Slashdot Mirror
Trump Announces $60 Billion Tariff on Chinese High-Tech and Other Goods (techcrunch.com)
Following months of investigations by the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the Trump administration announced on Thursday at a White House briefing that the administration intends to place about $60 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods, with the bulk of them likely to be focused on the high-tech industry. The White House will announce a final list of goods subject to the tariffs in the next few weeks. From a report: "We've lost over a fairly short period of time, 60,000 factories in our country. Closed, shuttered, gone. Six million jobs at least, gone. And now they are starting to come back," President Trump said during the briefing. "The word that I want to use is reciprocal -- when they charge 25 percent for a car to go in, and we charge 2 percent for their car to come into the United States, that's not good. That's how China rebuilt itself."
Can’t be sad about this one.
Because otherwise how are we going to be able to afford all these now more expensive trinkets and toys?
Oh. Wait. We're not supposed to. It's supposed to further expand the wealth gap and pretty much finish off the US middle class.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Trade barriers are a bonehead move. Always were, always will be.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
This is not good for anyone, as the slew of economists and economic reporters have been putting out there for the last few weeks.
But more than that it's every day Americans who are going to be paying for it. 20-30% more on every electronic device, gadget, previously untariffed good that was imported, all to do what? Temporarily prop up industries / companies here in the US that won't significantly change their employment levels, capital investment in manufacturing, or supply chains in time until these tariffs are lifted?
"..the blind, hateful liberals.."
There is no need for this trash talk unless your are a hateful person yourself.
Against good-faith trading partner, it is boneheaded move. Against China, that is anything but open market themselves it is not.
China imposes them on us. And the memo states that tariffs are to be put in place only when things are unfair. If China doesn't want these tariffs, they can drop their own.
The plan is to match tariffs, all the way down to 0. If you don't want these tariffs, you can ask China to drop their own, which would make us drop ours.
Fair is fair, is it not?
(Actually, it's not, because their workers are treated like slaves and they shit all over the environment. We should be imposing higher tariffs on them than they are on us while those things are true.)
Above all, he wants to at least appear to be successful. This is just part of the charade. I don't know if it'll end well or badly so i'm not holding an opinion on this specific issue.
The economies are so interlinked that any real trade war could create unstable and unpredictable times.
... that anything could happen... the problem is it may not be able to be predictable. ... is more than likely just pretending to know and guessing.
The US owes so much debt now, that if China starts dumping accumulated debt they could force a spike in interest rates that basically throw the US into a hard recession.
It could lead to a currency war as China could hit back with devaluation equivalent to the tariffs.
The Chinese banks are not very transparent - and if the current swoon turns into a worldwide stock market crash - could be the start of another Asian crisis (we just cannot know) if it is prolonged.
Companies cannot just turn on a dime and change manufacturing (i.e. move it to other locations), so it could spike inflation and it could also disrupt major American companies supply.
Or it could just be taken in stride. The problem is that the markets were already overly exuberant, and there are many bubbles that could be popped
Anyone that claims to know what will happen
the jobs aren't coming back. Not very many anyway. Any factories built here will be run by robots. On the other hand we might end up bringing back the pollution.
The trouble with tariffs is they don't work as half measures. If you want to do isolationism like Brazil does that's fine. But get ready for $1500 Playstations and $3000 video cards. That's why you can still buy a Sega Megadrive in Brazil without irony.
Oh, one more thing. Any chance these tariffs will be passed on to me in the form of services like roads, schools or healthcare? Given the $1.5 trillion dollar tax cut we just did (83% of which went to the 1%) I'm guessing no. It's just like the lottery. They claim the money will go to services but then they shuffle it around and turn it into tax cuts for the rich.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Where do you think the parts are made that you will use to repair that formerly-cheap, now-expensive tech bauble?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I prefer to buy what works for me. That maybe "local" or a "cheap" gizmo. I prefer not to mix emotions, patriotic or otherwise, with how I spend my finances. I prefer Japanese cars, European chocolate, Brazilian nuts, Central & South American bananas, Chinese iPhones & HP laptops, Indian leather, Mexican watermelons, and Canadian maple syrup to name a few.
On the flip side, I do focus on local when it comes to charity. Since that is an emotional expenditure.
Except you're also cunts that like to play "technicality" bullshit. You don't have "tariffs" for many products... but you have "select partners", "regulations", and "subsidies" for a lot of areas. You can take the tariffs down to zero, but no one can compete with your corn price because you want to keep your farmers happy, and only a select club can sell you beef and lemons, because of "regulations" on the quality of the product.
You're not a free market. Don't go about bullying everyone into thinking you are. We're not stupid.
The Alt-Right Universe. It's a bit of an odd place...down is up, left is right, anyone with a degree is over-educated.