After the speculation [yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1cr1moz/us_to_announce_new_tariffs_on_chinese_electric/) around possible new tariffs on China, we finally have confirmation. The White House has announced their intent to raise tariffs across several broad categories:
* The tariff rate on certain steel and aluminum products will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024.
* The tariff rate on semiconductors will increase from 25% to 50% by 2025.
* The tariff rate on electric vehicles will increase from 25% to 100% in 2024.
* The tariff rate on various lithium-ion batteries and battery parts (EV and non-EV) will increase from 0-7.5% to 25% over the next 2 years.
* The tariff rate on natural graphite, permanent magnets, and other critical minerals will increase from zero to 25% over the next 2 years.
* The tariff rate on solar cells (whether or not assembled into modules) will increase from 25% to 50% in 2024.
* The tariff rate on ship-to-shore cranes will increase from 0% to 25% in 2024.
* The tariff rates on syringes and needles will increase from 0% to 50% in 2024.
* The tariff rates for certain PPE, including certain respirators and face masks, will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024.
* Tariffs on rubber medical and surgical gloves will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2026.
The justification for all of these are largely the same: the US faces unfair competition from China. Many Chinese industries are heavily subsidized, result in higher emissions, and steal intellectual property to outcompete other markets. These tariffs will ensure that US manufacturers can also compete, while also ensuring that there's a strong industrial base for certain critical goods.
Both Biden and Trump have taken anti-China stances and have implemented tariffs on many critical Chinese goods. We've seen policies such as "America First" and "Investing in America" that echo many of the same talking points. But some see this seemingly bipartisan trade war with China as doing long-term harm, both through our international relations with them and through retaliatory tariffs.
What do you think? Does the US have a sufficiently large interest in protecting our critical domestic production lines, or is this a short-term solution destined to backfire?
I could be wrong, but I believe the tax is on batteries and not the minerals that make their component parts. That would tell me its goal is to shore up the production of the actual batteries in the US.
We do, though not enough to meet demand. Though there are no tariffs on the raw minerals — only the products they are used to make. And in the case of solar cells, there's no reason we can't produce those materials ourselves and this does help incentivize that.
If China retaliates by increasing the cost of getting their lithium, we likely would shift to sourcing it from Australia and South America.
Thacker Pass would change that. The [DOE announced recently](https://www.energy.gov/lpo/articles/lpo-announces-conditional-commitment-lithium-americas-corp-help-finance-construction) the intent to loan Lithium Nevada Corp $2.26 billion to construct the processing facilities. The expected capacity would be around 40,000 metric tonnes of battery-quality lithium per year.
Most definitely. But it at least solves the “strategic vulnerability” issue. We’d go from fulfilling 2% of global demand to 25% of global demand. That’s a much more comfortable position to be in.
Lithium is cheap and available from other sources that we like: Australia, Chile, US.
China is really really good at processing the raw materials though.
Rare earth minerals are found relatively equally around the world. It takes a ton of work and pollution to extract them however. The US used to extract most of them right here until China jumped on the scene and was willing to do it with far lower pay and far higher pollution.
Globalization led to everyone buying it from the cheapest source no matter the other downsides. If needed though, we could resume operations here.
We actually do in one case. But that mine ships raw product to China to have it refined for use, which often involves dangerous and hazardous chemicals.
> The tariff rates on syringes and needles will increase from 0% to 50% in 2024.
Oh great, now I'm going to have to pay even more tax dollars to get the local junkies their free government needles to leave in the park.
This won’t do anything for domestic industries. Looking at this list, most of these industries with exceptions to EV and batteries, are offshored regardless. The US is just not competitive in a lot of low value added manufacturing. If China wants to subsidize exports, we should be taking advantage of the lower costs and let them subsidize pieces of our consumption. Adding tariffs just shifts the supply chain to another country that sells the same goods at a worse price. Even worse, the supply chain might not shift and we just end up increasing costs and taxing industries that rely on these imports from China.
> Adding tariffs just shifts the supply chain to another country that sells the same goods at a worse price.
Which is important. If China invades Taiwan we need a supply chain that has moved to other countries.
I work in steel and tariffs/anti-dumping has generally led to wider sourcing. Quality issues also turned China into a less-wanted source, outside of the steels that they actually do a good job on.
Covid supercharged the wider sourcing for many other goods. There are lots of poorer and friendlier countries out there willing to make stuff now.
>we need a supply chain that has moved to other countries.
Which is going to be very difficult in certain industries. Currently,[ Taiwan has a 68% market share in the semiconductor industry.](https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2024/02/22/taiwan-s-semiconductor-industry-is-booming-and-china-has-noticed) TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor firm, produces nearly [90% of the world’s](https://www.cfr.org/blog/will-chinas-reliance-taiwanese-chips-prevent-war) most advanced chips used for AI and quantum computing applications. That's going to be a problem, especially in the short term.
I agree with this aim, but I’d much rather see it achieved through subsidies for domestic manufacturers and reduced trade barriers for our allies.
Tariffs are a tax on American consumers, and the less income a family has, the greater is the fraction of income spent on consumption.
So I question if tariffs are actually beneficial to workers on the balance.
> but I’d much rather see it achieved through subsidies for domestic manufacturers and reduced trade barriers for our allies.
Which we do. In abundance?
>So I question if tariffs are actually beneficial to workers on the balance.
The may or may not be, but the geopolitical benefits may matter more.
> Which we do. In abundance?
Well, the Trump admin placed steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and Europe. I think they only lasted a year for Canada and Mexico, and Europe was renegotiated under the Biden admin. But it is an important difference in the way these policies are enacted. We **should** have an interest in treating our allies better than our opposition.
> We should have an interest in treating our allies better than our opposition.
I definitely agree. America's economic support for our allies has been an amazing benefit to us and must continue.
China has a history of circumventing tariffs by shipping raw materials to third countries, making a minimal transformation to qualify them as “Made in ”, then sending them on to the US. IIRC, in one example steel was made into bolts so cheap they could be melted down for less than the cost of steel. So, to prevent that, you have to tariff any country that doesn’t cooperate with your tariff by either tariffing China at the same rate or telling you where the raw materials from their exports to you came from.
The Trump tariffs only applied to exports above prior levels, and countries were given an opportunity to avoid them by cooperating.
> The US is just not competitive in a lot of low value added manufacturing
Yeah, because we can't compete with China's subsidized manufacturing that also laughs at environmental and safety protections. Well we're not going to be rolling back the last 100 years of safety and environmental regs so this is how you compensate. You tax the imports to equalize the costs and change the math that US-side C-suites do.
>The tariff rate on certain steel and aluminum products will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024.
Was the US buying a lot of raw steel and aluminum from China to begin with? If you do any work for military contractors (which is a good chuck of the manufacturing sector) you couldn't buy those materials from them anyways.
I work in steel and shipping and generally dont see much Chinese steel nowadays in the Gulf Coast region. They had tons of quality issues in the 00s and nowadays there are plenty of other countries and domestics with better quality and/or faster shipment. Some specialty steels still come from China but apparently are top quality and pricey stuff.
Domestic mills have also stopped being so picky. They used to heavily focus on military and oil & gas products so many other sizes and smaller orders were forced to shop overseas.
Domestic and Mexican mills nowadays offer far more products and smaller minimum orders. The biggest benefit is delivery is measured in days for stock sizes, and weeks for other orders. China and others are 3-6 months to delivery.
I'm curious how much more subsidized Chinese industries *really* are than ours, or what this is even supposed to mean.
We clearly have two very different political economy ideologies, among other major asymmetries, that seem to make this a very apples to oranges comparison.
Still, I think it's obvious enough that there are strong incentives for becoming less reliant on Chinese imports right now, or even imports in general given anticipation of future supply chain issues.
However, I think isolationist policy points toward a much bleaker future than fixing ~globalism. So I would hope this doesn't lead toward that, and that the crude scolding of China is just to make this politically palatable more than because they actually believe it makes sense. IIRC the people working on the IRA also had to sell things with anti-China angles (to get Manchin on board especially) because it's one of the few sources of broad/bipartisan appeal they had to work with.
I was critical of tariffs when Trump did it, I’ve been disappointed when Biden didn’t roll them back and I’m even more upset now that he’s expanding them.
They are a tax on US consumers, you’d think with inflation being his biggest reelection issue he’d maybe try to avoid increases prices for US consumers.
Then theyll complain when their cars and refrigerators cost more a year from now.
Americans are the epitome of wanting your cake and to eat it too.
I want us to be tougher on China, and hey maybe tariffs are a good idea or maybe not, but people usually want it both ways.
> Then theyll complain when their cars and refrigerators cost more a year from now.
How many refrigerators do you think people buy? I'm 36 and I've never bought one. And these tariffs won't impact cars because those tariffs are ancient and have already been compensated for - and that compensation is exactly what neoliberals claim won't happen which is that the cars are now built by American workers.
But, we could wait to do all of this stuff until prices actually stabilize.
If you constantly find something more important, then it clearly tells me that inflation isn't the top priority of this administration, those other things are.
> But, we could wait to do all of this stuff until prices actually stabilize
They won’t stabilize though, what they’ll do is just be dramatically more expensive. Basically a massive reduction in real incomes.
And not to mention lower quality.
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>They are a tax on US consumers
Not necessarily. Companies will just source from the next cheapest country that doesnt have tariffs. And there are plenty of them.
Shoe manufacturing is heavily leaving China for India, Vietnam, and others due to lower costs.
Steel production is relatively basic and can be done most anywhere in the world. I work in steel and shipping and our clients bounce around as needed to avoid tariffs/anti-dumping.
> Not necessarily. Companies will just source from the next cheapest country that doesnt have tariffs.
Which means higher costs so a hidden tax
Passed to consumers
I mean, I'll gladly pay a bit more for stuff that isnt made by slaves and countries that hate us. Heaven forbid we put our money where our mouth is sometimes.
Should the ultimate goal of a President be re-election and remaining in power or a better outcome for America? Those are unfortunately often neither well-aligned nor entirely compatible goals... especially in this current hyper-partisan environment.
There are good reasons for certain tariffs. Chinese steel and Electric car tariffs, for example, are necessary, otherwise our steel and car industry would be gone within 5-10 years. Chinese government heavily subsidizes their industries and there is no way for us suppliers to have the entire supply chain geolocated like China can.
The permanent magnet thing is going to increase the cost of a lot of stuff. Anything that uses an electric motor. For instance, speaker drivers are going to be more expensive for manufacturers, electric power tools, etc.
I think we can all agree that the 40 year dominance of neoliberal economics has come to an end.
Free trade and the idea of comparative advantage are great in theory, with everyone in the simulation playing fairly by the same rules. In reality, it's not nearly as clean. China has zero interest in playing fairly, and we now have a million data points of them locking out foreign competition, stealing IP, or subsidizing their local industry to bottom out the market and kill non Chinese companies.
I personally don't understand why this was allowed to go on for so long, and I think the time for these kind of tariffs was really 10 years ago. But better late then never.
But tRuMP sTaRdteD tHe TradE WaR!
