US Tariff War

[mancity2012_eamo]

EU member states have backed countermeasures against the US, on the day Donald Trump's 20% tariff was imposed on the bloc.

This European vote is in response to earlier US tariffs made on imports of steel and aluminium from the EU, announced last month and amounting to a 25% levy.

In a statement, the European Commission said: "The EU considers US tariffs unjustified and damaging, causing economic harm to both sides, as well as the global economy.

"The EU has stated its clear preference to find negotiated outcomes with the US, which would be balanced and mutually beneficial."

The countermeasures - mostly duties of 25% on a range of imports to Europe from the US - will come into force next week, on 15 April, and can be suspended "at any time", the commission said, if the US agrees to a "fair and balanced negotiated outcome".

The bloc is still weighing up how to respond to Trump's latest tariffs.

The block hopefully responds in language he understands.
I hope Ursula tells him to kiss the back end of the her EU bollix!!!!!

That’ll confuse him enough.

 

[Blue Llama]

The missing thought process here with the US populace is that the reason goods are made in the east is because production is significantly cheaper. Trump can encourage local companies to manufacture the same goods but production costs will.be significantly higher. Net result either way is inflation in the States. Either that or Trump's Company mates gang together and drive wages down. It's still the populace that lose out . They need to wake up before it's too late.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

The missing thought process here with the US populace is that the reason goods are made in the east is because production is significantly cheaper. Trump can encourage local companies to manufacture the same goods but production costs will.be significantly higher. Net result either way is inflation in the States. Either that or Trump's Company mates gang together and drive wages down. It's still the populace that lose out . They need to wake up before it's too late.

I'm certainly not happy that trump is effectively trying to destroy the market for child labour and slavery in sweat shops. Does anyone honestly want to have to fork out for goods made under decent conditions and wages - it would cost a fortune and we'd have loads less stuff.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

The missing thought process here with the US populace is that the reason goods are made in the east is because production is significantly cheaper. Trump can encourage local companies to manufacture the same goods but production costs will.be significantly higher. Net result either way is inflation in the States. Either that or Trump's Company mates gang together and drive wages down. It's still the populace that lose out . They need to wake up before it's too late.

There’s another point around this that gets conspicuously missed, namely the work ethic/culture issue which will have unquestionably have been hugely eroded in those rust belt states in the last half century. In that period drug use will have increased enormously, opioid use exponentially, rates of obesity will have gone through the roof amongst large swathes of the population much of which are zombified by social media addiction and the rabbit holes it transports them to daily.

The ethos of the dignity of work has been washed away in the last couple of generations and it’s hard to see how, wage differentials apart, the requisite productivity levels can be attained, even if all the other factors fall into place, which they absolutely won’t.

 

[KS55]

We should all stop buying dollars that would really fuck them up if the world stopped trading there currency

It is already happening. The world is selling off US debt as a starter. US treasury bond rates rising.
Brics and others are discussing a rival reserve currency.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

The block hopefully responds in language he understands.
I hope Ursula tells him to kiss the back end of the her EU bollix!!!!!

That’ll confuse him enough

The EU have already offered him zero for zero - a deal never usually available to non EU members so clearly the EU think they have a lot to lose. Nothing is ever said about import tarrifs on arms and military equipment - maybe a 150% tarrif on US weapons would give them pause for thought?

 

[KS55]

I know I'm probably not meant to understand his overly simplistic logic, but it really does make no sense at all to me.

Why would the Japanese want to buy inferior cars not designed to meet the needs of their market? And even if they did, there are only 124 million of them versus 340 million in the U.S., so of course they're going to buy less.

In the real world, you balance trade by offering something else attractive in return, not by insisting that we all buy the exact same amount of each product off one another. It's the logic of a 5 year old and would inevitably lead to trade collapsing even without the imposition of tariffs.

In the real world the country with the biggest consumption per capita is likely to have the biggest trade deficit.

