are tariffs a good idea?

Depends on the product. With cars for example, people are already buying American cars, so a tariff however small will sway the economics towards purchasing American.

Tariffs have and have always had their place as a sound economic instrument, especially when used in a targeted manner, just that their side effects are not always predictable or net positive in hindsight.

Maybe the extraordinarily large welfare class may work these jobs. Crazy to import people while paying others to do nothing. Two birds, one stone I say. That’s why Trump and Elon Musk are going to be a great change. No pain no gain.

The market apparently has higher faith than some of the longtime Trumpers here.

I hope trump succeeds! I don’t know what you’d rub my nose in.

Really, you should come back and call out your fellow Trumpers who have already made dozens of excuses for him - that’s just sad to see for the man they idolize.

Consumption taxes that capture negative externalities are good, actually.

Unsurprising because you failed to explain comparative advantage earlier.

CA will continue to send money to your relatively poor state, even running up a state deficit as they do. We libs are just that nice to low education Trumpers. you’re welcome.

Imagine just claiming that companies will not raise prices because “consumers are tapped.”

That’s next level wishful thinking

I am in agreement with you. Tariffs are not inherently bad. But the Trump floated proposal is incoherent. Blanket 10-20% on all imports plus 100% on China is eating the entire block of salt when you were supposed to sprinkle a bit on your fries.

Educate yourself. Here's a good start:

It’s going to replace income tax and bring prices down.

I will hold him accountable, don’t worry.

Tariffs are not inherently bad. But blanket tariffs are inherently bad. If the US considers drone technology to be extremely important for national security, it can be useful to tariff drone producers in order to facilitate development of drone tech in the US. Tariffing everything is stupid because it just makes everything increase in price.

The idea that manufacturing goods in America is inherently good is also dumb. The reason we are rich and live well off lives in the US is because we don't have to allocate a huge percentage of our population/labor, to creating $2 tee shirts or 50 cent toys. Americans do things that are much more profitable, so they make more money. They can then turn around and spend a smaller portion of their income on buying tee shirts or electronics or carpets or food because the Chinese/Ecuador/Bangladesh/Mexican slave wagie is suffering.

You know how when you travel to some cheap country you feel like a king because your money goes far. That's essentially what we're doing with our entire economy when we import a majority of our everyday goods, letting every American feel like an aristocrat.

Actually, all else being equal, increasing imports has the opposite depreciative effect on your currency because importing involves selling your currency to buy the exporter’s currency. Feeling like a king in poorer countries just has to do largely with US’ higher nominal per capita GDP (and by consequence income), i.e., because we make more valuable things.

Nobody is arguing for making cheap plastics and apparel in the US. But not manufacturing much of what goes into an iPhone or into state-of-the-art NVIDIA GPUs or even Intel/ARM CPUs is an increasing liability for the US and also reduces local jobs. Not everyone in America is smart enough — just like any other country’s people — to do high-value jobs alone, so we either
1) need more mundane jobs; or
2) increase government benefits for those who are not globally competitive anymore.

You can't even hold your pets accountable...

Your ego is off the charts.

I can't believe people are downvoting this.

Common sense is getting downvoted all over this thread. Probably the same guy on different devices. Ignore.

Lest anyone forget, there's a long list of materials and products China affordably produces that the U.S. cannot.

And then the next step of china placing a tariff on US goods so less get imported. So instead of Boeing selling a jet, they buy an airbus instead. We gained 100 iPhone jobs and lost 110 Boeing. So basically everyone pays more and gets less.

everyone likes the idea of keeping jobs local. No where as many like the corollary of that when other people buy local also, they aren’t buying your product.

Me: “I will wait and see if a president keeps their promises”

You: flails with rage

Huh??

Considering we just saw an election that was largely a referendum on prices going up, I’m sure even the Trump administration has a more nuanced view on this than you all do

Oh I absolutely agree. I hope I didn't seem to be implying that at all. Prices will go up until profit starts going down, that's just capitalism. Companies don't care if you can't afford something - if you need it, you better hope government assistance is available (or that you are good for a loan). The only option at that point would be to operate outside the law like the president elect.

Show some respect. This dude called the election months ago. The only person to correctly predict covid era deaths would sway the election.