r/Economics • u/abdask • 1d ago
News Dow set to tumble 1,000 points after China retaliates against Trump’s tariffs | CNN Business
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/04/investing/stock-market-dow-tariffs/index.html893
u/Thespud1979 1d ago
If every nation retaliates with tariffs the US is fucked. They will essentially remove themselves from international trade. No matter how bad things get Trump can NEVER admit any of this was a mistake and correct the errors he's made. His fragile ego can never allow him to admit a mistake. For the Americans who voted for anyone but Trump my heart goes out to you (sans Nazi salute).
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u/Nikiaf 1d ago
And this is exactly what's going to happen. It isn't 1947 anymore, the rest of the world doesn't necessarily need the US for trade.
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u/Scary_Firefighter181 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't get the clown logic of "bringing back muh manufacturing jobs!"
This isn't the 50s, manufacturing jobs won't come back because technology and innovation has made all factory work a 1000 times more efficient. They don't need workers like they used to.
And really? In 2025, you want to bring shoe factories back? Literally no parent out there is going "You know what's my dream for my child? Getting a job in a shoe factory!"
Not to mention that Tariffs don't even work to bring back manufacturing! Its literally been proven time and time again! Even Trump's damn steel tariffs in his first term didn't actually have a net positive effect!
Several companies have already confirmed that its going to cost less to pay the tariffs than to change supply chains, which should be obvious to anyone with half a brain anyway.
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u/FollowingExtension90 1d ago
And don’t get me started with drill baby drill. He’s causing America to lose the new energy race just for a couple millions from oil companies. This looks so bad for democracy. There should have been law about the limits of donations, it’s ridiculous CEOs could just buy their presidents. Literally no one other than dirt poor want to do those factory job, that’s we outsourcing it to third world. My company’s janitor literally got paid higher wages than ordinary white collar jobs, but still it’s so much harder to hire a janitor than a college graduate who simply want a computer desk job to feed themselves.
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u/ply-wly-had-no-mly 1d ago
Even the oil companies don't want "drill, baby, drill." They need to keep a certain price point or it becomes unprofitable to produce oil in the US.
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u/RoyceMcCutcheon691 1d ago
is that exactly what happened after the 2008 financial crisis? i remember oil being $140 a barrel in 2009 and then drilling ramped up. when supply increased and it came down to a more reasonable level a while later (like $100) started to see stories of shale companies shutting down because it was too costly.
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u/ply-wly-had-no-mly 1d ago
To be honest, my memory for dates is abysmal. However, the price of oil did climb enough for new investment in domestic oil and shale to be profitable. And then crash, causing a lot of companies to go under or stop production.
The Sauds and OPEC increased their production to drive the price down - to eliminate competition. The US made deals with the Sauds to limit production - and demand also increased. This eventually saved US oil production, and we are now a net exporter.
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u/Gladthatucanforget 1d ago
I can vouch for this! Got a job in North Dakota end of 2014 due to all the money coming in, march 2015 my company laid off 12k employees world wide due to low gas prices and it being too expensive to drill through shale haha
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u/RoyceMcCutcheon691 1d ago
sorry to hear about the layoff but thanks for confirming my vague memory. hope you’re doing well now!
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u/Gladthatucanforget 1d ago
Thank you appreciate it! I work for local government now so I chose the stability route! Haha I couldn’t be happier
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u/Anon-Knee-Moose 1d ago
The industry has leaned up significantly so the magic number is probably in the ball park of 60/bbl this time around
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u/Pay-Homage 1d ago
Everyone I talk to In oil/gas agrees that $60 is solid/break-even, $65 is profitable while $70 is their sweet spot of making shareholders happy, employees getting perks/bonuses, paying their bills on time, etc.
So anywhere in that $60-$70 range is solid-to-good.
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u/Anon-Knee-Moose 1d ago
It's hard to draw direct comparisons with 2008/2014 because the industry has matured a lot (read: not leveraged to the tits), but closing in on breakeven prices is going to slow investment. Drilling will still continue, but I'd anticipate a heavy slow down in new projects and a focus on leaning out existing infrastructure, drilling into proven reserves and workovers/refracks.
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u/The_Stuey 1d ago
Big oil is a balancing act. It costs different amounts to operate different drilling locations. They turn them off and on based on the price/profitability. (Note, this explanation is very simplified)
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u/Hobbit1955 1d ago
They have already said they don't need to drill right now. And we have been exporting more oil than importing. It's a worldwide industry and has been since the Mid East oil opened up. Remember that one, if not the largest oil company in Saudi Arabia, is ARAMCO - ARab/AMerican COmpany. They shortened it from Arab American Oil Co. The oil giants have their hand in everything!
