Here is where I stand on the tariffs on China: I am not opposed to the tariffs in principle if they are meant to decouple from China, which should have been done years ago. But... Putting up such massive tariffs in the span of a week without a proper waiting period can have disastrous effects on US business. For several reasons: - Large companies can take a hit and survive, small businesses can't. They will suffer the most. - Tariffs are affecting even pending orders that were placed months ago, and businesses are now stuck with them and the huge tariff liability. - You can't find alternative suppliers on a moment's notice. It takes weeks, months, and sometimes longer to find qualifying alternatives. - Often alternatives don't even exist with the same capacity as China, since they've spent three decades building up export economy. New facilities will have to be built, new companies will have to be created, and new raw materials will have to be sourced, which can take years to develop. It would have been much better if you had announce a 90-120 period before the tariffs take effect, and then you add one 5% or so every three months until it reaches the desired number. That would still help us move away from China, while at the same time minimize the effects it would have on American businesses and consumers.
Yeah, agreed. It’s not a problem that he’s trying to decouple from China, it’s the speed. Plus fighting with every country on earth at the same time and weakening our position right at the start. I think a 25% immediate tariff would have been fine to put the screws to them. He could have even gone through congress and gotten a relief program for small businesses. Then, yeah, you’d need about 3 months for businesses to react and probably a year before any serious resourcing could take place. Which is again why the fight against earth is dumb - it’s a lot easier to move $400 billion of production from China to Vietnam, Mexico, etc. than to try to move $3 trillion of production to the US all at once.
@JeffMichielutti @HanShawnity This is one of the few takes that actually gets the timing tradeoff right. Everyone screams ‘bring it all home’ like factories grow on trees.
@JeffMichielutti @HanShawnity It's Trump, man. Common sense ideas, bad follow through. I'll never be sorry I voted for him because Harris was scary bad. Sucks those were the two choices.