- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- buyeuropean@feddit.uk
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/27100578
Archive link for those of us still considering retaliatory tariffs.
cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/27100578
Archive link for those of us still considering retaliatory tariffs.
Smart man. Retaliatory tariffs, but not at the cost of our own industries
Not sure if you are sarcastic or not.
If we impose retaliatory tariffs it will be damaging the US industries first. The backtracking now comes as Trump threatens to escalate even further with tariffs. Problem is that caving in to that behavior only encourages him to act more like this.
Also it will be pathetic for the EU to succumb to Trump as the rest of the world is fighting back because of the lobbying of the alcohol industry.
The US is hurting itself the most with tariffs. There is more to trade than just consumer spending.
If you manufacture something in the US, where do you get your materials from? All the switches, resistors, wall anchors, tools… You have a shop that’s 100% using German machine tools you can’t expand anymore. Intel cannot built or upgrade fabs because ASML is dutch. Using any power tools? Built in China. Yes they are buying less stuff but they also sabotage their own ability to built stuff. Every US product will get more expensive anyway due to this.
They are doing this at the same time that they massively cut public spending for a nice double-whammy. They can’t even react because they are indiscriminately axeing the state workforce.
I understand your reasoning but tariffs all around are just not the right tool as they affect your own market first and while the eu is the second biggest consumer market after the us, it just hasn’t the same margins to cut into for tariffs to properly bite.
So all the EU can do with them is to make it hurt while trying to avoid exactly the damage to the own economy that the US is causing. That way you try to leverage the reciprocal approach while trying to carry the economy for as long as possible.
That Trump is willing to escalate is apparent with China, but contrary to the EU, China has monopolies on goods and resources that it can (and already does) utilize to supplement tariffs. That will cause bigger damage than tariffs over time.
Of course the biggest absurdity is that a trade war like this harms the engine of every single country affected, destroying value AND lives just as much as a real war does but without the visibility.
Giving in to Trumps threats of tariffs now, what ensures he won’t come up with new ideas why trade would be unfair and threaten more tariffs again? He did the same with Ukraine and minerals. You think you have a deal and he will come up with new demands.
If the US wants to buy wine and whisky from somewhere else, let them. They imposed tariffs on almost every country in the world. And of all possibly affected industries, the alcohol industry deserves among the least considerations, given how much damage their products cause to the general public and how many individuals are killed from alcohol addiction and related issues.