugely problematic if this becomes the public rationale, as it's clearly transparently not about tariffs.
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u/FellasImSorry 20h ago
I have a terrible trade deficit with my local grocery store.
We need this to be equal—they buy as much milk from me as I do from them.
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u/watch-nerd 18h ago
You've got it backwards.
Your grocery needs to invest in milk production at your house so you don't need to buy it from the store in the future.
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u/guroo202569 19h ago
--Glossing over what all this would do to consumer prices, demand destruction, economic growth, and current account surplus outflow from US capital markets
That is a very generous way to describe the official response.
My problem is that if your going to just lie about some super formula, dont make it something so absurd that a year 10 student could reasonably guess in an exam time period. Like, just lie and never release any formula. If this is the plan, then the plan was to get obviously caught immediately, and for what reason, i have no idea.
Its just way easier to say there are 2 or 3 voices right now dictating the global economic landscape, and none of them have much idea what they are doing or why.
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u/watch-nerd 19h ago
"That is a very generous way to describe the official response."
Yes, it is. ;)
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u/kappakai 17h ago
One of the few principles I live by that I encourage others to as well “don’t lie if you’re shit at it.”
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u/Brilliant_Routine_34 22h ago
I have a genuine question here that I don’t feel like anyone is addressing. I really hope it can be addressed in an objective way.
If tariffs are a consumption tax and only really felt once said product is purchased and consumed, is it also true that the effective rate of the tariff is lower due to the importing country not consuming the product?
I would assume whether the tariff is effective or not, there is still a barrier in place that would make it more difficult for me to sell to you. Which does lead to a trade imbalance.
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u/Potential-March-1384 20h ago
To answer the question, yes, tariffs are self defeating as a means of generating tax revenue. If they’re working nobody is paying tariffs and if people are paying tariffs it means they’re not discouraging imports. In general they are most appropriate for mild protectionism of important domestic industries and should be avoided for goods for which there is no domestic replacement.
As for the assumption, trade barriers aren’t fundamentally good or bad, it depends on the context. If I’m the US and a trading partner is undercutting the prices of my domestic goods by exploiting intellectual property or something like that (a clear economic “wrong”) then I would want barriers.
Similarly trade imbalances are neither good nor bad, it depends on the mix of goods and services between the trade partners. We would want a trade imbalance with a small country that exports coffee but doesn’t really import anything because it gives our citizens access to coffee. It doesn’t matter that they’re not buying our Harley Davidsons or whatever.
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u/naijaboiler 17h ago
trade barriers aren’t fundamentally good or bad,
On pure economics, trade barriers are bad period.
There might be non-economic reasons (national security, food security, IP protection, geopolitical goals) why we want to have targeted tariffs. But on pure economics, it's a loser.11
u/FroyoKlutzy739 20h ago
It’s hard to understand your question, but I’ll take a crack at it using the new china tariffs as an example:
- the tariff rate is 34%, everything imported from china is more expensive.
- the purpose of the tariff is to make people buy from the states rather than china. So, over time, as people shift to buying from the states, the china tariffs will gradually bring in less and less money.
- however, corporations are notoriously greedy, no matter the country. If things from china are 34% more expensive, then their competing products in the states will increase their own prices, say by 20% for example.
Overall, assuming countries other than the states do not put their own tariffs in place, this would theoretically address the trade imbalance. However, that’s a paper, pyrrhic victory. It is balancing the trade imbalance at the cost of the economy as a whole. Everyone will be worse off, globally.
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u/Brilliant_Routine_34 18h ago
You did answer my question.
My next question is, who is to blame? This is where the irony comes in. Is it the corporate greed or the environment that was created to enable that greed?
I find it mildly ironic because this administration has touted less regulation.
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u/kappakai 17h ago
Blame implies something is wrong. What do you think is wrong about a trade imbalance? This is the part you may need to really question because the whole argument being made is predicated on “trade imbalance is bad.”
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12h ago
[deleted]
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u/Brilliant_Routine_34 12h ago
To be fair, and I mean within the context of this discussion, trade imbalance is somewhat bad. I think at the end of the day there is some “righting of the ship” that needs to take place in regard to the massive amount of debt that needs servicing. I would think that rebalancing trade wouldn’t be the full solution but could have some positive effects. Again this remaining objective and putting politics aside.