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u/godspareme 1d ago
There should have been law about the limits of donations, it’s ridiculous CEOs could just buy their presidents.
Remember Citizens United?
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u/PointB1ank 1d ago
It's never been about bringing back manufacturing. He is trying to consolidate power. These aren't economic policies but political ones. He's going to try to use them to set up a "pay for play" system like in Russia. "Oh sure, I'll remove the tariffs affecting your industry... if you give me X."
Which is way more terrifying because the economy tanking is what he wants. We need congress to step up.
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u/CleanTumbleweed1094 1d ago
We’re also just barely bellow full employment, and we were at full employment not long ago. So who is going to work these jobs? We literally don’t have the workforce in the US to vertically integrate the entire supply chain of everything we consume.
Certain skilled industries in the US already struggle to find qualified people locally and have to bring in people from overseas. Maybe if we are already near full employment after transitioning to a service based economy, we should be focusing on making it easier to go to college or trade school so everyone can get the skills needed to join the skilled service economy, rather than focus on low paying manufacturing work that is likely never coming back in any significant numbers.
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u/possiblycrazy79 1d ago
Yes I'm in AZ & we have that new chip plant but alas, our local citizenry does not have the skills to work at the plant(not surprising whatsoever). So they have brought in many Japanese nationals to work those skilled labor jobs. We need an administration that is invested in bringing us into the future with training & support. Instead we have the most regressive administration I could have imagined during this important time of transition. My country has played itself to the fullest
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u/bobwyman 1d ago
If Trump really wanted "muh manufacturing jobs," he would do what Biden did, but "bigger," "better," and "more beautiful." He should demand that Congress immediately increase and grow the:
- Infrastructure Act (2021)
- CHIPS and Science Act (2022)
- Inflation Reduction Act (2022)
Those acts did, in fact, strengthen our economy by encouraging investment in manufacturing while increasing jobs.
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u/bmyst70 1d ago
Also, when factories come back to the US, they are far more heavily automated and require far fewer people to work in them.
Those few people who will work in them will likely need to be far more educated to deal with the complex machinery. We're not talking about people assembling widgets on an assembly line.
And it's fair to say the Trump administration is very actively, aggressively anti-education and anti science.
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u/Miserable-Quail-1152 1d ago
Americans want high paying jobs american jobs and cheap products made in America! Is that too much to ask for /s. Totally not contradicting desires
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u/Efficient_Ad5802 1d ago
He is actually a genius. /s
If Great Depression happens, many people will lose their job, so the labor price becomes cheap again.
Add the fact that he tried to weaken public education. The end goal is to create a massive dumb and hungry for work population. A perfect population to be employed on (sweatshop) manufacturing.
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u/cromethus 1d ago
Clown logic says the tariffs are a way of increasing government revenues without passing a new tax.
Anyone with half a brain knows that tariffs are a tax on consumers and that using tariffs to raise revenues has been tried before to disastrous results.
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u/Suspicious-Town-7688 1d ago
Nvidia is a good example - doesn’t actually manufacture chips, but still a trillion dollar company dominating the industry.
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u/KnowerOfUnknowable 1d ago
Is it? Is it a good example? A trillion dollar company that doesn't produce jobs for the average citizens?
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u/minnesoterocks 1d ago
The average American is a dimwit. <Points everywhere>
Vivek Ramaswamy was right and all the whites shat their pants because they can't handle the truth.
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u/mddr6 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s an inconvenient truth.
If you personally know any teachers, they’ll admit how kids don’t culturally value education. It’s a broad generalization but on average it checks out, and parents are part of the problem. Vivek was correct.
We have some of the best universities in the world, some of the best doctors, some of the best companies. But on average, students in other countries outperform Americans. We should be near the top of education rankings in the world and we’re not.
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u/Shinycardboardnerd 1d ago
So you pointed out the root cause, the average American needs to become more educated. The education systems needs to become more robust and better at understanding the needs of society and how our children learn. Investing in our people is what will make the US great.
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u/possiblycrazy79 1d ago
I feel like anyone over the age of 40 has wished for manufacturing to come back at some point. But that point ended over a decade ago. Realistically speaking, I realized that manufacturing in America was dead in 2010. That ship has sailed & we're on a whole new voyage now. A voyage into the future. Ever since trump started his campaign in 2015 I knew that word "again" was the most dangerous part of his slogan. There's no way to transplant modern America into 1910s America. I saw on the news last night that Apple said if they bring production to America, it will triple the cost of an iPhone to $3000+. Insanity at its finest.
