Why does nobody on Earth call Trump out for lying about how tariffs work?

You said prices would be lower by this summer. We will see

Patently false

When you post as much as I do you recognize people from other threads. The first comment you see someone make is very rarely the first comment I've seen them make.

Re "making a foreign country pay": This is completely false. He is not "making a foreign country pay". That's the point of the original post. He's making AMERICAN COMPANIES pay. That's literally what tariffs are.

Trump figured out early in his first term that the tariff lie was one of his most effective ones. He said "we're charging tariffs to China" and saw what the Media did with it. The Media (CNN/MSNBC) obediently called them "Trump's tariffs on China" to make their viewers believe Trump.

This election was always going to be a referendum on inflation. Trump claimed "we're going to fix inflation by charging taxes to other countries". He knew by that point that zero Democrats would point out "charging taxes to other countries isn't a thing". He won because people believed him. The Media is bending the knee to him even more than they did before, so their viewers will keep believing him.

I’ve explained how he is making the foreign country pay clearly enough over several posts. At the end of the day, US tariffs result in China getting less tax revenue and US getting more tariff and tax revenue, all else being equal. This is indisputable economics and practically the same as China paying US. What part of the italicized claim do you disagree with? It’s not inconsistent with some American consumers paying more for some goods, nor does it rule out many other side effects.

Elections tend to be based on the average voter that says "I think I heard that this candidate is like xyz". With Trump, it's "I heard he's a good businessman and that he's tough on other countries".
Yes it's frustrating that people believe that despite his being terrible with economic policy and not being tough whatsoever on other countries. Yes he sucks as an administrator. But this is what the democratic process is about. You don't elect your best; you elect who's most appealing to the average voter.

You're talking about the indirect effect of tariffs on the other country. Tariffs can indeed by an effective tool, but they obviously didn't help the US the first time, because the trade war raised the price of goods for Americans and skyrocketed our trade deficit with China. It didn't work well, because the tariffs weren't employed strategically; they were (likely) employed solely to make Trump look good because he was telling people he was charging taxes to China. He was not.

The reason I say you're going soft on Trump here and taking it too easy on him for his deliberate lies is that I presume you know very well that when he says "we're charging tariffs to China" that he wants voters to believe that China pays for the tariffs.

My point is not that "tariffs are universally bad". My point is "Trump is universally dishonest" and that his making people believe his lies about how tariffs work, is a problem. As well, the tariffs he employed the first time were a disaster, and the reason he's doing it again is that he only cares about people thinking he's "a tremendous winner".

Please do not prop up his lies. He hasn't done the work to earn your support.

The crazy thing with Trump is most people don't believe him about the 2020 election etc, but even people that hate him tend to believe his lies about his economic numbers. The tariff stuff is one of his most widely-believed lies.

Heck, I consume highly conservative financial media every day, and they pretty universally call out Trump as lying about tariffs.

You are wrong. I absolutely don’t care about going soft on Trump. I stand by everything I have said and have said it precisely enough. You haven’t actually indicated what it is I said that you disagree with.

Trump’s first term tariffs were a mixed bag, but I am not interested in the question of whether they overall did good or not (nor have I entered into that rabbit hole in this thread) because that is not an objectively quantifiable answer. They definitely made some money flow from China as a country as a whole to the US as a whole. That is just fact. So saying the tariffs made China pay is reasonable and the greater truth.

To add, your first sentence above is wrong, just like your opening OP sentence. I am not talking about indirect effects, but the most direct and intended effect of tariffs, their very raison d’etre: tariffs hold back some revenue otherwise going to foreign companies. That is their fundamental point. The net result always is increase in total US wealth and decrease in total foreign country wealth, all else being equal. If China retaliates, all else is not equal, but as the greater export-dependent economy, they stand to lose more.

The long term impact of labor arbitrage on wealthy countries is lost jobs, a shift in job demand toward high-skill, knowledge-based roles, and growing economic inequality as middle-income jobs are eroded. The problem with a shift in job demand toward high-skill, knowledge-based roles is that not everybody is able to do these jobs even with the right education and training.

