US to go ahead with imposition of 104% tariff China from Wednesday | Hacker News Reader

US to go ahead with imposition of 104% tariff China from Wednesday

theguardian.com

50 pointsPhilpax16 comments

How many US businesses is this tariff level going to bankrupt?

As an example, this level will completely ruin so many boardgame businesses I don't want to think of it. The future looks pitch black for my beloved boardgaming hobby.

This is way too harsh of a tariff, by doing this Trump isn't sending clear signals to manufacturers.

Trump's "schizophrenic" decisions to announce high tariffs only to whiplash manufacturers by announcing pauses or straight dropping tariffs makes it hard to justify setting up a plant in the US.

If given the choice of committing to building a plant to reduce costs because of the tariffs, or just cutting costs / employees, most will do that latter.

One cannot justify building a plant if halfway through building it, tariffs are dropped ( due to an admin change or something else). Because then you have a factory that costs you more money than just importing from China.

I'm not sure there's an economic rational for this one so much as Trump hitting back at China for raising reciprocal tariffs to his tariffs.

It doesn't seem a great situation really. Smoot–Hawley 2.

I mean... You also can't justify building a plant when your raw materials are double the price. May as well build in Canada or the EU and export at a 10% tariff.

I was really enjoying my 401k being over cost basis for a year or two. So much for that!

The saddest thing here and the way I understand it is that even waiving the tariffs won't fix the long term damage these actions have caused. Foreign partners will now be much more weary of the US as a trading partner. At least this is my understanding.

I'm a European and I hold a good amount of US stocks exactly as retirement plan. I'm scared right now, not gonna lie.

Gonna be fun. I still have some stocks but maybe I should switch to local currency bonds instead...

Take a look at the map of Free Trade Agreements of EU and USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreements_of_the_U... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade_agreements_of_the_E...

I might be wrong and biased, but maybe EU gains the most from this US vs world trade war?

Yes. The USA is setting Europe up, unintentionally, to replace it as an economic, cultural, and - within the next decade - military power.

Thought I could retire in under 10 years but I guess I need to work till death, one way or another.

Catastrophic. I wish I didn't have to live through the collapse of the US.

The Republican-led Congress can end this nonsense anytime they so desire. I suggest their supporters give them a reason to desire to do so.

That won’t happen until their constituents throw a tantrum because the price of everything has doubled, and by then it will be too late. The damage will have been done.

And by then Republicans and Democrats will be pointing fingers at the incompetency of the government, which then leads to the incompetency of the electorate which half will deny and blame the system being against them, which leads to more finger pointing and inaction.

And voila, democracy sucks, move to monarchy, just like the Vance Thiel Sacks Musk Yarvin fan club want.

We had to get rid of the Congress because it wouldn't take action! We had no choice but to empower a single strong leader who would do what needed to be done!

This is a trap. We're in hybrid warfare. Putin must be chortling Sovietly.

Yes, but it was the proposed monarchy that created this mess in the first place. Anyone proposing Trump as the solution for the problems Trump has created is a g-damned idiot - so I guess the real question is how many such idiots exist?

It's malignant normalcy. They're addicted to the depravity of Trump TV, and want it to continue in perpetuity.

People keep asking where is the bottom with this movement? When does Trump go too far for them? There isn't.

We're asking an OK question but we're not asking ourselves. We keep deferring to addicts to tell us when they're ready for rehab.

And that's not going to work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com