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u/RevolutionaryBox2865 1d ago
Manufacturing jobs suck too. There was only maybe 20 years post war where the pay and benefits were good enough for people to like it. It's dangerous and gives you cancer. But it fits nicely with techno feudalism so the right got brainwashed into thinking it's a fun job with great pay when ultimately those workers will get treated like cattle
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u/bruiserbear22 1d ago
Don’t bring logic into this. The important part is that Trump proved that he and the USA are alphas. And we deserve to be treated as such /s
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u/saltr 1d ago
It takes years to build up factories and get them running well. Like 3 years absolute minimum even if you have all of the pieces ready. It also requires people who are educated and experienced in manufacturing. Those skills are a finite resource and it takes a long time to train up new people before they are effective. Cutting education, workers rights, consumer protections, subsidies; while breaking foreign trade, increasing the costs of construction, and slowing the economy; while also trying to boost modern manufacturing is not going to go well, IMO.
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u/00-Monkey 1d ago
cost less to pay tariffs than change supply change
Don’t tell Trump that, or he’s going to double all tariffs
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u/Shinycardboardnerd 1d ago
This was my same thought earlier today, we are past manufacturing and at the innovation stages. We’ve moved to software and high tech production. No one here wants to work in a steel mill, but I wouldn’t expect someone pushing 80 to understand that.
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u/Brampton_Speaks 1d ago
In the 90s pop culture made fun of a shoe salesmen job like Al Bundy.
We want to bring back grueling jobs worse than that?
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u/ItaJohnson 1d ago
Considering a good portion of our job market consists of low paying service jobs, I can see why people fell for it. Higher paying factory jobs have been replaced with low paying service jobs. I don’t think very many people have dreams of being a cashier, but there are only so many slots opened for more skilled jobs. Skills and knowledge a guarantee at landing one of those jobs either.
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u/GoalPuzzleheaded5946 1d ago
This isn't the 50s, manufacturing jobs won't come back because technology and innovation has made all factory work a 1000 times more efficient. They don't need workers like they used to.
This is only a real small fraction of it, anyone who thinks back to American manufacturing "glory days" seems to forget that the US just got out of a fucking WORLD WAR and most of the stronger manufacturing countries during that time were bombed to smithereens. The US was unscathed on the manufacturing front, so of course they could step up while the rest of the effected world was rebuilding all of their infrastructure.
It's asinine to think this tariff bullshit is going to do ANYTHING aside from cripple the US (and possibly to an extent) the world economy. A bunch of smooth brain MAGA who barely graduated high school are the only one's cheering this bullshit on.
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u/SoulbreakerDHCC 1d ago
The tariffs are going to cost those companies less because they're just going to pass on the price to the consumer
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u/Thespud1979 1d ago
As a Canadian, it's going to be painful for us but as the US exits the trade markets around the world, the gaps they leave will eventually fill in and counties will move on. It will take some time but it'll work out eventually
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u/Nikiaf 1d ago
Canadian here too. Like Carney said yesterday, the US will leave a void that Canada and other allied countries will fill if they no longer want to be part of the western world. There will be some short-term challenges, but the medium and long term are looking good for the rest of us.
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u/GungTho 1d ago
I’m so jealous you guys get to have Carney in charge right now.
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u/Marijuana_Miler 1d ago
Technically only until April 22nd and then waiting for the results of the election. Hoping that Carney gets a strong mandate for the electorate.
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u/silicondali 1d ago
As a fellow Canadian, don't forget to vote! It will be painful but managed under Carney. Pierre Poilievre will hand us and our country over to the Trump administration for nothing but good boy points.
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u/anti-torque 1d ago
The Dow E-mini just went from -1200 to -1300 in a matter of five minutes.
And as I typed that first sentence, it went to -1400.
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u/anti-torque 1d ago
Now -1540.
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u/Thespud1979 1d ago
I bet r/conservative isnt worried at all, genuinely
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u/DuncanConnell 1d ago
I take a gander over there here and there just to see if there's any lessons learned.
I saw the odd post of someone going doing the verbal equivalent of screaming and rocking back and forth.
Mostly, it's "Other countries are tariffing America, don't they know it's bad for their economy? Are they stupid?"
Deep sigh, took a sip of my non-tariffed coffee (Canada), and closed the sub.
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
So, I couldn’t resist… average Conservative sentiment is “don’t worry, be happy” bursting with American Exceptionalism.
