Trump's 25% on Chinese goods will hurt American Consumers.

[Vash The Stampede]

You're going to have to explain where you came up with that premise and more specifically that number.

[CostinR]

I'm sure they will. Just like from the start I've heard the apocalyptic messages of the media about tarrifs, which have had a negligible impact so far by the way, I'm sure we'll hear the end is nigh more and more.

[Rasulis]

I'm sure they will. Just like from the start I've heard the apocalyptic messages of the media about tarrifs, which have had a negligible impact so far by the way, I'm sure we'll hear the end is nigh more and more.

I am not sure about negligible impact. Here is the US Manufacturing PMI. The growth is the softest (a nice way of putting it) in two years. Actually it is close to no growth since below 50 is considered a contraction.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-...ufacturing-pmi

- - - Updated - - -

You know, if I didn't know any better I'd say these repeated calamities are a sign the gods are angry.

Or maybe we shouldn't constrained mile-wide rivers into spaghetti-thin channels.

[CostinR]

I am not sure about negligible impact. Here is the US Manufacturing PMI. The growth is the softest (a nice way of putting it) in two years. Actually it is close to no growth since below 50 is considered a contraction.

Well I'd specify that it's negligible compared to the doom, gloom, apocalyptic event that Trump's trade policy has been portrayed as being. Reading politico, hill, wapo and nytimes frequently you'd think Trump was about to crash the economy.

I wouldn't deny there's an impact, but the scale of it compared to what we've been told would happen? Irrelevant.

[Zan15]

Isn't it great to hear those supporting trumps trade war....who used to shout holy hell because Walmart prices would go up a few cents per item if they were forced to pay 15 dollars an hour min wage.

now Walmart prices are forced to go up, because of the trade war......and they love it!!!

wow just wow.

just tried to buy a old vet an cheap 5000 btu air conditioner as part of our church and the lowest price I could find in this state is 139. Last year around this time we brought 10 for 89.00 each. Same brand, same model.

I am sure they jacked the price way more than the tariffs called for cause, profits right!!!

[Draco-Onis]

Well I'd specify that it's negligible compared to the doom, gloom, apocalyptic event that Trump's trade policy has been portrayed as being. Reading politico, hill, wapo and nytimes frequently you'd think Trump was about to crash the economy.

I wouldn't deny there's an impact, but the scale of it compared to what we've been told would happen? Irrelevant.

Bush and at a lower level Obama went down the same path both had to quickly backtrack due to loss of millions of jobs. We've seen this movie before you don't have to play make believe to know that if Trump goes full tariff man the economy is going to go down the crap shoot.

[js3915]

Gotta love the hypocrisy... Upset about the low wages here and wanting to raise minimum wages. Yet are fine that China wages are so far below ours also employing child labor and super low quality working conditions to get the super cheap goods, but get upset because things might cost a fraction more now which probably wont happen... Majority of your product producers will leave China and go to South Korea or India or other countries. Go Pro announced they are going to start producing in Mexico now since the Tariffs.
This will soon turn out to be a much to do about nothing

[Orbitus]

Tariffs always hurt, but thats irrelevant. Tariffs aren't an economic policy, they are economic leverage to negotiate actual trade deals. The money we will lose on these tariffs is peanuts compared to what China steals from us in IP every year.

They aren't losing any money here. How is that so hard to fucking understand. All of the tariffs are paid by consumers, and that is us.

[CostinR]

Bush and at a lower level Obama went down the same path both had to quickly backtrack due to loss of millions of jobs. We've seen this movie before you don't have to play make believe to know that if Trump goes full tariff man the economy is going to go down the crap shoot.

Millions of jobs. Where do you get that fantastical figure from precisely? The media sure likes to shriek but the impact, even if you believe the worst figures, was about 200.000 jobs lost for what Bush did, and what Bush did was political idiocy: He imposed tariffs that he then gutted through his immediate relief to a lot of countries, because Bush is ultimately a free trader that wanted a political benefit.

