Economy Why Trump is doing all this ? What is the end-game of this ?

[mkess101]

No. For the past month, you guys have been insisting that tarriffs don't work and actually will hurt Americans. If that's true, why would Trudeau impose 'retaliatory' tarriffs. What is he retaliating against?

I don't know who "you guys" is necessarily, but it's not a zero sum game. Tarriffs imposed by Trump can (likely will) hurt Americans AND Canadians. Trudeau is a bum, but in this case it's basically a mandatory reaction from a trade partner if you wanna show even a HINT of backbone and have an iota of leverage in negotiations.

If you don't retaliate, you've basically told your trade partner (that's supposed to be an ally in this case) that they can solely determine the price of any goods manufactured and sold to them. That's not a partnership, that's one nation just working for another. This is obviously a somewhat simplified synopsis but for all intents and purposes what it boils down to.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

“There are many ways for you to do your part. It might mean checking the labels at the supermarket and picking Canadian-made products. It might mean opting for Canadian rye over Kentucky bourbon, or forgoing Florida orange juice altogether,” he said.

Trudeau added, “It might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites and tourist destinations our great country has to offer.”

Lol. 'Stop drinking orange juice and cancel your vacation to Hawaii and go to Saskatoon instead.'

That's gonna go over real well, dope.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

I don't know who "you guys" is necessarily, but it's not a zero sum game. Tarriffs imposed by Trump can (likely will) hurt Americans AND Canadians.

Ah, so the argument has changed. Got it. See I was told that tarriffs on Canadian goods wouldn't hurt Canada. Repeatedly. For a month.

 

[Mr Holmes]

The increase on Canadian lumber won't help bring down the cost of a home.

 

[heloder]

No. For the past month, you guys have been insisting that tarriffs don't work and actually will hurt Americans. If that's true, why would Trudeau impose 'retaliatory' tarriffs. What is he retaliating against?

If I produce buttons and you need buttons and my country puts a 25% tariff on my buttons, then you are going to be paying 25% more for my buttons. Am I getting that additional money? No, I'm not. The government is. So in other words, it hurts the consumer, and the producer, and only enriches the middle man (in this case, the government).

But that's not the end of the story. Because somebody else from another country makes buttons that are basically just as good as mine, but they're less expensive due to labor costs, and their government didn't impose any tariffs on those buttons. So now, instead of buying my buttons, you go buy the other buttons for much less. So now these tariffs have not only hurt the consumer and the producer, but they've also driven that consumer to start buying from competing nations instead of yours.

This is what Hair Furor is doing.

And on top of that, Canada (and I assume other nations moving forward) are going to just flat out ban the sale of certain American goods. Tariffs aren't the only weapons in a trade war.

He hasn't even been in office for two weeks and he's already destroyed two of our most important alliances, and is well on the way to destroying far more than that. All right before a potential global conflict.

Well done retards.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

If I produce buttons and you need buttons and my country puts a 25% tariff on my buttons, then you are going to be paying 25% more for my buttons. Am I getting that additional money? No, I'm not. The government is. So in other words, it hurts the consumer, and the producer, and only enriches the middle man (in this case, the government).

But that's not the end of the story. Because somebody else from another country makes buttons that are basically just as good as mine, but they're less expensive due to labor costs, and their government didn't impose any tariffs on those buttons. So now, instead of buying my buttons, you go buy the other buttons for much less. So now these tariffs have not only hurt the consumer and the producer, but they've also driven that consumer to start buying from competing nations instead of yours.

This is what Hair Furor is doing.

And on top of that, Canada (and I assume other nations moving forward) are going to just flat out ban the sale of certain American goods. Tariffs aren't the only weapons in a trade war.

He hasn't even been in office for two weeks and he's already destroyed two of our most important alliances, and is well on the way to destroying far more than that. All right before a potential global conflict.

Well done retards.

I know how tarriffs work. Why did you guys lie about them for a month?

 

[Deleted member 267581]

No. For the past month, you guys have been insisting that tarriffs don't work and actually will hurt Americans. If that's true, why would Trudeau impose 'retaliatory' tarriffs. What is he retaliating against?

……… hard to have conversations with people like yourself who only hear what they want.

1. Tariffs don’t work
Why… because the other country will retaliate with their own tarriffs. This was said over and over and over again. No country takes tarrifs laying down unless they are small

2. We import good from Canada, when Canada retaliates with their own tariffs those good become more expensive….. its very simple

 

[Deleted member 267581]

I know how tarriffs work. Why did you guys lie about them for a month?

That they don’t work for the intended outcome?


You just gotta stop pretending you knew how tariffs work lol. You clearly didn’t..

 

[MeatheadMike]

We've had close to a trllion dollars in trade deficit... don't know that you could get much worse....

A trade deficit just means we import more than we export. It is not inherently bad, particularly in developed countries, and we've had the world's largest trade deficit since the 1970s. In our case, the trade deficit is a result of our high consumer demand and strong domestic economy.

Why would you think a trade deficit would be bad in a developed country like the US?

 

[mkess101]

Ah, so the argument has changed. Got it. See I was told that tarriffs on Canadian goods wouldn't hurt Canada. Repeatedly. For a month.

You were? I mean, I can't speak for whoever said that but that's just stupidity.

The idea behind tariffs is to gain leverage and make trade imbalances more...balanced. And the word "tariff" isnt a dirty word and it's not like they're never a good idea. Specific, targeted tariffs with very defined goals often make sense.

Tariffs are supposed to be scalpels, not broadswords. Leveling huge, almost across-the-board tariffs against your biggest trade partners isn't even a broadsword, it's a fucking bazooka. And it's firing it at them in a small, enclosed space where there's almost zero chance of not becoming your own collateral damage.