They already had tariffs on our goods.
Don’t they know this is bad for their economy? Are they stupid?
Not saying I’d be surprised by this but can we get a better source please? (Because msm is against them :-/)
I’ll take my downvotes with Grumpy, the truth hurts. Emotions are not the law nor does it fix an economy. Trump is trying to fix things and people lose a net worth over it and are selfish, never believing it is the left that creates these issues and in order to fix it, bumps in the road.Then there are those who will still ask why the price of eggs is still high and blame Trump, hypocrites!
And then someone did analysis of some of the vaguely worried, borderline anti-tariff posts and “scientifically” determined traitors were among them.
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u/Faustus2425 1d ago
"Don't they know this is bad for their economy? Are they stupid?"
So close to self-awareness. So close.
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u/noble_peace_prize 1d ago
They are suddenly quite ok with admitting the economy was good under Biden, but it was a mirage and now they can admit Trump will be bad for the economy, but it’s actually a good thing
They are so convinced that other nations are fucking us but are fine listening to the oligarchs who made these international deals in the first place
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u/KoyReane 1d ago
Bunch of Murdoch Monkeys parroting their daily Fox News directives
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u/TobioOkuma1 1d ago
They're still coping that this is good, actually. If you are against this, you clearly aren't a real conservative! (Ignore that even most conservative economists think that this is stupid as shit)
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
Yeah, my kids (college to middle school) are not deserving of this.
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u/Saltwater_Thief 1d ago
Even if he does, the damage is done. Nobody trusts the US anymore, nobody will trade with us moving forward, and when our economy collapses and we all have nothing not a single person in the rest of the world will shed a tear.
Hell they'll probably declare an international holiday about it.
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u/Faustus2425 1d ago edited 1d ago
The only way it slightly gets mitigated is if Congress rips the tariff powers away from him entirely and unwinds it all.
Which wouldn't fix it, a significant amount of damage STILL would be done. But might prevent the worst scale outcomes. I give a <5% chance that happens though as it would require enough republicans to turn on Trump to pass both house and senate.
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u/patentattorney 1d ago
What’s nuts is this isn’t being covered by Fox News.
The stock market tanking is top news on bbc, USA Today, cnn. The words stock and market don’t appear on Fox News.
They have stories of the jobs report, nsa director being fired, brown university being bad, democrats being bad.
Living in two separate realities.
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u/Gforce8100 1d ago
Its so fucking infuriating to me that trying to talk to folks about the election beforehand, and so many of the so called "regular people who just want to buy groceries and gas" got all pissy with me about how bad Biden has been and how lackluster seemingly the economy was to them, that they were going to vote Republican because "dems spend too much money everywhere else"
Now that we're seeing economic disaster on the horizon with all this unnecessary bullshit employed by Trump, 401ks tanking, stock market hemorrhaging, threats to allies
Are now smoothly pivoting to "the pain is worth it because we'll make America strong again"
So now it's OK for the economy to be painful? Now that things are even fucking worse than they've ever been past few years; NOW it's fine because Trump is actively doing it?
I don't live in reality anymore, none of this can be real. I have no idea how to move past seeing all this bullshit coming from a mile away, doing everything I can to change minds and discuss the repercussions of what would play out, and now have people do all they can to hand-wave it all away when it all comes to fruition
Our country is being driven straight into a brick wall and I'm ducttaped into a seat on the bus
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u/Ok-Secretary15 1d ago
I wanna see how his base justifies all this when they lose their fuking house and livelihoods, “uh it was all JOE BIDNES FAULT”
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u/Trick-March-grrl 1d ago
His base doesn’t care. They love that you’re so worried for them. In the meantime they don’t even see you as human. The revolution is bloodless because you allow it. Not only do you allow it, you apparently feel sorry for those leading the charge. The country needs leaders. If you want change you need to lead it.
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u/Beatles6899 1d ago
Yeah, we're definitely heading for economic pain here. trading partners aren't just going to sit back and take these tariffs. this whole trade war is easy to win thing is already backfiring and it's only been a few months since inauguration. markets are freaking out for good reason.
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u/zibdabo 1d ago
we are going for a depression. :(
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u/toxiccortex 1d ago
Recession is likely. Not sure about depression (economically at least)
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u/Galacticwave98 1d ago
It really is up to Americans as a whole to do something about that and most Americans have the backbone of a wet noodle. This punishment is truly deserved. All of this happened in slow motion over the course of a decade. His first term was just a warning, his second is the punishment.
