Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123327939#Comment_123327939

But none of the tariffs Trump imposed have been reciprocal though. I mean you hardly believe a load of penguins have tariffs on the US do you? Or that a US base on an island tariffed the US also? Not to mention the ludicrous figures Trump came up with either?

April 2025…. Trump and DOGE have closed those very same food banks through cutting funding. That's one way to claim a reduction in food banks right?

aloyisious

To show how the US/UK trading relationship stands of today following the tariff introduction by Trump, Waterstones, the UK bookshop Co has paused shipping books to Barnes and Noble [part of the Waterstones conglomerate] bookstores in the US.

Delivery Options | Waterstones.com Help | Waterstones

3rd April 2025: We regret that we are currently unable to accept or ship orders to the US, while we establish options to be compliant with the new tariffs. Please consult the latest information …

Delivery Options | Waterstones.com Help | Waterstones

3rd April 2025: We regret that we are currently unable to accept or ship orders to the US, while we establish options to be compliant with the new tariffs. Please consult the latest information.

Edit:

Delivery Options | Waterstones.com Help | Waterstones

3rd April 2025: We regret that we are currently unable to accept or ship orders to the US, while we establish options to be compliant with the new tariffs. Please consult the latest information …

I clicked on the link reference above but was unable to find the latest information mentioned by Waterstones.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123327982#Comment_123327982

i thought tariffs are an import duty (call that what you will) to access a larger market?

i go back to my example of market A and market B. is this not what is happening?

Economics101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123327939#Comment_123327939

I looked at the Nancy Pelosi speech you referenced. It was all about trade with China, and China's unacceptable practices. It was a million miles removed from a blanket policy of universal tariffs on friends and foes alike. It was driven by real economic concerns, not by ideology or plain nonsense (e.g. "they are ripping us off").

Be careful of what your reference.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123327995#Comment_123327995

It's funny as books were always regarded as tariff free or at the very least the lowest tariff, same for zero VAT on books. Books are also cheaper to post then anything else as they get a special rate. It's the weirdest of things to tariff.

My name is URL

https://freeimage.host/i/37JgVII

Thought I may have been losing my marbles by remembering 'the chart' from somewhere… but no, all is fine

McFly85

The Lesotho tariff is the clearest example of the total farce this is.

Lesotho is one of the poorest countries in the world. It doesn’t have an income tax system and the money gained from exports are used in lieu of that. They sell about $250 million of diamonds to the US, and buy about $7 million in US goods.

Trump has decided that this is hugely unfair and that Lesotho is screwing them because they sell something the US doesn’t have to them while also not spending literally all of the money they get from those sales on stuff from the US they don’t need.

So now Lesotho has a 90% tariff put upon its exports, make it either undesirable for importers or massively more expensive for US consumers.

Lesotho loses out, the American people lose out, and all because the man in charge is a complete cretin.

Aurelian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328003#Comment_123328003

No. Tariffs are an extra tax on companies who want to sell foreign made products.

For example, if an American store wants to sell Irish butter, the American store now has to pay the American government an extra 20% tax or Tariff.

The idea of tarrifs is that you make foreign products so expensive that people won't buy them and switch to using local products. But it's a pre WW2 idea as no country can remotely make everything they need anymore.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328025#Comment_123328025

For example, if an American store wants to sell Irish butter, the American store now has to pay the American government an extra 20% tax or Tariff.

do they not just recharge that to the irish butter company?

InAtFullBack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123327979#Comment_123327979

Just like carbon taxes, and the likes?

mikewest

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123327920#Comment_123327920

No, the consumer pays the tariff, always, everytime

The importer may pay a percentage, nominally the "tariff" but this elevated cost is passed on to the wholesaler who applies their percentage and the retailer/ consumer pays the elevated price, the consumer always pays.

InAtFullBack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328038#Comment_123328038

Well said, the customer being the last in the line is always the one to be screwed.

When you are the customer it doesn't matter who is doing the screwing - whether it's the Green New Deal crowd, the Build Back Better crowd or the MAGA crowd.

At least with the MAGA crowd their intentions are morally a bit better. And for us outside the USA the following chart should offer some comfort:

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328033#Comment_123328033

Who ever imports the butter (think who ever is on the delivery address in the US) gets a bill from US customs for 20% of the value of the butter (including shipping and insurance). Once they pay US customs the bill, their order will be released from customs. In that situation, the supplier (the Irish butter company) has already been paid and wouldn't entertain any kind of recharge/invoice to them.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328049#Comment_123328049

maybe recharge was the wrong term.

if i was importing X knowing there would be a charge, i factor that into the price i buy at.

i dunno, its seems simple to me.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328059#Comment_123328059

But you're not the seller, you don't dictate the price. You wouldn't be looking at a foreign supplier if a domestic supplier could sell you X cheaper.

Maybe you think you could buy Derrygold butter or a BMW or an Airbus aircraft cheaper from other companies? Only one company sells them.

You factor all that into the price you sell at.

Giblet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328059#Comment_123328059

You would make sense if you found that Kerry Gold found it hard to sell their butter, so reduced the price. They don't find it hard to sell their butter, so bye bye American sold Kerry Gold.

