Yes, anyone reasonable knew that this would lead to higher costs. Americans are expensive to employ. The point of the tariff package is to bring back manufacturing and production to the USA. Stop importing so much crap from China and other places, and things will balance out. That increase in costs should be compensated for by jobs for American citizens across all sectors if people respect the purpose of the tariffs - to disincentivize imports whenever and however possible.
Except, this measure won’t result in that at all. Punishing companies for importing is only going to punish consumers. The company wants it for as cheap as possible, and that will often be importing. Even ifbit becomes expensive to import, it will be cheaper than the capital needed to set up the infrastructure for manufacturing domestically. Rewarding companies for sourcing materials and labor domestically will incentivize them to bring jobs here. At least more so than making them pay more to bring it in.
The point of the tariff package is to bring back manufacturing and production to the USA.
That was the claim.
But in reality, American businesses will do whatever is more profitable for them.
And even if it becomes more profitable to build a factory (including paying the tarrifs on the machinery needed 'cause that factory hasn’t been built in the US yet) and hire (and train) a workforce, that will take years to do, and even more years before the capitol cost is recovered and it starts being profitable.
By which point Trump will be dead and gone and maybe a more sane government will have eliminated some of Trump’s more stupid impacts. And then the owner of the new factory may not be able to compete with overseas factories at a level of extreme profit they want…
That’s never going to happen. What will happen is that companies will raise their prices slightly higher than the tariffs cost them, fire more of their workforce, and then brag to investors about their most profitable quarter ever. Plus, that would require the tariffs to be on finished products only. I’ve already heard of several companies announcing no Christmas bonuses this year because they need to stock up on materials in anticipation of the incoming tariffs.
And most of the people supporting tariffs thought that they were going to make things cheaper AND that China was going to pay them.
I buy parts internationally for a domestic manufacturer. The parts are as good if not better than us made. They are also 50-75% less than US WITH the current 25% tariff. Another 20-30% increase isn’t going to bring it back to the US, it will just increase costs.
All that says is that we need to increase import costs 80-85% and instate a labor tariff so that the company has to pay taxes equal to a US citizen for every offshore employee.
Trying to speak sense to Americans. You are in for a rude awakening. They will blame the high prices on space lasers.
inb4 products that have absolutely no supply chain dependence to China ‘somehow’ increase in price.
Hey now, the Waltons need some extra cash. Who could even get by on a measly four million dollars a hour in this economy?
- It’s Walmart: what item they sell has no connection to China?
- It’s important tariffs actually the board not just China
I think a lot of their food items aren’t from China, and a few random things are even domestic. I think they sell Lodge cast iron pans, which are fully made in America.
I think his “plan” is a really big tariff on China and a moderate one on every other country?
That’s my understanding as well.
But, as the original comment suggested, it doesn’t really matter.
If every other cast iron pan goes up 15% in price, what do you think Lodge will do?
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keep their price the same, see modest relative increase in market share with a demand for investment in additional production, knowing full well the tariffs aren’t going to be permanent leaving them over-invested in production whenever they drop the tariffs.
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Also raise their prices by 15%, immediately show increased revenue at no additional cost to shareholders next quarter. CEO gets massive bonus.
It would have been helpful if they made this statement before the election.
This is why Trump wants immigrant labor camps
