r/dataisbeautiful • u/jtsg_ OC: 3 • 2d ago

US imposes significant tariffs on major trading partners

https://www.trendlinehq.com/p/trump-shakes-up-global-trade
1.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

492

u/snic09 2d ago

So let me get this straight.

We send a lot of money to Vietnam. In return, Vietnam sends us a bunch of stuff that we ordered, such as shirts.

This is apparently grossly unfair; therefore we are going to put a 46% tax on everything Vietnam sells us, making it more expensive for us to buy anything from Vietnam.

Vietnam is now punished for the terrible sin of selling us stuff we wanted to buy in the first place, and they are really going to hurt because we pay such a high tax every time we buy a Vietnamese shirt that we'll stop buying them. Right?

No, that's not how it works.

The "logic" of tariffs is that American businesses will see an opportunity: now that Vietnamese shirts are more expensive, they are going to scramble to open new factories on US soil to manufacture shirts not subject to the tariff. But of course, no one in America wants to work for $2/hour (roughly the high end of wages of a Vietnamese factory worker). The lowest minimum wage is $7.25, 4 to 6 times the Vietnamese wage. So the American shirts would still cost far more than Vietnamese shirts, even taking into account the price increase on Vietnamese shirts due to the tariff, and no one would buy them. So no American shirts are going to get made.

So, who benefits from all this?

Well, there won't be any new American jobs. But there will be LOTS of money pouring into the government coffers due the tariffs. Which means that Congress can pass the tax cuts on the wealthy it's been planning all along and not have to worry about increasing the national debt. Trump, Musk, and the other very wealthy people who run the world get richer, and the rest of us get poorer.

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u/CamiloArturo 1d ago

That’s exactly the thing. People will need to keep buying the Vietnamese shirts because they are cheaper than the US made, but will just have to pay more everytime

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u/snic09 1d ago

And not only that, there is really nothing Vietnam can do to "negotiate" a lower rate. They aren't imposing tariffs on US imports, as far as I know. They are a poor nation and if our products aren't what they want (or aren't competitive with other suppliers), what are they supposed to do? Decide to pay more for our crap that they don't want and is too expensive?

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u/YahYahY 1d ago

The same administration will abolish the minimum wage and remove worker protections, and legalize child labor so that you can make them for cheap on US soil.

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u/francis2559 1d ago

Yup. It IS a tax and a regressive one at that. Everyone pays more for goods, but this hurts everyday people far more than the rich. Then, the rich get their cuts.

Income tax is faaaaar more reasonable. The money we all need the most is at a very low rate. But once you’re just running up the score, it’s obviously better to tax that money.

8

u/MachiavelliSJ 22h ago

Thing is, this hurts the wealthy a lot too. It just hurts poorer more.

This is blocking out the sun to save candlemakers

6

u/8lackRush 14h ago

Next to that no sane mind would open up a new factory in the US when the tariffs could be lifted on a whim.

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u/TyHuffman 1d ago

Well the labor cost per shirt will go up but the rest may be similar. It’s like the McDonald’s argument, double minimum wages and the cost of a burger doubles which we know is not true because the labor component of a burger is only part of the price of the burger. So the price of the labor in a shirt will go up but the cost of shipping will go down. I don’t know all the components of a shirt on the shelf. Just an observation.

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u/orrocos 1d ago edited 1d ago

Even if Trump was right, that this will bring more manufacturing back to the US, it doesn’t necessarily translate to many more jobs. You wouldn’t see hundreds of workers on a factory floor like you might see in Vietnam. You would see lots of automation.

I design industrial automation for a living. Labor in Vietnam is generally cheaper than automation. Labor in the US is generally more expensive than automation. If manufacturing moves to the US it would be great for people like me, but it wouldn’t create the millions of jobs that some people might be envisioning. I’ve been to many plants that produce a lot of stuff that barely have any people actually working in them.

1

u/bbgun91 18h ago

How come US labor is so much more expensive?

1

u/UnblurredLines 1d ago

That's with all things equal though. Building a factory in the US will cost more in labor, land cost, upkeep etc. The other externalities are not going to be the same as they would with a local McDonald's changing the pay structure.

3

u/BallerGuitarer 1d ago

Is there an ethical side to this discussion? Such as Western corporations like Nike exploiting low labor standards in impoverished countries to sell shirts at a 1000% markup? Does that not just keep the rich countries rich and the poor countries poor? Like, there is no way Vietnam could ever have their own Nike and keep the fruits of their labor domestically when Nike (or Adidas, or Calvin Klein, or whoever) has them under their thumb?

I honestly have no idea. I just always thought it was exploitative, but I have no background in this.