The truth is really further back than Trump. It really started after WW2 when the US came away relatively unscathed. Instead of using their production power to supply Europe, they agreed to allow Europe to build themselves to implement these tariffs to protect the industries that needed to be rebuilt after the war. Now the US did transition to more of a services based economy but these same tariffs are active today when Europe doesn’t need them for the reasons they were originally intended for.
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u/Emergency_Cry5965 12h ago
Mostly correct in your thinking. Putting a tariff raises the price and some consumers will indeed choose not to buy. But that does not change the effective “rate”. It the rate is 20% it’s 20%. But if you mean that the amount of money raised will be lower than if the number of units sold dis not change(?) you are correct.
And here lies why tariffs are bad. Suppose that you like vanilla for your home made cakes. Imagine that it costs $3 to produce a bottle of pure extract in Madagascar, and that you would be prepared to pay $4 for a bottle. The price at the store is $3.40 before tariffs. That’s great for everyone. The folks in Madagascar make a profit of $0.40 and you make a surplus of $0.60 (remember, you would have been happy to pay all the way up to $4, but you got to keep the change!)
Then Trump arrives with a tariff of 47% on Madagascar (actual number imposed). Well, even if the folks in madagascar lowered the price to their actual costs of $3, the tariffs would bring the price at the grocery store to $3 + 0.47*$3= $4.41. At that price, you are not interested so you don’t buy and the government doesn’t collect money on that bottle. So you, the consumer in the US, do not trade with Madagascar. But remember, trade was good for you and for the vanilla producer in Madagascar. The tariff killed a good thing, making both you and the vanilla producer worse off! This is why tariffs are fundamentally bad. They prevent voluntary exchanges (of legal goods and services) between willing individuals.
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u/PebbleBeach1919 19h ago
The actual formula they used is trade deficit divided by trade. If there was no trade deficit, they just randomly picked 10%.
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u/fthesemods 17h ago
Which begs the question why. If a country has zero tariffs and the US has a trade surplus with them (e.g Singapore), why on earth would 10% tariffs make sense even as a negotiating tactic? There's really nothing more they can do.
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u/WokNWollClown 6h ago
What he is doing is not unreasonable ....it's HOW he is doing it.
Over the longer term 20 years or more, you could raise tariffs to compensate for the lack of them in a competitive world market.... it would make things better in the US and the adjustments would be small and easier to manage.
Ramming them down the world's throat is going to hurt everyone. But he feels he has to get it all done in the next 4 years...that's no way to do this.
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u/rkesters 20h ago
100% agree!
I would love to know your #2 and #3 abhorrent policies. I'd like to get a since of just how much worse. And if Smoot-hawley(sp?) is one, do you have another, none tariff one?
I'm not an economist, but I'm very interested.
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u/Emergency_Cry5965 12h ago
The Smoot-Hawley tariffs were extremely destructive but that was 100 years ago and we understood economics much less than we do today. They are still number 2 in my books, but given what we know now, the Trump tariffs way-way worse.
Then all the next ones are bad monetary policy. Specifically, rapid and uncontrolled expansion of the monetary base (ie, printing money as if it did not matter). Worse cases: Germany 1921-23; Hungary 1946; Zimbabwe 2007-09.
The result of rapidly expanding the monetary base is hyperinflation. In Hungary, prices were doubling every 15hours. In Zimbabwe, every day. This means that if you have a dollar in your pocket today, it is only worth 50 cents at the end of the day; 25 cents tomorrow, etc so nobody can save, no investments crazy interests rates but no ody wants to lend money, etc. everything falls apart pretty quick.
PS. I have a ZIM$10 billion bank note in my office. I might have been able to buy bubble gum with it!
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u/Most_Candidate_5706 12h ago
It's designed to either crater our economy so the rich can buy everything up or, more likely, a state level plan in action to destroy U.S hard/soft power and push countries towards China, etc. Either way, it is an evolving national emergency and a constitutional crisis without equal in American history.