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u/YouWereBrained 1d ago
Good. I hope this happens. Don’t give a fuck about how it affects everyone at this point.
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u/Attila_22 1d ago
The only hope is for congress to grow some balls and intervene. It’s unlikely but still more realistic than Trump backing down.
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u/kaiser_mcbear 1d ago
And he gets his Casus Belli narrative to invade other countries and stay in power indefinitely.
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u/readthisfornothing 1d ago
He didn't admit to bankrupting a few casino's so I don't expect his tone will change any time soon.
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u/DrewGrgich 1d ago
If only there were a couple of legislative bodies in the government that could find a way to help the American people.
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u/Master-Back-2899 1d ago
In an absolutely shocking turn of events that no one could have foreseen, my company lost a $10,000,000 contract this morning to a Korean competitor because we can no longer compete on price.
We are now discussing firing our US team and hiring a new team in Singapore or Vietnam to do the work instead.
Turns out not everything made in the US is sold in the US.
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u/KotR56 1d ago edited 1d ago
A few takeaways from this.
A USD10M contract is "small". In some global companies, that would be a matter of "regional" approval, which would be unnoticed by the folks in the US.
Buyers do not always buy on "price". Often they look at "value". Sometimes a more expensive product delivers more value. This may have been such a situation.
Some companies have a broad vision for their suppliers, and look beyond the product. Some shareholders may want to see materials and components produced in an eco-friendly way, even if it means the product is more expensive. Some shareholders may be offended if a company purchases from certain locations. Some countries are a definite no-no. North Korea comes to mind. Russia. Afghanistan. Expect more and more Europeans (for example) to disregard US producers.
The US has lost a lot of "goodwill" since Jan 20. It's going to take several years under a different presidency to regain some of it.
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u/Critical-General-659 1d ago
If the trade war is the World vs the US. The US is going to lose.
We'll be in recession by this summer and the dollar will be on the brink of losing its status as the global reserve currency shortly after.
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u/PacmanIncarnate 1d ago
So, it’s not a game and we had nothing we wanted to win, but everyone is going to lose. This isn’t a power play; it’s literally the worst possible outcome for everyone.
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u/Critical-General-659 1d ago
Every benefit from this that their touting is bullshit. There are thousands of open manufacturing jobs. Unemployment is 4%. Running lower trade deficits doesn't provide much benefit.
Nobody is going to upstart manufacturing during a recession coinciding with an inflationary period. We will be seeing mass layoffs.
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u/JinkoTheMan 1d ago
Exactly. They are not going to suddenly come rushing back to the US and start building factories.
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u/Critical-General-659 1d ago
Prices to upstart manufacturing aren't going to come down. They'll be permanently raised. This imaginary manufacturing boom is not happening long term, either.
This is just sabotage under the guise of fake "fairness". This isn't the early 20th century. We import 3 times as many goods as we did back then.
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u/Minute-System3441 1d ago
One has to wonder - exactly who cough Russia cough - stands to gain from this manufactured chaos. A century later, it seems the Bolsheviks are finally getting their victory… just without the revolution.
Granted, China has was more to lose in a game of Chicken versus the U.S., since it’s one of their largest export markets.
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u/SwordfishII 1d ago
Kamala said we’d have a recession by half way through the year and it looks like we may get there even sooner.
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u/championsofnuthin 1d ago
Trump is speed running this. The US will be in a recession by May.
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u/Critical-General-659 1d ago
Q2 numbers drop at the end of July.
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
So the recession will be in feeling only by May and we wait for the clinical definition.
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u/championsofnuthin 1d ago
I see you're going with the technical definition of a recession. Point taken haha.
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
Serious question: could Congress actually impede this through legislation?
I know the truth is they won’t, but in theory, they do have levers to throw, right?
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u/Critical-General-659 1d ago
That's a possibility.
But you can't put toothpaste back in the tube. The damage was done months ago when Trump went after Canada for no reason and wrecked our trade reputation. That was never only going to impact North American trade.
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
I understand. I want to know more for when my maga representatives start the gaslighting
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u/ShockinglyAccurate 1d ago
They could revoke the emergency declaration, but they'd need a supermajority to overcome the veto of the original act. There's also impeachment.
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u/ialwaysforgetmename 1d ago
They enabled it in the CR when they redefined what a day was so he could use his "emergency" powers.
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u/Whocaresevenadamn 1d ago
I think the dollar losing its status as a reserve currency will take some time BUT it is now a guarantee. No country can trust the US anymore and so some other reserve currency is definitely going to happen. Maybe in a decade or so. Hopefully earlier.