 

[KS55]

Imagine a new sovereign country, say one with just a few penguin farmers. Call it New Guano. They discover a new element, unobtainium. New Guano is the only supplier. Companies in the USA need unobtainium. They buy it from New Guano. New Guano now has a trade deficit with the USA. Trump slaps on a tariff on New Guano exports. Whatever the US companies are doing with unobtainium, they could now probably do it somewhere other than the USA, without import tariffs.

For a more mind-blowing look at Trump's deficit formula, try BBC's More or Less. Apparently the epsilon and phi bits of the formula are usually used, with variable values, in calculating the elasticity effect of tariffs in particular cases. But the Trump team applied values across the board of 4 and 0.25... 4 x 0.25 = 1. They complicated the formula by multiplying the sum by 1!

BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, The mistake in Trump’s tariff formula

Also, counting bobbies, freezing tax and electrocuting redheads

www.bbc.co.uk

You meant New Guano would have a surplus or USA would have a deficit.

 

[TonyM]

There’s another point around this that gets conspicuously missed, namely the work ethic/culture issue which will have unquestionably have been hugely eroded in those rust belt states in the last half century. In that period drug use will have increased enormously, opioid use exponentially, rates of obesity will have gone through the roof amongst large swathes of the population much of which are zombified by social media addiction and the rabbit holes it transports them to daily.

The ethos of the dignity of work has been washed away in the last couple of generations and it’s hard to see how, wage differentials apart, the requisite productivity levels can be attained, even if all the other factors fall into place, which they absolutely won’t.

I wonder also how much geography has to play in the story.

Years ago I presume production labour existed in mid america because they were close to natural resources that were gathered, refined and shipped elsewhere (probably to factories closer to the coast).

I might be completely wrong. Just guessing. But if that was the case, are those natural resources still present? If depleted then there are no new jobs in mid America. Only jobs where new resources are and in the major cities on the coast.

Again I'm just thinking out loud.

 

[KS55]

What this does all do is force us to face our (the collective West) own economic model which is essentially to have decentish workers rights and minimum wages, then to buy our consumer goods cheaply from the far east where workers are treated like shit resulting in no manufacturing jobs for our own workers who are now sat on benefits on their sofas ordering Chinese tat off eBay.
I'm not sure that's sustainable, or what the answer is tbh.

The answer is that the poor country gradually becomes richer as it produces a large volume of stuff at cheap prices. Wage rates in the poor country gradually rise, lifting the population out of poverty. See China.
“Pile it high and sell it cheap” is the oldest formula in the book.

 

[KS55]

EU and the UK have been (imo disappointingly) quiet in this, not wanting to be the focus of Trumps mental breakdowns and willing to let China fight it out instead.

Expected them to have more backbone here, we don't want or need a response as strong as China but a firm unified response from those that are historically allies with US would have to at least make him think. The world is a tough place to prosper in if you've got no allies.

We should be lasering in and targetting luxury goods that we can all do without with many local alternatives available, that way the EU and UK don't really suffer whilst still sending a message to the US.

Canadian public had the start of the right idea with alcohol with those scenes where they're flat out refusing to stock American booze. Boycotting all American produced alcohol is easy to do and has next to no real impact on us yet it would be devastating for the American alcohol industry. I'm sure there's plenty of other similar viable targets too.

I think any significant involvement from UK and EU is going to have to come from a collective public effort to boycott certain targetted American products rather than any government response.

Fast food is a big target, their outlets are on every European high street.

 

[tregyblue61]

Oil prices have been dropping for a good while now. The price per barrel continues to drop but there aint no rush to lower the price at the pump. Should be down to around 112 per litre now.

 

[inchy14]

There’s another point around this that gets conspicuously missed, namely the work ethic/culture issue which will have unquestionably have been hugely eroded in those rust belt states in the last half century. In that period drug use will have increased enormously, opioid use exponentially, rates of obesity will have gone through the roof amongst large swathes of the population much of which are zombified by social media addiction and the rabbit holes it transports them to daily.

The ethos of the dignity of work has been washed away in the last couple of generations and it’s hard to see how, wage differentials apart, the requisite productivity levels can be attained, even if all the other factors fall into place, which they absolutely won’t.

