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The world reacts to Trump's sweeping tariffs: 'No basis in logic' (www.huffpost.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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Summary

Global leaders criticized Trump’s new tariffs, which range from 10% to 49%, warning of trade wars and economic fallout.

The UK and Italy urged negotiation, while Brazil passed a reciprocity bill. China and South Korea vowed countermeasures.

Australia and New Zealand rejected Trump’s logic, citing existing trade deals and low tariffs. Norfolk Island was baffled by a 29% duty despite having no exports.

Financial markets dropped, oil and bitcoin sank, and leaders warned of inflation. Analysts say Trump risks fracturing global trade with little to gain economically.

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[-] ExtantHuman@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

Ooh boy, does my retirement account feel liberated.

[-] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

There is simple logic in it. Punish everyone, and then let them come to you asking for exemptions. Then he can demand things in exchange. After that it's "Pray I don't alter the deal any further."

UK already asked for an exemption and he said they should buy chlorinated chicken first. If every country responds in the same way and gives in he's making bank. If they respond with a boycott on anything American, especially digital services, things get bad.

[-] Sizing2673@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Chlorinated chicken..?

Is that as mouth-watering as it sounds?

[-] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 weeks ago

For when your food grows up in so much squalor that you need to dip them in chlorine to fake the bacterial culture tests.

[-] Sizing2673@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Oh no.

[+] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de -8 points 2 weeks ago

Well just to be fair - and i know people like shitting on Trump but hear me out - the complaints from workers against out-shoring labor to other countries has been very loud for many years.

Everytime the newspaper reports "Company X has moved its factory to China" you can be sure that lots of people are gonna complain about it. But tariffs are the only thing that actually forces companies to put the factories back to the USA. Or do you have a better idea?

[-] tane@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

You need to have a plan in place before doing this to even think about bringing manufacturing back here. And tariffs need to be like the last part of the plan

[-] AgentOrangesicle@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Maybe calculated tariffs on commodities where companies are contemplating outsourcing, but that's a step you take in advance in order to dissuade their action. This is like making the whole school sit with their heads down through recess because one specific kid was unruly.

Edit: There wasn't even an unruly kid. The Principal is just vindictive, has a hangover, and hates children.

[-] houseofleft@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

I think you're kind of being unfairly downvoted because it's definitely underappreciated how much tariffs are used in modern trade deals.

Putting selective import tariffs on certain goods (like say car manufacturing) might be a wise move if you want to encourage the US to develop a manufacturing base. It's worth noting that the US, and most other countries have been doing this selectively for years.

This is reeeaally far from the tariffs that have actually been anounced though, which are the highest rate the US has had in around 100 years, and applied pretty indescriminately. There are some goods that the US just can't produce itself (like certain rare earth minerals that aren't in the USA) but even worse, because of the insane logic of applying them to countries as they have been done, it opens up this type of event:

A comany like Apple might assemble laptops in the US, but import parts like chips from, say, China.
They now have around a 40% tariff on all chips, which is really going to drive up cost, and leaves them with two options.
Option one, they bring all manufacturing into the US, which would take a long time to build up the infrastructure, and still really ramp up the price because wages in the US are so much higher than they are in China
Option two, they outsource everything to say Mexico or Canada who don't pay the tariffs on Chinese chips, and just pay the wholesale import tariffs are needed to bring things from Mexico/Canada to the US. They also get to skip out all the reciprocal tariffs that other countries are placing on the US in retaliation for the recently announces ones when they import out to, say, Europe.

Even option one is bad, because Apple might sell laptops internally, but the newly increased price makes them super uncompetitive with rival firms overseas, so it might still lead to a loss in overall jobs for US workers.

I'm not pretending this doesn't suck - but US based international companies like Apple have a clear incentive to just forgoe the US as much as possible now. This kind of risk is why countries have traditionally been very conservative with changing tariffs.

I think you're probably right that there might be an argument for countries to be less conservative than they have been, but the US government just cranked up the dial from 0 to 11 and we're all about to find out what that might look like in real time.

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this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025

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