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u/nickj230606 23h ago
His chart wasn’t accurate and your statement isn’t either. You can’t include things that they don’t tarrif. Go look at autos. EU charges 10 percent. But, they also have created many barriers to entry in addition. Look at Asia on auto. Tech etc. what other countries (and us) do is advertise the avg tarrif. Which is irrelevant. Antarctica ain’t exporting any avocados you know what I mean. So avg looks much better than looking at industry. That’s the key, what does your country make and how much is the tarrif on it. And also more importantly barriers to entry. I’ll use autos again. Go ride a highway in US. You see all kinds of cars. I have been traveling to Asia and Europe multiple times a year for work. You don’t see many American cars in EU and China (when I was still going) has none. Look at aerospace. China reverse engineered planes they bought from airbus and Boeing and now COMAC will be the only supplier to Chinese firms within a decade. We have a lot of barriers to entry because one thing we have a lot of is wealthy people. So I get that part but I also think there can be some middle grounds here
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u/Pitiful-Recover-3747 19h ago
Well as for autos, there’s not much that America makes that the rest of the world wants. Could you imagine driving your Ford super duty around London or Italy? You’d eat 3 lanes of road. You’re bigger than the damn delivery trucks. Not a parking spot in the country would fit you. I own a second home in the Philippines. Maybe 2% of the population could afford an American made vehicle. And when you compare the ford ranger in the Philippines vs the Toyota Hilux, the Isuzu or the Chinese models… you pay more for a lot less.
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u/Fuddle 23h ago
Let’s pick one to explain to those who don’t know, can you elaborate on the EU non tariff barriers for US made cars?
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u/delilahgrass 20h ago
Things like emissions standards. American car companies do sell cars in the EU, for instance Ford does very well, but they have factories in the EU that manufacture for that market - smaller, better gas mileage and meet emission standards. A log of American cars, and especially trucks are too big for European roads and prohibitively expensive to run due to the cost of gas due to taxes. Those are considered “barriers”.
With other products such as beef and chicken (as mentioned by Lutnick) the barrier is that Europe has much higher standards for the care of animals raised for food and does not allow all the chemicals used in feed and meat processing that America allows. Again, the barrier is that American companies don’t want to meet European standards.
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u/nickj230606 23h ago
Sure thing. Tarrifs are a barrier to entry but the the biggest ones minus the tarrif disparity are separate country regulations, distribution channels, environmental and services. I don’t want to write a paper here but I can elaborate. EU isn’t a country. It’s a bunch of countries together. Different languages, different taxes at the local level etc. but the hardest ones to overcome for Us firms is services and price disparity. No sane person would look at a Malibu and a low end benzo and say hey since the price is the same, gimme that Malibu.the way the sell and service and maintain vehicles here is much different then in Europe and other countries. It’s impossible to commit money to Stand up dealerships and serving and distribution when your Chevy Malibu isn’t meant to compete in price with a Benz or other European cars. So that whole circle means we have too many barriers to entry. Ask this question to yourself and then see what you come up with, if EU is all about fair trade with us than why do they not incentivize us manufacturing firms to come over?
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u/KAY-toe 1d ago
This has been analyzed to death this week, just look around. Trump supporters will say whatever he tells them, he could’ve had a picture of MTG and Hunter Biden 69’ing on that tariff list and they would say it was genius.
He figured out 2 important things long ago:
It takes 100X time to explain why a lie is a lie than to say the lie itself and most of his people aren’t actually interested in understanding underlying issues to the point where they would actually listen through the explanation anyways. And by the time you get done explaining it, he’ll have told 10 more lies anyways.
Each uninformed/misinformed voter’s vote counts just as much as each informed voter’s vote.
It’s incredible that a president put those numbers up there, you can’t tell if he’s being misled vs. Emperor’s New Clothes. Either way we’re fucked.
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u/MrSnarf26 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes many countries had targeted and negotiated tariffs. What Trump has done is take our trade deficit with every other country and say that is their “tariff rate” and unilaterally apply it across the board. He also leaves out the big picture in these trade deficits of how the US is usually benefiting.
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u/joverack 1d ago
I heard somebody spread what I believe to be misinformation that he’s just realizes, with Canada as an example, the 25% tariffs they had on us.
As someone who sounds more informed than I, what did Canada have? And what did the U.S. have for tariffs before Trump? Didn’t we also have targeted and negotiated tariffs?
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u/Scary_Firefighter181 1d ago
The trade weighted tariff that Canada had on US overall was 3.1%. The US had about the same amount on Canada. Lol.