LambshankRedemption

According to CNN, 6 trillion has been wiped out in 2 days. More than the GDP of France and the UK put together.

(Assuming I heard it correctly)

InAtFullBack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328090#Comment_123328090

It's funny watching the 'Occupy Wall Street" crowd having a proverbial meltdown about Wall Street having a bit of a meltdown. Just saying! 😃

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328090#Comment_123328090

This is where we're at with defending Trump now:

pad406

Everything in the retail chain is based on margins or markups. Margins and markups are essentially the same just calculated differently. A margin is calculated based on the difference between retail and cost, markup is the difference between cost and retail. Now both of these are excluding VAT, so for simplicity let's assume the item is at 0% vat.

Cost of item = 50

Sale price = 100

Margin = (100 - 50) / 100 = 50%

Markup = (100 - 50) / 50 = 100%

Whichever the retailer/wholesaler decides to use doesn't really matter, the idea is that you calculate your retail price based on an expectation of what profit you want to make. Typically it is the buyer (by buyer I mean the person in the chain the decides what the company will buy) that determines the retail price dependent on the expected margin/markup for the type of item they are buying. This can vary massively. Clothing could be 50/60% margin, specialized electronics could be as low as 5/6%.

So, finally, back to tariffs, assuming the distributor/retail want to maintain the same margin.

No Tariffs:

Company A in Country B makes a T-shirt and sell for $10

Importer C, buys this and sell on to retailers for their normal 20% markup, so $12

Retailer D, buys for $12 and sells for $18, their normal 50% markup

Lets say 20% tariffs

Company A in Country B makes a T-shirt and sell for $10

Importer C, buys this, PAYS the 20% tariff, their cost is now $12. So they now sell on to retailers for their normal 20% markup, so $14.40

Retailer D, buys for $14.40 and sells for $21.60, maintaining their 50% markup

Who's lost out here?

Manufacturer still sell for $10, they're happy out

Importer, was making $2 per shirt, now $2.40, having paid the tariff

Retailer, was making $6 now making $7.20

Consumer? T-shirt was $18 now $21.60, so +$3.60. Remember tariff was 'only' $2.

Who lost out here????

greenfield21

500 richest people have lost some wealth. No wonder the media is in melt down.

Billionaires on the wealth list lost a collective $536 billion from Thursday’s stock market open to Friday’s close as the S&P 500 Index dropped 10.5% over the two days and the Nasdaq Composite fell 11.4%.

https://twitter.com/business/status/1908205599935914142

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328097#Comment_123328097

People call Trump dumb... OK, he may be a boorish ignoramous in many ways, but he said in 2016 that he could shoot someone and not lose voters. He recognised, then, that his cult would defend him to the hilt on pretty much anything. This is a realisation it seems to have taken his opponents years to realise because they thought that "grab em by the pussy" would finish him, that Charlottesville would finish him, that Covid would finish him, that Jan 6 would finish him, that the rape suit would finish him, that the criminal conviction would finish him.

And none of it did.

So, with respect to that tweet, is anyone surprised? Do ye need to see him actually shoot someone on 6th Avenue to really take the point or what?

sock.rocker*

@y0ssar1an22

The reason you're struggling to understand this is because your mind naturally wants to find the benefit of this for America, and intuitively, that would be for America to punish foreign sellers by charging them money to sell in the US. But that's not what is happening.

It's an incredibly blunt instrument aimed at getting companies to manufacture more stuff in America. That is the potential benefit, but its doubtful America can or really wants to go back to make their own trainers and TVs.

Trump is already "negotiating" with the likes of Vietnam so it doesn't make sense for any company to move production back to America. The tariffs might be gone two years later when the factory has been moved. I simply don't think a plan like Trump's can work in a country that votes every four years. It takes longer and requires a believable declaration that no negotiations will take place. And even then, it might not work.

Wolf359f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328111#Comment_123328111

Pretty much bang on there, it's all done on profit margins and gets compounded the more people there are in the supply chain. They all want to maintain their margin.

swiwi_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328059#Comment_123328059

you seem simple to me.

It’s been explained to you by several posters.

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328163#Comment_123328163

My American Trump-supporting friend is basically just claiming ignorance of how tariffs work and is mentally checked out from all of it. It's like a defence mechanism where if he can't see the good of what's happening, it must only be because he doesn't understand it. Like the good is absolutely 100% there. For sure. Totally.

10000maniacs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123328117#Comment_123328117

Trump is dumb by any measurement.

If you blurt out this on Fox News, you are in the low 20s in IQ. Or at least semi demented.

"Canada is a nasty country. The say they don't charge? they charge tremendous"

If I was a politician and said something like that on a news channel, I would check myself into a Swiss euthanasia clinic and let them put me out of my misery.

fullstop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123326937#Comment_123326937

Yeah but if you ignore all the lost jobs and only count the added ones, it looks very positive. They’re just looking at it through the Kermit.de.frog methodology

Montage of Feck

Wow, there's a massacre on the stock market.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123327885#Comment_123327885

No he isn't, but even if he was anti free trade, its very different to put on sensible tariffs on selected goods or industries for sensible reasons.

The EU puts trade restrictions on blood diamonds, products that cause deforestation etc. these are sensible. Trump is just sabotaging global trade to cause chaos deliberately