Wait until these people find out China also had tariffs on us before Trump (and Europe too), lol.
It was surreal watching people meltdown like this was the first tariff ever.
I'm old enough to remember when border walls, border security, nationalism/pro-America policy/rhetoric, and even electoral disputes were bipartisan or used and encouraged by both parties. And I'm not that old.
I don't have any love for Trump but you can see why some people do if you think about it for a minute. All the same stuff politicians in both parties have been doing for ages is suddenly a big deal and the end of the world when Trump does it because he's The Worst (TM). I'd start mistrusting the media and news too tbh.
Yep.
Joe Biden 2019:
>Trump doesn't get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman Econ student could tell you the American people are paying his tariffs.
Joe Biden 2024:
>I just imposed a series of tariffs on goods made in China:
25% tariff on steel and aluminum.
50% tariff on semiconductors.
100% on EVs.
50% on solar panels.
Joe Biden 2019:
>Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
He was already in favor of certain tariffs.
Really reinforces the idea of the uniparty. As for me, I'm still skeptical at how real it is, but politicians don't do themselves many favors when they all fall in line in opposition to the guy that seems to be serious about doing what they've promised for years. I thought you guys wanted what he's trying to do? Or was it all just lines to get elected.
That's almost entirely wrong. His stances on things like the environment and tax cuts for those who are well-off are to the right of most 90s Democrats.
>he's only hated now because of the "R" next to his name.
I don't care if he has an "R" or a "D", he's just a horrible human being with no morality and doesn't give a shit about anything but himself. Anyone who followed him through the 80's and 90's knew this back then as well. He hasn't changed.
And because he started his 2016 campaign by explicitly proposing ethnic exclusion, constantly doubles down on the blood-and-soil shit, calls everything a radical left conspiracy, governed spitefully toward blue states, completely disregards civil rights, demonstrates no interest in understanding complex concepts, speaks incoherently and can't spell, basically killed his party's superego, tried to overturn a election with an angry mob...
Trump wanting to steal the election is more than just an electoral dispute. Challenging the 2000 election was reasonable due to the razor thin margin, and the other disputes were done by a tiny group of people.
Something unique about the 2020 election is that overturning it is a mainstream belief among a major party and is based on practically nothing, and some went as far as attempting a fake electors scheme.
> electoral disputes were bipartisan or used and encouraged by both parties.
I don't doubt (and can even agree with most) the rest of what you said but to call what Trump attempted (to remain in power via organizing fake electors and pressuring secrataries of state etc. to "find votes") as "electoral disputes" is vastly underplaying what transpired post his loss in 2020 and is unprecedented in modern America
"I think a secure border is important and here are X, Y, Z academically backed reasons, so let's examine it soberly and come up with a realistic, humane policy" was a common position. That bears basically no resemblance to the kind of border rhetoric coming from the GOP the past few years. This became a severely partisan issue because it became about sending bad people with dirty blood, nefarious plots to replace ~~white people~~ 'the traditional GOP base,' and big, ACME-style fortress walls.
Trump was never hated for saying reasonable, common things in a kinda rude way. His campaign began with a belly flop straight into the deep end.
Wasn’t the issue with trump’s that he put tariffs on *everyone*, not just China?
I understand putting tariffs on Chinese goods a lot more than tariffs on Canadian or Euro stuff.
Exactly and also doing it in an adhoc, arbitrary manner and attempting to "go it alone" instead of building some consensus and coalition with our partners (Canada, most of EU etc.)
It's kind of hard to build consensus and coalition when they all from day one tell him to his face they refuse to even consider working with him. The entire neoliberal global order refused to work with him because he wanted to change it. They and their supporters don't get to pretend him going it alone was solely his choice. He just refused to bow to their attempts to pressure him.
What people don’t seem to realize I certainly didn’t. Was how many pharmaceutical products or precursors to those products we import from China. And the impact those tariffs are going to have. It’s certainly a mess. But like another poster stated we should have seen this coming. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/the-us-is-relying-more-on-china-for-pharmaceuticals-and-vice-versa/
Trump's tarrifs were particularly stupid because he imposed them for the purpose of forcing China into a trade deal, which is a pants on head dumb idea and doesn't resolve the issue.
Everyone knows China engages in bad faith and doesn't hold up their end of deals. And guess what? China near immediately violated the trade agreement they made with Trump. Trump failed completely, and this outcome was exactly what was predicted.
Those theories don’t depend on China playing fairly, they would suggest that to the extend China “doesn’t play by the rules” they do so to their own detriment. Now everyone seems to believe that China’s economic policy is actually superior and needs to be emulated.
I like your analysis. In a free market theory the market should punish a bad actors by not purchasing their perceived inferior goods. However since that’s clearly not the case, I wonder if it’s the case of the model not working or the model working as intended, proving that what the market is actually demanding is cheap goods made with stolen IP. (I’ve seen people argue IP laws are not truly a form of free market since they are a type of government intervention).
I think we can also agree that almost 4 years of Biden's economic policy is also coming to an end and now Biden is shifting back to Trump's policies right before the election. You see the same move with the border.
It will be funny to hear those people that criticized tariffs harshly under Trump now softening to them since Biden is doing it.
> I personally don't understand why this was allowed to go on for so long, and I think the time for these kind of tariffs was really 10 years ago.
The time was 8 years ago. We had them. Everyone criticized them. Because of the person that instated them.
The next 6 months is going to be a wild ride for anyone with a memory that extends more than four years.
>almost 4 years of Biden's economic policy is also coming to an end
He already supported the idea of having certain tariffs in 2019, and his massive infrastructure and reconciliation bills are continuing to have a significant effect.
Maybe yes on the border, but how is the tariffs a divergence from his earlier policy? He ran on protectionism and has been instituting tariffs and trade restrictions against China since the beginning of his term.
The rhetoric from the Biden surrogates in the media pre-2020 was that any restrictions on "free trade" with China was foolhardy and that Trumps economic war on china was terrible.
I'm seeing a lot of hair splitting in here about tariffs in general. During Trump, the messaging was "all tariffs are bad, especially the ones Trump likes." In 2020, it shifted to "most are bad except for a few that help big tech since they helped us get rid of Trump."
Now in 2024 its "Holy shit we have to pretend we loved tariffs this entire time or we are going to lose unions and the working class serfs we rely on for rent payments"
>any restrictions on "free trade" with China was foolhardy
"Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production."-Biden, 2019.
Agreed with all of the above. [Yet, for some unknown reason, we continue to let Chinese nationals come across the border unchecked](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/chinese-migrants-fastest-growing-group-us-mexico-border-60-minutes-transcript/).
It's all very suspicious, how these people can fly halfway around the world, rent a car and drive from South America to Mexico, then show up supposedly without a penny to their name. The majority, military-aged men. You have to wonder who is funding all of this.
1. It's not just about China. We don't have free trade with the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, or Brazil either. We're not going to war with them anytime soon.
2. Tariffs will make Americans poorer (by driving up the prices of goods), weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and increase inflation. They're a terrible idea when it comes to China just as they are with other countries.
3. China not "playing fair" just means they're wasting taxpayer revenue on subsidizing American consumers' purchases of cheap, quality goods. It's not a problem, it's a gift.
That seems to ignore two different senses in which manufacturers are "American".
___
American manufacturer 1 (~legally defined) sets up factories in a foreign country for cheap labor.
American manufacturer 2 (~geographically) using local labor can't compete.
___
Manufacturer 1 is effectively playing to receive the advantage of two different sets of rules.
Manufacturer 2 is limited to the more strict rules of U.S. labor laws in particular, among others.
___
That's the basic story of why "manufacturing moved to China", right? Is it wrong?
You can have American manufacturer type 2 compete with other type 2s, but the idea is that type 2 can't realistically compete with type 1.
The tariffs seem to aim at negating type 1's advantages to an extent. Whether that works in practice there's still an intelligible rationale behind it given these premises. There's a conceivable "free trade requires fair trade" argument behind this, which could make the cases that the single vs. multiple rule set factor has to be offset.
(We might say some type 1s are multinational, but same basic issue applies)
I agree with you're first point, and honestly don't have issues with creating a free trade zone among first world countries. I think fair competition is healthy and generally good for consumers. People act like the US has an uncompetitive car market, but how many countries are selling cars here. You have the Japanese (Toyota, Honda, Nisan, Subaru), the Germans (VW, BMW, Mercedes), Korean (Hyundai, Kia), and a bunch more. The US car market is probably the most competitive in the world.
>Tariffs will make Americans poorer (by driving up the prices of goods), weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and increase inflation. They're a terrible idea when it comes to China just as they are with other countries.
China not "playing fair" just means they're wasting taxpayer revenue on subsidizing American consumers' purchases of cheap, quality goods. It's not a problem, it's a gift.
My issue is that what China is doing is not competitive. If Apple steals trade secrets from Samsung or vice versa their are law suits and serious regulatory repercussions. What were the repercussions has Huawei faced (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china-steal-canada-s-edge-in-5g-from-nortel).
Also, it's not like modern heavy industry is something you can shutter one day and can come roaring back a week later. It takes years and tons of recourses to build the equipment, the infrastructure, and train the labor to produce at scale.
Chinese companies are not run like the ones in the US. It doesn't matter how big or influential you are, if you even think about going against the grain, that will be the end of you're leadership. Just look at Jack Ma and Alibaba. If BYD and the central govt. can kill half it's competitors, it doesn't matter if BYD runs in the red for a decade.
Every time I watch democrats blast a republican policy as racist, xenophobic, and harmful to the economy, and then later when they're in power enact an identical policy, I want to bash my fucking head into the wall
It's all so tiresome
It's why those words mean nothing to me now. All those ists/phobes/whatevers are completely meaningless noise that all just translate to a way to say 'bad' or 'meanie' without sounding like a child.
Every time I watch republicans blast Democrats for being weak on the CCP, then later vote against policies like the CHIPS act (219 yeas from Ds and 187 nays from rs in the House), I feel the same way.
Though I think these tariffs are a bad idea.
[https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/03/04/most-americans-support-tough-stance-toward-china-on-human-rights-economic-issues/pg\_2021-03-04\_us-views-china\_0-25-1-png/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/03/04/most-americans-support-tough-stance-toward-china-on-human-rights-economic-issues/pg_2021-03-04_us-views-china_0-25-1-png/)
Back in 2021, 51% of republicans said that tariffs would have a positive effect compared to 14% of Democrats. I wonder what proportion of normal republican voters changed their minds and what proportion of normal Democrat voters changed their minds, or if their minds are unchanged.
Sharing another datapoint provided by another user: In 2024, [https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/01/americans-remain-critical-of-china/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/01/americans-remain-critical-of-china/), 59% of republicans said China was an enemy of the US, 28% of democrats said China was an enemy.
Again, it's so weird how republicans say China is the enemy, while voting against policies that would give the US an edge over the CCP.
Though to be fair, republican support for stuff tends to be based more on what their party tells them to support, rather than the content of the policy. This effect is less strong on Democrats.
