A lot of people talk about “oh, well, tariffs are a tool that could bring back USA based manufacturing”
…but at every step of the way there have been tariffs on manufacturing inputs, which has the complete opposite effect.
I just feel like that’s being lost in the noise, that the actual obvious outcomes of these tariffs if implemented long-term are 180 degrees from what the admin is claiming they are for.
I actually work at one of these USA based manufacturers, I’ll be out on the floor doing some build support later today. We are basically proceeding as though the tariffs are not going to go into effect, because the alternative is that we just have to shut down operations and furlough everyone for awhile. The business will simply cease to function if everything we source from China costs twice as much. We went through this same shit during Trump 1’s steel tariffs, and it lead to a permanent shrinkage of the business (I was laid off back in 2018 as a result of that, and I’ve actually just recently come back to work at the same company).
Also the elephant in the room is that tariffs without capital controls can’t work. There’s no incentive for capitalists to take massive risks with their capital to start investing in US when they can just move their money to other markets. The US isn’t the linchpin of the global economy that it once was.
A lot of people talk about “oh, well, tariffs are a tool that could bring back USA based manufacturing”
…but at every step of the way there have been tariffs on manufacturing inputs, which has the complete opposite effect.
I just feel like that’s being lost in the noise, that the actual obvious outcomes of these tariffs if implemented long-term are 180 degrees from what the admin is claiming they are for.
I actually work at one of these USA based manufacturers, I’ll be out on the floor doing some build support later today. We are basically proceeding as though the tariffs are not going to go into effect, because the alternative is that we just have to shut down operations and furlough everyone for awhile. The business will simply cease to function if everything we source from China costs twice as much. We went through this same shit during Trump 1’s steel tariffs, and it lead to a permanent shrinkage of the business (I was laid off back in 2018 as a result of that, and I’ve actually just recently come back to work at the same company).
Also the elephant in the room is that tariffs without capital controls can’t work. There’s no incentive for capitalists to take massive risks with their capital to start investing in US when they can just move their money to other markets. The US isn’t the linchpin of the global economy that it once was.