How will tariffs help if it's cheaper to make things overseas?

[Anonymous]

For example you need to pay Randy from Texas $20 an hour to work doing the same job you pay someone in China $6 an hour.

Won't we have to pay more for it to cover Randy's wage?

Won't that just increase inflation?

[exitseven]

okay, If you have a country like china that pays it;s workers ten dollars a day they can sell their product cheaper than an American made product because American workers get 30 dollars an hour. If you put a tariff on teh chinese product either china will absorb the tariff and the US treasury gets the money or else they try and pass the additional charge onto the consumer who will not buy the product because the same product Made in USA will cost the same or less than the cheaply made Chinese product.
So either the treasury gets revenue or an American worker gets a job.

[Syntosi]

Problem. The consumer will have to pay more money which results in inflation and also results in the consumer getting less stuff. Furthermore, if a corporation in USA for example buys raw resources from a country like China then they will lose profit margins and possible have to fire people or stop producing products and therefore the economy loses jobs.

[exitseven]

@Syntosi If the exporting country absorbs the tariff which will have to happen if they were to sell their products in the USA. Still, it is better to buy American made goods.

[Syntosi]

So you are basically just hoping that foreign businesses just wakes up one day and decides to hand USA money for no apparent reason. Is that your plan? Its not going to work.

Also you are missing the point. The point is that this causes inflation in USA which means the consumer will afford less things and corporations will afford to hire less people or just go bankrupt.

[exitseven]

@Syntosi when President Trump impos3d a rariff on steel and aluminum. That is exactly what happened. Inflation stayed at a tiny 1.4 percent.

[Syntosi]

First of all, that is a limited tariff on a single goods. Secondly, those tariffs negatively hurt every US industry that requires steel and aluminum or the products made from steel and aluminum. Not a good tradeoff if you ask me to save one small industry at the cost of the rest of your economy.

[DryGermanGuy]

You STILL don't understand how tariffs work after all this time? JFC. The Chinese seller is absorbing nothing! The tariffs are paid by the American importer first and then by the American customers!

[exitseven]

@DryGermanGuy what happens when the price of the merchandise is more than an American made product?

[DryGermanGuy]

That's (in some scenarios) a possibility, but in most cases there simply aren't enough or any at all domestic manufacturers! For example, 98% of coffee is imported. This all comes 25+++ years too late.

[Syntosi]

Yes. Tariffs are inflationary and bad for the economy. Generally speaking when countries employ tariffs they do it on a limited sector, like steel or cars, and only to protect local businesses so that you can maintain for example an industry that your country finds important for things like national defense.

[slatyb]

They won't help. He's like an angry teen in a home with a sledgehammer, destroying everything he touches.

[DrPepper12]

Yes. You have identified the wage price spiral.

Wete all FUCKED!

[dreamstar72]

Gee I thought we (the US) was against slavery, but you, some of us, all happy to buy and promote slavery in other countries

[seeyounexttuesday]

I think you don’t know what the word ‘inflation’ means.

[pacificopete]

All the Democrats loved tariffs when they were the ones implementing them.