# Retaliatory tariffs **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [January 24, 2025, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322 "2025-01-24T04:48:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/301 "2025-04-03T02:22:56Z")
Not sure if this has been mentioned as I’m catching up on the thread but someone on Reddit figured out where the numbers came from. It has nothing to do with tariffs placed on the US by that country as claimed but it’s simply the [Inverse trade balance ratios](https://pay.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/1jq1qji/trumps_tariff_numbers_are_just_trade_balance/) which are not at all the same concept. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/302 "2025-04-03T02:53:16Z")
I see the 34% Trump imposed on China is a new tariff _on top of_ the 20% he recently imposed. This 54% tariff will obviously invite retaliation and hurt many American companies that do business with China. Although the tariffs will have many negative unintended consequences, this seems to me to be the biggest factor. ---
**Author:** ![Zoobi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/13edae/32.png) [@Zoobi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoobi)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/303 "2025-04-03T02:54:17Z")
> ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/304 "2025-04-03T02:55:22Z")
The chittering fuckwits that brought you a cubic fit showing covid would go away now bring you global economic recession courtesy of knowing fuck all about anything ever. The gloabl howls of laughter directed right back at this collection of d-string poseurs will be dangerous but at least momentarily satisfying ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/305 "2025-04-03T03:07:16Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > The chittering fuckwits that brought you a cubic fit showing covid would go away now bring you global economic recession courtesy of knowing fuck all about anything ever. Maybe we can stick lights up the economy’s butt and inject it with bleach? ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/306 "2025-04-03T03:12:03Z")
Can’t the US president override any such congress vote with a “veto”? (Don’t know lots about us legislator workings). I believe in Canada this would probably be akin to a vote of “non-confidence” and force a federal election. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/307 "2025-04-03T03:12:35Z")
Stable genius. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/308 "2025-04-03T03:20:35Z")
> [@MikeF](#): > > I caught only a bit of Trump’s ranting but didn’t he say that he raised /collected hundreds of billions of dollars as a result of tariffs on Chinese goods? Where do these numbers come from? It’s possible that the figure is correct. Tariffs **ARE** a way that a government can raise money. He **DID** collect money from them. It could well have been hundreds of billions of $$, that is not implausible. He’s just confused about who actually paid them. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/309 "2025-04-03T03:39:53Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Not sure if this has been mentioned as I’m catching up on the thread but someone on Reddit figured out where the numbers came from. It has nothing to do with tariffs placed on the US by that country as claimed but it’s simply the [Inverse trade balance ratios](https://pay.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/1jq1qji/trumps_tariff_numbers_are_just_trade_balance/) which are not at all the same concept. Thank you. The ratio will be getting, from a Trump POV, worse, because people abroad are now unwilling to buy stuff made in the U.S. A few days ago Israel eliminated tariffs on imports from the U.S. in hopes that Trump then wouldn’t tariff them. But they still got 17 percent, which makes sense since that buy somewhat less of our stuff than we buy of theirs. This also explains why some of the highest tariffs are, disgracefully, on impoverished nations. Their citizens cannot yet afford to buy our goods. I realize this is simplified because of trade in services and goods used by businesses, but hope it is mostly correct. ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/310 "2025-04-03T05:07:39Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > It’s possible that the figure is correct. Tariffs **ARE** a way that a government can raise money. He **DID** collect money from them. It could well have been hundreds of billions of $$, that is not implausible. > > He’s just confused about who actually paid them. Given the annual amount of imports from EVERYWHERE is [just over $4 trillion](https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/us-international-trade-goods-and-services-december-and-annual-2024#:~:text=Summary%20for%202024-,Exports%2C%20Imports%2C%20and%20Balance%20(exhibit%201),up%20$253.3%20billion%20from%202023.), the only way that figure can be anything other than a load of shit is to include his first term. Except that was 10% on…300 billion, announced late 2019. So no, not possible. Literally everything about that speech was blatantly false. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/311 "2025-04-03T10:49:24Z")
Someone on Reddit posted this handy map: [![](https://i.redd.it/t5hk26awjise1.png) ](https://i.redd.it/t5hk26awjise1.png) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/312 "2025-04-03T11:59:55Z")
> the trade deficit we have with any given country is the sum of all trade practices, the sum of all cheating So… Nothing to do with not providing as much of what attracts customers there as they provide to customers in your country, then? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/313 "2025-04-03T12:14:27Z")
It’s fractal wrongness. No matter what level at which you examine the claims, there’s something that is factually erroneous or makes no sense. It’s turtles all the way down. One such baffling idea is that trade deficits, particularly for the US, are something directly controlled and controllable rather than the result of thousands of individual companies making independent decisions based on consumer behavior. There’s basic Econ 101 stuff getting missed (no surprise, given Peter Navarro’s involvement). Bueller? Bueller? Quite literally, that classroom in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” had Ben Stein (no liberal himself in real life) citing Smoot-Hawley and how the tariffs helped deepen the economic issues directly leading to the Great Depression. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/314 "2025-04-03T12:15:48Z")