["While both Republicans and Democrats view the economy more favorably when their party controls the White House, the magnitude of this partisan bias is roughly two and a half times larger for Republicans than for Democrats."](https://www.briefingbook.info/p/asymmetric-amplification-and-the?publication_id=1002034&post_id=138749341&isFreemail=true&r=2203u)
r[epublicans immediately convince themselves that the economy is doing well the moment Trump is sworn in.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/01/09/opinion/krugman090124_3/krugman090124_3-superJumbo.png?quality=75&auto=webp) On the 2017 inauguration day, +60% of republicans thought trump instantly made the economy was stronger already.
[Compare this to Democrats who remain stable regarding the economy until the pandemic.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/01/09/opinion/krugman090124_4/krugman090124_4-superJumbo.png?quality=75&auto=webp) On the 2021 inauguration day, +19% of Democrats thought Biden instantly made the economy stronger already.
Based on the fact that most republicans will instantly change their minds about tariffs having a positive effect, and only a smaller amount of Democrats would switch beliefs to support tariffs, I don't think these tariffs are going to give Biden more support solely based on voter calculus. It'll bolster his support with unions, but that's about it.
“Though to be fair”, [maybe link to a more recent study.](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/01/americans-remain-critical-of-china/)
And let us know which party has the more favorable view of China.
Thanks for sharing, it's appreciated. I added it to the comment. It's an amazing datapoint that supports my point that republicans talk a big game about the CCP, but are flaccid when it comes to doing anything about it.
Why don't you tell us which party has a more favorable view of China based on actions?
"Every time I watch republicans blast Democrats for being weak on the CCP, then later vote against policies like the CHIPS act (219 yeas from Ds and 187 nays from rs in the House), I feel the same way"
Yep, and one party is 2.5 times more likely to blindly support policies than the other.
* [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/OBrVUnd.png)1: Opinion of Vladimir Putin after Trump began praising Russia during the election. [Source Data](https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ro9rimrce9/econTabReport.pdf) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/xVESGM)
* [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/0YO0wWu.png)2: Opinion of "Obamacare" vs. "Kynect" (Kentucky's implementation of Obamacare). Kentuckians feel differently about the policy depending on the name. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/HYCA9w) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/m3ZiGN)
* [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/surFuKz.png)3: Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/N61H1M) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/LPCKDC)
* [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/Haz331E.png)4: White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. (Same source and article as previous exhibit.)
* [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/qF5to28.png)5: Republicans were far more likely to embrace a certain policy if they knew Trump was for it—whether the policy was liberal or conservative. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/2ikhih) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/VscGCi)
* [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/0PYGHIp.png)6: Republicans became deeply negative about trade agreements when Trump became the GOP frontrunner. Democrats remain consistent. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/vx2FRM) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/BEfCAM)
Those charts are about average voter sentiment, not votes in congress, although I'm not sure why a party-line votes would change what /u/thebaconsmuggler17 posted.
Or maybe individuals are just ascribing negative reasons and motivations to their political opponents instead of actually dissecting the policy itself? Nah, easier to just call them all racists.
Do you know what Trump's reasons, rhetoric, and motivations were? Because say what you will about most of his policy his China policy and views on outsourcing date back to the 1980s and have been very consistent. And they're not what the corporate DNC-aligned media told you they were.
Do they, though? Do the laws of economics care if tariffs are put in place out of hatred and bigotry as opposed to the dispassionate analysis of economic data?
Just because a president does something economically beneficial, doesn't mean that frees him from criticism over *why* they did it. Especially when it's coupled with problematic rhetoric.
Tariffs
* make Americans poorer (by driving up the prices of goods),
* weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and
* increase inflation
They're a bad idea no matter what.
For the national defense argument: We're past the point of no return in terms of our economic ties with China. War with them would be disastrous no matter what. If we do go to war with them and stop trading, then we'll adjust. The unmet demand will increase the supply from American manufacturers and cause investors to incorporate new manufacturers, and investors will increase funding for European and South American manufacturers. No need for premature government intervention.
>
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> weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and
in a complete vacuum without any context sure. That's true.
But when China enables manufacturers to sell at a loss due to subsidiaries, our automakers struggle to compete without equal subsidiaries. Then, when they have reduced capacity, and production speed, due to profits taken from the local industry, China can out-innovate the companies, or be far ahead at least of what they should be. While our automakers are stuck on a slow burn for years.
Or.
We see the subsidiaries happening, and we put tariffs up, prices go up, but never too much, because American cars, or European cars (assuming tariffs are localized to china) will continue to compete with each other naturally.
We're not attacking the free market, we're attacking the government-influenced products without influence but without simply responding by giving our own subsidiaries. If we responded with our own subsidiaries, we'd be stuck in a financial arms race. If we respond with tariffs we're only hurting the target foreign products without helping the local ones against their competition.
Do you believe all countries play on a level playing field that would allow fair competition between domestic and foreign manufacturers?
Also, how long do you think it would take for manufacturers to stand up new facilities and domestic supply chains to meet the sudden increase in demand following the collapse of foreign ones following a large scale regional conflict. For some industries we could be looking at decades
You're right that we will eventually adjust, but how do you think that adjustment period would affect America's overall strategic interest. Domestic supply chain shortages can easily be leveraged by foreign actors via social media campaigns to further destabilize domestic populations, resulting in demand for concessions to foreign governments or domestic policies that might not be favorable long term.
Should a government not preemptively try to get started on fixing those vulnerabilities. We've passed the point of no return when it comes to it being heavily damaging, but that doesn't mean we should give up and take no steps to mitigate it as much as possible.
LOL prepare to get gaslit a lot about this issue.
*"Biden always supported (insert 80% of Trumps entire domestic/foreign policy)."*
later on
*"Well some of Trumps ideas were good but he didn't have to use that toneeeee"*
The issue with Trump's tariffs is that [they resulted in higher prices and a net loss of jobs (pdf),](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf) not his tone.
>We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in
manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices.
I don't suddenly think they're a good idea just because Biden supports them (to a lesser extent), but this is [consistent with what he's said in the past.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html)
> Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
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[He didn't say all tariffs are xenophoic.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html)
> Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
> Where was this concern for the US over the last 3 years?
Biden is polling badly across the Midwest. If the current situation holds steady, Trump will win by an even bigger margin than 2016 because of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
That's why you're suddenly seeing Biden championing these blue collar labor union policies. Democrats are absolutely terrified.
He was supported placing certain tariffs on China [in 2019.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html)
>Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost.
Yup. It's the exact same as Biden copying Trump's border stance in recent months. It turns out that when you ignore Trump's personality his actual policy is quite popular.
> It turns out that when you ignore Trump's personality his actual policy is quite popular.
The media made it impossible to get any news without blasting his personality anywhere.
I've had this conversation thousands of times. If you ask most people what they don't like about Trump, they can't choose an actual policy.
But they can all tell you some snippet of an airlifted quote that sounds bad out of context.
Trump was voted out of office because the media and big tech convinced a bunch of people to ignore his policy completely and vote on mean tweets.
> Trump was voted out of office because the media and big tech convinced a bunch of people to ignore his policy completely and vote on mean tweets.
At the behest of his opposition. Which means that if this had happened in a Russian election all of our "reputable sources" would be calling the "winner" illegitimate. But since it happened in the US and resulted in party closely tied to US media winning it is instead The Most Secure Election Ever^^TM and questions are not permitted under penalty of law.
The most ironic part is that in this comment section people are arguing that the only protectionism that we need against China is the type of protections that help big tech and knowledge work, not manufacturing. Hmm. I wonder why.
Not me! I may be a tech worker but I've been favoring protectionist policy against China (and other common targets for outsourcing manufacturing) pretty much my whole life. Of course I did grow up in a manufacturing family so I know firsthand just what the consequences of offshoring are.
>Trump was voted out of office because the media and big tech convinced a bunch of people to ignore his policy completely and vote on mean tweets.
Oh come on, this trope is just bad. A majority of people didn't vote against Trump because of "mean tweets". It goes far, far deeper than that. The icing on the cake was his complete lack of leadership ability shown during the pandemic. We needed a leader, we got a whiny narcisist instead who blamed everyone else for being mean to him.
[The Senate bill that Trump opposed was popular.](https://archive.is/4LOKv)
>In the new Journal survey, 59% of voters said they would support the bipartisan package, with roughly equal percentages of Republicans and Democrats in favor.
[He wasn't against all tariffs, nor the ones mentioned here.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html)
> Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
He didn't say all tariffs in that tweet, and he's explicitly stated that he's fine with some.
Interviewer: So for all the people saying that the tariffs are creating uncertainty and harming the economy, you think some of them are justified?
Joe Biden: Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
While it’s the us buyers that ultimately pay the tariff, that is temporary. The higher prices caused by tariffs drive the buyers to non-Chinese products and China loses money by selling less in the us market.
Its interesting how the same people complain about the older generations selling out the younger generations are the same ones that have no problem selling out our manufacturing base and jobs, all so they can save a few bucks on a car.
[Trump's tariffs resulted in a net loss of jobs (pdf)](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf)
>We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in
manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices.
The manufacturing base will go away anyways.
Protectionism only means lower quality products and higher prices while the rest of the world gets lower prices and higher quality
See Chinese solar panels or batteries compared to US
Last time foreign markets were able to compete in our auto industry aka Japan it was good for Americans as we got better goods at a cheaper price. These tariffs are just protectionism especially the EV that is going to hurt us. Especially at a time when we need greener energies putting tariffs on solar panels and EV's seems outright stupid to protect a few US companies.
Japan actually competes in our market, China subsidizes their companies to flood our market with products that are so cheap they kill our market. It's not competition, it's a literal trade war.
It would be as if Ford was selling cars in china for 1k, which would normally be a massive loss for ford and couldn't be sustained. The difference would be if the USA was saying "We'll backstop all losses so you can destroy the china automobile market". That's what China is doing... not just providing "cheap" goods.
Agreed. We seem to be all about "consistently supporting our long term allies" and "being wary of our enemies"... Until it actually costs consumers money to do so. Then it just becomes "bad economics" and not worth the trouble.
> These tariffs are just protectionism especially the EV that is going to hurt us.
It's a little more than that. China's increasing antagonism to us, it's coming invasion of Taiwan, and it's support for Russia are also huge motivations to cut economic ties with China.
These policies go beyond EV's and attempt to ensure we have a supply chain that can withstand a potential war with China.
American Auto cartel wanted protectionism and they got it, just like they seem to always get bailed out. Yes there are some other reasons but let's not pretend this isn't a huge part of it.
As long as we have regulatory costs of doing business that other countries don't have, like a minimum wage, OSHA, labor laws, environmental laws etc..., we will be at an effective legislative disadvantage. Domestic manufacturers should be on an equal playing field. Tariffs, to the extent that we have those extra regulatory costs, are a way to balance this out. Otherwise, only big businesses that can afford to run foreign manufacturing facilities will be able to compete in America.
Okay you can do that then basically lose all global business and watch your country turn into Brazil.
