43 Comments
User's avatar
David Veksler's avatar

This policy resurrects the catastrophic Smoot-Hawley approach that deepened the Great Depression. Tariffs are not "deflationary" – they're a direct tax on American consumers who pay higher prices for fewer goods. Basic economics.

The argument that "foreign countries take advantage of us" fundamentally misunderstands trade. Every voluntary exchange benefits both parties or it wouldn't happen. Trade creates wealth; it doesn't transfer it.

"Eating the cost" is economic fantasy. When production costs rise, someone pays – either consumers through higher prices, workers through lower wages, or shareholders through reduced profits. There is no magical absorption.

The idea that we need government force to "protect American industries" contradicts market principles. Industries thrive through innovation and efficiency, not political favoritism. Protected industries become complacent and uncompetitive.

The claim that this policy will "create American jobs" ignores the unseen consequences. For every visible job "saved" by protectionism, multiple jobs are destroyed elsewhere in the economy through higher input costs, retaliatory tariffs, and capital misallocation.

Prosperity comes from freedom to trade, not political restrictions. Voluntary exchange across borders, like within them, maximizes wealth creation. Government's proper role is protecting property rights and contract enforcement – not picking winners and losers through tariff schemes.

Expand full comment
Fred Hayek's avatar

Yeah, ok clown. We get it. You are happy to let other nations take advantage of the US. Your belief system is pretty disgusting: let other nations harm American companies and American workers with unfair tariffs, and do nothing in return.

Reciprocal tariffs are not "protectionism" dipsht. It's equality. It's fair. And, we all know left tards would applaud these actions if a Democrat did it. You just hate anything Trump does. Fess up.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
Apr 3
Comment removed
Expand full comment
Vince Lineberry's avatar

Every company with a competitor that is effected by tariffs will raise their price just bellow the tariffed competitor..that’s just capitalism.. so everything made here will also become more expensive..this is the stupidest idea ever..and these prices won’t come back down once somebody with a brain runs things again.. just look at the inflation with Covid, supply chain is back chaining but still prices remain high.. because we will pay it.. easy up sticky down..

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
Apr 3
Comment removed
Expand full comment
Matt Newell's avatar

What, do you want to work in a textile factory? Or assemble iPhones for a pittance?

US unemployment is barely over 4%. The country does not have a severe lack of jobs, and I don’t see the need to bring all the dirty, low-skilled, low-wage manufacturing jobs back from developing countries - nor even the ability.

Expand full comment
Ben Mordecai's avatar

When you count the guy who drives his beater into the ground to deliver UberEats employed, then yes we have low unemployment.

Expand full comment
Matt Newell's avatar

Is that not gainful employment in a free market? Is he not delivering a service and being paid of his time? I thought republicans liked free markets!

Expand full comment
Ben Mordecai's avatar

Sorry, you do not understand the new right.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
Apr 7
Comment removed
Expand full comment
Matt Newell's avatar

Do you want to work in a textile factory? I don’t think most americans do. I think if you’re trying to argue they do, that’s some real cope.

The lowest unemployment has ever been is 2.5% in 1953. The lowest it’s been in recent history is 3.4%. The “non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment”, which is basically a theoretical minimum under steady conditions, given frictional unemployment and other such factors, is considered to be about 4%. 4.2% is very low.

So if the US wants to bring manufacturing jobs back, a bunch of people are going to have to leave high value added service jobs where they make far more money and do far more pleasant work, so your nostalgic image of when america used to make stuff can be fulfilled.

Only way that’s possible is if you get a bunch of immigrants to fill all the extra jobs. But I wouldn’t guess you’re too keen on them, either.

Expand full comment
Carsten Rasch's avatar

You’ve lost me. I live in a country which has been severely damaged by Trump, Musk and the other cretins in his administration. I’ve noticed your lean towards him and the tech bros that support him and his divisive strategies. I’m outta here.

Expand full comment
Iain Dunn's avatar

This isn't an airport, you don't have to announce your departure!