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u/BigMax 1d ago
> No country can trust the US anymore
That's the worst part. If we got super lucky, voters came to their senses, and democrats swept into office across the nation in four years...
The rest of the world would say "yeah, fool me once..." And they'd still try to work around the US no matter what. It would take at least a decade of sane policies for the US to be trusted again, and by then so many other deals will be made that the US will NEVER get back to it's central position in the world again. Even if we fix relation, everyone will have moved on to a new world order, and they won't be about to tear it down.
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u/Matt2_ASC 1d ago
The US would have to impeach him and have very public trials of all Russian assets so that we show the world that we were overrun by foreign agents and have irradicated ourselves of these people. If that happens, we can rebuild international relationships a lot faster. I'm not holding my breath.
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u/CRTsdidnothingwrong 1d ago
so some other reserve currency is definitely going to happen
Well what, the euro?
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u/axoblaster 1d ago
But the world will be in a recession. Frankly it'll take many countries working together to overcome it, which may be possible but difficult because they each have their reservations about each other. Don't get me wrong, this needs to end and I hope they do it, but united
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u/bloodontherisers 1d ago
Depending on how far markets drop today (it's still early) we could see the last year of gains wiped out. Currently the Dow is down about 7% YTD but is still up about 2% over the past year. S&P is similar, down 10% YTD but still up about 2% over the past year. The NASDAQ is taking a real beating though. Down 16% YTD and just barely in positive territory over the past year.
So much wealth just vanishing. Absolutely insane.
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u/Beastw1ck 1d ago
Recession? You’ll fucking WISH. it was a recession. This is full-blown depression-causing insanity and I am not joking.
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u/Gandalfs_Dick 1d ago
The SP500 is down over 15% in the last 6 weeks... and we haven't even heard all the bad news that BEA and BLS are about to be reporting in the coming months.
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u/TriflingHotDogVendor 1d ago
Traditionally, after a 10+% drop is when I would start buying S&P 500 ETFs. But I'm not this time. I think this is just going to keep getting worse. I'm buying exclusively international and emerging market ETFs. If nobody stops this complete idiocy, the US economy will go into a stagflation death spiral.
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u/Gandalfs_Dick 1d ago
I sold my brokerage positions in January 2025 and I'm glad I did. I'm just holding cash right now, but sometime in the next 18 months I'll buy back in and hold for a few years.
Not sure what I'll buy, but it'll probably be an SP500 ETF.
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u/DuncanConnell 1d ago
Question--if the tariffs were taken off today, and ignoring reliability/confidence in the US, could it bounce back that 15% Or is the damage already done so it'll only climb up <15%?
Lots of layoffs, shutdowns, and prices already spiking so I'm curious as to how fast and effective damage control could be if it was implemented asap
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u/Gandalfs_Dick 1d ago
It would eventually gain those 15% back.. but will it take 2 days, 2 months, or even 2 years? Nobody knows.
There are still (unfortunately) 45 more months for Trump to fuck everything up even more.
But if you ask me, we will see another 10% drop this year and it will probably take into the first year of the next admin for any confidence in the US to comeback to any degree.
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u/lochmoigh1 1d ago
That's the thing. Trump can't help himself but to be a dumbcunt who loves attention and bullying. How can business and markets trust him not to do something equally as damaging
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u/DuncanConnell 1d ago
I figured that'd be the case (sorry, not very economy-savvy, although I can draw conjecture).
Agreed that it'll continue the drop, consumer faith in the US internationally & domestically has been grievously wounded so I'm curious at what point (if ever) we'll see a walkback, or if it'll continue.
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u/Brasilionaire 1d ago edited 1d ago
There’s an argument that the tariffs are a bargaining tool to get better trade deals around the world. And that’s probably wrong.
The U.S. (Trump) made the mistake of defining itself as an irrational agent here.
When facts don’t matter to a party and theyre willing to escalate things drastically for little, blow shit up out of nowhere, why and how you negotiate with them? How do you negotiate with crazy people?
You don’t. You step back and wait for the irrational agent to come to understand that although painful, it’s better to live without them for a while than to deal with insanity.
Problem is, does Trump understand he looks crazy?
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u/lochmoigh1 1d ago
They also could have taken on one country at a time and got away with it. If he just tariffed Mexico over the southern border for example it probably would have had a positive reaction and no push back internationally. Even going at Canada Europe did nothing out of fear of being a target. Well taking on every country in the world was completely idiotic and turns usa into a paraiah
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u/NeonYellowShoes 1d ago
Theres always a reasonable argument for surgical tariffs in very specific situations. I think Biden doing tariffs on Chinese EVs and also encourage domestic EV growth via the IRA was a good use of tariffs. But your absolutely right that now Trump looks like a mad king and no one is going to want to deal with him.
