r/wallstreetbets • u/s1n0d3utscht3k • 1d ago

News China Imposes 34% Tariffs on All US Imports

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/china-imposes-34-tariffs-on-all-us-imports-as-retaliation

China will impose a 34% tariff on all imports from the US starting April 10, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

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u/WestBrink 1d ago

Right? Have a fairly cushy job working for an oil company. Our stock slid like 12% yesterday, and we've had McKinsey so far up our asses for the last three years to try and improve stock prices. Not looking forward to what comes next...

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u/peniseend 1d ago

You know what's next. Generating synergies through streamlined operations is. 

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u/WestBrink 1d ago

Oh good! Could we perhaps get a bunch of 26 year old MBAs with zero understanding of oil and gas to help us with that?

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u/DashLeJoker 1d ago

Not before they had their Starbucks that are now 40% more expensive

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u/Fit-Macaroon5559 22h ago

Wow, never thought about that most coffee beans are imported!!!

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u/KamachoThunderbus 21h ago

Hence the penguin tarrifs, you're catching on

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u/KeenanKolarik Still sucks dick for coke 22h ago

Without them, who else would tell you that you should try to cut your costs and maximize your revenues??

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u/WestBrink 22h ago

Lol, they literally had everyone sit down in a room and ask everyone what ideas we had that could make money without any capital costs.

Wow thanks guys! Let me just pull out my list of quick moneymakers that I've been holding on to. I don't know why we never thought to just do all the things that make money

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 16h ago

At the very least, that's defensible in the sense that management at a lot of large (and small, actually) companies don't listen to the ideas that lower-level employees have.

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u/weasler7 1d ago

Aren’t those wankers known for cutting costs?

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u/kahrahtay 23h ago

That's what all consultants do. You hire a consultant when you want to fire a bunch of people, but not make it seem like it was management's idea

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u/weasler7 23h ago

My father in law works in oil and gas. After he is laid off I think he will retire.

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u/AnyBug1039 23h ago

unfortunately he can't retire now - his pension is now insufficient

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u/Lunar_BriseSoleil 23h ago

They’re known for being absolute clueless trash.

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u/No-Needleworker-6264 22h ago

Do you hear that? It's the sound of dozen PowerPoint monkeys making decks presentable. It's gonna be fiiiiii... oh shit.

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u/devandroid99 23h ago edited 1h ago

Hahahah, I used to work for one of the oldest tanker companies in the world, the fleet went from sixty ships to six because of these clueless cunts. Never been in water deeper than a bath.

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u/powerof7 2h ago

How does that work, do companies hire consultants who tell them to cut costs ? Can't company ceos come up with same idea on their own ?

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u/devandroid99 1h ago

They get to fuck people over and maintain distance from it - "not our fault we're making people redundant, we've had the experts in and it's the best way to proceed".

Gutless approach and a waste of money but there must be all kinds of kickbacks and promises happening behind the scenes.

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u/FlimsyMo 22h ago

I saw my school offers MBA and apparently it’s one of the easier degrees to get….and apparently all they do is pull up and tell people what to do. Why would I not want this gig?

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u/Budget_Counter_2042 22h ago

MBA is worth more for networking than for what you learn there.

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u/FlimsyMo 21h ago

Good point, don’t usually see “most have MBA” in the job post

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 16h ago

That's arguably why only like the top 10 MBA programs are really worth going to.

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u/According_Candy3510 22h ago

No, they are too busy choosing Patagonia vests. Instead a bunch 21 year old unpaid interns whose only merits are daddy’s connections will help you!

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u/puf_puf_paarthurnax 22h ago

Or "consultants" that over analyze your books and make you change something that makes the guys lives twice as hard and the job take twice as long because it saves like $1,200 a year.... on paper?

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u/aleramz 20h ago

Man this is scary, as a Frac Sr FE

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u/fenikz13 22h ago

Nope just ChatGPT now

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u/throwntosaturn 17h ago

Honestly your company might be in trouble if they haven't already gotten their idiot MBA holders. I'm kind of shocked they waited so long, supply is drying up.

You need to tell them to step up their game.

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u/hummingbird_cudagpt 23h ago

Mckinsey is bad, very bad and job killers. pray they go under soon and never rise from dust. operational efficiency by taking away peoples jobs and getting paid for that. company ceo’s and cfo’s hiring them to do this are equally to blame.

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u/Jacer4 22h ago

My company brought in McKinsey for consulting s few years ago and surprise surprise, mass firings lol

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u/EccentricFox 20h ago

Middle managers is such a loaded term, but it was a pathway of the front line works up to management and would create a structure of leadership who knew about their own fucking industry. Mckinsey basically consulted that out of existence.