Expand full comment
Three Big Lies's avatar

Good bye

Expand full comment
Bob Misita's avatar

As I feared in response to the other post, the concept of 'reciprocity' apparently eludes this administration. Perhaps it's me, but then again I went to college and grad school to be able to create algorithms more complex than what a 4yr old would do with crayons.

"Reciprocal" was as I feared, a conjured marketing soundbite that could be parroted by those who's goal is to soften the utter absurdity of these actions. Let's be clear about something. Fact. The computation used by this administration was simply that to reduce the trade imbalance between each country and the USA to a percentage. Which they then 'discounted' to come up with a true tariff the USA would levy on those receiving goods from those countries.

SHOCKINGLY infantile. How it could be called anything but punitive and retaliatory is beyond my meager comprehension I guess.

Pomp, again all due respect. But I think you're way off the mark here. While this will definitely have a small impact on 'onshoring' certain industries by tariff protectionism, the large scale impact will be all negative. The net impact of the last round of much smaller Trump tariffs was a reduction of 245,000 jobs. Certainly, some protected companies grew their job base. But the wider impact to suppliers and the overall reduction is trade resulting from higher prices more than offset it. (( my info comes from multiple report done around 2021 -- a simple search for "net impact from past trump tariffs" will yield plenty of independent analysis to corroborate )).

I am a fierce independent myself. I had nothing against Trump as a celebrity and pseudo businessman personality. But as a politician his childlike, manic and vindictive behavior is now having serious worldwide consequences that are going to take decades to unwind.

Expand full comment
Tiger Crypto's avatar

Global tariffs don't make any economic sense, and especially not the way the White House is calculating them. Everyone is talking about this - China doesn't charge 67% tariffs, and we all know that. As soon as I saw that tariff chart in the Rose Garden, I knew we were all in trouble.

And, as Sara Eisen pointed out on CNBC today, it's illogical to assume that America is going to transform into a manufacturing hub overnight. Even if it were possible, do we really want these jobs? Everything is going AI and robotics - most likely, these jobs won't even exist for humans in a few years.

And here's the real kicker - we're antagonizing all of our allies, as well as our frenemies. I wouldn't blame any nation for dropping support of the dollar and refusing to buy our government debt (as China and Japan are doing now). As Warren Buffett said, tariffs are a form of warfare. And we just launched the opening salvo in a global trade war.

Yes, it's a tough situation the U.S. is in now. And I genuinely believe that Trump wants to make America great again. But, after four years of this, I don't think he'll ever say that "Tariff is my favorite word right now."

Expand full comment
Casey Stubbs-- Freedom Income's avatar

Stay strong and stay the course—lasting wealth is built through long-term fundamentals, not short-term headlines. Tariffs will work because they create powerful incentives for companies to bring manufacturing back to America, strengthening jobs and the real economy.

Expand full comment
Donald Tollin's avatar

You have lost me. You may say your an Independent, but your a Trumper because he likes Crypro.

You,sold out... History repeats, Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act worsend the great Depression in 1930.

Expand full comment
JOSEPH's avatar

The rest of the world is not going to take a punch in the face by the big bully without retaliation. The USA can’t rely on domestic production only. The rest of the world is now starting to boycott USA goods. Always be careful what you ask for.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
May 11
Comment removed
Expand full comment
JOSEPH's avatar

Scam alert.

Expand full comment
Eugine Nier's avatar

Except the tariffs weren't actually reciprocal.

Even countries with no tariffs on US goods got slapped by them.

Expand full comment
Jane's avatar

Exactly. The penguins on Heard Island would agree with you.

Expand full comment
Jelle Schouten's avatar

Let’s not forget to give Trump a big applause for NOT including Russia in the list. No tariffs for his big friend Poetin off-coarse. The poor man already has huge war bills to pay so let’s give him some slack.

