Trump promised voters tariffs are a panacea for the economy, but Walmart finance chief John David Rainey warned they will be inflationary for customers.
Yes, anyone reasonable knew that this would lead to higher costs. Americans are expensive to employ. The point of the tariff package is to bring back manufacturing and production to the USA. Stop importing so much crap from China and other places, and things will balance out. That increase in costs should be compensated for by jobs for American citizens across all sectors if people respect the purpose of the tariffs - to disincentivize imports whenever and however possible.
That’s never going to happen. What will happen is that companies will raise their prices slightly higher than the tariffs cost them, fire more of their workforce, and then brag to investors about their most profitable quarter ever. Plus, that would require the tariffs to be on finished products only. I’ve already heard of several companies announcing no Christmas bonuses this year because they need to stock up on materials in anticipation of the incoming tariffs.
And most of the people supporting tariffs thought that they were going to make things cheaper AND that China was going to pay them.
I buy parts internationally for a domestic manufacturer. The parts are as good if not better than us made. They are also 50-75% less than US WITH the current 25% tariff. Another 20-30% increase isn’t going to bring it back to the US, it will just increase costs.
All that says is that we need to increase import costs 80-85% and instate a labor tariff so that the company has to pay taxes equal to a US citizen for every offshore employee.
Except, this measure won’t result in that at all. Punishing companies for importing is only going to punish consumers. The company wants it for as cheap as possible, and that will often be importing. Even ifbit becomes expensive to import, it will be cheaper than the capital needed to set up the infrastructure for manufacturing domestically. Rewarding companies for sourcing materials and labor domestically will incentivize them to bring jobs here. At least more so than making them pay more to bring it in.
This is one of those things that Trump never actually said, his supporters have just been saying for him for months now.
Another one of those “what he really meant was…” Because that’s what won’t happen, even if it did it would take decades to move production back.
Yes, anyone reasonable knew that this would lead to higher costs. Americans are expensive to employ. The point of the tariff package is to bring back manufacturing and production to the USA. Stop importing so much crap from China and other places, and things will balance out. That increase in costs should be compensated for by jobs for American citizens across all sectors if people respect the purpose of the tariffs - to disincentivize imports whenever and however possible.
That’s never going to happen. What will happen is that companies will raise their prices slightly higher than the tariffs cost them, fire more of their workforce, and then brag to investors about their most profitable quarter ever. Plus, that would require the tariffs to be on finished products only. I’ve already heard of several companies announcing no Christmas bonuses this year because they need to stock up on materials in anticipation of the incoming tariffs.
And most of the people supporting tariffs thought that they were going to make things cheaper AND that China was going to pay them.
I buy parts internationally for a domestic manufacturer. The parts are as good if not better than us made. They are also 50-75% less than US WITH the current 25% tariff. Another 20-30% increase isn’t going to bring it back to the US, it will just increase costs.
All that says is that we need to increase import costs 80-85% and instate a labor tariff so that the company has to pay taxes equal to a US citizen for every offshore employee.
Except, this measure won’t result in that at all. Punishing companies for importing is only going to punish consumers. The company wants it for as cheap as possible, and that will often be importing. Even ifbit becomes expensive to import, it will be cheaper than the capital needed to set up the infrastructure for manufacturing domestically. Rewarding companies for sourcing materials and labor domestically will incentivize them to bring jobs here. At least more so than making them pay more to bring it in.
This is one of those things that Trump never actually said, his supporters have just been saying for him for months now. Another one of those “what he really meant was…” Because that’s what won’t happen, even if it did it would take decades to move production back.