Imagine you want to build a factory in the US. You pay tariffs on the factory equipment you need - much of it is made overseas. You pay tariffs on your input goods. And then when you try to export your customers get hit with a retaliatory tariff. I don't agree with tariffs but even if we accept some level of protectionism you can't tariff everything the way this administration wants. You have to pick what you actually want to prioritize and choose your battles.

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tomjakubowski a day ago | parent | next [-]

A handful of people I used to work with lost their US manufacturing jobs in 2025 by exactly this mechanism. Their job was assembling products from components built in China, for export to Europe. Their inputs got new tariffs in 2025, and European retaliatory tariffs hit them on the other end. The jobs were moved to a factory in China.

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dgellow 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Trump tariffs aren’t for economics reasons. He’s using that as a bullying tactic. It’s pretty obvious given that each tantrum is followed by a new tariff

	▲	HDThoreaun 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Trump tariffs are a corruption tactic. The UAE is paying Trump ~$100 a year to dodge tariffs by holding his stable coin.

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epolanski a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Protectionism and tariffs simply don't work in the global world.

Capitalism will keep producing things where they make sense not where politicians want.

Exceptions make sense only to protect industries that are absolutely vital and critical for security. Ship building should be one of those for countries like US or UK.

Or when you want to kickstart an industry and need to protect it for a limited amount of time (Koreans and the Japanese both did so with some of their industrial sectors, but it was always time limited).

This administration thinks it can make every industry thrive through tariffs.

I don't see how it can work, even for a country with the resources of the US.

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gruez a day ago | parent | next [-]

>Ship building should be one of those for countries like US or UK.

Yet, protectionism for that, as practiced in the US (ie. jones act), was a massive failure. There might still theoretically a domestic shipbuilding sector, but it's bloated, inefficient, and as a result is totally not up to the task of standing up to China, which does have a competent shipbuilding sector.

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epolanski 18 hours ago | parent [-]

That's one of the negatives, the industries involved have no reason to evolve or invest, work is guaranteed.

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dgellow 17 hours ago | parent [-]

See German car manufacturers as the perfect example

	▲	epolanski 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What do you mean? German manufacturers have always competed on the global market and they have always been against tariffs because they rely heavily on exports. Germany was in fact the country that most opposed tariffs on Chinese cars because German automakers hated it.

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HWR_14 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm having a hard time thinking about what products aren't "vital and critical for security". I guess toys?

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specialist a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> ...don't work in the global world.

Exactly. The tarriffs are but a part of the attack on the previous status quo.

The current Admin is hostile to neoliberalism, globalism, the maritime order, sole superpower, international comity, etc.

We've been heading towards a multi-polar world order for a while. It is what it is.

The current Admin is speed running the transition. There is no theory, workdview, vision for whatever comes next. Or how to get there. Just cronyism and patronage.

The prior Admin, whatever its faults, had a plan for navigating the transition, unwinding neoliberalism, to invest in domestic capacity and supply chains. (And it was working.)

But now the plan is calvinball.

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NoidFonsense a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I totally disagree. The same factory would be made infeasible without the tariff.

What do we need that shouldn't make domesticially?

	▲	sobellian a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm telling you as a fact that as someone working for a manufacturing startup the tariffs have only made things more expensive for us. But I'm sure the Cleveland Cliffs execs are doing great.
	▲	SmirkingRevenge a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Tariffs hurt domestic manufacturing for a number of reasons, but one of the major ones is because something like 50% of our manufacturing inputs are imported.
	▲	cindyllm a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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