Donald Trump recently announced a 10% tariff on all countries, set to take effect today, and much higher "reciprocal" tariffs on certain countries, set to take effect on April 9th.

The idea behind the tariffs is to incentivize companies to make their products within the United States, with American employees. The tariffs also aim to level the playing field in a way; Trump wants to get back at countries that impose tariffs against us.

Detractors claim that these tariffs will cause prices on goods to rise across the board for American citizens, since the cost of the tariffs will be passed down to the consumers.

What do you guys think?

I'm usually a pretty opinionated person, but I'm not really sure how I feel about these tariffs. Ultimately, tariffs are a type of tax, and I firmly believe that, in general, taxes are bad. So I'm inclined to oppose these tariffs. Why can't trade exist with the government taking its cut? I understand the desire to level the playing field with other countries, but I don't actually see any benefit for the American people. I don't even think it will bring back jobs, since so many American companies rely on imported goods to operate. And even if it does add jobs, does the American people as a whole even benefit from that if everything costs much more to buy?

I'm no expert, though. I'd love to hear more perspectives, because both Twitter and the mainstream media are useless if you're interested in nuance.

Foreigner perspective here


To me it just sounds like Trump learned a new word and is now continuously shouting it into the world pretending it will solve all of the issues facing the US.

I'm not going to claim to know much about all the intricacies of all these different tariffs or the effects they will have on the American economy & the American people. What I do find concerning is that Trump is weaponizing them and actively harming international relations with long standing allies. Countries who have fought and lost soldiers alongside the US in numerous conflicts.

In about about 2.5 months he has successfully sunk the reputation of the US. In a sense he's been able to truly unify the world... against America. The biggest foreign policy disaster since Bush and there's 4 more years of this.

Very curious how history will look back at these tariff wars

I see it as a shake up to the current system.

Most of the current wealth of the last 50 years has been built on an ever increasing system of debt that is now unsustainable. Trump is trying something different and I have no idea if it will work but doing nothing different is only going to kick the can down the road another 4+ years.

Too many countries have a debt to GDP ratio of 80% or higher and I'm pretty sure that has only gotten worse over the last few decades. When your debt servicing accounts for more than 20% of your annual budget you have a serious problem.

However, for too many years we've gone with the idea that we can grow our way out of our problems. I mean we as Western society. Spend now and hope the future revenue covers it.

Well, that has caught up to the US and many other countries. We need to stop relying on Chinese (or other Asian) slave wages to keep our countries going.

I'm not going to call myself an expert, but I do have an advanced degree in Economics. While I can be very opinionated about so-called "radical" policies, I understand the fundamentals pretty well I'd think.

Our economy in the US as a whole has been struggling, but not because of trade deficits with other countries. Tariffs are an important economic tool to protect domestic businesses, as has been the case with American Automakers for...forever. These tariffs help to close competitive advantage that foreign goods producers have due to lower costs, mainly in labor. The only reason American auto manufactures have any chance in the US is because of our high tariffing policy (as well as significant tax breaks, but that's another problem.)

Across the board tariffs are a TERRIBLE idea in the modern world. Does Trump expect the US to produce every good here? What about foods that can't grow in our climate? Or textiles that would cost significantly more to produce here than in Bangladesh? It is true that American manufacturing would come back if we tariffed high enough, but are jobs paying $7.25 an hour working in a sweat shop to make shirts the kinds of jobs we really want? I think everyone can agree we don't want that.

I won't even discuss how these made up percentages can to be, since it shows another degree of idiocy in the current administration. We tariffed an island with no population.

It is also worth mentioning that getting into trade wars is rarely beneficial. Just look at what China has already done in retaliation. A 34% tariff on American goods is disastrous for many industries, namely the beef industry. China is also limiting rare earth metals from being sent to the US, so what are we supposed to make all of our products with?

I understand we have some bad trade deals in place, but attacking every nation with made up tariffs is not the proper way to address it. This will only hurt the United States. China, Japan, and South Korea have already teamed up to retaliate against us. If you are bringing those three together, you may be doing the wrong thing.

I have a lot of strong opinions on the US economy I'm sure many people wouldn't agree with, but I hope that we can all agree that across the board tariffs for no reason is a horrible idea. Someone that knows what they are doing needs to step in before we go for a full scale recession.

Furret: Trump has been talking about tariffs for a while. I remember him mentioning them in 2015 / 2016, during his first presidential campaign, but I don't think anything ever came of it. It does seem like they've become his new obsession recently.

The US does gets the short end of the stick a lot of the time when it comes to our relationship with our allies, and I do agree with Trump's statements that that shouldn't be the case. We shouldn't be giving so much money to foreign countries when we get very little in return. I don't think it's the US's responsibility to fund the rest of the world. But I think trade is entirely different from that. I think both parties involved benefit from free trade (generally speaking). Cutting foreign aid is good, in my opinion, but using tariffs to attack other countries doesn't make much sense to me.

geeogree : I suppose any approach to cutting debt is going to upset people in some way. Cutting spending seems like the most obvious method, but look at the reaction to DOGE. If eliminating waste has people this up in arms, I can't even imagine what the reaction would be if Trump reduced spending on things that actually impact people's lives in some way.

I think the problem, though, is that we may already be too dependent on foreign goods to stop now. I think Bara made some good points in regards to this, with the rare earth metals from China and the foods that can't grow in our climate.

Barathemos : Very good points. Obviously we have a lot of disagreements politically, but I think I agree with you on this one. And I think I have a better understanding of the situation now after reading your post, so thank you for that.

tgags123: Oh for sure, I do agree that a lot of places have taken US aid for granted over the years. If anything I'm glad leaders here in Europe are finally waking up and advocating to become less dependent so we can become more of a global player.

However this all could have been handled a lot more diplomatically if someone more talented and dignified was in office handling these discussions. Not saying Harris was that person by the way, I think presidential candidates have sucked major behind for over a decade now.

It's embarrassing and downright scary to see an 80 year old man throw a temper tantrum on how he will 'Take Greenland by any means necessary'. Throw all these trade wars on top and by 4 years time America might become the new black sheep.

First and foremost the reason companies don't make amercian products here in amercia is because the potential for profit isn't worth the expenses of operating in Amercia

The United States will always be at a loss when it comes to manufacturing because of our labor laws and minimum wage....we can't compete with cheap labor from China,Taiwan, Vietnam etc because An Amercian worker expects $20+ an hour salary, health, dental and vision insurance and a 401k retirement plan and or pension

Where as China, Taiwan, Vietnam etc literally can pay there employees $1-7 a hour or in some places a day to work 14 hours with no benefits, no complaints and ultimately its cheaper and creates a larger profit margin while ultimately cutting operation expenses

Trumps Tariffs plan is very stupid and he clearly doesn't know much about economics but i also believe he's crashing the stock market and housing market on purpose so that those with money can buy up everything at a steal

these tariffs are pretty much bad news