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 16h ago

I'd argue that the larger context of the Jack Welch style of management did as well. The logic goes; since managers are functionally replaceable and swappable between industries, why bother doing internal development?

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u/Hate_Leg_Day 18h ago

They get hired for plausible deniability. If it goes well, the C-Suite can claim credit. If it goes badly, they can say "not our fault, McKinsey/BCG/Bain told us to do it".

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u/PickledDildosSourSex 22h ago

Product... integortion?

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u/Yupthrowawayacct 22h ago

You just made my eyelids twitch

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u/AGreasyPorkSandwich 21h ago

Fire up those fucking PowerPoints boys!

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u/tritisan 16h ago

Upstream or downstream?

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u/gpbayes 16h ago

I’m so upset by this disgusting sentence.

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u/TheShawnP 15h ago

synergizing backward overflow

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u/redblack_tree 1d ago

Lay offs, the answer to that question is always the same. Lay off the little man, restructure debt (kick the ball forward) and bonuses for the execs for "exemplary performance".

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u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi 23h ago

Don't forget how they fund the bonuses and stock buy backs with the government bail outs!

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u/BoneHammer62 1d ago

Mckinsey is the worst….

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u/Thigmotropism2 23h ago

We brought in a McKinsey alum as COO and she made herself redundant in 6 mos lol

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u/QuarkVsOdo 1d ago

FIRE EVERYONE AND INVEST IN CRYPTO

- McKinsey 1Million dollar contract Bronze-level advice

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u/lorenzel7 23h ago

Paying McKinsey in the first place is the first issue

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u/ramr0d 23h ago

You pay them to pass the buck. Being a bitch is expensive.

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u/wendall99 23h ago

My whole department got laid off yesterday.

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u/WestBrink 21h ago

Shit, sorry boss. Scary times

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u/2roK 23h ago

Did you vote for Trump?

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u/hopsonja 23h ago

Run now. I have yet to come across a company they haven’t made worse through their “services”.

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u/farmerMac 21h ago

Ah consultants! they came in and told you to try to outsource, cut jobs, and try to cut costs to improve margins?

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u/WestBrink 21h ago

Oh God, we outsourced all our IT support. Now minor software issues that used to get fixed in 30 minutes take literal weeks.

Good thing we saved on IT costs, cuz engineers sitting around twiddling their thumbs while someone in Pune is remoted into their computer for three hours can't be high value

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u/farmerMac 21h ago

but the up front savings looked great in the powerpoint deck

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u/annon8595 21h ago

the "funny" part is most of the business owners/investors voted for trump

theyll have to find out again that almost all recessions are created under GOP.

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u/WestBrink 21h ago

I have no doubt most of my colleagues did too.

Fucking embarrassing that we're even in this situation

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u/AustrianMichael 17h ago

There‘s a great Book called „When McKinsey comes to town“

They basically do nothing but advice people on some dumb shit that will lead to some very short term gains, but some very dire long term consequences. Guess who advised Purdue Pharma to aggressively market Oxy…

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u/Painwracker_Oni 22h ago

You are the only person that I've interacted with that works for an oil company so as a way up norther with no oil around me, how close is Landman (the actual oil business side not the cartel/intentional drama stuff) to being semi accurate?

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u/WestBrink 22h ago

No clue. Never seen it, and I'm in refining, not exploration and extraction anyways.

Billy Bob Thornton is a great actor tho, need to check it out...

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u/Painwracker_Oni 21h ago

Lol fair enough! Thanks for the reply! Yeah I've really enjoyed it and agreed Thornton is great in it.

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u/AGI2028maybe 21h ago

That’s when we conquer Greenland for access to oil that we can’t export bc we started a trade war for no reason.

It’s a genius plan.

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u/I_is_a_dogg 18h ago

To be fair, and I’m saying this as someone that used to work oil, oil has always been boom/bust. You’ll get laid off eventually working in oil.

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 16h ago

we've had McKinsey so far up our asses for the last three years to try and improve stock prices. Not looking forward to what comes next...

More 4-quadrant strategy powerpoints?

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u/purplepowerpete 22h ago

Yeah, because we don't produce shit the only thing that matters is stock prices. We start producing and stock prices won't matter half as much

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u/WestBrink 22h ago

What the actual fuck are you talking about?

A: we're an oil company. Literally all we do is produce shit

B: you're in r/wallstreetbets, where literally the only thing that matters is stock prices

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u/Patched7fig 21h ago

"oh darn we can't exploit cheap foreign labor. We might have to do work too this is awful" is a terrible fucking take. 

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u/WestBrink 21h ago

Ah yeah, that cheap Canadian labor we're exploiting

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u/Patched7fig 21h ago

Canadian labor isn't that cheap these days.