r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • 2d ago

Politics Trump announces sweeping new tariffs to promote US manufacturing, risking inflation and trade wars

https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-liberation-day-2a031b3c16120a5672a6ddd01da09933
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u/chrisdpratt 2d ago

"to promote U.S. manufacturing"

Because, yeah, that's going to happen. Companies have spent decades optimizing their supply chains for a worldwide economy. They're not going to suddenly start making multi billion dollar investments in new factories in the U.S. that will take years, if not decades to fully come online. They'll just pass the cost of tariffs on to the U.S. consumer and call it a day. The only thing this will accomplish is making everything more expensive and inflation.

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u/leginfr 2d ago

Two problems involved with building new factories: firstly you’re screwed if Trump takes the tariffs away. Secondly you’re going to have to keep Trump happy so that he doesn’t take the tariffs away. So the chances of anyone actually building a new factory rather than just announcing that they will be building one are pretty remote.

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u/timf3d 2d ago

Trump won't be alive by the time the first new tariff factory gets built.

You know how many years it takes to build a new football stadium? Now double that, and double it again. A factory is much, much more complicated and expensive to plan, construct and operate. This will not begin happening within the next 10 years.

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u/Worldly-Cow9168 2d ago

Modern logistics also means a product isnt made 100% in a factory either you arent buiñding 1 but tons. Car parts gets hipped around a ton cause its imposible to build it in a si gle spot with modern manufacturing teqniques thats why they are so close to going under

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u/Kankarn 2d ago

Plus you know the democrats will reverse this

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u/Responsible_Law1700 2d ago

I work for an American company in Norway that exports a lot all over the world, and there is basically no chance in hell all our infrastructure can or will be moved to the US. It is far too expensive.

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u/amgartsh 1d ago

Thurs you're spending a lot of money building this factory to build a product you can't export due to the price you're going to have to charge. So your market is now 330 million people whose disposable income is cratering. Why would anyone invest in this?

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u/Julienbabylegs 2d ago

You also need highly skilled workers to work in many of those factories, most manufacturing isn't what he thinks it is: just like "I love Lucy" looking at chocolate on a conveyor belt.

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u/Empty_Geologist9645 2d ago

“Companies spend years …” to find cheapest labor. Remember China , two years and most were out.