Trump Does his Awesome New Tariffs. Winning!!

He's a big picture guy. Give him some credit

You think those vending machine sodas aren't gonna get more expensive? Geico gonna have to pay those adjusters more to so they can afford that afternoon redbull.

 

We had a thread that veered into Coca-Cola prices under Biden. Conservatives werent happy. They probably like paying more now though. Its good to cut down the intake of soda because of high prices. Thanks Trump!

 

it's gonna drive up auto ins due to replacement parts. Insurify estimates that tariffs will raise premiums in 2025 by 8%

 

And now we get to the famous Trumpian “weave” — all of this is to support his Cabinet appointment in charge of our health, Kennedy, and his quest to make sodas illegal for all Americans.

 

A real Republican on tariffs not to be confused with the current RINO in the White House whose willfully ignorant supporters refer to opponents of his ill conceived policies as RINOS.

 

RINO

 

Terrible example. Reagan was a horrible protectionist.
His quotas on Japanese cars was a disaster for consumers. He even protected wooden clothespins cuz Maine used to be a swing state.
https://mises.org/free-market/ronald-reagan-protectionist
Mark Shields, a columnist for the Washington Post, recently wrote of President Reagan’s “blind devotion to the doctrine of free trade.” If President Reagan has a devotion to free trade, it must be blind because he has been way off the mark. In fact, he has been the most protectionist president since Herbert Hoover.

Admittedly, his rhetoric has been confusing. In 1986 Reagan said, “Our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets. I recognize. . . the inescapable conclusion that all of history has taught: the freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations.”

But he advocated protectionism early in his 1980 campaign, saying to the U.S. auto industry: “Japan is part of the problem. This is where government can be legitimately involved. That is, to convince the Japanese in one way or another that, in their own interests, that deluge of cars must be slowed while our industry gets back on its feet...”

Defenders of the Reagan policies will say that he has engaged in protectionism to open foreign markets. But they cannot deny that one-quarter of all imports are today restricted, a 100% increase over 1980.

 

While Reagan was far from a purist on free trade he was certainly more of free trader than Trump is now. Although the threat of tariffs were a factor in the decision of Japanese automakers to begin production in the US, Honda and Toyota coming immediately to mind, the Japanese weren't exactly playing according to the rules of free trade either. If I recall they were subsidizing exports by exempting them from the VAT, in effect resulting in Americans paying lower prices for imported Japanese cars than the Japanese themselves paid for the same cars sold in Japan. Another factor motivating the Japanese to begin production in the US was the strength of yen compared with the weaker dollar making production in Japan more costly than production in the US.

 

Not necessarily. There are two possible outcomes that do not match the idea of U.S. success at the other end of the tunnel:

1) The other countries may stop trading with the U.S. and increase trade with each other. These countries would take a hit when the U.S. economy crashed, but would recover more quickly if they continue to trade with each other. The U.S. would then have a slow decline for as long as the rest of the world refused to trade with us.

2) If the other countries collapse hard enough, it could start some regional wars that lead to WWIII. There are plenty of hot spots around the world where two neighbors do not like each other for various reasons, and many of them are one bad growing season or drought away from starvation. That could lead to violence that could escalate out of control. Remember the old saying about a rising tide lifting all boats? The opposite is also true--a falling tide strands all boats.

And, no, the EU is not preparing to invade anyone. Where do you get that crap? The EU is generally happy with what they have and will cling to civilization before all else. They learned the lesson of Nazi Germany up close, and do not want to repeat it.

 

For that to happen, all developed and emerging “other countries” would have to sever ties — Russia for one might step into some of the void. Mexico and Canada would not significantly change.

Agree on this point. Wars will break out, but doubt it will be between super powers, particularly US-China. Trump is a pacifist.

I agree. please re-read my post. I said “preparing for agression” not “preparing to be aggressive”. EU’s immediate threat is Russia, and arguably US-Russia normalization would be beneficial for EU. The reality is that Putin has a shelf life. Russia’s oligarchs are likely more interested in money and freedom of movement over rebuilding the USSR.

 

As predicted in another thread two days ago, was told my dumpster prices are about to take a nice hike. Placed an order yesterday the last day before the rate increase.

 

we had to accelerate steel buy out on a new car dealership. hopefully the structural drawings don't change. If they do, field fabrication is on the horizon

 

I was told domestic suppliers have already raised their rates just because they can now.

 

because we can inflation....not only do we protect them, we then allow them to capture that monopoly..protection should come at a price...

 

I think the term that was coined in 2022 was greedflation. I don't blame any company for doing it it just screws over the consumers

 

Steel prices have gone up consistently since the week of Trump’s inauguration after being flat since last July.

Just in the last 4 weeks these are the increases for galv and HRC:
3/12: 3.4%, 4.7%
3/5: 5.8%, 8.1%
2/26: 11.4%, 4.9%
2/19: 4%, 6.3%

Jan 20th | Mar 10th | % Increase since inauguration
Hot dipped galv: 946 | 1196 | 26.4%
Hot rolled coil: 680 | 949 | 39.6%

 

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/william...ard-history-great-depression-5235a26d?mod=mhp

Why was the 2024 election so focused on manufacturing jobs? The percentage of jobs in manufacturing has been in secular decline for more than three quarters of a century. Wages in manufacturing are lower on average than wages in the service industries. Technology has continued to expand America’s industrial capacity while employment in manufacturing as a share of total nonfarm employment has fallen by 75% since 1946.

Manufacturing jobs were at the center of the 2024 election because industrial workers have become swing voters. We are today taking actions to protect manufacturing jobs the same way we did with agriculture a century ago. In the process, we are imperiling our access to the world market in high-tech and AI, which are the economic future.

There is no lesson in the second kick of a mule, but it is important to remember that under the protectionist policies of the first Trump administration the trade deficit rose, employment in manufacturing as a percentage of total employment continued to decline, and economic growth, which reached a 13 year high in 2018 under Mr. Trump’s deregulatory and tax-cut policies, slumped under his tariffs. This was all before the pandemic started.

Protectionism has an unblemished record of failure both economically and politically throughout American history. Yet the Trump administration seems determined to employ protectionist policies that failed the first time it employed them and that have never spurred economic growth. Protectionism now threatens not only the prosperity that could be created with deregulation, budget-deficit reductions and tax cuts, but also imperils America’s world leadership and the peace and prosperity that leadership has produced.

 

Part of it is greed. Part of it is the perception of quality. We saw this last time when Trump raised tariffs on Washer/Dryers. Because foreign machines were now more expensive, people perceived them to have a higher quality. And if the machines were still within budget, people were buying the more expensive foreign machine over the less expensive domestic machines. So, in response, the domestic producers raised their prices to just under the cost of their foreign competitors. Now, consumers saw the machines as equal, with a small price break for the domestic machine, and they bought more domestic.

 

Canada is mostly liberal from what little I know.

If so, why would Trump want to bring in liberal votes? And how many electoral college votes would that size state receive. Dumb, dumb, dumb, if you’re a conservative.