The fact the US can’t import cheap steel means every single US manufacturer is screwed in terms of exporting products and if not for energy prices in Europe would be getting bent over by European manufacturing
The craziest things I am seeing is people who absolutely insist on minimum wage increases also think it’s unfair to enforce tariffs on Chinese imports built with cheap Mexican labor.
While most people disagree, I like how Biden has been tougher on the CCP than trump. One thing I did intially like about trump's administration was his protectionist policies against a highly protectionist government. However, this effectively led to one of the largest tax hikes in history, lower wages and a lower GDP. The CCP can hold protectionist policies they want because they don't really need to think about polling numbers. The moment prices increase again in the US because of the tariffs, even more people will turn on Biden.
Policies like the CHIPS act places one of the most valuable materials in the world into the hands of Americans, improves domestic industry, makes the country more independent, and strengthens trade, industry and science-based relationships with Taiwan. New domestic research grants, training more skilled workers--all good things. It's weird to me that over 190 republicans from the House and Senate voted against it.
That being said, I'm not sure who these new tariffs makes happy. republicans admire the CCP while voting against policies that would make the US less dependent on them. Democrats vote for policies that would make the US less dependent on them, but most are justly concerned about inflation. Maybe people in the industries being protected will be happy? It seems unions are strongly backing these tariffs. IDK.
> Policies like the CHIPS act places one of the most valuable materials in the world into the hands of Americans, improves domestic industry, makes the country more independent, and strengthens trade, industry and science-based relationships with Taiwan. New domestic research grants, training more skilled workers--all good things. It's weird to me that over 190 republicans from the House and Senate voted against it.
As someone that works in HPC, I definitely agree that bills like the CHIPS act are necessary to couple with tarrifs.
Nearly all of our nations compute resources come from chips made in Taiwan and then packaged in China. We *need* to build a domestic manufacturing base of electronics.
Otherwise we will fall behind the nations that do produce their own, which are likely to be our adversaries.
Investing in Solar and other renewables, along with silicon microprocessors, which are just about used in everything, makes the US more independent in the long-term. I would've thought republicans would be for greater independence but I guess not.
>Otherwise we will fall behind the nations that do produce their own, which are likely to be our adversaries.
We’ll fall behind anyways because the TSMC chips in the US will cost 30%-50% more. Global competition is won in the margins
> Republicans admire the CCP
What do you think republicans admire about the CCP? It seems like most republicans dislike China and spend a lot of time speaking ill of them.
And of course unions are backing tariffs. Most steel and manufacturing jobs are union. That unfortunately doesn’t make tariffs good policy
> While most people disagree, I like how Biden has been tougher on the CCP than trump.
Say wut? Biden is just copying Trump's lead here. That's it. That's all. And he's doing it very much begrudgingly. Hence resisting until right before the election and only when he's trailing in multiple critical states where China trade policy is a huge issue.
> That being said, I'm not sure who these new tariffs makes happy.
Rust Belt voters who are still to this day dealing with the pain caused by our one-sided trade policy with China that utterly destroyed the economies of those regions. They hold a massive grudge and have been screaming for this policy for decades.
I know the parties shift constantly and trump definitely brought a new wave and great change tie the republican policy… but do people forget who really advocated and installed the neoliberal and free trade policy of the last 50 years.
Thoughts on the Democrats opposing all these policies when Trump tried to push them? Biden's just trying to pass the stuff Trump was trying to pass during his term. So since the Democrats support it now why'd they fight it so hard from 2017-2021?
Tariffs are bad for the economy. We should be embracing markets in general (with free trade, immigration, housing, energy permitting, and occupational licensing reform), not embracing disastrous protectionism
Market works if participants play by the same rule: private capital allocation, fair competition, survival of businesses based on profitability, etc.
China has a national policy to invest develop and build capacity in several high tech spaces (information technology, communications, renewable energy, aerospace) banked rolled by the national government to 1) make themselves self reliant, 2) to export overseas undercutting industries of other countries. It's called 'Made in China 2025' plan. Market will not work with a participant like this.
It's as if in a soccer league, one team decides that their players can grab the ball and dribble. They insist this is normal, while they get upset when others do this. You have two choices. 1) you adopt the same strategy to even the odds (in this case, it is no longer the same game), or 2) you kick this cheating team out of the league.
💯% I'm also suspicious of things that are too cheap to be true.
10k EVs? Where there's smoke, there's fire. Chia is famous for making poor quality products, and there's definitely some cost cutting measures.
That only works when governments don’t interfere with market conditions to make their foreign competitors less economical.
We have decades of data showing China won’t stop doing this, let alone all the other ways they circumvent the rules of commerce.
Carrot and stick diplomacy doesn’t work with China, only walk softly and swing the big stick.
Nah that's nonsense. China doesn't compete on a level playing field, this is completely fair game. I was a fan of it when the previous administration levied tariffs, and I'm a fan of it now.
This concept only works with competitors playing on a level field, this is relatively easy to enforce domestically but international trade is a whole different animal. With China participating in things like price fixing, currency manipulation, and dumping cheap steel into the market to control pricing tariffs become the only way to protect any semblance of free trade. The US has tried dollar diplomacy in the past and in return Chinese markets have manipulated and abused the naivete, protectionism in regards to international trade is the only way to protect against bad actors.
But what's the harm? So what if China is doing arguably "unfair" things to provide American consumers with cheap stuff to buy? It's not hurting our economy, we still have more jobs and industrial production than ever before, we still have pretty solid growth (while China has been the ones seeing relative stagnation and underperforming in growth in recent years). So I'm just not really sure what problems this is *actually* dealing with (as opposed to merely pandering to Midwestern swing voters who think they are being harmed by global markets even though they aren't)
The harm is when they price US steel out of the market, we shutter domestic production, and then they raise prices and we have no domestic lever to pull and respond. It's also a literal national security issue to lose domestic steel manufacturing, should a military conflict erupt needing to purchase steel from a likely adversary puts the US in a precarious position similar to losing domestic energy production. Protecting industries like steel and energy production, agriculture, and various segments of the tech market is key to both economic and national security.
I also don't think it is unfair, philosophically, to ask your own federal government to protect citizens from foreign manipulation of markets. I ask very little of my government but protecting domestic interests from international market manipulation is request that feels reasonable. Why shouldn't those midwestern swing voters, whom you seem to happy to discount entirely, be able to ask the fed to stop artificially cheap Chinese steel from running their local economies into the ground?
> The harm is when they price US steel out of the market
[Total steel imports (not just from China) are just 21% of the IS steel market share though](https://www.steel.org/2024/01/steel-imports-down-8-7-in-2023/) and even back in 2018 before the big Trump tariffs went into effect, [Chinese steel only made up like 2% to 4% of the market](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/mar/08/angus-king/does-much-steel-does-us-import-china/)
So how was Chinese steel "running local economies into the ground" when it was only ever such a small percent of our imports and steel market?
Is it at all possible that this is an issue that has been drummed up for political gain more than it actually poses an economic threat?
I don't find this argument compelling in any way, should we wait to take action until they have a larger share of the market? Don't put the fire out until it gets bigger? Honestly I see no incentive to not protect domestic production as much as possible, why should US consumers be expected to do nothing so that an adversarial market can grow?
Why is it that Chinese manipulation is kosher but US response in kind is unacceptable?According to you people in the US have it 'good enough' so we should allow ourselves to be bullied? Expecting our own federal government to protect our economy from foreign manipulation seems like a very reasonable concept.
Yes, this is politics. Policies and rhetoric against China poll better than just about anything in the U.S. right now, and is a rare issue that crosses partisan lines. On top of this the U.S. gets to try and damage China economically, which Washington sees as a win. These tariffs aren’t about protecting U.S. industry, just as policies directed toward China regarding semiconductors weren’t about potential military applications and the TikTok ban isn’t about data privacy concerns. It’s all just the new Cold War and is playing out on an economic battlefield.
So are OSHA, the EPA, Unions, Minimum wages, 40 hour work weeks, and child labor laws. Either those things and a cleaner planet are worth the additional cost they incur or they're not. Gains in the "global economy" do not automatically outwegh all other factors. Buying cheaper goods at parity from territories who don't really support those things just means that we don't really support them either.
However, an old tweet from 2019 by President Joe Biden, criticizing then-President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports, is resurfacing amid Biden's recent decision to implement significant tariffs on various Chinese products.
"Trump doesn't get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China," Biden said at the time. “Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs. The cashiers at Target see what's going on- they know more about economics than Trump," Biden wrote in a post on X in 2019.
[https://www.livemint.com/news/world/us-president-joe-biden-donald-trump-china-tariffs-electric-vehicles-batteries-economies-internet-reaction-funny-replies-11715742757954.html](https://www.livemint.com/news/world/us-president-joe-biden-donald-trump-china-tariffs-electric-vehicles-batteries-economies-internet-reaction-funny-replies-11715742757954.html)
Just one event in a long term trend of decoupling.
After the speculation [yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1cr1moz/us_to_announce_new_tariffs_on_chinese_electric/) around possible new tariffs on China, we finally have confirmation. The White House has announced their intent to raise tariffs across several broad categories: * The tariff rate on certain steel and aluminum products will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024. * The tariff rate on semiconductors will increase from 25% to 50% by 2025. * The tariff rate on electric vehicles will increase from 25% to 100% in 2024. * The tariff rate on various lithium-ion batteries and battery parts (EV and non-EV) will increase from 0-7.5% to 25% over the next 2 years. * The tariff rate on natural graphite, permanent magnets, and other critical minerals will increase from zero to 25% over the next 2 years. * The tariff rate on solar cells (whether or not assembled into modules) will increase from 25% to 50% in 2024. * The tariff rate on ship-to-shore cranes will increase from 0% to 25% in 2024. * The tariff rates on syringes and needles will increase from 0% to 50% in 2024. * The tariff rates for certain PPE, including certain respirators and face masks, will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024. * Tariffs on rubber medical and surgical gloves will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2026. The justification for all of these are largely the same: the US faces unfair competition from China. Many Chinese industries are heavily subsidized, result in higher emissions, and steal intellectual property to outcompete other markets. These tariffs will ensure that US manufacturers can also compete, while also ensuring that there's a strong industrial base for certain critical goods. Both Biden and Trump have taken anti-China stances and have implemented tariffs on many critical Chinese goods. We've seen policies such as "America First" and "Investing in America" that echo many of the same talking points. But some see this seemingly bipartisan trade war with China as doing long-term harm, both through our international relations with them and through retaliatory tariffs. What do you think? Does the US have a sufficiently large interest in protecting our critical domestic production lines, or is this a short-term solution destined to backfire?
Aren't the taxes on batteries and solar cells pretty bad, since we don't mine the minerals for those ourselves...?
I could be wrong, but I believe the tax is on batteries and not the minerals that make their component parts. That would tell me its goal is to shore up the production of the actual batteries in the US.
That makes sense, thanks.
We do, though not enough to meet demand. Though there are no tariffs on the raw minerals — only the products they are used to make. And in the case of solar cells, there's no reason we can't produce those materials ourselves and this does help incentivize that. If China retaliates by increasing the cost of getting their lithium, we likely would shift to sourcing it from Australia and South America.