They’ll use immigration… oh hang on…

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

The answer is that the poor country gradually becomes richer as it produces a large volume of stuff at cheap prices. Wage rates in the poor country gradually rise, lifting the population out of poverty. See China.
“Pile it high and sell it cheap” is the oldest formula in the book.

Yes, this is why we don't see 'made in Japan' on our goods so much. They've become middle class and comfortable with an ageing population. Welcome to success!

 

[jrb]

Crude oil prices continued to plummet on Wednesday.

WTI crude oil plummeted to $55.60 a barrel, meaning it was down 6.68%. Brent crude oil, which is usually used as a global benchmark of oil prices, fell to $58.84 at one point, a 6.34% drop.

It's significant to see the price of oil drop below $60 because we haven't seen such prices since February 2021 - when the world was facing the Covid pandemic.

The price per barrel continues to fluctuate throughout Wednesday and has also risen slightly above $60 at points before falling back down.

 

[jrb]

Don't worry Elon, you'll be able to afford it.

$480 to $231.

 

[dickie davies]

EU and the UK have been (imo disappointingly) quiet in this, not wanting to be the focus of Trumps mental breakdowns and willing to let China fight it out instead.

Expected them to have more backbone here, we don't want or need a response as strong as China but a firm unified response from those that are historically allies with US would have to at least make him think. The world is a tough place to prosper in if you've got no allies.

We should be lasering in and targetting luxury goods that we can all do without with many local alternatives available, that way the EU and UK don't really suffer whilst still sending a message to the US.

Canadian public had the start of the right idea with alcohol with those scenes where they're flat out refusing to stock American booze. Boycotting all American produced alcohol is easy to do and has next to no real impact on us yet it would be devastating for the American alcohol industry. I'm sure there's plenty of other similar viable targets too.

I think any significant involvement from UK and EU is going to have to come from a collective public effort to boycott certain targetted American products rather than any government response.

What American manufactured products do I actually buy?

I don't eat McDonalds, but if I did and decided to boycott it, I reckon nearly every ingredient is sourced in the UK, Ireland or Europe
We do our main shop at ASDA, which is Walmart owned. Again, there's nothing we buy that's US produced
If I buy something off Amazon, chances are it was manufactured in the Far East or the UK
And these three companies employ thousands of UK workers

As far as I can see, the only change I can really make is by changing my browser from Chrome

 

[hampshireblue]

What American manufactured products do I actually buy?

I don't eat McDonalds, but if I did and decided to boycott it, I reckon nearly every ingredient is sourced in the UK, Ireland or Europe
We do our main shop at ASDA, which is Walmart owned. Again, there's nothing we buy that's US produced
If I buy something off Amazon, chances are it was manufactured in the Far East or the UK
And these three companies employ thousands of UK workers

As far as I can see, the only change I can really make is by changing my browser from Chrome

I agree. I asked elsewhere what is there that US produces that is not replicated elsewhere. PC operating systems was pretty much the only thing and even then Linux is a possible replacement. I am surprised that the government are not going in hard on a "buy British" campaign.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I wonder also how much geography has to play in the story.

Years ago I presume production labour existed in mid america because they were close to natural resources that were gathered, refined and shipped elsewhere (probably to factories closer to the coast).

I might be completely wrong. Just guessing. But if that was the case, are those natural resources still present? If depleted then there are no new jobs in mid America. Only jobs where new resources are and in the major cities on the coast.

Again I'm just thinking out loud.

All stands perfectly to reason. People routinely assume that you can simply start up where you left off in hugely complex and nuanced scenarios.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

What American manufactured products do I actually buy?

I don't eat McDonalds, but if I did and decided to boycott it, I reckon nearly every ingredient is sourced in the UK, Ireland or Europe
We do our main shop at ASDA, which is Walmart owned. Again, there's nothing we buy that's US produced
If I buy something off Amazon, chances are it was manufactured in the Far East or the UK
And these three companies employ thousands of UK workers

As far as I can see, the only change I can really make is by changing my browser from Chrome

I’ve reluctantly decided to stop drinking Napa Valley Cab Sauv. It’s hard but we all need to do our bit.