zlacker

The tariffs are at least partially about crony capitalism if you look how they have repeatedly played out. Announce big, broad, sweeping industry & country level tariffs. Talk to Big Tech execs, quietly delay/rescind specific sub-components or even companies from said tariffs. Rinse & repeat.

The companies left fully paying tariffs are the ones that aren't big enough to have the orange mans ear / "donate" to the ballroom construction.

>>steveB+(OP)
Trump forced the UAE to buy $2 billion of his stable coin in order to avoid tariffs. He is making $80 million a year farming yields off that. The tariff nonsense was 100% just a backdoor for corruption.

Edit: and I forgot he pardoned the binance guy for facilitating this corruption too. Trumps pardons are the most corrupt in american history but MAGA is still yelling about the hunter biden pardon even though Joe was absolutely right that trump would maliciously prosecute him

>>HDThor+o2
It’s actually a lot of small to midsize manufacturers importing subcomponents that are getting hurt in the heartland. They can’t lobby for exemptions & don’t have the supplier negotiating power of the megacaps.

>>steveB+(OP)
Tariffs are not free market. A true free market would have zero tariffs.

>>HDThor+o2
I've said this before, but Trump's form of tariffs are basically a firewall and paying tribute opens specific ports and addresses.

>>victor+H6
And it would quickly be destroyed by competing governments that don’t believe in free markets and actively subsidize their industries to capture market share.

>>tw04+F9
The US has been largely tariff free since the 1900s and it's the largest economy in the world.

>>vmg12+wg
Remind me where I can buy a Chinese EV?

And I assume there’s no government subsidies to allow US private sectors to compete globally because free market right?

Right?

>>tw04+Yn
I forgot to put in my comment "until recently". And the US auto industry does such so using that as your argument in favor of tariffs doesn't really work.

>>vmg12+Iw
The 1960s+ chicken tax would like a word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

>>Darkne+Y6
Bribe knocking?

>>ethbr1+eY
Yes, trucks are one of the few areas where there have been tariffs. And unsurprisingly American automakers are now completely uncompetitive.

>>steveB+a3
Sorry widgetCo. Shoulda been a billionaire!

>>victor+H6
Tariffs, as with taxes, may serve positive, market-favourable functions, particularly in addressing market failures, uneven regulation (e.g., higher pension, safety, environmental, and/or medical-care burdens in the importing country), as well as anti-dumping or anti-interference actions. British-Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang writes of this, particularly in Kicking Away the Ladder:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ha-Joon_Chang#Kicking_Away_the...>

Recent US tariffs fall rather short on most of these points, of course.

>>tw04+F9
Can you give an example of a zero tariff country being destroyed by a super high tariff country? I can give you examples of the opposite. For example Argentina tried to build up domestic industries with high tariffs.

>>dredmo+0r2
It is still not a free market thing.

>>vmg12+Iw
You and your downvote brigade can continue to hit my posts but it won’t change the fact the US has been subsidizing our agriculture sectors and oil and gas to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars for a LONG time.

Anyone claiming the US is a completely free market is either uninformed or a delusional nationalist.

>>tw04+oG2
I didn't downvote you once, I don't do it to people I'm discussing things with out of principle.