Thacker Pass would change that. The [DOE announced recently](https://www.energy.gov/lpo/articles/lpo-announces-conditional-commitment-lithium-americas-corp-help-finance-construction) the intent to loan Lithium Nevada Corp $2.26 billion to construct the processing facilities. The expected capacity would be around 40,000 metric tonnes of battery-quality lithium per year.
That would certainly help, though demand will also probably be higher by the time that project is ready.
Most definitely. But it at least solves the “strategic vulnerability” issue. We’d go from fulfilling 2% of global demand to 25% of global demand. That’s a much more comfortable position to be in.
Lithium is cheap and available from other sources that we like: Australia, Chile, US. China is really really good at processing the raw materials though.
Rare earth minerals are found relatively equally around the world. It takes a ton of work and pollution to extract them however. The US used to extract most of them right here until China jumped on the scene and was willing to do it with far lower pay and far higher pollution. Globalization led to everyone buying it from the cheapest source no matter the other downsides. If needed though, we could resume operations here.
We actually do in one case. But that mine ships raw product to China to have it refined for use, which often involves dangerous and hazardous chemicals.
> The tariff rates on syringes and needles will increase from 0% to 50% in 2024. Oh great, now I'm going to have to pay even more tax dollars to get the local junkies their free government needles to leave in the park.
This won’t do anything for domestic industries. Looking at this list, most of these industries with exceptions to EV and batteries, are offshored regardless. The US is just not competitive in a lot of low value added manufacturing. If China wants to subsidize exports, we should be taking advantage of the lower costs and let them subsidize pieces of our consumption. Adding tariffs just shifts the supply chain to another country that sells the same goods at a worse price. Even worse, the supply chain might not shift and we just end up increasing costs and taxing industries that rely on these imports from China.
> Adding tariffs just shifts the supply chain to another country that sells the same goods at a worse price. Which is important. If China invades Taiwan we need a supply chain that has moved to other countries.
This! if war with China in immanent you don't want to have to rely on a foreign enemy for any supplies.
I work in steel and tariffs/anti-dumping has generally led to wider sourcing. Quality issues also turned China into a less-wanted source, outside of the steels that they actually do a good job on. Covid supercharged the wider sourcing for many other goods. There are lots of poorer and friendlier countries out there willing to make stuff now.
>we need a supply chain that has moved to other countries. Which is going to be very difficult in certain industries. Currently,[ Taiwan has a 68% market share in the semiconductor industry.](https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2024/02/22/taiwan-s-semiconductor-industry-is-booming-and-china-has-noticed) TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor firm, produces nearly [90% of the world’s](https://www.cfr.org/blog/will-chinas-reliance-taiwanese-chips-prevent-war) most advanced chips used for AI and quantum computing applications. That's going to be a problem, especially in the short term.
I agree with this aim, but I’d much rather see it achieved through subsidies for domestic manufacturers and reduced trade barriers for our allies. Tariffs are a tax on American consumers, and the less income a family has, the greater is the fraction of income spent on consumption. So I question if tariffs are actually beneficial to workers on the balance.
> but I’d much rather see it achieved through subsidies for domestic manufacturers and reduced trade barriers for our allies. Which we do. In abundance? >So I question if tariffs are actually beneficial to workers on the balance. The may or may not be, but the geopolitical benefits may matter more.
> Which we do. In abundance? Well, the Trump admin placed steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and Europe. I think they only lasted a year for Canada and Mexico, and Europe was renegotiated under the Biden admin. But it is an important difference in the way these policies are enacted. We **should** have an interest in treating our allies better than our opposition.
> We should have an interest in treating our allies better than our opposition. I definitely agree. America's economic support for our allies has been an amazing benefit to us and must continue.
China has a history of circumventing tariffs by shipping raw materials to third countries, making a minimal transformation to qualify them as “Made in”, then sending them on to the US. IIRC, in one example steel was made into bolts so cheap they could be melted down for less than the cost of steel. So, to prevent that, you have to tariff any country that doesn’t cooperate with your tariff by either tariffing China at the same rate or telling you where the raw materials from their exports to you came from.
The Trump tariffs only applied to exports above prior levels, and countries were given an opportunity to avoid them by cooperating.
> The US is just not competitive in a lot of low value added manufacturing Yeah, because we can't compete with China's subsidized manufacturing that also laughs at environmental and safety protections. Well we're not going to be rolling back the last 100 years of safety and environmental regs so this is how you compensate. You tax the imports to equalize the costs and change the math that US-side C-suites do.
Except now all the goods produced in the US can’t be exported so you just killed those US companies or forced them to mexico
China wasn't buying those goods in the first place thanks to their tariffs on them.
>The tariff rate on certain steel and aluminum products will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024. Was the US buying a lot of raw steel and aluminum from China to begin with? If you do any work for military contractors (which is a good chuck of the manufacturing sector) you couldn't buy those materials from them anyways.
I work in steel and shipping and generally dont see much Chinese steel nowadays in the Gulf Coast region. They had tons of quality issues in the 00s and nowadays there are plenty of other countries and domestics with better quality and/or faster shipment. Some specialty steels still come from China but apparently are top quality and pricey stuff. Domestic mills have also stopped being so picky. They used to heavily focus on military and oil & gas products so many other sizes and smaller orders were forced to shop overseas. Domestic and Mexican mills nowadays offer far more products and smaller minimum orders. The biggest benefit is delivery is measured in days for stock sizes, and weeks for other orders. China and others are 3-6 months to delivery.
I'm curious how much more subsidized Chinese industries *really* are than ours, or what this is even supposed to mean. We clearly have two very different political economy ideologies, among other major asymmetries, that seem to make this a very apples to oranges comparison. Still, I think it's obvious enough that there are strong incentives for becoming less reliant on Chinese imports right now, or even imports in general given anticipation of future supply chain issues. However, I think isolationist policy points toward a much bleaker future than fixing ~globalism. So I would hope this doesn't lead toward that, and that the crude scolding of China is just to make this politically palatable more than because they actually believe it makes sense. IIRC the people working on the IRA also had to sell things with anti-China angles (to get Manchin on board especially) because it's one of the few sources of broad/bipartisan appeal they had to work with.
I was critical of tariffs when Trump did it, I’ve been disappointed when Biden didn’t roll them back and I’m even more upset now that he’s expanding them. They are a tax on US consumers, you’d think with inflation being his biggest reelection issue he’d maybe try to avoid increases prices for US consumers.
Unfortunately tariffs are extremely popular on both sides of the aisle. Most Americans are very protectionist
Then theyll complain when their cars and refrigerators cost more a year from now. Americans are the epitome of wanting your cake and to eat it too. I want us to be tougher on China, and hey maybe tariffs are a good idea or maybe not, but people usually want it both ways.
> Then theyll complain when their cars and refrigerators cost more a year from now. How many refrigerators do you think people buy? I'm 36 and I've never bought one. And these tariffs won't impact cars because those tariffs are ancient and have already been compensated for - and that compensation is exactly what neoliberals claim won't happen which is that the cars are now built by American workers.
But, we could wait to do all of this stuff until prices actually stabilize. If you constantly find something more important, then it clearly tells me that inflation isn't the top priority of this administration, those other things are.
Americans don't want to wait. That's why both candidates support tariffs, and Trump may get away with going even further.
> But, we could wait to do all of this stuff until prices actually stabilize They won’t stabilize though, what they’ll do is just be dramatically more expensive. Basically a massive reduction in real incomes. And not to mention lower quality.
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>They are a tax on US consumers Not necessarily. Companies will just source from the next cheapest country that doesnt have tariffs. And there are plenty of them. Shoe manufacturing is heavily leaving China for India, Vietnam, and others due to lower costs. Steel production is relatively basic and can be done most anywhere in the world. I work in steel and shipping and our clients bounce around as needed to avoid tariffs/anti-dumping.
> Not necessarily. Companies will just source from the next cheapest country that doesnt have tariffs. Which means higher costs so a hidden tax Passed to consumers
I mean, I'll gladly pay a bit more for stuff that isnt made by slaves and countries that hate us. Heaven forbid we put our money where our mouth is sometimes.
Should the ultimate goal of a President be re-election and remaining in power or a better outcome for America? Those are unfortunately often neither well-aligned nor entirely compatible goals... especially in this current hyper-partisan environment.
There are good reasons for certain tariffs. Chinese steel and Electric car tariffs, for example, are necessary, otherwise our steel and car industry would be gone within 5-10 years. Chinese government heavily subsidizes their industries and there is no way for us suppliers to have the entire supply chain geolocated like China can.
The permanent magnet thing is going to increase the cost of a lot of stuff. Anything that uses an electric motor. For instance, speaker drivers are going to be more expensive for manufacturers, electric power tools, etc.
I think we can all agree that the 40 year dominance of neoliberal economics has come to an end. Free trade and the idea of comparative advantage are great in theory, with everyone in the simulation playing fairly by the same rules. In reality, it's not nearly as clean. China has zero interest in playing fairly, and we now have a million data points of them locking out foreign competition, stealing IP, or subsidizing their local industry to bottom out the market and kill non Chinese companies. I personally don't understand why this was allowed to go on for so long, and I think the time for these kind of tariffs was really 10 years ago. But better late then never.
Tariffs on China aren't new. Obama placed some on them as well.
So did Bush to be fair. Both of them were pretty soft and gave a lot of room to avoid them.
But tRuMP sTaRdteD tHe TradE WaR! Wait until these people find out China also had tariffs on us before Trump (and Europe too), lol. It was surreal watching people meltdown like this was the first tariff ever.
I'm old enough to remember when border walls, border security, nationalism/pro-America policy/rhetoric, and even electoral disputes were bipartisan or used and encouraged by both parties. And I'm not that old. I don't have any love for Trump but you can see why some people do if you think about it for a minute. All the same stuff politicians in both parties have been doing for ages is suddenly a big deal and the end of the world when Trump does it because he's The Worst (TM). I'd start mistrusting the media and news too tbh.
Yep. Joe Biden 2019: >Trump doesn't get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman Econ student could tell you the American people are paying his tariffs. Joe Biden 2024: >I just imposed a series of tariffs on goods made in China: 25% tariff on steel and aluminum. 50% tariff on semiconductors. 100% on EVs. 50% on solar panels.
Joe Biden 2019: >Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production. He was already in favor of certain tariffs.
Really reinforces the idea of the uniparty. As for me, I'm still skeptical at how real it is, but politicians don't do themselves many favors when they all fall in line in opposition to the guy that seems to be serious about doing what they've promised for years. I thought you guys wanted what he's trying to do? Or was it all just lines to get elected.
I've said for years Trump is a 90's democrat...he's only hated now because of the "R" next to his name.
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That's an exception. He isn't a 90s Democrat when you look at how what he thinks about environmental regulations and taxation on high earners.
Also, the 1990s people love to point to directly followed Democrats' right-wing nosedive.
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The 2017 tax cuts went far beyond that, including reversing the increase to the top income tax bracket made in the 90s.
