Comment by csense
4 days ago
I don't think tariffs should be imposed capriciously at the President's whim.
But I do think tariffs are an appropriate policy tool that should be used to protect US companies against overseas competitors that get government subsidies or other unfair advantages: Low wages, safety regulations, worker protection, environmental rules, etc.
Yep, that's why you need to convince Congress of that fact, as has been done in the past. Tariffs absolutely make sense as a strategic tool. There is no strategy here.
> There is no strategy here.
Unless the money is fully accounted and restituted, I believe we can assume what the strategy is.
This ruling like most of the kleptocracy, will show the kleptocrats who is willing to lick boot and who will not. The goal, whether extrinsic or intrinsic, is to find the fascist threats and harm them.
This specifically will happen when businesses request the legal refund and the "deep state" gets to decide whether they deserve a refund.
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Ever try to get Congress to agree on something without packaging in another thing?
I agree with the sentiment, but that is completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
Just because Congress is stuck doesn't mean the Executive gets to do whatever they want.
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It is because your congress and political system don't need coalition governments orvaby kind of agreements, winner takes it all. A true multy party system wpuld be mote flexible and less prone to catering to extremes on the left or right
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The problem is we've kicked this can down the road for decades. We can't just let the president perform Congress's job, no matter how "stuck" they are.
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I agree with this assessment. And I think that the way it's setup in the constitution is correct, that congress needs to ultimately create the tariffs rather than the president. Creating tariffs unilaterally should almost never happen.
The cover story for tarrifs was re-Industrialization. The facts are that they are used more as another rent seeking maneuver, a street rat style protection racket or a means to coerce. Sell the theory but do something else.
That's the issue: He used an emergency act passed in the 1970s designed for rapid response to other countries' "first strike" of economic hardship like the oil embargo.
Tariffs in general have not been touched at all, those that Congress wishes to pass. This is a ruling that the President cannot use the 1970s act to be a one-person economic warfare machine to the entire world when he doesn't like something.
It protects US compagnies at the expense of US consumers. Almost no economist think they are actually good for the economy, not even retaliatory tariffs.
Do you agree with countries doing the opposite to the US? When for example US tech is better than the local alternative but the countries create unfair advantages to the local alternatives?
I believe as a US citizen I have no say in how they make these decisions so this thought exercise is pointless. We all structure our governments differently and so compete globally with differing rules, I only care about how we do it here in the US. At times, what we do may be in reaction to others, but how we do it needs to be agreed upon here at home and for that we have a Constitution that gives this power to congress not the executive. I'm glad the court got it right, it's a glimmer of hope that the constitution still has some meaning.
The entire point of the WTO was that countries can cooperate globally to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers, so it does matter what you think of other countries' decisions.
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> Do you agree with countries doing the opposite to the US?
Yes, please! Maximally efficient is minimally robust.
We need robustness in the global economy more than some megajillionaire needs another half cent per customer in profit.
In addition, we need competition in a lot of areas where we have complete consolidation right now. The only way to get that is to give some protection to the little guys while they grow.
> The only way to get that is to give some protection to the little guys while they grow.
Industrial Policy
It has a very bad reputation in the West but in built Japan and Taiwan
In the West it meant "protect old industries" rather than grow new ones (e.g. British steel)
I agree that we do need robustness in our production and economies, and a lot of it. But I don't really believe that most tariffs, especially current ones, will ensure that in any way.
Generally if you want stable and reliable local production of something, you subsidize that production or industry. You guarantee a certain amount of product will be bought/paid for even if a foreign supplier can or is willing to undercut that cost. That is why we have a large agricultural surplus in basically every western country, subsidized crops means there is money on the table for somebody to be in that industry which ensures surplus production even when other places are offering cheap food to trade.
Those can also be misapplied and corrupted, but it is still better than nothing at all or not extremely well planned and implemented tariffs which can sometimes hurt local production of other things still.
> We need robustness in the global economy more than some megajillionaire needs another half cent per customer in profit.
Exactly this.
Economies follow the same general principles of our distributed products. There’s good reasons you pay extra and lower efficiency (a bit) to have redundancy and resilience. We saw that we need more of it during COVID lockdown chaos.
Generally lowering tariffs has been a good thing overall, but there’s a point where it stops being beneficial.
>Do you agree with countries doing the opposite to the US?
If their laws allow their leaders to enact tariffs then sure, they're welcome to do it. Foreign relations is complicated partially because countries operate differently. In the US, Congress is supposed to levy taxes and impose tariffs. Not the president. This game of nibbling (now chomping) at the edges of that clearly outlined role needs to end.
>When for example US tech is better than the local alternative but the countries create unfair advantages to the local alternatives?
