Trump’s Tariff Proposals Would Raise Tariff Rates to Great Depression-Era Levels
taxfoundation.org
Using tariff policy to reallocate investment and jobs is a costly mistake—that’s a history lesson we should not forget.
  • zephorah@lemm.ee
    31·
    9 hours ago

    The tariff is paid by the car dealer and passed onto the consumer. As one example.

    Consumers pay it, not the overseas manufacturer.

    • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
      5·
      9 hours ago

      So let me say, I agree entirely that the tariffs raise consumer prices. Trumps tarrifs plan is indeed insane, and his claims about it being paid by China or whoever are entirely ludicrous.

      However, as a technical point, all taxes have a “tax incidence” that you can measure. The tax incidence is the percent of the tax on a corporation, good, service etc that is borne by an entity. It is not always 100% on a consumer except in the most trivial, “consumers pay for everything” kind of way. For competitive or reputational reasons a firm with substantial revenue might decide to absorb some cost, rather than pass it on. In those cases, the tax incidence is not 100% on the consumer, but shared by the business out of their revenue.

      I promise though, Trump has the mind of a decomposing tangerine and absolutely could not speak about or understand the subtleties here.

      Anyway, politically speaking, I’ll never bring this up again. Please keep hammering Trump however you like and I’ll keep my corrections to myself, lol.

    • TimLovesTech (AuDHD)(he/him)@badatbeing.socialEnglish
      4·
      9 hours ago

      Correct. So in the car example, it really only works if the US puts a tariff on imports, and then they do some kind of government credit for domestic cars. This would raise the price of imported cars while making domestic cars more affordable to Americans.

      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        8 hours ago

        Only kinda, that assumes enough people still buy the imports otherwise there’s no money to transfer over.

        • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
          1·
          7 hours ago

          Even domestic cars are assembly in America but the parts come from other countries so no you still going be effected by that.

          Also keep in mind there a reason shit not made here. We can’t compete with their cheap labor prices. So even if you tried to move some of those jobs back here it would still cost the consumer a shit ton more money on said goods.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    14·
    8 hours ago

    I’m not saying Trump’s tariff proposal is a good idea (I don’t know enough relevant economics) but that article’s own chart shows that tariffs increased to Trump levels after the Great Depression started and then declined back to below Trump levels several years before the Great Depression ended. I don’t think the data in the article supports the article’s link of high tariffs and the Great Depression.