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u/matterhorn1 18h ago
It’s tariffs on very specific things, like milk for example. https://globalnews.ca/news/11080769/donald-trump-tariffs-dairy-products-explained/amp/
TLDR It’s really a nothing burger because the amount of dairy imported into Canada never reaches the levels where tariffs would be applied. This is not done to punish external countries, it is to protect our local producers. In reality we don’t need to buy ANY milk at all, our farmers produce the amount we need.
Most products are not tariffed and anything that is was agreed to by Trump in the USMCA
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u/jrcat2 21h ago
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7485622 almost nothing most of the time unless they imported a huge amount that almost never happens. Most of the time you only put tariffs on certain products that are necessary to your country so they don't go out of business and needs it to be competitive. Canada did put 25 percent tariffs on some of our products after we hit them with the first round of tariffs
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u/EconomistWithaD 1d ago
Yes. There were tariffs. Most developed countries had average tariff rates under 5%.
We now have the second highest tariff rate in the world, only behind the manufacturing powerhouse that is Bermuda.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tariff_rate
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u/GCSchmidt 21h ago
Nearly every country has tariffs, mainly to protect a domestic sector. For example, Japan has a stiff tariff on rice to protect local farmers. These can be called surgical tariffs, meant to be as precise as possible to allow for free trade. What fuckwad and his fuckwits did was take every country's high-end number, call that a blanket number (a global tariff), and then applied a sledgehammer where precision has been proven to work well. It is the bellowing of a cretin cheered on by despicable vermin
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u/Wizoerda 16h ago
Actually, the Trump-tariffs-on-the-world have no relationship to what tariffs the countries charge on US goods. The big board of numbers is even stupider than you think ... Youtube link to CBC "About That" segment on the tariffs. The CBC is Canada's public broadcaster. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PWhv-06DNjE&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5tD
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u/GCSchmidt 15h ago
I agree with you 100%. My example was to show a rational use of tariffs, which is light-years away from what these dipshits are doing
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u/Equivalent-Excuse-80 1d ago
Tariffs serve a purpose. Whether it’s to offer more domestic competition of private industry against a government subsidized import like Airbus.
Other times tariffs can act as a form of diplomacy where political demands are made and a tariff is implemented until the demands are met.
But the problem here is Trump isn’t targeting tariffs. He’s issued blanket and seemingly random tariffs at seemingly random amounts; with no demands or goals of what he wants to get in order to eliminate the tariffs.
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u/Dull_Conversation669 1d ago
In his speech the other day he mentioned the calculation involved non-monetary trade barriers, I assumed he meant import caps.
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u/bal00 1d ago
That was a lie. The formula they provided doesn't include anything like that. It just uses the import/export balance of a country.
They didn't try to measure trade barriers and they didn't even include actual tariff rates in the calculation. They're just assuming that if the US buys more from a certain country than vice versa, that must be because said country has tariffs or trade barriers in place. Whether they actually do or not doesn't matter.
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u/silverwolfe 1d ago
People have found out that essentially the numbers displayed by Trump were just the US trade deficit with that country divided by their total exports to the US (eg. We have a 17.9b trade deficit with Indonesia and their total US exports are 28b. 17.9/28 = .64 or 64% which is what was listed on Trump's chart for what Indonesia is tariffing.). An exception to this is any country listed with 10% tariffs, those are seemingly entirely arbitrary as those countries were more or less balanced trading relationships but we tariff'd them anyway.
This is an absolutely stupid and inaccurate way of reporting this data meant to lie to the American people.
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u/Equivalent-Excuse-80 1d ago
Did he mean that? You had to assume it because it was never said.
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u/Dull_Conversation669 1d ago
I mean they exist and should be included.
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u/Chambanasfinest 18h ago
But they weren’t.
The trump tariffs are based solely on the difference in balance of trade. It was highly deceptive and misleading to say that the tariffs match other countries’ trade barriers.
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u/WoylieMcCoy 18h ago
In the case of Australia, for example, he means our biosecurity policies (we won't buy US beef because of it's substandard mad cow disease controls) and the fact that we negotiate bulk rates for pharmaceuticals via the PBS (he wants us to stop doing that so that we can be charged more for medications). He's pissed about any policy that limits the ability of US companies to make maximum money, regardless of the fact that other countries have their own priorities that maybe are more about the welfare of their people and not making maximum money for big corporations
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u/GhostOfAnakin 21h ago
Yes and no. The problem is Trump is too stupid (or doesn't care) to look at the context of them.
