[ang_cire]

Tariffs don't do this, though. If you want to do this, you just have to pass laws saying companies are required to manufacture x% of their goods domestically. Putting tariffs in place with no other controls will just see companies shift costs downstream, which is exactly what is happening.

Companies employ economists, lawyers, and legislators, all to ensure they can find workarounds for anything they don't like that's not 100% forced on them by a law (and will even flout the law if the cost/benefit works out).

All evidence is that tariffs have actually tanked jobs, precisely because companies are assuming a defensive fiscal posture in response to what they view as a hostile fiscal policy.

[beeflet]

Shifting costs downstream is the point. It imposes a cost on consumers for the externality they are creating by purchasing goods manufactured overseas.

The method you describe is way more easily gamed than a tarrif. What constitutes x% of their goods?

Tarrifs are more proportional to the externality we want to discourage.

[somenameforme]

It also opens the door to competition. Right now in many things we can't compete against places like e.g. China because everything is dramatically more affordable there, including regulatory compliance. Tariff's change this and make it such that domestic producers can produce things at a cost comparable, and ideally less, than other countries.

These tariffs should have been immediately deployed following changes in labor, environmental, and other laws anyhow - because otherwise all we do is just end up defacto outsourcing pollution and other externalities to the lowest foreign bidder, where the only person who really loses is the American worker.

[Aeolun]

> Tariff's change this and make it such that domestic producers can produce things at a cost comparable, and ideally less, than other countries.

It’s the opposite. It makes things from other countries more expensive. It doesn’t make things from the US cheaper.

[koolba]

> It’s the opposite. It makes things from other countries more expensive. It doesn’t make things from the US cheaper.

All prices are relative. If something is more expensive then de facto its alternatives are cheaper in comparison.

[thomasz]

But price elasticity isn't infinite. A large part of the middle class would be priced out of most modern amenities if these would be produced domestically. Import substitution is one of these things that sounds nice in theory but tend to be highly damaging in practice.

[somenameforme]

This isn't necessarily true. A big factor when production comes back home is that so do the jobs that come along with it and that has a huge ripple effect on the economy that's difficult to evaluate, other than it being a very good thing.

[koolba]

> A large part of the middle class would be priced out of most modern amenities if these would be produced domestically.

Who said everybody would get to keep buying as much cheaply made foreign crap as before? From an environmental perspective that's arguably a win as well. Reducing both pollution from construction and transport.

[int_19h]

> A large part of the middle class would be priced out of most modern amenities if these would be produced domestically.

Let's assume that this is indeed the case, consider why those amenities are so much more expensive to produce domestically? Mostly it's because of cost of labor - and that is expensive in US because labor has numerous rights and protections. So if we're not producing things here because they would be too expensive otherwise, it rather implies that those cheap modern amenities are subsidized by exploitation of cheap labor elsewhere. And we can do that because borders prevent free flow of labor from those places to here, while "free trade" allows for a free flow of manufactured goods. Which is already a very ethically questionable arrangement, but even leaving that aside, what happens when those other places catch up on labor rights (and cost)? We can't have an economy that indefinitely relies on having people impoverished elsewhere so that they can be hired for pennies to climb out of that poverty. Or, well, I suppose we can if we were willing to actively stymie those societies to ensure they don't catch up - which is even worse.

FWIW I don't think Trump's tariffs are a meaningful step to resolve this problem, and his motivations are certainly not concern for exploited workers. Nevertheless we can't just ignore the problem that he happened to highlight to his own ends.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

If something (e.g. imported metal) is more expensive then alternatives (e.g. domestically refined metals) will get price increases too.

[thayne]

Personally, I think a better alternative to tariffs would be to require make regulatory requirements for labor, environmental concerns, etc. for the production of any goods sold in the US. Or maybe have tariffs, but companies can opt in to complying with regulations in order to avoid the tariffs.