This tariff stuff is fractally wrong, the deeper you dig, the more absurd the stupidness. Paul Krugman wonders with reason whether the whole idea was taken from Chat GTP, Grok, o3 High, 4o or some other AI. When you ask them it seems they all give an answer lake what trump said: > **[Will Malignant Stupidity Kill the World Economy?](https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/will-careless-stupidity-kill-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=277517&post_id=160481645&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=203721&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email)** > > Trump’s tariffs are a disaster. His policy process is worse. ETA: ninja’d on the use of “fractal”. By seconds! ETA 2: Don’t blame the turtles! ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/315 "2025-04-03T12:21:22Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > One such baffling idea is that trade deficits, particularly for the US, are something directly controlled and controllable rather than the result of thousands of individual companies making independent decisions based on consumer behavior. I’ve said before that Trump fundamentally doesn’t understand international trade. He kept announcing things like, “China agreed to buy a lot more US products!”, and he thinks this means China the nation is going to drop a few billions of dollars on the US to buy some stuff. He doesn’t get that such deals merely create an environment in which the Chinese government will allow Chinese citizens and companies to buy such products, _if they want to buy them_. But there’s nothing they can do to make people want that, if the people really don’t want that. We saw this in Canada, after the NAFTA renegotiation. The Canadian government agreed to allow a bit more tariff-free access to our dairy market, and just after that, a new brand of US-produced milk showed up in our stores. But Canadians, by and large, just decided to not buy that milk. After a few months, that new brand quietly disappeared off the shelves. Trump “won” the negotiation, but US exports didn’t budge much, if at all. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/316 "2025-04-03T12:44:48Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > I’ve said before that Trump fundamentally doesn’t understand international trade. Most people don’t. The idea a trade deficit isn’t a bad thing is hard to many to grasp, for a variety of reasons. The reasons why a country would have an overall trade deficit are complicated and require an understanding of many underlying things. It’s a hard part of economics, and a person’s nationalism can really get in the way of understanding on this topic. In another thread about Canadian politics, I mentioned that one of my priorities - maybe my number one priority - in voting for someone was that they be really smart. I consider it an absolute requirement. To my surprise some disagreed with that, but sorry, I’m right. And here we have an example of why a leader just not being smart is a bad thing. Government officials of mediocre intellect are OFTEN protectionist. It’s not universally true - Ronald Reagan was no genius but was extremely pro-free-trade and at least in his public comments clearly understood why free trade is a good idea - but there’s a strong correlation there. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/317 "2025-04-03T12:49:58Z")
I’m still stunned by the tone-deafness of this ultimate “He said the quiet part out loud” moment: > **[Treasury Secretary Bessent says the American dream is not about 'access to...](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/06/treasury-secretary-bessent-says-the-american-dream-is-not-about-access-to-cheap-goods.html)** > > Bessent on Thursday offered a full-throated defense of the White House's position on tariffs. > “Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent said during a speech to the Economic Club of New York. So … Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Temu, Shein, all the dollar stores … those really _aren’t_ the droids we’ve been looking for?? Hm. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/318 "2025-04-03T14:18:24Z")
“Sir, you are the greatest tariff maker in history. A genius.” Aide hands Drumpf carefully selected news stories and quotes from hand picked sources saying what a great president he is." Drumpf, “I’ve been hearing from some congressional people that some thingy is unpopular?” Aide, “No sir, you are the expert. Those saying that are just jealous of your decision. The griping is coming from immigrants, drug pushers, and democrats.” Drumpf, “Full speed ahead, Make America Great Again.” Just feed him bullshit. If he hears different, it’s just fake news. The more they complain, the more correct he is, you tell him. Stroke his ego, lie to him, give him someone to blame/hate. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/319 "2025-04-03T14:31:18Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Most people don’t. The idea a trade deficit isn’t a bad thing is hard to many to grasp, for a variety of reasons. The reasons why a country would have an overall trade deficit are complicated and require an understanding of many underlying things. It’s a hard part of economics, and a person’s nationalism can really get in the way of understanding on this topic. Absolutely, and it doesn’t help when they are lying about it with ridiculous numbers in an official-looking table. I think I made a thread some years ago about “folk economics”; eg that people think exporting is always better than importing, that government debt is what one country owes to other countries etc etc. Maybe other countries paying tariffs was in the list. Trump is dumb in popular ways. He holds common misconceptions, so his solutions sound like refreshing common sense to tens of millions of Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322/320 "2025-04-03T14:37:41Z")
Under these new circumstances, I wonder if the EU should now negotiate somewhat lower tariffs with the UK (Brexit notwithstanding), Canada, and other non-US countries? Or would that compromise the EU’s whole reason for being? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/retaliatory-tariffs/1013322.md?page=17)