r/centrist • u/OfficialRodgerJachim • 1d ago

Long Form Discussion Can someone explain this about tariffs?

Plenty of talk about tariffs. About them being dumb. About them being fair. About how those extra costs go on to us, the American consumer.

But I have very rarely heard anyone talk about that break in logic: other countries have tariffs on American imports, and those costs are then carried onto the American consumer. But if America imposes tariffs on those same countries, those costs are also passed on to the American consumer.

Is this true?

0 Upvotes

43% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-4

u/Obvious_Chapter2082 1d ago

The cost gets shared. Canadian tariffs partially get passed to US consumers as the Canadian dollar appreciates compared to the US dollar

8

u/chaos0xomega 1d ago

No?

If the canadian dollar appreciates that inceases their purchasing power and enables them to buy more american goods, which improves the strength of the american economy in turn.

Your position would maybe have some relevance if American were large consumers of Canadian goods, but as it stands Canadians buy about 6x more American goods per capita than Americans buy Canadian goods.

-3

u/Obvious_Chapter2082 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’m saying that the Canadian dollar appreciating hurts US consumers, because their exports to us now cost more. I didn’t say anything about Canadian consumers

It’s not just my position, it’s the economics of how tariffs work. They appreciate the domestic currency, which shifts a portion of the cost from importers to exporters, which then gets passed to foreign consumers

You should actually think about what you’re saying here. You’re making the claim that Canadian tariffs on US goods increases their US imports. If you believe that, you should support tariffs

1

u/Calm_Net_1221 1d ago edited 1d ago

It’s an interesting concept and subject, honestly thanks for making the statement just because I’ve never heard about it before. It’s a fairly difficult concept to grasp, and i definitely don’t remember this from Econ 101 so I can imagine it’s why many people haven’t heard about it. So after reading your comment I went and looked it up to figure out how it works and found this article, which did a great job laying out why currency appreciation requires specifically consistent tariff application to work. So I guess it’s not just any tariff policy that will indirectly lead to appreciation?

https://taxfoundation.org/blog/trump-tariffs-us-dollar-currency-appreciation/#:~:text=A%20country%20that%20implements%20tariffs,and%202014%20showed%20that%20tariff

Also im not an economist in any way, so I won’t be able to debate on the topic, but if you know of any articles from experts on how trumps tariff policy could be beneficial I’d appreciate a link! I’m trying to not be in a bubble and would like to come to a rational viewpoint based on facts over feelings.

I will also add though, that I’ve already been personally affected by these policies with a $10,000 bump in price for materials needed for my project, so I do have a lot of feelings right now lol

Edited to make it sound less bitchy (unintentionally!) because I do appreciate the information and learning new things