[somenameforme]

The problem is that laws need to have precision, and that precision can be sidestepped. For the obvious example - most of all chocolate in America still uses labor involving not only child labor but defacto child slavery. [1] So they say some kind words and make an effort to use supplies who aren't using child labor. But all that involves is them asking the supplier 'Hey, you're not using child labor are you. No? Okay, great.' Of course they are and e.g. Nestle knows they are, but so long as they go through some superficial steps to give plausible deniability for both parties, they can then be 'my gosh, we had no idea.' This, btw, is the exact same way that NGO corruption works - shell companies that offer plausible deniability.

There's no real room to evade tariffs outside of misclassifying or misrepresenting imports, which is a straight forward criminal felony.

[1] - https://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/chocolate-slave-l...

[sokoloff]

> There's no real room to evade tariffs outside of misclassifying or misrepresenting imports

There’s an entire field of “tariff engineering” that’s experienced an understandable boom in demand in the last 12 months. That’s technically about avoiding or reducing tariffs rather than evading them, but tomato/tomato…

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> opens the door to competition. Tariff's change this and make it such that domestic producers can produce things at a cost comparable, and ideally less, than other countries.

Haha, Nope. It's more like closing a door. An actual economist says this:

"If you look at page 1 of the tariff handbook, it says: Don't tariff inputs. It's the simplest way to make it harder—more expensive—for Americans to do business. Any factory around the world can get the steel, copper, and aluminum it needs without paying a 50% upcharge, except an American factory. Think about what that will do to American competitiveness."

https://bsky.app/profile/justinwolfers.bsky.social/post/3lud...

[SmirkingRevenge]

Tariffs are gamed all the time.

They are notorious drivers of corruption, it's one of the reasons they're a disfavored policy. Trump himself visibly engages in it (e.g. Tim Cook giving him a gold statue, Apple tariffs get removed) but corruption will manifest at all levels of the chain.

Tariffs also cost more than the sticker price. Compliance is actually really difficult and expensive especially when everything is made so complex and unpredictable. Enforcement is also expensive and often arbitrary or based on who has or hasn't bribed the right people.

[amypetrik8]

> If you want to do this, you just have to pass laws saying companies are required to manufacture x% of their goods domestically.

and if they go below <x> they pay a fine yea?

yea, thats what a tariff is. you have to manufacture x=100% domestically. otherwise 100-x non-domestic is taxed. that's a tariff.

[parineum]

You're not wrong but the fine can be significantly higher than the tariff.

Pay 300% tax if you don't manufacture 10% of your goods in the US. Furthermore, the penalties could escalate from repeat violations. It's a lot more flexible than a blanket tariff on an industry, country or specific good.

[ang_cire]

> and if they go below <x> they pay a fine yea?

Where did I say that? No, the point would be if you don't manufacture x% here, you can't sell here. That is the only surefire way to force domestic production.

Tariffs don't encourage re-shoring and domestic production, they just raise the barrier of entry on consumers.

[hattmall]

Believing that tariffs shift costs downstream means disregarding the idea of supply and demand. Companies are not altruistic actors they price goods at the maximum the market will bear. If they could just pass costs on to consumers then it means that they are already leaving profits on the table. There are in fact alternatives to the goods we import on which tariffs are imposed. Even if the alternative is buying fewer items and spending money on completely different things.

At the end of the day tariffs are a bit of plaque in the artery of the multi-national corporations and money flowing out of a country. It's challenging to argue all the negatives of tariffs for the US while ignoring that almost every other country has tariffs that benefit their domestic industries.

[sdenton4]

* Targeted tariffs and blanket tariffs are different beasts.

* In order for capitalism to undercut the tariffs, the tariffs need to be high enough to offset the costs of setting up the local industry and the higher costs of US labor (which, in turn, are pushed higher by blanket tariffs).

* The tariffs also have to be credibly long-term. If you start building and the tariffs are cancelled, you're screwed. The Trump tariffs don't have this credibility - they're toxic enough that they'll be gone as soon as Trump is, even if it's another Republican in the White House in 2028.