The low-income countries on the other hand benefit from economic growth and job creation. Low or no tariffs on Chinese made goods has lifted 800 million Chinese out of poverty and hopelessness by transferring wealth from America to China.

It sucks to only be able to get a job as a cashier, shopping cart collector, or uber driver. However, if these are your best options then you'll be happy for it. This is why I'm completely against checking myself out at the grocery store, returning my shopping cart, using robo-taxis, or even returning my bin when going through security... in aggregate these actions result in poor, working Americans being fired.

Agree. You seem like one of the rare ones here who can see the big picture sensibly.

Tariffs are actually a socialist economic policy. When a country is as rich as the US is, it can afford to do some wealth redistribution to make sure that its poorest lowest-skilled people are protected at the cost of people who are better off. Tariffs are a sound economic instrument for that goal provided they are wielded carefully.

most likely Repiublicans will say a recession is temporary and good, if they manage to cut federal spending and as a result throw the economy into recession.

Capitalism has a pretty clear and simple logic. It's not one that's compatible with settled human life, but its rules are easily discernible.

"Unchecked" capitalism is the opposite of the system of total monopoly (one producer controlling everything). It is a situation in which there is ceaseless competition between many owners of productive assets for the greatest return. Capitalism is "checked" when price competition is interfered with in the name of extra-economic considerations (e.g. national well being).

Again, what is "fair" trade? Please define. Things are either exchanged at their relative values (i.e. freely) or there's some extra-economic barrier introduced that fetters this exchange (e.g. a tariff or quota). Once begun, where does this fettering of trade end, and how are the rules of capitalist competition maintained in the process?

Why should an auto worker care about the long term interests of the auto industry when the normal, rational development of that industry includes the elimination of human labor from the process? How exactly do you think auto companies compete with one another for market share and profit? Workers are most rational when the organize to get as much as they can from the employer when the can, absent any other provisions for their economic welfare.

You argue that capitalism is the best possible system while also defending a policy regime which promises to adulterate its logic by interfering in the rational formation of relative prices across the entire economic space.

Again, you can't square nationalism with the basic logic of capitalism. No one can. You're in or you're out. One will always undermine the other.

tariffs are a cheap temporary way to paper over an uncompetitive economy.

in the end, the US cannot and should not compete on low-margin widgets from low-wage, low education countries. We'll just get poorer and poorer if we do that, while giving companies less incentive to innovate and come up with strong new products.

I will agree that there has been one time when tariffs would have been useful: when China really started moving into western markets, we really didn't understand what a huge impact it would have. The china shock, it's called. We should have taken steps to protect the parts of the American economy that got decimated by china. Just slowed down the damage a bit to give capital a shot.

But that time is over - companies are fleeing china and it isn't so cheap there anymore.

Now we need to make sure US companies allocate capital well...not try to make low-margin widgets. No future in that anymore. The damage is done - won't get much worse.

And of course punishing Canada and Mexico with tariffs for...the drug trade and immigration...well that's just trumpian stupidity.

"The China shock (or China trade shock) is the impact of rising Chinese exports on manufacturing employment in the United States and Europe after China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001.[1][2] Studies have estimated that the China trade shock reduced U.S. manufacturing employment by 550,000 (explaining about 16% of the total decline in manufacturing employment in the U.S. between 2000 and 2007),[3] 1.8-2.0 million,[4] and 2.0-2.4 million.[5] Losses in manufacturing employment have also been observed in Norway,[6] Spain,[7] and Germany.[8] Studies have shown that there was "higher unemployment, lower labor force participation, and reduced wages in local labor markets" in U.S. regions that have industries that competed with Chinese industries.[9]"

I fundamentally disagree with your above position. Tariffs can be sustainable longterm as well. US real wages have stagnated since 1980. That is because in a globally competitive free market economy, there is no way to protect the lowest skilled in the US other than to use trade to our advantage. What else do you propose to do about the dumbest Americans? Guaranteed income? Let them rot? There is no way to make them smarter somehow. Fact of life.

No one is advocating competing on “low margin widgets”. Do you consider fabrication of chips low margin? What about state of the art lithography by ASML that Intel gave away to the Dutch? There are many modern manufacturing sectors like EV, solar, and even software where protectionism can help lower skilled Americans.