Tariffs shouldn't really Hurt us

[u/Sensitive-Pie-6595]

Those who live in Yard know that for so long we have been creating our own products, and buying from anywhere but the US. This goes back to the 1980s when America would give us 'string loans'... that is... they loan us $X but it can only be used to buy American products.

There was a time when in a supermarket big loooong aisles full of US stuff.

Over the years we started to quietly replace them with local products so that we didn't those loans.

We also started buying from other islands so that we had stuff from T'dad and of course, China.

Just before Trump did his tariff thing I looked at where my stuff came from.

Okay, everything that plugs in comes from China. Almost all my clothes come from China.

Now, my groceries.

I buy local stuff and stuff that comes from T'dad and every where else. Like this yogurt I use on my cereal comes from France, the other from Spain and the cereal is Jamaican. The coffee is Jamaican and I use Lasco instead of coffee mate.

The kind of flat breads/wraps i use are made in Jamaica as are the vegetables, soup, porridge, chocolate... in fact... I read labels before purchase.

if you look on the roads we have Toyota, Sukuzi... I haven't seen a US car since some years ago this Dodge.

I think Jamaica is not going to suffer very much because we wisely moved to standing on our own.

[u/Environmental_Tooth]

You also don't understand how tarrifs works. Or how Jamaica shopping for essentials has been moving. Everyone's shopping online for clothes and shoes because of the astronomical prices here.

Look at glasses. The eye wear companies are complaining. Because no one buys their over priced shit.

Not many people buy clothes here anymore. I don't remember the last time I did this. Prices are too crazy. They buy it on Amazon, Amazon gets it from china or Vietnam. It's shipped from the US to your door it will be affected by tarrifs.

Almost anything with a chip in it originated in Taiwan or Korea. China makes small appliances and TVs that sell well in Jamaica. Your computer your cellphone the car your average person owns has chips from Taiwan. Now increase the cost of of that chip by 35%. Buying anything with a screen or that has a chip means the cost is gonna increase two fold.

You have to also remember for the scale of most of our Jamaicans most of our vendors can't go directly to China. Not enough scale. So we go to resellers where? In the US. That will be affected by tarrifs.

So we're fucked on many fronts. I put in the order last week from some computer parts because I knew prices were gonna sky rocket after this fuckery. But let's see if they actually go through with these crazy increases in cost for everything.

[u/Samjm876 → u/Environmental_Tooth]

I think you’re misunderstanding I read quickly through what you said so I may be missing some context but tariffs are paid by the purchasing country, the way it affects up is that instead of our products that are sent to the U.S. that would cost 💲 10 usd now with the 10% tariff it with be $ 11 to import , what that does it cause importers to seek cheaper imports sources reducing the amount of sales on imports we produce to the U.S. thus what happening. We have always had tariffs on US imports (we call it customs fee) with his executive order it states that anybody who has tariffs (customs fees) on us put it back on their goods that are coming in to our country. So the U.S. consumer pays the taxes not us. Side note thou yes for all the goods that are shipped into the U.S. as a secondary stop before it gets to us there will be tariffs (customs fees) applied however I’m not sure if there are exempt products bcz I know persons purchase on alibaba recently and weren’t charged any “tariffs”

[u/Environmental_Tooth → u/Samjm876]

All our goods make that secondary stop In the US is what I'm saying. Amazon doesn't ship your goods directly from china to Jamaica. If it's sold by Amazon it's purchased by them imported to the US and stored in a warehouse.

We buy all our tech directly from manufacturers in the US and they will be paying those tarrifs which will be passed on to us.

Example. You want to buy a graphics card. You identify a 5080 from Nvidia MSRP before tarrifs 800. Let's say last week you could get this card from Nvidia a us company at that price. If Nvidia has to restock these cards they go back to Taiwan and say ok we need more 5080s. They say great and send them over. Nvidia then imports these cards to the US and pays the 35% tarrifs. They then pass that cost over to you the consumer who isn't buying anything from Taiwan. So your graphics card purchase of 800 is now 1200. Even though you bought a product off Nvidia the cost increases astronomically because of how broad these tarrifs are.

A lot of our used cars are even the US versions that will now be at a higher cost. If these tarrifs go through and stay.