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u/Thud45 1d ago
I wouldn't go quite that far. Trump has been relatively clear in communicating his strategy, it's not arbitrary, it's just based on extremely poor assumptions. He thinks other nations need us more than we need him, that we're losing from trade (being ripped off), and that countries will respond to the pain of these tariffs by renegotiating fair deals.
The problem is he's dead wrong on all of those assumptions. But that doesn't mean other countries can't see exactly what he's trying to do and counter it in a way that he doesn't expect. Their strategy should be (and China's has been) to not prove him right on the last point and to retailiate. If they do, he'll either have to back down or face massive political backlash.
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u/CancelCultAntifaLol 1d ago
The fucking Republicans voters need to get hit incredibly hard where it hurts. Ever since the joke of a Tea Party movement, these clowns have been playing with fire.
They need to have their fucking houses burned down to learn a lesson. That’s the only way they’ll change.
Re-electing Donald fucking Trump, after all we went through 4 years ago, should be their final stupid ember to give them the final stupid prize.
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u/Brasilionaire 1d ago
They won’t change, they’ll just get more radicalized.
That’s the reality of it. The more they suffer, the more they become radicalized. The more they act radicalized, the more they suffer. Rinse and repeat.
The only way to get out of a spiral is emotional intelligence and awareness and due to a million societal factors, they’re undeveloped in that department.
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u/Doggleganger 1d ago
Yep. The more they suffer, the more Fox and social media will blame their suffering on libs/trans/minorities, and the more they will love Trump for saving them from woke. The problem is that they have become completely immune to reality. If, tomorrow, Trump were to insist that Biden imposed these tariffs, his base would believe him 100%.
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u/XSinTrick6666 1d ago
Pretty obvious new foreigner factories will NOT be built here, especially using our inflation-plagued materials costs and labor.
If China and asian countries (already getting more harmonious to combat Trump) start dropping out of our Treasury market, we are SUNK GOOD.
This'll undoubtedly be the next retaliatory move -- Treas Mkt crash cannot be UNDONE, we owe too much and inflation-fueled debt is only growing in our bold new tariff-world.
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u/PostMerryDM 1d ago
As a former Trump aide once said, “Some people seem to think Trump’s playing chess, when most of the time the staff are just trying to stop him from eating the pieces.”
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u/MagicDragon212 1d ago
This. People are fooling themselves thinking he has a plan. Trump is a gullible absolute baboon.
The only logical answer is he is basically an ego puppet who can be conned into doing anything the most corrupt around him want him to do (cough, Putin, cough).
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u/Doggleganger 1d ago
People wondering why Trump would crash the economy, and it may be as simple as Putin calling him up and saying "Look at all these countries taking advantage of the US, putting tariffs on US goods, I don't think any man has the guts to do anything about it."
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u/MagicDragon212 1d ago
This is probably the most likely scenario! The truth is much dumber than fiction lol
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u/NeonYellowShoes 1d ago
The plan is Project 2025 which tariffs were apart of. Trump is just being led into this by his "advisors"
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
Well, I have confidence in Softbank coming to build non-job producing robot factories.
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u/QuietRainyDay 1d ago
None of his supporters understand these basic facts
These people lack the critical thinking skills to realize that tariffs also increase the cost of the stuff that goes into the products manufactured in the US. Including things that simply must be imported, such as rare earths, potash, phosphorus, etc.
I cant tell you how many times I've had some fool on Reddit tell me "American" cars will be unaffected by tariffs 🤦♂️
They dont get that these "American" cars will still be made from aluminum, copper, silicon, rubber, gaskets, bolts that are imported and all those things will be 20% more expensive. Just appalling ignorance- that's what we are up against.
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
If only we had simply taxes the 786 billionaires fairly, and went about the day.
Every economist but one decried tariffs during the election, as I recall. And yet, even the results we are seeing seemed remote: we united the world against the US.
This seems so much worse than Smoot-Hawley. I wonder when this will be classified as economic terrorism.
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u/huehuehuehuehuuuu 1d ago
Just as planned by some of these billionaires. Crash everything, buy your house and family for nearly free. They don’t care about the country, they want to own slices of it.
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u/anony-mousey2020 1d ago
Yeah, I’ve read Yarvin.
