Completely doing away with the Vietnamese tariff could save the US up to $670 million per year. That's all well and good.
The problem is that Americans spend about $11.4 billion PER MONTH on Vietnamese made products. Increasing those prices by 46% is disastrous for American consumers. Even if the tariffs get 86'd in a few months, it will take years for the tariff savings to offset the spike in consumer prices.
I am against these tariffs. I think they are a terrible idea and have the chance to be one of the biggest economic clusters of modern times.
That said, they are our policy, so I hope they work. Even work "bigly" for all of us. I doubt it, but I can hope for it.
So, to try to be optimistic: one way the Vietnamese tariff could benefit us is if they come to the table, quickly, and we negotiate a win/win with them. That could encourage other countries to come to the table, quickly, to negotiate their own deal. The first ones in are likely to suffer the least damage to their economies, and the last ones in aren't going to have nearly as much negotiating power. Again, I don't like the tariffs, but this is one way in which we could win in this nightmare of a scenario.
If in the end we actually can produce some of what we need to survive, without being totally dependent on other countries for things like, say, cell phones, that would be a good think also.
Of course, to get countries to the table, they have to want to alleviate the suffering (economic or otherwise) of their own people due to tariffs. Unfortunately, some of our biggest trade partners wouldn't hesitate to kill a few million of their own to take us down.