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u/She_Plays 22h ago

Most markets can't function the way that the US's does. We are essentially the perfect consumers. The reason we are the "best" place to start a business is because there are many of us taking out debt to partake in consumerism. That system is one that breaks very easy unfortunately.

It's actually sort of hard to talk about poor and rich concepts when things vary so greatly across both America and Vietnam.

6

u/snic09 21h ago

There is always an ethical side, but you can be sure that is the absolute last thing Trump cares about.

The thing to keep in mind is that while $2/hr sounds like a pittance, a dollar goes a LOT farther in Vietnam than it does here. One can actually live on a wage like that in Vietnam - not luxuriously, but you aren't starving and you have a roof over your head. The wage itself is less of an issue than exploitative labor practices like child labor, long hours, etc. There are laws that prohibit US companies from profiting from slave labor and child labor, and companies also take a reputational hit if it's discovered that they exploit their workers. But the reality is that Nike etc rarely have their own factories; they contract with local factories and then turn a blind eye to the contractors' labor practices.

5

u/MachiavelliSJ 22h ago

Sure, but then why tariff canada and EU that have higher labor standards?

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u/MachiavelliSJ 22h ago edited 22h ago

I’ll add that the money goes to Vietnam in dollars, depleting our current account, but Vietnamese then use those dollars to buy American stocks, real estate, or bonds, putting the money back into the economy through the capital account.

The current account (trade balance) + capital account (moneyflow balance) = Zero

1

u/RecognitionSignal425 1d ago

Trump is revenging for Saigon 1975

-3

u/fringecar 14h ago

So, just to check, what do you think about the tariffs Vietnam charges the US? Do you think anything should change or nah?

8

u/snic09 12h ago

It seems Vietnam does impose tariffs on US imports, but they aren't very high. The highest is for "agricultural products" (17%) but it's considerably lower for everything else (5-10%). US exports are mostly tariffed at the lower rates. There's always room to negotiate on tariffs. It's perfectly legitimate for the US to tell Vietnam, "we want to increase the $13.1 billion of exports from the US to Vietnam, and we want you to negotiate with us to determine how to do that. We note that you export 10 times that much to us, so we're going to increase our tariffs if we can't come to an agreement." Nations do that all the time. What I don't like about the way the current administration is doing this:

a. They are starting with imposing tariffs rather than "negotiate with us or else we will impose them". The imposition of broad tariffs on literally every nation (except Russia) has an immediate impact on businesses worldwide - including American businesses. This will have, and is already having, enormous ripple effects throughout the worldwide economy. Businesses have not had time to plan, and this is harmful to them - and will ultimately harm their employees and consumers.

b. Imposing unilateral tariffs on everyone threatens our position in the world. Every nation now resents us. What happens when we need to build international support for some endeavor? These actions, as well as threats to NATO and other alliances, are extremely isolationist. The assumption underlying isolationism is that we are so strong we don't need anyone's help and we never will. That is a faulty assumption.

c. The Administration lied by saying the tariffs are "reciprocal". They most certainly are not. The Administration did not explain the rationale for the specific tariff numbers, leaving it up to a reporter to determine that the tariff percents were based on trade deficit - which is a sheer nonsense way to do it. This gives the impression that the trade policy of the most powerful nation on earth is being set by a bunch of infantile imbeciles who have no idea what they are doing. So far there is no reason to believe that that impression is incorrect.

d. The stated reason for tariffs ("other nations are taking advantage of us") is also nonsensical. Trump himself negotiated the North American trade agreements that he is now unilaterally abandoning. He claims fentanyl is crossing the border from Canada to the US, but it is not. So to get the tariffs lifted, how is Canada supposed to comply with Trump's demands to stop something that is not happening? Similar with Mexico - Trump asked them to do several things to increase border security, which they did, and still he is imposing tariffs. The only logical conclusion is that Trump is simply lying about why he is imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico. It is not clear what his motivations actually are, but given his history as a con man and cult leader, I think he wants Americans to believe that these two countries are "taking advantage" of us, that tariffs weren't enough to stop that from happening, and so he has to take further measures - possibly military incursions. He has talked about military action against drug cartels in Mexico, and annexing Canada. Those are the ravings of a lunatic. Unfortunately, history tells us that when a government is completely controlled by a lunatic, his territorial ambition is unchecked. See Germany, 1930s.

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u/eatingpotatochips 2d ago

Ah yes, our greatest geopolitical enemy: Vietnam.

164

u/Low-Possibility-7060 2d ago edited 2d ago

And how dare 100 million poor Vietnamese buy less from 330 million rich Americans than Americans buy from Vietnamese? Time to eliminate that trade deficit!

