Quote (Ironfister @ Apr 4 2025 07:15pm)

The rule is simply: if you are importing USA goods, Americans do stuff for you, you are good and we like you, you will pay minimal tax.
Hovewer if you export your goods into USA, you are not good, we dont like you. you steal American jobs, we put a big tax on you, so it doesnt make sense to bring your goods into USA, you can no longer steal jobs from USA.

Quote (SBD @ Apr 4 2025 12:01pm)

That is the part I have not understood from day 1 and why I viewed tariffs as a tool to get non-economic things done, not balance trade deficits.

Countries vary in size massively, its only natural that some countries will buy more from other than they sell to it. The Canadian crude example is a great example. Canada has no use for all that oil, the USA has 10X the population and uses that energy, I very much expect a country with 10x a population and a significantly bigger economy to buy more than we ever possibly could.

Now i'm not an economist, but it seems pretty logical to me that countries all over the world would be in different balances with each other.

Quote (SkySwallower @ 4 Apr 2025 19:20)

But that's not what they claimed on how the tariff math works, so are they incompetent or lying?

Quote (Ironfister @ Apr 4 2025 01:43pm)

At least 99% politicians are lying.
They need to make their voters happy, and lying is a typical way to accomplish that.
But there is a bit of truth in here, that we dont know if China plays fair, or they do some kind of manipulation.

Quote (uskittles @ 5 Apr 2025 06:33)

That's western propaganda you're using. This is a constant repeat offense I've noticed by many people. Blame China and its government for its insincerity, purely off the knowledge fed to you by the media owned and backing the American politicians you say are lying to us.

To be clear, this is not a defense of China. The point is they are literally just like us when it comes to lying to the masses. If anything we are worse and more manipulative.

Quote (Ironfister @ Apr 5 2025 01:55am)

Here are the facts not the propaganda:

China keeps its currency intentionally weak.
The Chinese government (via its central bank, PBoC) actively manages the yuan's value instead of letting it float freely like the U.S. dollar or the euro.

A weaker currency makes Chinese exports cheaper on the global market, which keeps factories busy and jobs going.

This is part of a long-standing strategy to support growth through exports.

USA tariffs could help cut the Chinese exports.

Quote (thesnipa @ Apr 4 2025 12:59pm)

the height of US dominance over the world came at a time where we had:

1. top 5 land mass
2. top 5 population
3. top #1 overall exports

we've still got all of the land, less population, and less exports. and we're teetering on losing global dominance. while i dont agree with the tariff policies, i cant pretend that the US could somehow retain global dominance by just being an importer economy and exporting nothing but guns. either we maintain enough activity in the global economy as a producer/buyer/seller or we will lose the USD as world reserve currency and simply become less important in all things but war.

Quote (duffman316 @ Apr 4 2025 10:44am)

For those that do support the tarrifs, how do you think they should be calculated? The unga bunga math used to calculate the numbers being presented doesn't seem to be an approach that inspires confidence that the people behind this have any idea what they are doing.

More so I don't think I've ever read a headline from a well established news org calling a head of state an idiot in my lifetime.


Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/trumps-idiotic-and-flawed-tariff-calculations-stun-economists

Waving a big chart as a prop in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump suggested his new tariff plan was simple: “Reciprocal – that means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple. Can’t get simpler than that.”

Perhaps a bit too simple. The method used to calculate the most important numbers in international trade, politics and economics has left some of the world’s leading experts shocked.

For each country, the White House looked up its trade in goods deficit for 2024, then divided that by the total value of imports. Trump, to be “kind”, said he would, however, offer a discount, so halved that figure. The calculation was even distilled into a formula.

For example, take the figures for China:

Goods trade deficit: $291.9bn

Total goods imports: $438.9bn

Those figures divided = 0.67, or 67%

And halved = 34%

For countries without a large deficit, the White House applied a 10% baseline, ensuring tariffs would be applied regardless. This was the case for the UK, which the US Census Bureau reckons had an almost-$12bn surplus in 2024.

“[It is] quite an extraordinary calculation after months of work behind the scenes,” said Jim Reid, the global head of macro research at Deutsche Bank. “[It] didn’t add much confidence on there being an in-depth strategic implementation plan.”

Quote (TheOnlyDenny @ Apr 5 2025 06:49pm)

The many, many countries that, according to Trump's chart, impose a 10% tariff on US goods actually buy more from the US than they are selling. The US has a trade surplus with these (over 100) countries, actually
making them the good countries that Trump wants them to be. Yet he still claims they're ripping the US off and imposes tariffs on them as well.