Expand full comment
Dobrin Tzvetkovsky's avatar

The US and Americans are the biggest beneficiaries of a functioning global economy. The top 500 us multinationals which employ a lot of americans have billions of customers worldwide. These policies are self defeating

Expand full comment
Liz Zeman's avatar

You did not give any real examples of why these made-up tariff numbers will be a benefit to most Americans. When most Americans do have a stock portfolio and need to have growth in their 401k, it means it matters!! Tell us how the BIGGEST economy has been taken advantage of; give us examples; don't parrot the Trump rhetoric. I will give you a small example. When a very small country sells us more things (we are bigger)than we sell them (they are smaller), this does not indicate being taken advantage of. America is bigger and therefore buys more; our needs and wants are bigger. Small countries have much lower wages, so if we onshore production, the cost will increase dramatically to account for the higher cost of labor. Anyone who understands simple history and economics knows we can not go back to 1950, when America was a manufacturing economy.

Expand full comment
Joe Blog's avatar

“they” (rest of the world) “have been manipulating their currencies.”

LOL.

The biggest single manipulation in the world, of any kind, can be found in the misuse of the reserve currency status of the USD. And its tying to the price of energy for every human on the planet.

Expand full comment
Fred Hayek's avatar

Hey genius…it’s only the world’s reserve currency because people trust it the most. No one is forcing anyone to trust the dollar, lol. Feel free to use Russian rubles if that makes you feel better.

Expand full comment
Jelle Schouten's avatar

Theft, robbery etc… these are big words to use on your (former) partners in te world. Especially if you make them without any substance or clarification and threaten them at the same time. He is just being the big bully he always was. Trade is a mutual agreement and the fact that for instance Europe sells more to the US then the other way around doesn’t make it theft or robbery.

Also for instance Trump states that Europe has a 39% tariff on the US. But how does he get to numbers like that? He doesn’t clarify this in any way. Just because he says things like this doesn’t make it the truth. Not even if you keep repeating it over and over.

For instance in Europe we have on most products a VAT of 21%. It doesn’t matter where the product comes from. Like sales tax in the US. But Trump takes this as a tariff being imposed on US products. Come on get real please. If you feel the trade deficit is hurting your balance sheet I understand you need to fix this but you don’t do it like this. Especially to nations that have been friends since I don’t know how long. The damage done will be irreversible and Russia is the winner.

It’s the same with how they talk about Greenland. I understand you want to keep out the Russians and the Chinese but Greenland is part of NATO and the US already has military base there and they can expand as much as they like. The US used to have 20 or so bases there once but pulled out voluntarily. You don’t need to take over a country just because it is in your best interest. If that is your way of thinking (and JD Vance is even worse I believe) than your no better then Russia invading Ukraine.

I do agree the US has a huge monetary problem though which they need to fix but is this the way to do it? But perhaps he purposely wants to scare the living daylights out of the markets and out of risk on assets with his frontal attacks just to make investors move to risk off assets (treasuries) thereby reducing the interest rates. He needs that because of the trillions of dollars that need to be refinanced this year and next year.

Expand full comment
Stephen W's avatar

It's a very different world 🌎 today. These tarrifs will cause major heartburn to the already shrinking middle class. They say the sting will be short-term. Not this time.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment removed
Apr 3
Comment removed
Expand full comment
Stephen W's avatar

The tariffs will exacerbate inflation, trapping the middle class in a cycle of rising costs without relief—interest rate cuts won’t suppress CPI this time, and corporations, prioritizing greed over growth, will hoard profits for stock buybacks rather than job creation. Wages won’t keep pace, savings will erode, and economic mobility will shrink further. This isn’t short-term pain; it’s systemic decline, with those already struggling bearing the brunt.

Expand full comment
Shreyas Desai's avatar

How do you foresee improvement in American produced goods, most of the raw materials is still procured from China. So the increase in chinese import costs will subsequently lead to higher prices of goods.

Expand full comment
Ben Le Fort's avatar

lol.

Expand full comment