The offical Trump Tariff thread

Currently Chinese manufacturing is just so much cheaper and more accessible. I run a very small food production facility and we wanted to create a new product that required a small clip tying machine. Since it's a new product, all of this investment is speculative. A Chinese made machine on Alibaba is $2000 + $600 shipping. It's in-stock and can arrive in 2 weeks. If I paid $400 more for fast shipping, I can receive it in under 5 days.

An American brand machine (I don't know where it's actually made, but the brand is American) is $13,000 with an 8 weeks lead time.

The sales service is actually better from the Chinese side too. They respond promptly even though they're in a different time zone. The American company eventually stopped responding to my emails. I think they are not too interested in selling me just one machine.

I just can't justify spending American machine money for a product that may or may not pan out so I went with Alibaba.

 

Chinese manufacturing is also really really good.

 

No, I don't realize that.

Go ahead and put him on ignore if you don't think he brings anything of value to the conversation. Then you won't even need to complain.

He says tariffs could be a tool when necessary. Doesn't sound like he was thinking tariffs indiscriminately across the board.

I don't really have a problem with tariffs themselves, per se. As Sanders says, its a tool we can use strategically. My problems are:

(1) The authoritarian manner in which he is making a massive change to how our economy and our tax policy operate using only presidential power. And I understand Congress had delegated tariff authority to him, but they also have the power to take it back and that's what they should be working on right now, because it isn't appropriate in a democracy that we make such wholesale changes without Congress' direct participation.

(2) Such a wholesale shift into a tariff-based tax structure is a not-so-subtle attempt to make our tax policy much more regressive than it had been and takes the burden of funding the government off the wealthy. I think that's a terrible idea. Sanders comment contemplates using tariffs to sculpt industry outcomes, not to make taxes regressive.

(3) It is only a distant third that I'm worried that a tariff-based economy is economically inefficient. While I think it will weigh our economy down, I could still be on board with it for reasons of American self-sufficiency if we had made sure we arrived at this decision democratically and we had made sure that our government was funded in a socially just way. But that those requirements do not attain and it's economically inefficient altogether makes this a really terrible idea.

I can see that.

 

Trump don't care about that, all he cares about is China is selling more to the US, he does not care if other countries do not charge any tariff on US products either. Like I said, he should charge 2000% tariff on everything and stop all imports into the US, make inflation go to 50% per year!

 

I am very impressed by my clipper machine. It looks well built, the stainless steel is good quality, and it been working perfectly so far.

It's a fairly simple machine with only non-proprietary pneumatic controls so I am not too worried about parts availability. Though if this was a more complicated machine with proprietary parts then I would be more concerned about not having a US support system.

 

Let's not pretend that American quality is higher. I don't know of many US made products and have the tolerances of Chinese products. That have been doing this for the world for the last 2 decades. They also compete with each other so their quality has to be high or they lose the factory next door.

 

I am really not getting this American made is some top quality sh** .
A lot of the products I buy and is disappointed by are American products.

I don't think country of manufacturing indicates quality. Cheap products are made everywhere and high quality products can be made anywhere.

 

American made guitars are better.

 

I bet there are some bad ass handmade Chinese guitars that we don't get to see in the US because they wouldn't sell well.

 

American quality exists. Its costs more per unit and requires high volume. You wont find this company in the yellow pages.

 

I suspect there are many private luthiers across the globe.
But for semi mass produced axes.
Gibson
Fender
Charvel
And PRS are the best.

Acoustic Taylor's snd Martin's are awesome.

Now classic nylon string guitars are best from Mediterranean areas.

Milage may very. Guitars are like wands purchased from Olivanders in Harry Potter.

 

idiocracy

 

As an American. I just hope he knows what the F he's doing around this regard. His other actions have been beyond stupid. I see a glimmer of hope around this tariff threat of his. If he can work out a trade agreement where tariffs are reduced while not losing our reserve currency status, I will give him credit.

In regards to the civil rights and the culture of America. He can go F himself.

 

We are speaking about two different topics. Semiconductors belongs in advance technology catagory. We excel at advanced technology (not all of course).

I disagree. We are not pushing talent out. We are harvesting it at high rates. We can not get enough high skilled people.

What we lack is middle class skilled workers. The vast majority of Americans do not have a clue about manufacturing, much less working for a manufacturing company. This is reflected when people gave up on ChatGPT because it couldn't do their entire project for them. The average American worker is just lazy. Half of my RFQ's go unanswered. Most of quotes are sloppily put together. Product is always late. Response times are abysmal and if I bring on an important long term vendor, I have to build relationships with department heads as entitled PM's often go AFK for days at a time.

 

A lot of imported luxury goods have no us alternative. These tariffs are taxes.

 

U see a glimmer of hope? Other nations can’t trust a word this clown says, he is too dumb and mentally unstable. Trump is the same idiot who ripped up his own trade agreement with Canada

they put tariffs on uninhabited islands and generated some made-up nonsensical equation to create the amount of tariffs placed on each country…I could never trust people this stupid

Trump’s tariffs weren’t as dumb during his 1st term, and they still failed and devastated farmers so badly many of them went bankrupt and the entire industry had to be bailed out

 

these buffoons have fcked us internationally…I really don’t know how we could ever regain full trust from other nations ever again

sure, u might get competence and common sense in 2028 if a Democrat wins, but these countries can’t be sure another dumbass group of republicans don’t get elected in 2032 and it’s back to the chaos and buffoonery

we made an enemy out of Canada for absolutely no reason…1 of our best allies

we united China, Japan, and S Korea against us economically

we’re attempting to take over Greenland

 

this dumb b*tch single handedly tanked the global economy in 2 monthd