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> Aren’t tariffs just corporate taxes which are paid by big corps who import stuff built overseas?

No, they're not "just" that. Those costs get passed onto the consumer in the form of higher prices. Corporations aren't going to eat the cost out of the goodness of their hearts.

> At least when you incentivize stuff to get built here the money goes to union workers or at least stays within the US.

If a widget from China costs $100 because of tariffs, then American companies who make the same widget have no reason to undercut that since they know consumers have no other options -- effectively raising the price floor.

There are also issues with the "union workers get the money" because we're effectively stiffing the rest of the U.S. population in order to prop up a specific segment of the economy.

voisin 527 days ago

> Those costs get passed onto the consumer in the form of higher prices

Not necessarily. The burden of a tax depends on supply and demand price elasticity. If demand is relatively price inelastic, then consumers pay the tax. If it is relatively price elastic, then companies pay via lower profits or reduce supply.

That is true. Not every single cent will be passed on, but there will be inflationary effects regardless.

Dig1t 527 days ago

>Those costs get passed onto the consumer in the form of higher prices.

ALL taxes are like this, you are just arguing against corporate taxes at this point.

By your logic we should just make the corporate tax rate 0% so that we can lower the cost of goods even more.

It’s mind boggling because the same people who lambasted Trump for lowering the corporate tax rate in his first term are now lambasting him for wanting to raise tariffs in his second. But these two actions effectively do the opposite of each other, so if you don’t like one you should be happy about the other.

But somehow people are upset about both.

Tariffs are a tax which have the benefit of basically targeting rich mega corps and incentivizing people to build locally and pay their citizens better wages.

The current system makes it financially infeasible to make most things in our own country because companies are forced to compete with foreign slave labor.

Also think of the carbon impact of shipping everything you buy across the entire world just so that you can take advantage of slave labor on the other side of the planet.

> It’s mind boggling because the same people who lambasted Trump for lowering the corporate tax rate

I never lambasted Trump for this and I don't think corporate taxes are particularly effective. I'd rather see something more on the "backend" of earning money like payroll or incomes taxes rather than corporate taxes. They seem like a huge drain for little gain. Especially since rates vary across countries so a corporation could move and game tax structures internationally.

All your arguments about carbon impacts, making things in the U.S. are fine but the whole Trump campaign was railing on how bad inflation has gotten but tariffs would have the worst inflationary impact on everyone. That and Republicans typically don't care about workers' rights or environmental impact so that seems a bit disingenuous to bring up.

Plus, there doesn't seem to be a solid foundation on why we want to bring back manufacturing to the U.S. since we generally want to strive for making more high tech stuff, no? If we suddenly start making lower-level widgets, where are we going to find enough workers to do that without a big influx of immigrants? Immigrants already work the jobs that Americans don't like farm hands.

Dig1t 527 days ago

>I never lambasted Trump for this

Fair enough, that was a bit of a tangent.

>Plus, there doesn't seem to be a solid foundation on why we want to bring back manufacturing to the U.S.

Because the US used to have tons of good paying jobs for normal people who didn't need to get a 4 year degree. Everything used to be made here and we had a booming economy which had opportunities for people from all walks of life, including people who can't or don't want to get a 4 year degree.

>Republicans typically don't care about workers' rights or environmental impact

I think this is definitely not as true as many people think, the right has become a big tent at the moment and there are a lot of people in it who do care about these things. Workers rights do align with bringing jobs back to the US, look at how unions voted in the recent election, they superficially supported the left but most of their members voted for the right.

>where are we going to find enough workers to do that without a big influx of immigrants?

Wages go up, more people are able to live a middle class life, people have children.

Also, most of these jobs are becoming automated, your example of farm hands is a good one actually because a ton of farm work is now being done by robots. It won't be very much longer until almost every ag job is being done by robots. So bringing manufacturing back to the US means that the money stays here, people get better wages, and we have a way lower carbon footprint.

And yes, fewer people are employed because of robots but also SOME will still be employed.

We have been hollowing out the middle class by shipping many good jobs building stuff so that the top 1% can take advantage of slave labor on the other side of the planet. It was not a great idea.

Look at how much of a boon it has been for China, they have used the base of manufacturing jobs to bootstrap their entire economy in record time. Now they have so much manufacturing expertise they are able to do things we physically cannot, but we used to be able to build everything.

RajT88 527 days ago

> Because the US used to have tons of good paying jobs for normal people who didn't need to get a 4 year degree. Everything used to be made here and we had a booming economy which had opportunities for people from all walks of life, including people who can't or don't want to get a 4 year degree.

That time is gone for good. Automation and outsourcing is coming eventually for the Chinese manufacturing sector as well. Being a planned economy, the government is slowing it down however they can.

Manufacturing might come back to the US but it will not be restoring that big pile of good paying jobs for people with no degree.

The American consumers do have other options — other American companies. Who are all held to a higher standard than foreign companies due to sharing a regulatory environment.

So the price may go up, but it will eventually tend toward the natural floor, even if higher than before, taking into account the externalities that were ignored with foreign widgets such as poor working conditions and environmental disregard that happens in certain other countries.

> So the price may go up

No, the prices will go up. As you said, the cost goes up due to better working conditions, wages, etc...

> The American consumers do have other options — other American companies

Yes, but all of American companies will never go below whatever the Chinese widget costs unless tariffs go away.

> American companies will never go below whatever the Chinese widget costs

Why not? If there are 3 American companies with similar costs, would all of them just say “well, the price is the price?” Or would there eventually be one who realizes they can take more market share from the Chinese companies by undercutting them?

> Why not?

It was probably incorrect to say never, and there is another reply to me mentioning price elasticity which applies here for sure.

> eventually be one who realizes they can take more market share from the Chinese

Yes, on a longer timeline that is possible but in the short to medium term, it doesn't seem realistic for domestic producers to undercut and make profit. Initially you're building factories, refining processes, training workers, etc. which requires capital and investment.

Yeah, that's fair. I guess I'm ok with raised prices in the short-term if it brings more stability and better working conditions + environmental management in the long-term.

legitster 527 days ago

> At least when you incentivize stuff to get built here the money goes to union workers or at least stays within the US.

We could frame this another way - if every state in the US enacted tariffs on every other state, would we all be collectively richer or poorer?

Maybe some states could set up their own cottage automotive industry, but overall there is going to be more deadweight loss to the economy than revenue made by the tariffs.

It depends… do the states share a common set of laws and values? Do the benefits of one state profiting transfer in part to other states? Is there a course for grievances to be settled across state lines with reciprocal legal coverage guaranteed? Are living and working standards reasonably similar, allowing companies to fairly compete across state lines?

Those statements are generally not true across countries, but generally are true across states within a country. Things like working standards across countries mean that another country can employ slaves and have uncompetitive costs due to free labor, causing an unfair environment for those same companies forming in countries without slave labor. That is much less likely within the same country.

So it’s not necessarily the same to frame tariffs across states to be similar to tariffs on other countries. There are meaningful differences that make it harder to ensure similar standards across countries, which can make tariffs be meaningful. It helps to account for externalities inherent to lacking the protections mentioned in the first paragraph.