I would love it to be that simple. There are some reasons why the US doesn’t source everything from local farmers, one of them namely being its cheaper than growing it locally… the free market then shifted to more economical means of product.
The cost has to get transferred somewhere, and most likely it will be to the consumer.
I know the goal is to basically force our economy to be more local, but we will have to subsidize in some areas when the demand curve can’t meet the supply for raw material cost. Businesses most certainly won’t pay their employees the proper adjustments, they have other obligations. Income inequality will rise until the market can straighten itself out… but govt intervention will most certainly be needed, minus the already done tariffs.

E/ it might deal a permanent blow to income inequality, on the wrong side. It really just depends on what goods can basically be given up for the sake of cost.

This post was edited by IchBinDaddy on Feb 2 2025 07:54am

You're rehashing a talking point. It's a common mistake. As it stands right now, there is an excess of food produced that is not sold for American consumption, instead it's sold to a wide variety of other nations. Japan is a big importer, just to name one. Most local farmers don't really like exporting the food. But the local processing plants won't work with them. However, a 25% tariff will make the local foods (and other raw products) cheaper. Then, rather than buying foreign and processing locally, we can buy locally, AND process locally as well.

Which was precisely what we did in WWII and post WWII to become the economic powerhouse we are. The idea of throwing out an entire portion of our supply chain is part of what has led us down a road where we're losing industry, tech, base level jobs, pharma manufacturing, etc. to every other nation.

All of the US's wealth is flowing outward, because we aren't making our own shit. All for the profit of some global corporate billionaires. Tariffs will balance it out. Prices increasing? Nah. Trump's other agenda item is fuel, remember? When gas is cheap, prices are lower ANYWAY. And purely based on speculation, prices have ALREADY dropped by a dollar thirty per gallon (here) from what they were on November 1st. As more drilling and pipeline projects are opened up, resumed, or approved, and we start seeing actual production, fuel and energy prices could come back down to the levels we saw in 2019-2020. At which point grocery prices will follow. Right now, a huge percentage of food costs is still just transportation.

History says tarrifs while not in full on everything often get passed on to the end consumer eventually. There's been some pretty decent studies on it, particularly around things like electronics.

Unless you regulate industry / corps an American made dish washer will end up posted at the same price as the Chinese one that has the 25% markup because people are still willing to buy a dishwasher.

There's been lots of deep dives following products. While it might be a political tool to get a larger task done its usually at the detriment to that countries own citizens wallet. A trade off, which typically makes sense. You have to often given something up to get something done.

It's not just win win win. Now you just have to consider is the objective or reason these terrifs are going in place, that overall objective worth the individual loss of your own people.

I'm not against them should, but there be a fairly clear path to that overall objective and if that objective is actually obtainable.


What's sad is, a significant portion of people American, and Canadian alike don't understand tarrifs at all. They hear a 25% Mexican tarrif and they think products being imported by Mexico cost 25% more. These are intelligent people in their own respective fields most of the time but pay little attention to politics.

But American and Canadian financial literacy is abysmal.

This post was edited by SBD on Feb 2 2025 09:01am

No, I agree with you, SBD. What we should do is not tariff China. Because I mean, when they enslave an entire ethnic group, set them to growing, maintaining, and picking cotton, then making shoes, sportswear, you name it... Until they're needed for organ harvesting... Followed by selling those products under a Nike tag or Adidas tag when the only thing done in the US was to put the emblem on it. Well, as it stands right now, there's no duty or tariff on that company that uses that slave labor to get that product that only needs a moment of labor to turn into an end product on shore. It's all pure profit. And tell me, what does a Nike shirt cost? Or an Adidas pair of shoes? Yeah! There shouldn't be tariffs to bring American Citizens into competition with governments that do that to their own people.

Progressives are pretty shit, when it comes to human rights. Which, well, is obvious. Nazis, Soviets, Maoists, Mussolini, and the list goes on of who the progressives are and were.

Again I'm not against tarrifs so I'm not sure if you're calling me the progressive here or not, you're a bit of a lunatic so difficult to follow the thought train.

I luckily have the luxery of being able to purchase mostly garage born gear for almost everything in my day to day life, but my household income is also 6x average.

Unfortunately imports for the most part are significantly cheaper and wage growth has been pretty stagnant compared to costs, particularly housing through the years. People will buy what's cheaper and as I previously mentioned unless you regulate American corps they will just mark their products up 25% more and have a higher net profit rather than marking up 25% to increase wages.

There's an entire bucket of issues when it comes to buying non imported goods that need to be resolved and have been the result of successful lobbying from everything to food chain to distribution to manufacturers.

I won't even delve into people's addiction for consumption, in particular fast fashion which certainly won't be stopped just from some tarrifs on China. An ugly fad which) while I'm still here in mostly my old wool clothing that I've had for 15 years.

There's a mountain to climb right now when it comes to human rights and the products we consume.

This post was edited by SBD on Feb 2 2025 09:19am

All we know is tariffs were implemented in the 1930s to alleviate the effects great depression and help fund the diminishing federal government. What did we learn from this? It made things worse for the poor and middle class consumers.

This historically isn't true. Smaller markets and nations have won in trade wars due to instability of greater populations and market declines.

https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1885821495080825305

So I'm trying to understand what the end goal here is. Although it's framed as to stop fentanyl, i don't actually think it's about that. Canada or Mexico could invest billions and stand on their heads and they still wouldn't completely stop drug trafficking. I also don't think this is about Canada becoming the 51st US state.

Both of these are just noise. What the desired outcome here is some trade rebalancing so it's not so lobsided, whether it's with Mexico or Canada. For eons these countries benefit as their domestic goods can be exported to this massive market right across their border. It benefits their companies, it benefits their workers and job creation. It also benefits the US consumer but it came at the detriment of US job creation, while multinationals have found it favorable to put a car factory in Canada or in Mexico while they sell those goods in the US.

Trump IMO is trying to reverse this multi-decade trend of outsourcing. If he can force even a fraction of these multinationals to basically put their factories in the US, it would be a net good for domestic job creation and repatriation. He can do this in his final term because he realizes there's short term pain for Americans, but it's about legacy for him at this point. No country is off the limits, not the Euros, not our neighbors. The message is clear, bring production here, concede some balance of trade to make it more even, or your products aren't going to be competitive in the biggest consumption market.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Feb 2 2025 09:40am

To the first part, probably.

To the second part, what do you think wages are like? I'm seeing $19/hour for McDonalds. $24/hour for cashiers and stockers.

Maybe you live in a poor area? Yes, housing has gone up. But food is going down now, and the wages have gone up considerably. Which isn't surprising, that's what happens when you print $16 Trillion in 4 years.

You're underestimating possibility of the decline of consumerism in America as a result of these policies. Our job wages aren't going up. Our government is falling apart. Eventually people will not be able to afford luxury items.

Trump's plans will do nothing but cause immediate instability and price hikes. The corporate demons will just try to maximize their profits while playing the market. The market will crash. The rich will get richer by selling out then buying back in.

We are sincerely f*cked unless you are the 1%.