Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnsocat
The U.S. carries the world is true.
We may need to import bananas and diamonds, but we in turn export what they cannot grow or produce. Fair enough, right?
Here is the crux, they tariff our goods at enormous rates, while their imports to the U.S. are tariffs at much lower rates.
Just look at the worldwide panic when Trump said he was going to raise our tariffs on them to HALF of what they have been tariffing us.
Huge imbalance which equates to huge trade deficits for us and massive trade profits for the world.
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Not at all what was done. The tariffs the US recently implemented and then paused were in no way based on the tariffs other countries imposed. Look at the equation for calculating those tariffs and you will see that the foreign tariffs are never included. That is one of the major criticisms of what was done.
Those tariffs were calculated at one half of the percentage of the trade imbalance between the countries. Not a tariff imbalance but the trade imbalance. A large, rich country importing from a small, poor country will result in a trade imbalance even with a 0% tariff. There is nothing the poor country can do to lower its tariff below 0% yet it is being tariffed all the same.
If a country is imposing a 0% tariff now then the only way to reduce the "reciprocal" tariffs is by reducing US import. Sure, this will hurt the source country but there is nothing they can do. It will also hurt the US consumer by raising the price of the desired product to the point it is no longer affordable.
And even if the "reciprocal" tariffs are removed as they have been for the 90 day pause, there are still the 10% across the board, just-because-we-can tariffs.