Take for example him saying Canada has a 200% tariff (or whatever number he used) on USA dairy products. What he ignores is that tariff only kicks in when US companies import a certain number of that product into Canada. Otherwise, the tariff is zero.
For example (not real numbers), a USA dairy farmer imports milk into Canada. For the first 1,000,000 units of cartons of milk, there is ZERO tariffs on that. But anything more than 1,000,000 and then tariffs kick in. And for the vast majority of USA companies importing into Canada, they never surpass that total, so they never pay tariffs.
This is done as a protection for Canadian dairy farmers so that a USA company doesn't just flood the market and bankrupt them all. But as I said above, it never reaches that level because USA companies don't ever surpass that threshold where the tariff kicks in.
This is the stupidity of Trump and his defenders. They see the "200% tariffs on dairy" and think that applies to ALL units sold, and don't bother looking at the fine print to see that under the USMCA agreement, it's free trade (ie. zero tariffs) unless a company exceeds an extraordinary amount.
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u/armageddus 14h ago
They don’t surpass the total because the tariffs Canada charges on dairy are so high there’s no point to go beyond the quota. The argument is that the tariffs are working.
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u/Berns429 20h ago
If he sticks with this through his presidency and doesn’t retract , it’s possible we’ll see countries begin trading with each other and leave the US behind. That should do wonders economically.
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u/MoveEither1986 18h ago
It's already happening at a consumer level in other countries. US made products are about as popular as.... well... Teslers. There's no need for retaliatory tariffs when people refuse to buy your products anyway.
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u/ColdEvenKeeled 18h ago
It's about trade deficits. Not what is actually being blocked by tariffs.
Let's take Vietnam for an example. How would they balance the trade deficit?
By buying American made products? Like what? Lumber (for the termites)? King Crab (they have their own crab)? Endless McDonald burgers (they have Bahn Mi, much better)? They buy computer hardware from China and Taiwan (we all do), and American vehicles don't fit the roads while using far too much energy. Ah, they could buy some Boeing planes, but how many does Vietnam need to buy to balance the trade deficit from t-shirts and chili sauce?
Canada has oil it sells to the US. It is refined and then sold on as an American product to great profit. Because Canada sells this oil, America has a trade deficit to Canada. What is Canada and Canadians supposed to do to balance this trade deficit? Eat more American fast food than they already do? Drink terrible American beer? Buy F-35s, which they had signed up for and are now thinking of leaving as there are too many strings attached? Allow more American engineering firms to build the nation's roads and bridges, thereby putting Canada's engineers out of business? Ha!
The problem isn't the trade deficits. It's the voracious (avaricious?) American appetite for any and all finished products or raw commodities that a) makes American companies more profit by on-selling b) furnishes consumer Americans with an ease and comfort untold in history.
Find us all these magical unicorn red-blooded Americans who want a factory shift job. They don't exist. Meanwhile in Indonesia you'd find many poor farmers who can/will leave the farm to work in shoe factories as it, despite the shit conditions, improves their lot.
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u/unbuckingbelievable 18h ago
This is the policy of victimhood. The idea that America is “ being ripped off” because we have a trade deficit is ridiculous on its face. We buy stuff that’s manufactured at a labor price we can’t reach here……but then we spend all of that month we saved right here in America…going out to eat, buying groceries, hiring people etc. That all ends when we buy a $4000 American made table when a similar Chinese table is $600. The idea that we have a manufacturing resurgence is just retrograde bullshit. Manufacturing has largely been automated, especially in China. We might create tens of thousands of jobs at the risk of losing millions. Manufacturing wages, even if those old union jobs returned, are below service industry wages, so we wouldn’t even benefit if manufacturing came back. This is the politics of grievance and we will drive the US car into a ditch to own the libs and alienate our allies.
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u/meridian_smith 20h ago
The board of tariffs he showed was a complete fabrication. No country has across the board tariffs on US products and several countries do have some very specific targeted tariffs on certain products.
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u/Infamous_Employer_85 16h ago
The numbers they presented have zero to do with the tariffs of other countries. For instance, Vietnam has a net 1.1% tariff for the goods from the US, higher in some very targeted products, zero on many others.