Trump? Trump is a protectionist.

They aren't losing any money here. How is that so hard to fucking understand. All of the tariffs are paid by consumers, and that is us.

Yearly inflation in the US is at less then 2%. Meanwhile US wage growth for last year was over 3.2%. So yeah, not quite that expensive.

[Draco-Onis]

Millions of jobs. Where do you get that fantastical figure from precisely? The media sure likes to shriek but the impact, even if you believe the worst figures, was about 200.000 jobs lost for what Bush did, and what Bush did was political idiocy: He imposed tariffs that he then gutted through his immediate relief to a lot of countries, because Bush is ultimately a free trader that wanted a political benefit.

Trump? Trump is a protectionist.

You are correct we traded 35K jobs and lost 200K as a result of Bush's tariffs before he reversed them, the point remains tariffs are a brunt tool that cost us more than we benefit.

[CostinR]

You are correct we traded 35K jobs and lost 200K as a result of Bush's tariffs before he reversed them, the point remains tariffs are a brunt tool that cost us more than we benefit.

I would argue there's a bigger picture to consider then purely job lost or won here.

Many would argue that trading with China and relying on them for cheap goods isn't quite that beneficial. Democrats certainly believe this, which is why Trump received messages of support from both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer when he announced he was raising tariffs, not that they are fond of how Trump is handling things overall but dealing with China isn't just something about economic benefits.

What's happening regarding the US and China is that their relationship is quickly going down the drain. Trump has certainly accelerated the process but the main factor is that the US and China are heading for the geopolitical struggle that will define the next few decades, a struggle that will either see the current western world order, Pax Americana or the Long Peace, continue as it has or collapse to the model the Chinese want to push on the world.

There's no avoiding this, unless America wants to surrender to this model. China and Xi Jinping have made it clear that this what they want to do: To remove the US and the global system it created while imposing their own.

[NED funded]

You are correct we traded 35K jobs and lost 200K as a result of Bush's tariffs before he reversed them, the point remains tariffs are a brunt tool that cost us more than we benefit.

Uh? The US got the GATT by basically putting tariffs on all countries that disagreed. In particular Japan

[Draco-Onis]

I would argue there's a bigger picture to consider then purely job lost or won here.

Many would argue that trading with China and relying on them for cheap goods isn't quite that beneficial. Democrats certainly believe this, which is why Trump received messages of support from both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer when he announced he was raising tariffs, not that they are fond of how Trump is handling things overall but dealing with China isn't just something about economic benefits.

What's happening regarding the US and China is that their relationship is quickly going down the drain. Trump has certainly accelerated the process but the main factor is that the US and China are heading for the geopolitical struggle that will define the next few decades, a struggle that will either see the current western world order, Pax Americana or the Long Peace, continue as it has or collapse to the model the Chinese want to push on the world.

There's no avoiding this, unless America wants to surrender to this model. China and Xi Jinping have made it clear that this what they want to do: To remove the US and the global system it created while imposing their own.

I don't think there's anyone that doesn't think China's a problem, the issue is the current administration no one wants to drive home drunk but if your driver is high and drunk there's no point. Trump will cave he will declare victory and we will get a horrible deal, China knows they will get a much better deal around election time because Trump will be desperate. The outcome of this is the United States hands will be tied in the future when an administration that knows what it is doing takes control.

[NED funded]

I don't think there's anyone that doesn't think China's a problem, the issue is the current administration no one wants to drive home drunk but if your drive is drunk there's no point. Trump will cave he will declare victory and we will get a horrible deal, China knows they will get a much better deal around election time because Trump will be desperate. The outcome of this is the United States hands will be tied in the future when an administration that knows what it is doing takes control.

People said the same thing around 2018. There is bipartisan consensus and if you ask me its beyond Trumps control at this point with his apointees running the show.

[Draco-Onis]

People said the same thing around 2018. There is bipartisan consensus and if you ask me its beyond Trumps control at this point with his apointees running the show.