Except it's the middle class and poor that care about what everyday shit costs. Not the super rich. They're safely inside the bomb shelter while that bazooka is fired.

 

[Cajun]

A trade deficit just means we import more than we export. It is not inherently bad, particularly in developed countries, and we've had the world's largest trade deficit since the 1970s. In our case, the trade deficit is a result of our high consumer demand and strong domestic economy.

Why would you think a trade deficit would be bad in a developed country like the US?

It's not good for us if we can't sell our goods elsewhere and import things from places like China making items for peanuts.

 

[therealdope]

If I produce buttons and you need buttons and my country puts a 25% tariff on my buttons, then you are going to be paying 25% more for my buttons. Am I getting that additional money? No, I'm not. The government is. So in other words, it hurts the consumer, and the producer, and only enriches the middle man (in this case, the government).

But that's not the end of the story. Because somebody else from another country makes buttons that are basically just as good as mine, but they're less expensive due to labor costs, and their government didn't impose any tariffs on those buttons. So now, instead of buying my buttons, you go buy the other buttons for much less. So now these tariffs have not only hurt the consumer and the producer, but they've also driven that consumer to start buying from competing nations instead of yours.

This is all true up to this point but size matters and the asymmetry of production/productivity means one side gets hurt much less. Let's continue with your analogy. Your buttons that are taxed at 25% will not be used in the products that they were before the tariffs. The end manufacturer of the goods will source an alternate button. Of course that pushes demand for the alternate button and its price goes up --- but not 25%. So yes, the consumer will pay more, but the increased cost is 10% more for the alternate button and that is less than 10% of the cost of the entire garment so the consumer sees a 1% product cost increase. OTOH - the effect on your button operation is that nobody in the tariffed country uses your buttons anymore so you should look for alternate customers in countries that won't tariff your goods. That may take time and you may need to increase you shipping costs to get your buttons to those countries, and you may have to drop price to incentivize the new business so your cost of customer acquisition just went up.

This is the problem of asymmetry of size/production and productivity. For us in Canada, this is a really big fucking problem. We aren't cost competitive and our productivity is actually decreasing (as difficult as it seems to believe).

The US's calculations are that Canada's economy could be in deep, deep shit in 2 weeks and certainly 5 weeks. What are we going to do, print money? Yes, that idea has been floated here but that is death by a thousand cuts; inflation after recession.

And on top of that, Canada (and I assume other nations moving forward) are going to just flat out ban the sale of certain American goods. Tariffs aren't the only weapons in a trade war.

Those countries better be producers with high productivity or that will hurt them even more.

 

[fedoriswar37]

The only reason to invoke these tarrifs should be to pay down your enormous national debt and only your national debt.

 

[Seano]

……… hard to have conversations with people like yourself who only hear what they want.

1. Tariffs don’t work
Why… because the other country will retaliate with their own tarriffs. This was said over and over and over again. No country takes tarrifs laying down unless they are small

2. We import good from Canada, when Canada retaliates with their own tariffs those good become more expensive….. its very simple

I'll ask this again. Why would Canada retaliate (which they have and will) with tariffs, when you people claim tariffs only hurt those imposing them?

 

[Seano]

The only reason to invoke these tarrifs should be to pay down your enormous national debt and only your national debt.

Well.... I mean, if these tariffs get Canada and Mexico to commit to helping stop the trafficking of fentanyl from China, that'd be a good thing, no?

 

[Sinister]

The only reason to invoke these tarrifs should be to pay down your enormous national debt and only your national debt.

And yet the CONservatives almost immediately wanted the debt ceiling raised. They can only function on debt economics. They suck at paying their bills.

 

[BFoe]

Don't act like you not all really curious to see the outcome of this experiment. It'll basically be the ultimate answer to the fundamental question "international free trade: Is it good?".

Well, we know the answer to that though. Sure, one should never want their country to be wholly depended on another country for things. We don’t, for example, want to be in the position we were in with oil during Carter’s administration.

But we also don’t want to be 100% independent either; that’s called autarky, and it isn’t good. If you want to see what that looks like, examples would be North Korea, the Soviet Union before communism fell, Nazi Germany under Literally Hitler, Spain under Franco, etc.

 

[BFoe]

I know how tarriffs work. Why did you guys lie about them for a month?

You very obviously do not understand now they work.

 

[BFoe]

The only reason to invoke these tarrifs should be to pay down your enormous national debt and only your national debt.

In other words, it’s fine for Trump and the Republicans to blow the debt up like crazy as long as they tax the shit out of us to make up for it? That’s what you’re saying.

Look, there are times when deficit spending has to happen: wars, recessions, things like that. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy is not a great reason, and making up for it by taxing the hell out of the middle class is terrible economic policy for everyone but the wealthy.

 

[Deleted member 267581]

I'll ask this again. Why would Canada retaliate (which they have and will) with tariffs,

when you people claim tariffs only hurt those imposing them?

Who is claiming tarrifs only hurt those imposing them? Where is this argument coming from?

You literally have been told by multiple people why tarriffs dont work, prior to their implementation and now that they have been implemented. You’re pointing to a some argument made by i dont know who or at best a minimal amount of people to prove a point?

Youre putting your fingers in your ear and saying lalalaalalalalalalalala.

Seano. Go back to school, get your ged at least, take Econ 1 and 2 and then have this conversation again. I know you work a job that you max make $25 an hour and things are a little over your head out there in the midwest. Tariffs are a big word for you and you’re a little overwhelmed right now