The two semi-cogent rationales you hear for tariffs are: 1/ (protectionism) tariffs will re-onshore jobs and industries by eliminating low cost competitors 2/ tariffs are great negotiating leverage to get concessions/better deals It can't be *both* though. The tariffs have to stay to make 1 work. - ThreadSky

moskov.goodventures.org • 34 days ago

The two semi-cogent rationales you hear for tariffs are:
1/ (protectionism) tariffs will re-onshore jobs and industries by eliminating low cost competitors
2/ tariffs are great negotiating leverage to get concessions/better deals

It can't be *both* though. The tariffs have to stay to make 1 work.

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shaggymain.bsky.social•33 days ago

Here’s a third one:
He’s holding corporations hostage with the tariffs so they will kiss his ass and show him loyalty just like he did with the lawyers

jagermaestro.bsky.social•33 days ago

It's #2. Which is why there is no plan in place like Biden's inflation reduction act for chips, which Republicans conveniently kept from that bill, for other industries.

Not an endorsement but bad plans are still plans:

louisevans.bsky.social•34 days ago

fwiw, the actual mechanism is neither of these: Donald Trump maps all words to a single dimensional dominance/valence space, and "deficits" are low valence, while "tariffs" are high dominance, so deficits are bad and tariffs are good.

moskov.goodventures.org•34 days ago

where do high prices fit

louisevans.bsky.social•34 days ago

I will admit, that one is a puzzler. Time for an epicycle lol.

louisevans.bsky.social•34 days ago

probably "high prices" is just bad as a compound noun; I think the mapping assumes you're writing B2C ad copy. If you wanted to talk positively about high prices you'd need to find another utterance.

allaboutchemist.bsky.social•34 days ago

"High prices" is one slightly positive word and one slightly negative word, so in the linear-combination bag-of-words Trump model, they cancel out.

ben.bsky.rpm.cc•33 days ago

if they're going to be negotiating leverage though, it has to be *possible* for them to stay, right? so you need to say you believe in 1 to make 2 work

(no comment on whether this is actually what's going on)

fredgrott.bsky.social•33 days ago

neither....Vietnam offered zero tariffs, Trump refused...

cgc1960.bsky.social•33 days ago

Over a thousand years ago, Cnut demonstrated to his subjects that you cannot order the tide back. Build whatever walls and strongholds and engage in whatever protectionism you like; in the end, the tide will win.

nycrogue.bsky.social•33 days ago

Any attempt to explain this mess is just sane-washing madness.

realdoublea.bsky.social•33 days ago

Also, it's not just a little ironic that the very people defending tariffs also have long histories preaching about how competition is so great for capitalism.

dergrexxie.bsky.social•33 days ago

Do they no longer believe in the free market? 🤔

realdoublea.bsky.social•33 days ago

Right?! 😂

rotortorture.bsky.social•33 days ago

Meanwhile, Trump uses them to get domestic companies to kiss his ring.

im-still-me.bsky.social•33 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/im-still-me.bsky.social/post/3lm37trhfj22r

jhnoonan.bsky.social•33 days ago

You'd negotiate with that asshole?

ouvre-boite.com•34 days ago

1/ is also not quite true. "re-onshoring" means that the resources (folks, $) who are doing higher-value things right now will also be reallocated to doing the low-value things that were previously outsourced because they were not "worth" doing.

moskov.goodventures.org•34 days ago

Well you could have higher employment to a (small) extent.

ouvre-boite.com•34 days ago

Possibly... But really that wasn't a problem in the US until a few days ago :)

abrasivetea.bsky.social•33 days ago

So the protectionism would work if we had spent the last couple decades investing in infrastructure, education, and state planned manufacturing and production. Since we didn’t this will just crush the economy

dergrexxie.bsky.social•33 days ago

Exactly, it may take forty or fifty years to do this very thing. Meanwhile tariffs steal our prosperity and reduce our ability to subsist.

crazycrabber.bsky.social•33 days ago

It could possibly work if the monies from the tariffs were given as grants to companies for infrastructure development. Lumber tariffs for sawmills, auto tariffs for more auto plants, etc. As is it’s too uncertain for companies to take the risk.

abrasivetea.bsky.social•33 days ago

I mean a better option is central planning. Giving money to private companies always is money wasted. You know failures and waste of capitalism in general

x3em.bsky.social•34 days ago

If you really think there's logic behind it—don’t. Tucker Frump just wants to fill his pockets. Nothing else.

befara.bsky.social•34 days ago

Do we really want to be making hats and t-shirts domestically

ckarion.bsky.social•33 days ago

Not sure if anyone says it, but a legitimate rational for tariffs would be to include in the price externalised costs from environmental destruction and the like.

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