Wait you think the babysitters are in control? have you learned nothing from what happened with John Kelly, James Mattis etc etc. Trump doesn't have any guard rails anymore they all have left he is surrounded by yes men.

[CostinR]

Wait you think the babysitters are in control? have you learned nothing from what happened with John Kelly, James Mattis etc etc. Trump doesn't have any guard rails anymore they all have left he is surrounded by yes men.

There was no a nice narrative constructed here, by the media, by people within the administration and outside, that Trump was a moron who had to be controlled by better men and women. This suited someone like say James Mattis quite well who proceeded to do just that...until he resigned when Trump decided, as is his authority, to make a decision that Mattis disagreed.

I have a great deal of respect for Mattis, but I have to agree strongly with what McMaster was saying recently:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...tution-1418268

“The second group of people, and I think this is true in any administration,” he explained, are those “who are not there to give the president options — they’re there to try to manipulate the situation based on their own agenda, not the president’s agenda."

The third group of Trump advisers are those who “cast themselves in the role of saving the country, even the world, from the president," McMaster told an event hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank where he is now a scholar.

“I think those latter two categories of people are actually a danger to the Constitution of the United States,” he concluded, explaining that the public servants were not elected to overrule or stymie Trump’s policy desires.

This last part is absolutely true and marks a significant difference between McMaster, who sure as bloody hell was not a Trump yes man but was a faithful public servant who respected the fact Trump was the president and thus the man in charge vs someone like Bolton, who is most certainly trying to manipulate things to suit his own ends, or Mattis/Kelly who were trying to act as saviors.

Yeah well good job on them.

As for the tarrifs. Trump's entire economic team, who has people that certainly aren't puppets and yes men for Trump, who have disagreed with him on policy issues but ARE faithful servants in that Trump gets the ultimate say and not them, agreed to impose higher tarrifs. Why? Because China walked away from a deal.

[breslin]

They aren't losing any money here. How is that so hard to fucking understand. All of the tariffs are paid by consumers, and that is us.

Tariffs create a deadweight loss in a market, we are certainly losing money from them and so is China.

[Orbitus]

Tariffs create a deadweight loss in a market, we are certainly losing money from them and so is China.

I am sorry, but you have no clue what you are talking about. China isn't losing money, but the US Citizens are. Along with US farmers because the country that bought our soybeans was China. They aren't now though.

[Draco-Onis]

There was no a nice narrative constructed here, by the media, by people within the administration and outside, that Trump was a moron who had to be controlled by better men and women. This suited someone like say James Mattis quite well who proceeded to do just that...until he resigned when Trump decided, as is his authority, to make a decision that Mattis disagreed.

I have a great deal of respect for Mattis, but I have to agree strongly with what McMaster was saying recently:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...tution-1418268



This last part is absolutely true and marks a significant difference between McMaster, who sure as bloody hell was not a Trump yes man but was a faithful public servant who respected the fact Trump was the president and thus the man in charge vs someone like Bolton, who is most certainly trying to manipulate things to suit his own ends, or Mattis/Kelly who were trying to act as saviors.

Yeah well good job on them.

As for the tarrifs. Trump's entire economic team, who has people that certainly aren't puppets and yes men for Trump, who have disagreed with him on policy issues but ARE faithful servants in that Trump gets the ultimate say and not them, agreed to impose higher tarrifs. Why? Because China walked away from a deal.

And which one of them do you think is going to say no when Trump gets on the phone before or during 2020 and orders them to make a deal regardless of what it is so he can boost his poll numbers?

[breslin]

I am sorry, but you have no clue what you are talking about. China isn't losing money, but the US Citizens are. Along with US farmers because the country that bought our soybeans was China. They aren't now though.

China is most certainly losing money, hence why they themselves applied retaliatory tariffs. The only way China wouldn't lose money is if they were able to sell all of the goods that are being tariffed to other countries and stop exporting tariffed goods to the US.