• ThePerfectLink@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Realistically though, that’s how tariffs just work. With products costing more, theoretically that should drive demand down and eventually lead to fewer imports. Of course, if there’s still no competing product or the product is a basic necessity, then it’ll likely just result in people paying more.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      Working tariffs make importing goods so expensive that manufacturing them nationally is viable. There are definitely areas where tariffs make sense, e.g. you have or want to build an industry that’s competing against a subsidized industry from another country. Tariffs are one way to help with that.

      But we all know that’s way too much thought for him, which probably boiled down to “China bad”… which I’m not necessarily disagreeing with fully… but for reasons that tariffs aren’t necessarily an answer to.

      • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Working tariffs make importing goods so expensive that manufacturing them nationally is viable.

        The lack of American subcompact trucks is evidence that this is false.

        • Laser@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          I think this is rather an issue with what the majority of the market wants. If carmakers saw a bigger profit in offering smaller transport vehicles (pickup trucks in my opinion aren’t even particularly good at transporting a lot of stuff), they’d manufacturer and sell them.

          But the truth is pickup trucks are often just lifestyle products (when I need to transport something, I just rent something adequate) and as such, there is a much larger customer base than for sensible options, which makes the others commercially risky.

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Yeah, the fact that every sporting event’s commercials rotate between dick pills, beer, and giant trucks totally doesn’t have anything to do with it.

            Also, if the market didn’t demand smaller trucks, why slap a tariff on them to encourage local production?

            • Laser@feddit.org
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              1 month ago

              I don’t know, is that particular tariff already in effect?

              I’m not saying they’re always good, bit that they can be a strategic instrument. The example you brought up makes no sense, I agree. But I’m sure if carmakers saw a market for a class of cars, they’d take the opportunity - maybe not on their core brand (like I don’t think Ford would build one under that brand in the US).

              Yeah, the fact that every sporting event’s commercials rotate between dick pills, beer, and giant trucks totally doesn’t have anything to do with it.

              I think this rather proves my point, they’re lifestyle products targeting a specific demographic under the guide of being a utility.

      • ThePerfectLink@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Yah, I mean realistically, I can only really see tariffs working if a nation is trying to enter an industry. That’s not the case here, but even so, these tariffs differ from the ones you mentioned because they would be against Chinese imports rather than a specific product, so I can’t imagine there’s as much risk of that sort of market manipulation from happening again… but then again, I’ve got no idea.

        • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          If you’ve got no idea then why argue?

          There isn’t a competition in the market between Malaysian washing machines vs Chinese washing machines, in reality the tariffs will affect Chinese goods mainly, and any industry will raise prices to pocket the difference as we saw in the above example. It was more than just a single appliance that raised the prices.