Trade Wars and Tariffs

There's always a 4-D chess interpretation, isn't there?

You need to stop that and instead trust Trump's Razor: With Trump, the stupidest explanation is usually the correct explanation.
Ah, cast aspersions on what you assume other peoples' assumptions are, so that you can defend your own assumptions. Inception-level arrogance.
 
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Trump claims that he is not fighting the world. He claims to be/have ferreting/ferreted out who the friends are so that he can alienate China, the true enemy.
His claims are window dressing. The tariffs and the capricious manner in which they're being managed by Trump just alienate our allies and nudge them closer to PRC.
 
is this being tariffed ?
atk-004817-vanilla-latte-iced-coffee-shake_1.png
 
I'm listening to a guy who is a hands-on trade expert in the toy industry. He's tying together some points we all know into a really great point. And to be clear, this guy said he's fine with protecting manufacturing jobs using tariffs. He's not against tariffs.

If your objective is to bring manufacturing back to the United States, this is exactly the wrong way to do it.

- The market has to have certainty. If you want to build a factory in the United States, it's a process that is expensive and will take a couple of years. Who is going to look at this trade war where Trump changes his mind every week, and then build an American factory that would be dependent on tariffs for survival? You'd have to be a mad man.
- The tariffs should be deployed gradually. A 145% tariff executed immediately throws the whole economy into disarray. This doesn't help establish manufacturing, it just causes mass disruption to the supply chain before manufacturing can possibly move to the US. The way to deploy this plan would be to be specific, go industry by industry, and do a slow rollout. 3 months from now, it will be a 20% tariff. A year from now it will be a 50% tariff. 2 years from now, it will be the full tariff.

We just have a madman breaking things with no clear direction, no trust, no certainty. Where is the win here? How can we possibly come out ahead?
 
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I'm listening to a guy who is a hands-on trade expert in the toy industry. He's tying together some points we all know into a really great point.

If your objective is to bring manufacturing back to the United States, this is exactly the wrong way to do it.

- The market has to have certainty. If you want to build a factory in the United States, it's a process that is expensive and will take a couple of years. Who is going to look at this trade war where Trump changes his mind every week, and then build an American factory that would be dependent on tariffs for survival? You'd have to be a mad man.
- The tariffs should be deployed gradually. A 145% tariff executed immediately throws the whole economy into disarray. This doesn't help establish manufacturing, it just causes mass disruption to the supply chain before manufacturing can possibly move to the US. The way to deploy this plan would be to be specific, go industry by industry, and do a slow rollout. 3 months from now, it will be a 20% tariff. A year from now it will be a 50% tariff. 2 years from now, it will be the full tariff.

We just have a madman breaking things with no clear direction, no trust, no certainty. Where is the win here? How can we possibly come out ahead?

Also, he was talking about how much of our toys are made in China. I think he said something like 87% of plastic components in baby/toddler toys are made in China. He rattled off a list of areas of toy manufacturing that are completely dominated by China. I think they said 70% industry-wide. Might be a pretty rough Christmas.
 
Last edited:
I'm listening to a guy who is a hands-on trade expert in the toy industry. He's tying together some points we all know into a really great point. And to be clear, this guy said he's fine with protecting manufacturing jobs using tariffs. He's not against tariffs.

If your objective is to bring manufacturing back to the United States, this is exactly the wrong way to do it.

- The market has to have certainty. If you want to build a factory in the United States, it's a process that is expensive and will take a couple of years. Who is going to look at this trade war where Trump changes his mind every week, and then build an American factory that would be dependent on tariffs for survival? You'd have to be a mad man.
- The tariffs should be deployed gradually. A 145% tariff executed immediately throws the whole economy into disarray. This doesn't help establish manufacturing, it just causes mass disruption to the supply chain before manufacturing can possibly move to the US. The way to deploy this plan would be to be specific, go industry by industry, and do a slow rollout. 3 months from now, it will be a 20% tariff. A year from now it will be a 50% tariff. 2 years from now, it will be the full tariff.