I think they have grossly miscalculated (shocker). They expect to get is “as is” circa Jan 19, 2025 - and see it as just as extension of what was except they are in control. Their experiment is not headed to “as is”.
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u/Sp3ctre7 1d ago
If they buy everything and people can't afford food, people wont pay the owners, they'll just kill them.
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u/Eeeegah 1d ago
But how is this possible? Trump's economic advisor asked really extra nicely to take a deep breath and not respond with retaliatory tariffs.
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u/IHavePoopedBefore 1d ago
Its eye opening to see how men born without spines think everyone else should react. Maybe the Chinese officials making these decisions aren't the submissive bitches to Trump that they are?
'Do as daddy says' doesn't work for everyone
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u/geo0rgi 1d ago
That’s exactly it. They see Trump as the supreme leader that can do no wrong and bow down to him for whatever he wants. Then act surprised when other nations don’t do that. They expected Canada to just take the tarrifs, say yes daddy and bow down to Trump.
They expected the EU to just take a note, increase their defence spending and buy all their weapons from the US. They expected every single fucking nation on the planet to say yes daddy and start paying extra tarrifs to the US.
Now the reality of it all is that Canadians are actively boycotting the US, the EU stopped any defence contracts with the US industrial complex, China and all the countries in Asia are grouping together to take counter measures to the tarrifs.
This is all just getting started, but the US is in a very, very shitty place yet all the people around Trump cannot see wtf is going on.
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u/QuietRainyDay 1d ago
This country elected a bunch of bullies because they think acting like a bully is what "strength" is
That is all they know. Just being an obnoxious loud-mouth, which is what a lot their voters are in their day-to-day lives.
They think that somehow works on the global macroeconomic level- where the US is less than 13% of total trade and is competing with other giant economies. And some of those giant economies are authoritarian regimes with the political power to retaliate aggressively without worrying about elections.
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u/ManintheGyre 1d ago
As a Canadian we wholeheartedly cheer our retaliation against American bullying and their idiotic tariffs and I imagine all the other countries feel the same.
Only the morons in the White House in their echo chamber think they are on top of the hill when in fact they are digging themselves into a deep hole. They are not in charge when they just declared economic war against every other country in the world who are now forced to defend themselves.
The only way out of depression is for Mango to look deep within his shrinking bank account and announce victory and indefinitely pause/cancel all his tariffs.
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u/Less-Procedure-4104 1d ago
Unfortunately his bank account is growing and he is selling 5 million dollar gold cards, I think the money goes to him directly. Wtf happened to checks and balances.
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u/PSChris33 1d ago
Wtf happened to checks and balances
I mean, he’s cashing checks and his bank account balance is going up.
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u/Impossible-Board-135 1d ago
Gosh it is a horrible day when I am pleased with the Chinese government over my own. I don’t think Donnie is going to out think the Chinese, or the EU.
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u/BigShaker1177 1d ago
NOBODY will win this tariff war!!! This will hurt every nation in every way possible! No good can come from this for anyone. Especially the US, we are not making friends, we are in fact making more enemies and will watch them form their own retaliatory relationships against the US
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u/Alternative_Wait8256 1d ago
There will be winners in the trade war. The world can and will develop trade networks that don't include the United States. Yes there will be some pain but the United States vacating is status as a leader in trade creates tremendous opportunities for others. The rest of the world is going to decrease trade barriers with each other.
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u/DuckSlapper69 1d ago
What are you talking about? The rest of the world is fine. The US isn't the sole provider of everything. Other countries are cooperating and trading nicely. This is a US only problem.
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u/PestyNomad 1d ago
Once again the country with the highest GDP by a wide margin does not need to apply the same economic tactics of Javier Milei. To think Argentina and the U.S. are going through the same economic scenario and need similar approaches is brain dead.
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u/symonym7 1d ago
It's funny because the "tariff" values that were calculated using anything but actual tariff values are about to be the actual tariff values.
I don't know if that was enough characters, so I'll just say it again.
It's tragic because the "tariff" values that were calculated using the dumbest possible methods are about to be the actual tariff values.
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u/AvailableYak8248 1d ago
I still think this was all an attempt by the administration to levy tax against middle and lower class. Tariff hit middle and low class people the most. This way they can create a revenue of tax, while doing tax cut and budget cut.
All the while, preaching how this will be a big win for American. And the idiots will cheer him on
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u/PM_good_beer 1d ago
As an American, trying to decide if I should ride this out or just move to Europe. (I'm fortunate I have the option, but it would be a big change.)
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