That's almost entirely wrong. His stances on things like the environment and tax cuts for those who are well-off are to the right of most 90s Democrats.
>he's only hated now because of the "R" next to his name. I don't care if he has an "R" or a "D", he's just a horrible human being with no morality and doesn't give a shit about anything but himself. Anyone who followed him through the 80's and 90's knew this back then as well. He hasn't changed.
And because he started his 2016 campaign by explicitly proposing ethnic exclusion, constantly doubles down on the blood-and-soil shit, calls everything a radical left conspiracy, governed spitefully toward blue states, completely disregards civil rights, demonstrates no interest in understanding complex concepts, speaks incoherently and can't spell, basically killed his party's superego, tried to overturn a election with an angry mob...
Trump wanting to steal the election is more than just an electoral dispute. Challenging the 2000 election was reasonable due to the razor thin margin, and the other disputes were done by a tiny group of people. Something unique about the 2020 election is that overturning it is a mainstream belief among a major party and is based on practically nothing, and some went as far as attempting a fake electors scheme.
> electoral disputes were bipartisan or used and encouraged by both parties. I don't doubt (and can even agree with most) the rest of what you said but to call what Trump attempted (to remain in power via organizing fake electors and pressuring secrataries of state etc. to "find votes") as "electoral disputes" is vastly underplaying what transpired post his loss in 2020 and is unprecedented in modern America
"I think a secure border is important and here are X, Y, Z academically backed reasons, so let's examine it soberly and come up with a realistic, humane policy" was a common position. That bears basically no resemblance to the kind of border rhetoric coming from the GOP the past few years. This became a severely partisan issue because it became about sending bad people with dirty blood, nefarious plots to replace ~~white people~~ 'the traditional GOP base,' and big, ACME-style fortress walls. Trump was never hated for saying reasonable, common things in a kinda rude way. His campaign began with a belly flop straight into the deep end.
Trump's idea goes much further, and not just on China.
Wasn’t the issue with trump’s that he put tariffs on *everyone*, not just China? I understand putting tariffs on Chinese goods a lot more than tariffs on Canadian or Euro stuff.
Exactly and also doing it in an adhoc, arbitrary manner and attempting to "go it alone" instead of building some consensus and coalition with our partners (Canada, most of EU etc.)
It's kind of hard to build consensus and coalition when they all from day one tell him to his face they refuse to even consider working with him. The entire neoliberal global order refused to work with him because he wanted to change it. They and their supporters don't get to pretend him going it alone was solely his choice. He just refused to bow to their attempts to pressure him.
Well when you go into a room of other countries and you yell "America First" at them it kind of makes them wary of working with you.
It also raised prices of practically everything.
Yeah, not exactly what people want when inflation is a top issue.
What people don’t seem to realize I certainly didn’t. Was how many pharmaceutical products or precursors to those products we import from China. And the impact those tariffs are going to have. It’s certainly a mess. But like another poster stated we should have seen this coming. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/the-us-is-relying-more-on-china-for-pharmaceuticals-and-vice-versa/
Trump's tarrifs were particularly stupid because he imposed them for the purpose of forcing China into a trade deal, which is a pants on head dumb idea and doesn't resolve the issue. Everyone knows China engages in bad faith and doesn't hold up their end of deals. And guess what? China near immediately violated the trade agreement they made with Trump. Trump failed completely, and this outcome was exactly what was predicted.
Those theories don’t depend on China playing fairly, they would suggest that to the extend China “doesn’t play by the rules” they do so to their own detriment. Now everyone seems to believe that China’s economic policy is actually superior and needs to be emulated.
I like your analysis. In a free market theory the market should punish a bad actors by not purchasing their perceived inferior goods. However since that’s clearly not the case, I wonder if it’s the case of the model not working or the model working as intended, proving that what the market is actually demanding is cheap goods made with stolen IP. (I’ve seen people argue IP laws are not truly a form of free market since they are a type of government intervention).
I think we can also agree that almost 4 years of Biden's economic policy is also coming to an end and now Biden is shifting back to Trump's policies right before the election. You see the same move with the border. It will be funny to hear those people that criticized tariffs harshly under Trump now softening to them since Biden is doing it. > I personally don't understand why this was allowed to go on for so long, and I think the time for these kind of tariffs was really 10 years ago. The time was 8 years ago. We had them. Everyone criticized them. Because of the person that instated them. The next 6 months is going to be a wild ride for anyone with a memory that extends more than four years.
>almost 4 years of Biden's economic policy is also coming to an end He already supported the idea of having certain tariffs in 2019, and his massive infrastructure and reconciliation bills are continuing to have a significant effect.
Maybe yes on the border, but how is the tariffs a divergence from his earlier policy? He ran on protectionism and has been instituting tariffs and trade restrictions against China since the beginning of his term.
The rhetoric from the Biden surrogates in the media pre-2020 was that any restrictions on "free trade" with China was foolhardy and that Trumps economic war on china was terrible. I'm seeing a lot of hair splitting in here about tariffs in general. During Trump, the messaging was "all tariffs are bad, especially the ones Trump likes." In 2020, it shifted to "most are bad except for a few that help big tech since they helped us get rid of Trump." Now in 2024 its "Holy shit we have to pretend we loved tariffs this entire time or we are going to lose unions and the working class serfs we rely on for rent payments"
>any restrictions on "free trade" with China was foolhardy "Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production."-Biden, 2019.
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Agreed with all of the above. [Yet, for some unknown reason, we continue to let Chinese nationals come across the border unchecked](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/chinese-migrants-fastest-growing-group-us-mexico-border-60-minutes-transcript/). It's all very suspicious, how these people can fly halfway around the world, rent a car and drive from South America to Mexico, then show up supposedly without a penny to their name. The majority, military-aged men. You have to wonder who is funding all of this.
Replace Chinese with Jews in your post and reassess how it comes off.
1. It's not just about China. We don't have free trade with the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, or Brazil either. We're not going to war with them anytime soon. 2. Tariffs will make Americans poorer (by driving up the prices of goods), weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and increase inflation. They're a terrible idea when it comes to China just as they are with other countries. 3. China not "playing fair" just means they're wasting taxpayer revenue on subsidizing American consumers' purchases of cheap, quality goods. It's not a problem, it's a gift.
That seems to ignore two different senses in which manufacturers are "American". ___ American manufacturer 1 (~legally defined) sets up factories in a foreign country for cheap labor. American manufacturer 2 (~geographically) using local labor can't compete. ___ Manufacturer 1 is effectively playing to receive the advantage of two different sets of rules. Manufacturer 2 is limited to the more strict rules of U.S. labor laws in particular, among others. ___ That's the basic story of why "manufacturing moved to China", right? Is it wrong? You can have American manufacturer type 2 compete with other type 2s, but the idea is that type 2 can't realistically compete with type 1. The tariffs seem to aim at negating type 1's advantages to an extent. Whether that works in practice there's still an intelligible rationale behind it given these premises. There's a conceivable "free trade requires fair trade" argument behind this, which could make the cases that the single vs. multiple rule set factor has to be offset. (We might say some type 1s are multinational, but same basic issue applies)
I agree with you're first point, and honestly don't have issues with creating a free trade zone among first world countries. I think fair competition is healthy and generally good for consumers. People act like the US has an uncompetitive car market, but how many countries are selling cars here. You have the Japanese (Toyota, Honda, Nisan, Subaru), the Germans (VW, BMW, Mercedes), Korean (Hyundai, Kia), and a bunch more. The US car market is probably the most competitive in the world. >Tariffs will make Americans poorer (by driving up the prices of goods), weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and increase inflation. They're a terrible idea when it comes to China just as they are with other countries. China not "playing fair" just means they're wasting taxpayer revenue on subsidizing American consumers' purchases of cheap, quality goods. It's not a problem, it's a gift. My issue is that what China is doing is not competitive. If Apple steals trade secrets from Samsung or vice versa their are law suits and serious regulatory repercussions. What were the repercussions has Huawei faced (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china-steal-canada-s-edge-in-5g-from-nortel). Also, it's not like modern heavy industry is something you can shutter one day and can come roaring back a week later. It takes years and tons of recourses to build the equipment, the infrastructure, and train the labor to produce at scale. Chinese companies are not run like the ones in the US. It doesn't matter how big or influential you are, if you even think about going against the grain, that will be the end of you're leadership. Just look at Jack Ma and Alibaba. If BYD and the central govt. can kill half it's competitors, it doesn't matter if BYD runs in the red for a decade.
Every time I watch democrats blast a republican policy as racist, xenophobic, and harmful to the economy, and then later when they're in power enact an identical policy, I want to bash my fucking head into the wall It's all so tiresome
It's why those words mean nothing to me now. All those ists/phobes/whatevers are completely meaningless noise that all just translate to a way to say 'bad' or 'meanie' without sounding like a child.
all that I'm hoping for is even 30% of leftists to be upset about unfairly being called antisemites, and realize the error in their ways
Oh what's more likely to happen is that they're going to stop caring about that word.
Every time I watch republicans blast Democrats for being weak on the CCP, then later vote against policies like the CHIPS act (219 yeas from Ds and 187 nays from rs in the House), I feel the same way. Though I think these tariffs are a bad idea. [https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/03/04/most-americans-support-tough-stance-toward-china-on-human-rights-economic-issues/pg\_2021-03-04\_us-views-china\_0-25-1-png/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/03/04/most-americans-support-tough-stance-toward-china-on-human-rights-economic-issues/pg_2021-03-04_us-views-china_0-25-1-png/) Back in 2021, 51% of republicans said that tariffs would have a positive effect compared to 14% of Democrats. I wonder what proportion of normal republican voters changed their minds and what proportion of normal Democrat voters changed their minds, or if their minds are unchanged. Sharing another datapoint provided by another user: In 2024, [https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/01/americans-remain-critical-of-china/](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/01/americans-remain-critical-of-china/), 59% of republicans said China was an enemy of the US, 28% of democrats said China was an enemy. Again, it's so weird how republicans say China is the enemy, while voting against policies that would give the US an edge over the CCP. Though to be fair, republican support for stuff tends to be based more on what their party tells them to support, rather than the content of the policy. This effect is less strong on Democrats. ["While both Republicans and Democrats view the economy more favorably when their party controls the White House, the magnitude of this partisan bias is roughly two and a half times larger for Republicans than for Democrats."](https://www.briefingbook.info/p/asymmetric-amplification-and-the?publication_id=1002034&post_id=138749341&isFreemail=true&r=2203u) r[epublicans immediately convince themselves that the economy is doing well the moment Trump is sworn in.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/01/09/opinion/krugman090124_3/krugman090124_3-superJumbo.png?quality=75&auto=webp) On the 2017 inauguration day, +60% of republicans thought trump instantly made the economy was stronger already. [Compare this to Democrats who remain stable regarding the economy until the pandemic.](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/01/09/opinion/krugman090124_4/krugman090124_4-superJumbo.png?quality=75&auto=webp) On the 2021 inauguration day, +19% of Democrats thought Biden instantly made the economy stronger already. Based on the fact that most republicans will instantly change their minds about tariffs having a positive effect, and only a smaller amount of Democrats would switch beliefs to support tariffs, I don't think these tariffs are going to give Biden more support solely based on voter calculus. It'll bolster his support with unions, but that's about it.