Trump's team calculated the tariff as
One half of (Export to US - Import from US)/(Export to US)
For Vietnam this is ((136.6B - 13.1B)/136.6B ) x 0.5 = 45.2%
Which has zero to do with the tariff Vietnam has on US goods.
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u/Professional-Dot-825 15h ago
You have a disordered sociopath with 34 felonies. Peter Navarro, also a convicted criminal and somehow paints himself as a gigantic macro economics expert.
The treasury secretary, formerly the head of Canter Fitzgerald, looking up to Trump and going along with all this and saying anybody complains about getting paid is a fraudster.
The treasury Secretary knows better …he used to be a professor at Yale. He’s a super wealthy Wall Street guy.
Probably the worst thing you’ve got Elon Musk and all of the others saying now that Wisconsin election was fake. The votes were all suspicious.
On and on . It’s just crazy cult behavior.
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u/ConsequenceVast3948 1d ago edited 1d ago
Other countries have tariffs on usa but those have nothing to do with the outrageous numbers he pulled.he used trade deficit as a basis instead of tariffs.so all these talk about these tariffs being reciprocal is just a lie.
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u/matterhorn1 18h ago
Correct. And the tariffs (at least for Canada) are only on very specific industries. I’m not familiar with how other countries operate but I assume it’s similar.
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u/bpeden99 1d ago
Trump's a convicted felon and those tariffs had stipulations to be enforced. The Canadian tariffs against America were only when trade reached an egregious imbalance, and exceeded a limit that we never reached.
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u/ProgrammerAvailable6 1d ago
Trade across the US Canada border was at less than 2% when he unilaterally imposed tariffs against the USMCA agreement - which he also signed.
And that’s less than 2% for goods going to Canada and less than 2% for goods going to the States.
Trump is an unrepentant lying asshole of the highest order.
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u/bpeden99 1d ago
Strongly agree...
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u/ProgrammerAvailable6 1d ago
crossing my fingers up here in hopes that we give the PhD economist a strong mandate so he can move well against trump.
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u/bpeden99 1d ago
Ditto... My ignorance thinks this is all a tactic for negotiation but I'm worried his ego will implode of her doesn't get his way.
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u/ProgrammerAvailable6 1d ago
It’s not so much Trump being the boil on the butt of the world that worries me so much - it’s the silence of his party when he’s threatening nato allies and lying so blatantly about tariffs.
It tells me that the problem goes deeper than the felon the people elected.
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u/HandsLikePaper 1d ago
It doesn't matter. US consumers will now be paying higher prices on the same products as before due to trade wars that don't make sense. This is a weak rationale for destroying the country. It's like arguing that I should shoot myself in the leg because someone pricked my finger with a pin.
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u/Helmidoric_of_York 21h ago
He won't tell you what they were though. It would ruin his whole shtick. The reality is that the tariff rates of other countries on us is far lower than our rates on them, even before the tariffs came into effect. It's all a ruse because it's all completely disingenuous and based on falsehoods. The goal is to get leverage, but nobody seems to know for what purpose. Trump has so many grievances to settle.
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u/bikebrx 19h ago
There have been tariffs both ways for ever but they have been based on product classification not just a made up number for everything. I worked for the US subsidiary of a Taiwanese bicycle company in the early 2000's doing purchase order and import paperwork and tracking and like it's been stated a thousand times over in the last 8 years, tariffs are paid by the importer. It's been a long time but I remember road bikes being tariffed at about 9% but mtn bikes were closer to 15%. Now if there were US made parts on a bike, like a suspension part, you would subtract the parts value from what you paid a tariff on. Cycling jerseys and other type of tops from Asia had the highest tariff I remember at over 30%. The same type of item from Colombia or Kenya had no tariff as we had trade agreements with those countries. There are/were a ridiculous number of classifications but most of it was to address trade imbalances of specific industries. What we have now is purely moronic as it will just make everything more expensive.
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u/A3815 16h ago
If only there was a device that was small enough to carry on our person that somehow had access to all the data in the world.
Google Vietnam HTC
In the way back times countries would negotiate and nations would look at what trade was in their best interest and then they would publish the tariff rates annual in a great books called the harmonized tariff codes., each nation deciding the rates that were in there own best interests.
That was before the US had the all knowing and all powerful Trump.