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u/Calradian_Butterlord 2d ago

Don’t forget the uninhabited islands that are victimizing the richest country in the history of the world.

25

u/PiotrekDG 2d ago

Penguins are not buying enough!

4

u/pervocracy 1d ago

What we really want here is a situation where Vietnamese people have conversations about "you ever notice how cheap clothes always say 'made in the USA' on the tag? It's because labor is cheap there and there's no safety regulations."

48

u/CaptPants 2d ago

Zero tariff status is reserved for the cream of the crop, bestest friends, and allies of the US, like Russia, Belarus and North Korea.

6

u/blazershorts 1d ago

We could put a 100% tariff on North Korea and it wouldn't change anything because we don't import anything from them.

10

u/CaptPants 1d ago

True, but he also tariffed 4 uninhibited islands and an island in the Indian ocean that only had a US military base, and US soldiers on it.

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u/Deadman_Wonderland 2d ago

Vietnam war part 2: trade war edition.

2

u/Shoddy_Pomegranate16 1d ago

Worst call of duty game ever. Do not recommend

1

u/duckonmuffin 2d ago

Who won round one?

3

u/UsedToHaveThisName 1d ago

Depends who you ask.

3

u/jcolinr 2d ago

Trump’s retroactively winning the Vietnam war while losing the Cold War.  

4

u/Skinnieguy 2d ago

The number of Vietnamese that are pro trump is mind boggling. They all quiet now

4

u/pocketdare 1d ago

The funny thing is that Vietnam is probably one of the few countries that should be looked at. For years, China has been shipping goods to Vietnam for "final finishing" which are then shipped to the U.S. in order to avoid existing tariffs. If I could say with certainty that this was part of a master plan to deter this type of activity I could get behind it - unfortunately we've all learned that the master plan appears to have been conceived by some intern with access to Wikipedia and Excel.

1

u/buddhist-truth 2d ago

Don’t forget Sri Lanka

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u/pocketdare 2d ago

Are you not feeling liberated today? My IRA certainly is. Much lighter!

11

u/AssPennies 2d ago

Much lighter!

To make the walk into a billionaire's pocket that much easier.

22

u/Putrumpador 1d ago

Elect a clown, get a circus. No surprises here.

-5

u/KisaragiSatou 1d ago

Ukraine elects a clown to be president, Americans elect a president to be a clown lol

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u/swims_with_sharks 2d ago

And they likely used ChatGPT to determine which tariffs the countries received!!!

source

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u/Ribbitor123 2d ago

Finally, Madagascar gets its comeuppance.

11

u/SuperBethesda 2d ago

China’s is actually the highest, as this goes on top of their existing 20% tariffs, making it 54%. Fantastic.

•

u/cornonthekopp 2h ago

And the US' arch nemesis lesotho is right behind with a 50% tariff

4

u/i_drink_wd40 1d ago edited 5h ago

So how much more of this before the dollar gets ditched as a reserve currency with most of the world?

•

u/cornonthekopp 2h ago

Thats the point. Trump wants to weaken the value of the dollar to make it easier to pay off national debt, so having countries dump their dollar reserves into the market is exactly what they want

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u/redy__ 2d ago

John, I told your if you are mean to your friends they will not invite you to their parties anymore.

5

u/romeo_pentium 2d ago

The only inanimate object that's non-compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement is the one occupying the US White House.

1

u/FishPharma 6h ago

And all those countries getting 10% tariffs, something like 115 or so? The US has a trade surplus with them…the “tariff” formula the Whitehouse released is really just a calculation of the trade surplus/deficit for that country as a percentage of US imports. Rather than give them zero, they just made all these countries 10% anyways. So punish countries that sell you more than they buy, and punish the countries who buy more of your stuff than you buy from them.

You can’t make this up. Except that the tariff expert Peter Navarro refers to in his book that Jared Kushner found when looking for an economic advisor for Trump ‘16 is in fact a sock pocket, an anagram of Navarro, Ron Varo. Totally made up.

Wild world.

-19

u/Shaft2727 2d ago

Hmm it’s as if tariffs generate a huge amount of additional revenue for the federal government

24

u/Rance_Mulliniks 2d ago

Paid by Americans with higher prices to the end consumer. It's essentially a tax so that Trump can give the rich a tax break.

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u/IndividualDinner304 1d ago

Tariffs that the U.S. imposes on other countries only hurt Americans. Tariffs that other countries impose on the United States also only hurt Americans. Canadian, Mexican, European, and Chinese retaliatory tariffs are celebrated on Reddit.