Originally Posted by rickair7777

I did seriously consider rushing out to buy a new car we'll be needing (European, not Chinese). Didn't quite get around to pulling the trigger, so probably going to wait it out now. I actually prefer buying new-ish used cars, but that market has been driven up too, by the tariffs on the adjacent new market.

There's no way to pretend that large, sweeping tariffs will be inconsequential, otherwise the admin wouldn't have bothered with them in the first place. We basically have to hope he's able to quickly negotiate favorable adjustments to the old trade balance structure and then back away from the cliff.

The old structure included a variety of mechanisms which could be leveraged by other countries to protect *their* local industries while enjoying free-ish trade to the USA, hence the imbalance that got us here.

Separate debate is whether we should be protecting our low-skill labor from cheaper low-skill labor in developing countries.

Silver lining is that the majority of our trading partners need us more than we need them, and I'd estimate that a vast majority of our largest partners need us more.

China is a special case, while they also need us more to preserve their existing economy (which was already not so hot), Xi has coalesced enough autocratic power that he can probably get away with tanking their economy while he fights a public geopolitical battle with Trump. He might even manage to set their economy and trade relations on a completely different course long term, at least somewhat disconnected from the US. As somebody who buys a lot of car parts, I might actually enjoy not trading with China

Downside of fewer economic entanglements with China is that it's easier to have a war.

Originally Posted by Turbosina

I guess you don't realize that more than half of the products imported into the USA aren't finished products. They are raw materials that US companies use to create finished products, and that supports millions and millions of US jobs. To believe that these tariffs won't have a dramatically negative effect on our economy is to be wilfully ignorant. Your characterization of imports as "cheap Chinese crap" makes it quite clear that you have little clue about how modern economics actually works.

Let's take coffee for example. One percent of the US coffee bean supply is grown domestically, because we don't have places where coffee can be grown outside of Hawaii. So we import 99 percent of our beans. Employees here in the good ol' USA then grind, roast and serve that coffee. Plus the truck drivers who deliver the beans to roasteries, coffee shops, and supermarkets. What happens when tariffs spike the price of coffee? Demand declines, and that directly affects the livelihoods of everyone involved in the economic chain that allows you to drink coffee in the first place.

From the aluminum that goes into Boeing aircraft, to industrial diamonds that are utterly essential to some heavy industries, to the rubber that goes into car tires -- all of these raw materials either aren't possible to produce domestically, or can only be produced at vastly higher costs. These materials are combined into finished products right here in the US, and millions upon millions of American people earn their living from assembling, designing, transporting, and selling these products. Tariffs simply make their lives more difficult, by making it harder for consumers and businesses to buy the products created. I guess people like you just choose to ignore this reality, because you think of imports as merely "Chinese crap."

And for the record, I've never once entered a Walmart.