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u/Commercial_Rule_7823 9h ago
Trump slapped Vietnam hard, 46% tariff, even though they have a 9% or so tariff on US goods.
Trump thinks a trade deficit is them placing a tariff on us, its notnthe case. They simply cannot afford to purchase the same amount of our good as we do from them. They are just not as wealthy as us.
But we love them though for cheap resources, labor, etc....
Even though we have a deficit, we save so much keeping product costs low by utilizing vietnam.
Trump just doesnt get it.
Things are about to get real expensive and fast.
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u/TheCapPike13 9h ago
You have to google for weighted average tax data because weighted average tax data makes more sense than just comparing raw tax rates between countries because it gives you a realistic picture of what’s actually happening in practice, not just in theory. So weighted average tax from EU to US is 1% for example 🙈
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u/CaLego420 8h ago
My thing about this entire debacle is the whole "manufacturing/jobs" narrative: like HOW exactly are you intending to make manufacturing jobs return? HOW can you incentive American companies to even consider the monetary and time capital necessary to want to build stateside? Normally you COULD maybe give them a tax break for their cooperation, and a tax increase in case they tried getting out of line, since they aren't paying taxes anyways, why would they care and even if they did it wouldn't ease their recent piracy as far as pricing is considered, so WHAT is the plan for that? Is the common high-price-to-maintain American manufacturer suddenly in major demand somehow that they are begging to pay our higher labor and margin costs with competitive cost-to-live incentives like health care or massive tax breaks for John Q Workingman, so much so that lines are forming around the block? Particularly what is it we manufacture that is in such a high demand globally that we'll all have stacks of Benjamin's exploding out of our pockets constantly?
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u/CockchopsMcGraw 6h ago
Thinking too hard, Russian asset dum dum. The plan is to bring you down from the inside, enjoy.
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u/J0EG1 19h ago edited 18h ago
He’s trying to zero out trade deficits with countries like china and Vietnam. Nothing really to do with tariffs they impose.
Tariffs are a tax the importing country imposes on goods that are imported. It /can/ be absorbed by the importing entity (say an electronics company selling iPhones) or passed directly to the consumers. So if it’s a tariff of 10% a $1000 phone costs $1100.
When Americans say it’s not fair that Vietnam imposes tariffs on goods imported from the US ask yourself do you want Vietnams standard of living or Americas?
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u/random_encounters42 18h ago
Trump administration only hires people who agree with him. It’s literally a government full of yes men, thus Trump’s unbounded stupidity is shining through.
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u/daGroundhog 14h ago
A lot of it was BS. I've seen charts saying Canada imposes really high tariffs on dairy products. The truth is "not exactly". There are high tariff rates published, but they only apply if we export market dominating amounts of dairy products to Canada. Otherwise, it's zero percent. We are nowhere near the point of those tariffs been applied.
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u/deemthedm 13h ago
They aren’t going to be able to mental gymnastics like they are astoundingly still able to once the price of everything goes up 10-30% in a few months. No use arguing with them
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u/thesoftwalker 20h ago
🤣 this is coming from CNN..that's been found to not tell the whole truth and losing/firing/changing their "journalists". If this was true then why are these countries suddenly wanting to make deals?
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u/2gutter67 20h ago
Get off Truth Social and read some actual information somewhere. Or just go back into obsurity bot.
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u/StedeBonnet1 1d ago edited 6h ago
Yes, other countries have had tariffs priotr to these new Trump tariffs and they were mostly higher than the US. That is what prompted Trump's tariffs. Duh.
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u/IamDoloresDei 1d ago
Then why did they calculate the tariffs by looking at imports divided by exports?
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u/bojun 1d ago
Source please as it doesn't agree with this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tariff_rate
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u/MDLmanager 22h ago
Do you have a source for that, or are you just taking daddy trump's word on that?
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u/Sad-Effect-5027 27m ago
Yes, but it’s pretty dependent on the country. Tariffs to be specific to an industry or product and not broad tariffs against an entire country’s import/exports.
As an example, Canada has very high tariffs on dairy products over a certain amount. Basically, the US can export a certain amount of dairy products duty-free, after that everything is tariffed in the triple digits. Canada is very protective of their dairy industry and uses tariffs to prevent it from being overwhelmed and flooded with American products.
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