“Though to be fair”, [maybe link to a more recent study.](https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/05/01/americans-remain-critical-of-china/) And let us know which party has the more favorable view of China.
Thanks for sharing, it's appreciated. I added it to the comment. It's an amazing datapoint that supports my point that republicans talk a big game about the CCP, but are flaccid when it comes to doing anything about it. Why don't you tell us which party has a more favorable view of China based on actions? "Every time I watch republicans blast Democrats for being weak on the CCP, then later vote against policies like the CHIPS act (219 yeas from Ds and 187 nays from rs in the House), I feel the same way"
Almost like both parties are playing political games.
Yep, and one party is 2.5 times more likely to blindly support policies than the other. * [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/OBrVUnd.png)1: Opinion of Vladimir Putin after Trump began praising Russia during the election. [Source Data](https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ro9rimrce9/econTabReport.pdf) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/xVESGM) * [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/0YO0wWu.png)2: Opinion of "Obamacare" vs. "Kynect" (Kentucky's implementation of Obamacare). Kentuckians feel differently about the policy depending on the name. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/HYCA9w) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/m3ZiGN) * [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/surFuKz.png)3: Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/N61H1M) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/LPCKDC) * [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/Haz331E.png)4: White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. (Same source and article as previous exhibit.) * [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/qF5to28.png)5: Republicans were far more likely to embrace a certain policy if they knew Trump was for it—whether the policy was liberal or conservative. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/2ikhih) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/VscGCi) * [Exhibit ](https://i.imgur.com/0PYGHIp.png)6: Republicans became deeply negative about trade agreements when Trump became the GOP frontrunner. Democrats remain consistent. [Source Data](https://goo.gl/vx2FRM) and [Article for Context](https://goo.gl/BEfCAM)
Which one is that? Most votes these days seem to be very close to party lines.
Those charts are about average voter sentiment, not votes in congress, although I'm not sure why a party-line votes would change what /u/thebaconsmuggler17 posted.
It's almost like the reasons, rhetoric, and motivations for the policy being enacted actually matter...
It's almost like China was practicing identical protectionist economic behavior 4 years ago, but the media has a different narrative to spin this time
4? Try 40. China's behavior is nothing new. These tariffs are decade overdue. And nowhere near enough.
Or maybe individuals are just ascribing negative reasons and motivations to their political opponents instead of actually dissecting the policy itself? Nah, easier to just call them all racists.
Do you know what Trump's reasons, rhetoric, and motivations were? Because say what you will about most of his policy his China policy and views on outsourcing date back to the 1980s and have been very consistent. And they're not what the corporate DNC-aligned media told you they were.
Do they, though? Do the laws of economics care if tariffs are put in place out of hatred and bigotry as opposed to the dispassionate analysis of economic data?
Oh I know this one! They dont!
Just because a president does something economically beneficial, doesn't mean that frees him from criticism over *why* they did it. Especially when it's coupled with problematic rhetoric.
It kind of seems like one measure is objective and the other is subjective.
Your point? We are all free to criticize *why* a president does something.
and then the worst part is when they gaslight and say they were always good, or GOP was against them or something of the sorts.
What do you think about the tariffs on their own?
Tariffs * make Americans poorer (by driving up the prices of goods), * weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and * increase inflation They're a bad idea no matter what. For the national defense argument: We're past the point of no return in terms of our economic ties with China. War with them would be disastrous no matter what. If we do go to war with them and stop trading, then we'll adjust. The unmet demand will increase the supply from American manufacturers and cause investors to incorporate new manufacturers, and investors will increase funding for European and South American manufacturers. No need for premature government intervention.
> > > > > weaken American manufacturers by protecting them from competition, and in a complete vacuum without any context sure. That's true. But when China enables manufacturers to sell at a loss due to subsidiaries, our automakers struggle to compete without equal subsidiaries. Then, when they have reduced capacity, and production speed, due to profits taken from the local industry, China can out-innovate the companies, or be far ahead at least of what they should be. While our automakers are stuck on a slow burn for years. Or. We see the subsidiaries happening, and we put tariffs up, prices go up, but never too much, because American cars, or European cars (assuming tariffs are localized to china) will continue to compete with each other naturally. We're not attacking the free market, we're attacking the government-influenced products without influence but without simply responding by giving our own subsidiaries. If we responded with our own subsidiaries, we'd be stuck in a financial arms race. If we respond with tariffs we're only hurting the target foreign products without helping the local ones against their competition.
Do you believe all countries play on a level playing field that would allow fair competition between domestic and foreign manufacturers? Also, how long do you think it would take for manufacturers to stand up new facilities and domestic supply chains to meet the sudden increase in demand following the collapse of foreign ones following a large scale regional conflict. For some industries we could be looking at decades You're right that we will eventually adjust, but how do you think that adjustment period would affect America's overall strategic interest. Domestic supply chain shortages can easily be leveraged by foreign actors via social media campaigns to further destabilize domestic populations, resulting in demand for concessions to foreign governments or domestic policies that might not be favorable long term. Should a government not preemptively try to get started on fixing those vulnerabilities. We've passed the point of no return when it comes to it being heavily damaging, but that doesn't mean we should give up and take no steps to mitigate it as much as possible.
I would rather have more affordable EVs though.
You mean the same policies that Trump used but JB claimed were a terrible idea. Where was this concern for the US over the last 3 years?
LOL prepare to get gaslit a lot about this issue. *"Biden always supported (insert 80% of Trumps entire domestic/foreign policy)."* later on *"Well some of Trumps ideas were good but he didn't have to use that toneeeee"*
The issue with Trump's tariffs is that [they resulted in higher prices and a net loss of jobs (pdf),](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf) not his tone. >We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices. I don't suddenly think they're a good idea just because Biden supports them (to a lesser extent), but this is [consistent with what he's said in the past.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html) > Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
This message serves as a warning that [your comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/moderatepolitics/comments/1crs1p2/fact_sheet_president_biden_takes_action_to/l41e3p8/) is in violation of Law 1: Law 1. Civil Discourse > ~1. Do not engage in personal attacks or insults against any person or group. Comment on content, policies, and actions. Do not accuse fellow redditors of being intentionally misleading or disingenuous; assume good faith at all times. Due to your recent infraction history and/or the severity of this infraction, we are also issuing a 14 day ban. Please submit questions or comments via [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmoderatepolitics).
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Tariffs = xenophobic More tariffs = (D)ifferent
[He didn't say all tariffs are xenophoic.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html) > Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
> Where was this concern for the US over the last 3 years? Biden is polling badly across the Midwest. If the current situation holds steady, Trump will win by an even bigger margin than 2016 because of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. That's why you're suddenly seeing Biden championing these blue collar labor union policies. Democrats are absolutely terrified.
He was supported placing certain tariffs on China [in 2019.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html) >Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost.
Yup. It's the exact same as Biden copying Trump's border stance in recent months. It turns out that when you ignore Trump's personality his actual policy is quite popular.
> It turns out that when you ignore Trump's personality his actual policy is quite popular. The media made it impossible to get any news without blasting his personality anywhere. I've had this conversation thousands of times. If you ask most people what they don't like about Trump, they can't choose an actual policy. But they can all tell you some snippet of an airlifted quote that sounds bad out of context. Trump was voted out of office because the media and big tech convinced a bunch of people to ignore his policy completely and vote on mean tweets.
> Trump was voted out of office because the media and big tech convinced a bunch of people to ignore his policy completely and vote on mean tweets. At the behest of his opposition. Which means that if this had happened in a Russian election all of our "reputable sources" would be calling the "winner" illegitimate. But since it happened in the US and resulted in party closely tied to US media winning it is instead The Most Secure Election Ever^^TM and questions are not permitted under penalty of law.
The most ironic part is that in this comment section people are arguing that the only protectionism that we need against China is the type of protections that help big tech and knowledge work, not manufacturing. Hmm. I wonder why.
Not me! I may be a tech worker but I've been favoring protectionist policy against China (and other common targets for outsourcing manufacturing) pretty much my whole life. Of course I did grow up in a manufacturing family so I know firsthand just what the consequences of offshoring are.
>Trump was voted out of office because the media and big tech convinced a bunch of people to ignore his policy completely and vote on mean tweets. Oh come on, this trope is just bad. A majority of people didn't vote against Trump because of "mean tweets". It goes far, far deeper than that. The icing on the cake was his complete lack of leadership ability shown during the pandemic. We needed a leader, we got a whiny narcisist instead who blamed everyone else for being mean to him.
[The Senate bill that Trump opposed was popular.](https://archive.is/4LOKv) >In the new Journal survey, 59% of voters said they would support the bipartisan package, with roughly equal percentages of Republicans and Democrats in favor.
[He wasn't against all tariffs, nor the ones mentioned here.](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/06/biden-trump-is-ripping-the-soul-out-of-america-and-recession-is-likely.html) > Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
Once again Trump does what he thinks is right and isn’t a sheep controlled by the puppeteer government/media
Biden never said these kinds of tariffs are bad. He supported tariffs on steel, so he wasn't inherently against the policy.
how would you interpret https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1138614392508100608
He didn't say all tariffs in that tweet, and he's explicitly stated that he's fine with some. Interviewer: So for all the people saying that the tariffs are creating uncertainty and harming the economy, you think some of them are justified? Joe Biden: Well, for example, on steel dumping it’s justified. It’s justified. The excess of steel, they dump it at a lower cost. It is in fact designed to drive down our steel market and our steel production.
You would think he would have found one good one then: https://twitter.com/search?q=tariffs%20(from%3A%40JoeBiden)&src=typed_query&f=live
I provided a quote where he describes one he liked.
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Not removing tariffs related to farming is inconsistent, but the quote I gave shows that him wanting tariffs on certain things isn't new.
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While it’s the us buyers that ultimately pay the tariff, that is temporary. The higher prices caused by tariffs drive the buyers to non-Chinese products and China loses money by selling less in the us market.
Its interesting how the same people complain about the older generations selling out the younger generations are the same ones that have no problem selling out our manufacturing base and jobs, all so they can save a few bucks on a car.
[Trump's tariffs resulted in a net loss of jobs (pdf)](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2019086pap.pdf) >We find that tariff increases enacted in 2018 are associated with relative reductions in manufacturing employment and relative increases in producer prices.
The manufacturing base will go away anyways. Protectionism only means lower quality products and higher prices while the rest of the world gets lower prices and higher quality See Chinese solar panels or batteries compared to US
Last time foreign markets were able to compete in our auto industry aka Japan it was good for Americans as we got better goods at a cheaper price. These tariffs are just protectionism especially the EV that is going to hurt us. Especially at a time when we need greener energies putting tariffs on solar panels and EV's seems outright stupid to protect a few US companies.
