[petercooper]

Also why would they go through all that trouble? Easier to not sell there anymore.

I don't agree with it, but isn't that ostensibly the end goal? That is, to force/encourage the manufacturing of goods in the US, rather than importing them. Of course, the metal itself still needs to enter the US either way.

[organsnyder]

Sure, that could be the eventual goal. But for that to happen, we need to ramp up manufacturing in thousands of sectors: not just the device, and not just everything it contains, but also the machines that make each of the components, the machines that make the parts for those machines, the raw materials for each...

If this was a serious economic policy, it would have started small—perhaps a 5% tariff, to take effect in six months. Then, promise to ramp it up (say an additional 5% every year).

[xg15]

Also, it's a weird way to do "hidden" tariffs, in addition to the official ones that are bad enough.

E.g. if he wanted to tariff electronic devices, why not tariff them directly, instead of those weird mental gymnastics?

[1-more]

> to force/encourage the manufacturing of goods in the US, rather than importing them.

There are two mutually exclusive stated goals. One is, as you said, onshoring tech manufacturing to the USA [1]. The other stated goal is to eliminate income tax and replace it with income from tariffs [2][3]. To play these out on their own terms: if the first goal succeeds, then import volume would drop, and total tariff income would be too low to replace income taxes. If the first goal fails, then tariff income would be high enough to replace income taxes. IDK I haven't done the napkin math and I suspect neither have they.

[1]: https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-says-his-tariffs-...

[2]: https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/trump-proposes-abolishment...

[3]: https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6371514396112

Going with Fox Business links to avoid accusations of bias.

[freejazz]

Yeah, I could also cut off my hand in order to resolve an itch on it. End goal met!