We just have a madman breaking things with no clear direction, no trust, no certainty. Where is the win here? How can we possibly come out ahead?

Agree. The tariff process is a good idea being implemented horribly.

In most instances, at my work, I am getting hit on products that were ordered in 2024. Of course, we are just moving things around to avoid it.

It is hurting business with China but China trades with a lot of nations, not just USA. Also some of these Chinese manufacturers (like most manufacturers) have sites in other countries.
 
Also, he was talking about how much of our toys are made in China. I think he said something like 87% of plastic components in baby/toddler toys are made in China. He rattled off a list of areas of toy manufacturing that are completely dominated by China. I think they said 70% industry-wide. Might be a pretty rough Christmas.

I doubt this will last until Christmas.
 
Also, he was talking about how much of our toys are made in China. I think he said something like 87% of plastic components in baby/toddler toys are made in China. He rattled off a list of areas of toy manufacturing that are completely dominated by China. I think they said 70% industry-wide. Might be a pretty rough Christmas.
I know you're going to miss your cheap, Chinese plastic toys.
 
Will be be bailing out famers, the tourism industry, and the airlines before this is over?
 
Also, he was talking about how much of our toys are made in China. I think he said something like 87% of plastic components in baby/toddler toys are made in China. He rattled off a list of areas of toy manufacturing that are completely dominated by China. I think they said 70% industry-wide. Might be a pretty rough Christmas.
Good.
**** plastics. We use way too much of it already
 

I don't watch these videos to know what exactly they are saying. but based on the tag lines, and title, I am betting its just straight click bait with a good bit of false context thrown in.

Xi didn't "flee China". he was on an international tour building trade agreements. worked out some major deal with one of its southern neighbors this weekend. pretty sure the tour was planned for a while, and just got ratcheted up after the tariffs hit. basically Trump pushed a lot more people into China's hand than were there previously.

second, the protests have little to do with the tariffs. before Covid there were widespread protests, many were economic based, China's forced growth policy lead to a lot of work with little value. Billion dollar ghost towns, roads to nowhere, things like that. During covid they were able to clamp down on that stuff. but post covid, which in the PRC didn't really happen until late '22 and into '23, those same protests started right back. and they have been growing steadily. a lot of this is the fallout from the Evergrande collapse. The tariffs impact will actually drive the Chinese back into the party as its due to a foreign entity. they haven't been in play long enough to have an impact that protestors would notice.

until China actually has to admit a failure to hit its growth projections Xi is safe. We still aren't seeing any wide spread anti-government protests like in Hong Kong.
 
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I don't watch these videos to know what exactly they are saying. but based on the tag lines, and title, I am betting its just straight click bait with a good bit of false context thrown in.

Xi didn't "flee China". he was on an international tour building trade agreements. worked out some major deal with one of its southern neighbors this weekend. pretty sure the tour was planned for a while, and just got ratcheted up after the tariffs hit. basically Trump pushed a lot more people into China's hand than were there previously.

second, the protests have little to do with the tariffs. before Covid there were widespread protests, many were economic based, China's forced growth policy lead to a lot of work with little value. Billion dollar ghost towns, roads to nowhere, things like that. During covid they were able to clamp down on that stuff. but post covid, which in the PRC didn't really happen until late '22 and into '23, those same protests started right back. and they have been growing steadily. a lot of this is the fallout from the Evergrande collapse. The tariffs impact will actually drive the Chinese back into the party as its due to a foreign entity. they haven't been in play long enough to have an impact that protestors would notice.

until China actually has to admit a failure to hit its growth projections Xi is safe. We still aren't seeing any wide spread anti-government protests like in Hong Kong.
They do make click-baith titles, but you should watch them if you want to comment on them.
 
I am sure the timing of these threats was just coincidental ...


 
Surely republicans see how incompetent Trump is and won’t actually stand back and let him take control of the fed.

Right?
 
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