We can still enact tariffs and similar policies. We have the same mechanisms they do. I don’t understand what is so “unfair.” Trump just seems to call everything he doesn’t like “unfair.”
Absolutely!
That is not an unfair advantage, but protecting their domestic industries for reasons unrelated to the quality of the tech, for example to keep people in active employment, prevent bankruptcies, allow an industry to get up to speed, or a lot of other reasons entirely unrelated to the USA. All of these are valid; any country gets to decide who they want to allow on their markets, and to what conditions.
That is not what Trump has been doing, though. Using tariffs as retaliatory measures? As a threat because he didn’t get to "own" Greenland?
Let’s stop comparing sane political strategies to the actions of a narcissistic madman.
This has nothing to do with tariffs and everything to do with us companies hsving an unfair advantage or justnot following EU regulations. Or musk trying to interfere in our politics and supporting extreme right wing parties. Also us government having access to our cloud data, etc. All our advertising money goes to the US to google/fb, because everyone is using them, not because they are inherently better at anything, for example.
So many of you keep using the word “unfair.” What is so unfair? What can these countries do that we cannot?
Have you considered all the advantages the US has over some of these countries? Is that not “unfair”? I would say the US’s relationship with the Internet is certainly an advantage even if we call it “fair.”
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We have laws explicitly for imposing tariffs for these reasons (like Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Trade Act of 1974)
The difference is they have to go through administrative procedure, and are subject to more judicial review to ensure administrative process was followed. Even if its a fig leaf in this administrative, its a tad slower with higher judicial oversight.
What Trump wants to do is impose tariffs on a whim using emergency powers where administrative procedure laws don't apply.
So the hope here: we have at least more predictability / stability in the tariff regime. But tariffs aren't going away
this isn't about tariffs
it's about if the executive can impose them
Maybe in rare cases, but for each of the various policy goals tariffs are used for, there are other kinds of targeted industrial policy that work better and cost less.
Tariffs are the most expensive way to try to onshore manufacturing. The cost per "job created" is astronomical usually. They incentivize corruption and black markets.
Even regular old subsidies are usually easier, cheaper, and less problematic
With as much respect as possible, isn’t this disproven by data now? You can’t connect tariffs to a single manufacturing job created.
I read that as “when you use them correctly”.
“Correctly” means building consensus so capitalists can expect the new trade framework they're operating under to be reasonably stable, signaling what you’ll do well in advance, then phasing it in, ideally also with a guide to what a phase-out will look like and why or when you would begin doing that. Also, you’d usually avoid tariffing too widely at once. Focused is far more effective.
The stability is needed to get businesses to invest serious money in new buildings, machines, and training, when it won’t pay off for years.
You signal ahead of time and phase them in to minimize damage done. Gives companies time to adjust their stance before the pressure is on.
You focus them on specifically the goods you want to protect, so you don’t also raise the prices of inputs to those goods more than you have to.
You’ll notice zero of those key components were present in this scheme.
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Or treaties or accords. All basically the same if squint. Sign something like the Paris Accord, you’re basically taxing consumers.
I agree with you, but it's a tool that should only be used very sparingly because tariffs can be incredibly difficult to get rid of. See for example the "chicken tax" for light trucks which was instituted in 1964 (because the Europeans tariffed US chicken exports).
They can be and are. The USA had tariffs on many products prior to Trump.
I think GPs point was that Tariffs are legitimate as a practice and that some people have been led to believe that they shouldn't exist at all.
Can you make an example of a tariff from the last 100 years that definitely benefitted the US in a long-lasting way?
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Agree, and it should be Congress decision.
This has the air of getting congratulated for getting shanked in an alley while running to the hospital in hopes of getting treated for appendicitis. A knife, after all, is an appropriate surgery tool.
Thoughtful application of tariffs are good.
Trump's usage of tariffs is pretty damn dumb.
Good news ! It is against the law (i.e., illegal) for a US President to impose tariffs (on a whim or otherwise) -- a US President doing so is doing so illegally and without constitutional authority!
When the US President commits crimes as the US President, he has absolute immunity from prosecution (otherwise, he might not be emboldened to break the law) so there is no judicial recourse, but the US Congress can still see the illegal activity and impeach and remove him from office to stop the execution of illegal activity. As our representatives within the US Government, they are responsible to us to enact our legislative outcomes. It appears they have determined that the illegal activity is what we wanted, or there would be articles of impeachment for these illegal acts.
The legislative branch can of course deliberately impose tariffs at any time for the reasons you listed.
These tariffs have no basis in rational economics.
Full stop. It really is only about whether or not the president could do it.
That's all.
There is no such thing as rational economics. Full stop.