Countries starting to pull tariffs. It's almost as if Trump knows what he's doing :p

I’m gonna have to see what our white “moderate constitutionalists liberals” think first

Pretty sure all of these were announced prior to the “reciprocal” tariffs last night and they were all slapped with tariffs nonetheless.

ETA - Switzerland was announced 3/23 I believe.

So you’re still going with OMB! Got it.

I think there are some countries will do this because they're not going to actually buy US goods anyway because they will still be too expensive and - particularly in consumer goods - not of the tastes of their population.

That is the big question I have with all of this: the only way we could become a country that exports goods to many developed countries would be by making our people poorer and standard of living much lower. Essentially, the payroll expenditures would to drastically diminish for US manufacturing so our goods would have a real price difference with a nation providing first-world wages to their labor. There is reason country like Bangladesh has a massive trade deficit with the United States: they can make the cheap clothing to fill the fast fashion storefronts like Old Navy but their people are broke and can't buy US goods. Tariffing countries with a trade deficit perhaps makes sense amongst nations that are generally peers in terms of standard of living. I do not understand how tariffing developing nations does anything other than make goods more expensive at the cash register for US citizens because we should not want the United States to become competitive on the payroll costs. I'm not confident these tariffs pegged on deficits will change the business calculus since payroll obligations are often the biggest expenditure in any business, the 5 dollar shirt will now be a 7 dollar shirt and that's that.

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ETA - Switzerland was announced 3/23 I believe.

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big whoop. trump has been planning this since way before 3/23. delete your ignorance.

They are not "bending the knee", they are negotiating and making deals. We shouldn't be using this term for their willingness to play ball. They are not subservient.
I agree with a talking financial head that President Trump only halved the tariffs to offer an opportunity for other countries to come to the table and negotiate. Other countries know he can equal their tariff, but is holding back for negotiating space. I like that he's leaving the door open for talking and not just slamming shut at 100% equivalent. In the event a country doesn't play ball, he'll say they're not cooperating and raise to 100% in front of the world saying that they not being fair. Wise dude.

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So you’re still going with OMB! Got it.

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How do you get OMB from what I said?

I said they were announced before the reciprocal tariffs and were still hit with those tariffs. That’s all factual.

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Did Switzerland do away with VAT on US imports?

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You have to quit with the VAT thing. That is their means of taxing (I hate it, BTW) and it is applied fairly to goods and services produced in their country and imported. We are not being victimized by VAT unless they are making exceptions for their own companies, and they’re not.

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Countries starting to pull tariffs. It's almost as if Trump knows what he's doing

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You mean, you actually think that a self-made billionaire businessman understands business better than the all-knowing TDS crowd here like Shrubber, POTUS, 4Cubbies, and powerman?

That's blasphemous!!!

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Did Switzerland do away with VAT on US imports?

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You come off as stupid bringing VAT up in every thread.



90% of the people posting here would prefer the US fund the entire government by consumption taxes. Should every country launch tariffs against the US if that happens?