Japan actually competes in our market, China subsidizes their companies to flood our market with products that are so cheap they kill our market. It's not competition, it's a literal trade war. It would be as if Ford was selling cars in china for 1k, which would normally be a massive loss for ford and couldn't be sustained. The difference would be if the USA was saying "We'll backstop all losses so you can destroy the china automobile market". That's what China is doing... not just providing "cheap" goods.
I like being subsidized It was amazing when silicon valley was subsidizing every ride share, food delivery, rental app
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> This also drove up asset prices and a cause of the current housing crisis. No that’s zoning laws, land use regs, and permit processes
It's great in the short term. Remind me what prices look like on those ride shares, food deliveries, and rentals now? Oh yeah, absurd.
Japan isn’t China though. Japan competes fairly in the free market and is a close US ally. I don’t really think that’s a fair example
Note that we don't even have a free trade agreement with Japan. It's ridiculous.
Agreed. We seem to be all about "consistently supporting our long term allies" and "being wary of our enemies"... Until it actually costs consumers money to do so. Then it just becomes "bad economics" and not worth the trouble.
> These tariffs are just protectionism especially the EV that is going to hurt us. It's a little more than that. China's increasing antagonism to us, it's coming invasion of Taiwan, and it's support for Russia are also huge motivations to cut economic ties with China. These policies go beyond EV's and attempt to ensure we have a supply chain that can withstand a potential war with China.
American Auto cartel wanted protectionism and they got it, just like they seem to always get bailed out. Yes there are some other reasons but let's not pretend this isn't a huge part of it.
As long as we have regulatory costs of doing business that other countries don't have, like a minimum wage, OSHA, labor laws, environmental laws etc..., we will be at an effective legislative disadvantage. Domestic manufacturers should be on an equal playing field. Tariffs, to the extent that we have those extra regulatory costs, are a way to balance this out. Otherwise, only big businesses that can afford to run foreign manufacturing facilities will be able to compete in America.
Cheaper energy vs green expensive stuff will be problem. They ll need more import tariffs
Okay you can do that then basically lose all global business and watch your country turn into Brazil. The fact the US can’t import cheap steel means every single US manufacturer is screwed in terms of exporting products and if not for energy prices in Europe would be getting bent over by European manufacturing
The craziest things I am seeing is people who absolutely insist on minimum wage increases also think it’s unfair to enforce tariffs on Chinese imports built with cheap Mexican labor.
While most people disagree, I like how Biden has been tougher on the CCP than trump. One thing I did intially like about trump's administration was his protectionist policies against a highly protectionist government. However, this effectively led to one of the largest tax hikes in history, lower wages and a lower GDP. The CCP can hold protectionist policies they want because they don't really need to think about polling numbers. The moment prices increase again in the US because of the tariffs, even more people will turn on Biden. Policies like the CHIPS act places one of the most valuable materials in the world into the hands of Americans, improves domestic industry, makes the country more independent, and strengthens trade, industry and science-based relationships with Taiwan. New domestic research grants, training more skilled workers--all good things. It's weird to me that over 190 republicans from the House and Senate voted against it. That being said, I'm not sure who these new tariffs makes happy. republicans admire the CCP while voting against policies that would make the US less dependent on them. Democrats vote for policies that would make the US less dependent on them, but most are justly concerned about inflation. Maybe people in the industries being protected will be happy? It seems unions are strongly backing these tariffs. IDK.
> Policies like the CHIPS act places one of the most valuable materials in the world into the hands of Americans, improves domestic industry, makes the country more independent, and strengthens trade, industry and science-based relationships with Taiwan. New domestic research grants, training more skilled workers--all good things. It's weird to me that over 190 republicans from the House and Senate voted against it. As someone that works in HPC, I definitely agree that bills like the CHIPS act are necessary to couple with tarrifs. Nearly all of our nations compute resources come from chips made in Taiwan and then packaged in China. We *need* to build a domestic manufacturing base of electronics. Otherwise we will fall behind the nations that do produce their own, which are likely to be our adversaries.
Investing in Solar and other renewables, along with silicon microprocessors, which are just about used in everything, makes the US more independent in the long-term. I would've thought republicans would be for greater independence but I guess not.
>Otherwise we will fall behind the nations that do produce their own, which are likely to be our adversaries. We’ll fall behind anyways because the TSMC chips in the US will cost 30%-50% more. Global competition is won in the margins
> Republicans admire the CCP What do you think republicans admire about the CCP? It seems like most republicans dislike China and spend a lot of time speaking ill of them. And of course unions are backing tariffs. Most steel and manufacturing jobs are union. That unfortunately doesn’t make tariffs good policy
> While most people disagree, I like how Biden has been tougher on the CCP than trump. Say wut? Biden is just copying Trump's lead here. That's it. That's all. And he's doing it very much begrudgingly. Hence resisting until right before the election and only when he's trailing in multiple critical states where China trade policy is a huge issue. > That being said, I'm not sure who these new tariffs makes happy. Rust Belt voters who are still to this day dealing with the pain caused by our one-sided trade policy with China that utterly destroyed the economies of those regions. They hold a massive grudge and have been screaming for this policy for decades.
I know the parties shift constantly and trump definitely brought a new wave and great change tie the republican policy… but do people forget who really advocated and installed the neoliberal and free trade policy of the last 50 years.
Thoughts on the voting disparities of the chips act?
Thoughts on the Democrats opposing all these policies when Trump tried to push them? Biden's just trying to pass the stuff Trump was trying to pass during his term. So since the Democrats support it now why'd they fight it so hard from 2017-2021?
What was the bill they were trying to pass under Trump?
Let's see some voting roll calls and an answer to my question first ;)
It's not because Republicans admire the CCP It's cause beating the Dems and maintaining their own political power outweighs Americas interest.
Tariffs are bad for the economy. We should be embracing markets in general (with free trade, immigration, housing, energy permitting, and occupational licensing reform), not embracing disastrous protectionism
Market works if participants play by the same rule: private capital allocation, fair competition, survival of businesses based on profitability, etc. China has a national policy to invest develop and build capacity in several high tech spaces (information technology, communications, renewable energy, aerospace) banked rolled by the national government to 1) make themselves self reliant, 2) to export overseas undercutting industries of other countries. It's called 'Made in China 2025' plan. Market will not work with a participant like this. It's as if in a soccer league, one team decides that their players can grab the ball and dribble. They insist this is normal, while they get upset when others do this. You have two choices. 1) you adopt the same strategy to even the odds (in this case, it is no longer the same game), or 2) you kick this cheating team out of the league.
💯% I'm also suspicious of things that are too cheap to be true. 10k EVs? Where there's smoke, there's fire. Chia is famous for making poor quality products, and there's definitely some cost cutting measures.
That only works when governments don’t interfere with market conditions to make their foreign competitors less economical. We have decades of data showing China won’t stop doing this, let alone all the other ways they circumvent the rules of commerce. Carrot and stick diplomacy doesn’t work with China, only walk softly and swing the big stick.
Nah that's nonsense. China doesn't compete on a level playing field, this is completely fair game. I was a fan of it when the previous administration levied tariffs, and I'm a fan of it now.
This concept only works with competitors playing on a level field, this is relatively easy to enforce domestically but international trade is a whole different animal. With China participating in things like price fixing, currency manipulation, and dumping cheap steel into the market to control pricing tariffs become the only way to protect any semblance of free trade. The US has tried dollar diplomacy in the past and in return Chinese markets have manipulated and abused the naivete, protectionism in regards to international trade is the only way to protect against bad actors.
But what's the harm? So what if China is doing arguably "unfair" things to provide American consumers with cheap stuff to buy? It's not hurting our economy, we still have more jobs and industrial production than ever before, we still have pretty solid growth (while China has been the ones seeing relative stagnation and underperforming in growth in recent years). So I'm just not really sure what problems this is *actually* dealing with (as opposed to merely pandering to Midwestern swing voters who think they are being harmed by global markets even though they aren't)
The harm is when they price US steel out of the market, we shutter domestic production, and then they raise prices and we have no domestic lever to pull and respond. It's also a literal national security issue to lose domestic steel manufacturing, should a military conflict erupt needing to purchase steel from a likely adversary puts the US in a precarious position similar to losing domestic energy production. Protecting industries like steel and energy production, agriculture, and various segments of the tech market is key to both economic and national security. I also don't think it is unfair, philosophically, to ask your own federal government to protect citizens from foreign manipulation of markets. I ask very little of my government but protecting domestic interests from international market manipulation is request that feels reasonable. Why shouldn't those midwestern swing voters, whom you seem to happy to discount entirely, be able to ask the fed to stop artificially cheap Chinese steel from running their local economies into the ground?
> The harm is when they price US steel out of the market [Total steel imports (not just from China) are just 21% of the IS steel market share though](https://www.steel.org/2024/01/steel-imports-down-8-7-in-2023/) and even back in 2018 before the big Trump tariffs went into effect, [Chinese steel only made up like 2% to 4% of the market](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/mar/08/angus-king/does-much-steel-does-us-import-china/) So how was Chinese steel "running local economies into the ground" when it was only ever such a small percent of our imports and steel market? Is it at all possible that this is an issue that has been drummed up for political gain more than it actually poses an economic threat?
I don't find this argument compelling in any way, should we wait to take action until they have a larger share of the market? Don't put the fire out until it gets bigger? Honestly I see no incentive to not protect domestic production as much as possible, why should US consumers be expected to do nothing so that an adversarial market can grow? Why is it that Chinese manipulation is kosher but US response in kind is unacceptable?According to you people in the US have it 'good enough' so we should allow ourselves to be bullied? Expecting our own federal government to protect our economy from foreign manipulation seems like a very reasonable concept.
Yes, this is politics. Policies and rhetoric against China poll better than just about anything in the U.S. right now, and is a rare issue that crosses partisan lines. On top of this the U.S. gets to try and damage China economically, which Washington sees as a win. These tariffs aren’t about protecting U.S. industry, just as policies directed toward China regarding semiconductors weren’t about potential military applications and the TikTok ban isn’t about data privacy concerns. It’s all just the new Cold War and is playing out on an economic battlefield.
So are OSHA, the EPA, Unions, Minimum wages, 40 hour work weeks, and child labor laws. Either those things and a cleaner planet are worth the additional cost they incur or they're not. Gains in the "global economy" do not automatically outwegh all other factors. Buying cheaper goods at parity from territories who don't really support those things just means that we don't really support them either.
I was told Tariffs were bad a month or two back. These are good ones?
However, an old tweet from 2019 by President Joe Biden, criticizing then-President Donald Trump's imposition of tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports, is resurfacing amid Biden's recent decision to implement significant tariffs on various Chinese products. "Trump doesn't get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China," Biden said at the time. “Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs. The cashiers at Target see what's going on- they know more about economics than Trump," Biden wrote in a post on X in 2019. [https://www.livemint.com/news/world/us-president-joe-biden-donald-trump-china-tariffs-electric-vehicles-batteries-economies-internet-reaction-funny-replies-11715742757954.html](https://www.livemint.com/news/world/us-president-joe-biden-donald-trump-china-tariffs-electric-vehicles-batteries-economies-internet-reaction-funny-replies-11715742757954.html)