FBXL Social

nickgillespie nickgillespie@www.minds.com
Douglas Irwin: Why Trump's Tariff Plans Are Dangerous
"Tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary," says Donald Trump, who made many promises throughout the 2024 presidential…

william.maggos wjmaggos@liberal.city

@nickgillespie

please start a reason.social server on the fedi just for staff. we're seeing that no one can be trusted with ownership of a social media platform. decentralization is the only way to have free expression in this medium. it has been proven over time on the web, a decentralized network where anybody can say anything legal. the network and protocol I'm using to communicate with you does that for social media. I'm on my own server & connect to people on their own servers.

🌲-alist threalist
I understand the argument against tariffs, and I agree in the vacuum of economic theory, but the reality is that tariffs are used as a tool and a weapon by every country, and I find it naive at best to expect the United States to abstain while everyone else maximizes tariffs to their advantage.
replies
1
announces
0
likes
0

divVerent divVerent@blob.cat

@threalist @nickgillespie Sure, they are a tool.

But just like a hammer, they can’t be used for everything.

A tariff against China for things the US doesn’t even produce won’t help the US at all. It’s really just a tax on people who want these products.

A tariff against specific products from outside where local competition exists however is a way to help the local manufacturers.

Q.U.I.N.N. icedquinn@blob.cat
@divVerent @threalist @nickgillespie i think you should only do these two things with tariffs

- mirror whatever they are doing to you
- correct for regulatory imbalances

the first is only fair and the second is necessary. you can't grind everyone in to the dust with ecological regulations and employee socialism, then let finance export all the jobs to another country where the regulations are "nothing" and just re-import the cheaper goods.

protectionism is a fuck and those companies should win out on the market. the problems the state creates are the only problems the state should be fixing here.

🌲-alist threalist
If country A engages in "dumping" (funded by the government) then country B will not produce those items at a profit, and so they will not produce it.

If there is consumer demand for the widget, and tariffs are applied to prevent dumping, then country B will begin producing that widget for profit, assuming free markets exist.

divVerent divVerent@blob.cat
@threalist @nickgillespie It takes decades for production of some goods to get competitive at all. Should we tax people +200% for buying smartphones until the US has their own pure-US production?

That's really just a tax on people.

As for your dumping case, introducing tariffs first is not necessary then. One can also just _promise_ the tariffs to be introduced once a company can actually produce the widget at a reasonable price. There is no need to tax all people for a decade at a high rate for this.