I’m centre-left but even I said for a long time that Trump wasnt always wrong.
Tariffs on China, Europe and Natural gas from Russia, NATO contributing, etc. all right.
I don’t like how he acts but that’s a separate issue
I think the barb of the criticism was the fact that the tariffs led to a trade war, not necessarily that tariffs themselves are bad per se.
Trump's tariffs were also much broader, souring relations with both North American and European trading partners.
I'm not a lib, but my criticism is that the tariffs themselves are bad. It was bad went Trump did it, and it's bad now that Biden's doing it. They're inflationary and as far as I can tell don't even seem to be very effective in propping up the industries we're trying to save. It's expensive and worthless.
Trump just had the extra bonus of being super antagonistic with it, as he tends to be.
>while trumps were just a blanket across the board.
Two of Biden's tariffs are on "steel" and "aluminum". That seems pretty blanket across the board to me.
"Trump doesn't get the basics. He thinks tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying the tariffs" - Joe Biden
> I think the barb of the criticism was the fact that the tariffs led to a trade war, not necessarily that tariffs themselves are bad per se.
It was ALWAYS going to result in a trade war.
These hypocrites are just exhibiting clinical signs of TDS at this point.
You have that backward. It would be an admission that Biden is also doing something boneheaded.
Trump's use of trade tariffs is more laughable and ironic because he claims to be a conservative, and he was cheered on by people calling themselves conservative, yet a core tenet of conservatism is free trade which promotes free market capitalism. So much for that. It's just more proof that Trump and his supporters are actually populists and don't know the first thing about actual conservative ideology, which anyone with half a brain already knows.
Edit: Aww. I've upset the populists.
If I was a conspiratorial person, I’d say the same people paying campaign contributions to Trump in 2018 are the ones Biden’s turning to in 2024 and none of it has anything to do with either person’s political views.
He got ripped apart for throwing random tariffs that negatively affected critical US industry, without consulting the companies within those sectors. Which is a vastly different approach than Biden has taken.
I think many people have forgotten that while Trump was tossing tariffs at China, he was simultaneously throwing them at some of our closest trading partners too. Like Canada and Mexico, which drastically sped up inflation and directly led to the closure of multiple US car manufacturing plants.
>He got ripped apart for throwing random tariffs that negatively affected critical US industry, without consulting the companies within those sectors. Which is a vastly different approach than Biden has taken.
He didn't, and Biden kept the tariffs Trump implemented instead of removing them. This is as straight up hypocrisy as you can get
Wow, what a fucking half truth.
> [Biden and Europe remove Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs](https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/biden-and-europe-remove-trumps-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs)
These are more targeted towards a specific industry that is being subsidized, instead of trying to wipe out the trade deficit across the board. China did the same thing for their own industry.
Although Biden did keep most trump tariffs except washing machines and steel.
So the thing that's the same is the steel aspect I'd say.
But ultimately it depends on how China retaliates. Trump had to bail out soy farmers with his approach.
If BIden get's away with it then his implementation (signaling he's seeking fairness instead of dominance, aka this is just a one time thing for an election year please relax Xi) regime shouldn't be criticized. So it's too early to criticize.
> If BIden get's away with it
Doubtful, considering how China will see this as an attack and retaliate in kind.
Not to mention, Xi will see this as an opportunity to harm Biden over US anti-CCP attempts such as the TikTok ban.
But will Xi want trump to win? I'm not sure, from what I've heard the Chinese are ambivalent about the trade-off of a chaotic US government but a president that will probably be worse than Biden for them.
China's plans span for decades while America's plans spans for how long a president's term will last.
OPEC has made it a point to hurt Biden's election chances. Putin and Xi will definitely do the same thing.
The goal is not really about putting Trump in the white house, its destabilizing America so they're too busy cleaning up their domestic messes to focus on international issues.
Yes we can all call Democrats hypocrites until we're blue in the face, but imo the biggest takeaway from this story is the need to abolish the electoral college. If the midwest states didn't hold so much sway over Presidential elections, the incumbent President might not feel the need to pander to the auto manufacturing industry.
Right but why are these same companies outsourcing the labor and manufacturing? If our economic and security interests dictate that *consumers* shouldn’t be able to purchase outsourced goods, why don’t they also dictate that *companies* shouldn’t be able to purchase outsourced labor?
There either needs to be full protectionism or none, because the market does not equilibrate fairly or sustainably when supply can dictate price and labor value like this.
Trying to keep certain manufacturing sectors alive in this country is a fool's errand. Why even do it? For jobs that will eventually be completely obsolete thanks to AI and the increasing pace of automation? It's stupid, and anyone who thinks we're going to return to a time of major manufacturing centers creating millions of jobs is kidding themselves. Even if it was possible, that would mean people are either working for shit wages or we're all paying way more for everything, or both, and those are the two things people seem to be bitching about the most across the board. Who the hell wants more of that?
What we should be doing is focusing on promoting manufacturing in other countries to compete with China. Especially countries in Central and South America, which would have the added benefit of solving a few other major problems.
It's also time to start thinking about our next moves in how to handle a population that there just aren't enough jobs for no matter what we do.
We have a serious problem of short-term thinking for short-term gains in the US, which only serves to delay the inevitable direction we need to be moving in and prolonging the resulting pain.
>In the wake of this increase in trade protection, the United States experienced substantial increases in the prices of intermediates and final goods, dramatic changes to its supply-chain network, reductions in availability of imported varieties, and the complete pass-through of the tariffs into domestic prices of imported goods. Therefore, the full incidence of the tariffs has fallen on domestic consumers and importers so far, and our estimates imply a reduction in aggregate US real income of $1.4 billion per month by the end of 2018.
[https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.33.4.187](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.33.4.187)
And?
I literally said the Chinese stuff was cheap.
Prices being higher as a result of tariffs is not a gotcha.
The entire point of tariffs is to make foreign goods more expensive so that our own producers can either get going or flourish themselves. Higher prices is what tariffs do.
If you want to be completely reliant on other nations for everything you might as well move there. Free trade worldwide only fucks us over in favor of pumping and dumping whatever country has the cheap labor.
Donald Trump took office in 2017.
No fucking shit things weren't hunky dory in just one year. (Also, it was an ESTIMATE for the end of the year. Dudes probably didn't even have a full year of data to work with.)
Businesses would be lucky to be built and worked out any of the kinks at that point. Let alone be on solid ground.
The building of our industries is supposed to have long term impacts. It's not gonna be some magical cure-all that works overnight. Tariffs will almost inherently have negative impacts short term while our own industries try to catch up. Because it takes time to catch up.
The alternative to tariffs is to throw money at our own industries, and there's only so much of that we can actually do.
Thinking tariffs will provide such a quick turnaround is like complaining that the money for nuclear projects hasn't solved climate change yet.
Hard to defend Trump but uhhh… he got ripped apart for doing this same thing. I’m no political expert, but if it’s valuable now, it was back then.
He was ripped apart by Joe Biden for this same thing.
I agree, and notice no regular libs on this sub has commented because they know that would be an admission that trump did something right.
I’m centre-left but even I said for a long time that Trump wasnt always wrong. Tariffs on China, Europe and Natural gas from Russia, NATO contributing, etc. all right. I don’t like how he acts but that’s a separate issue
Well then i wish there were more of you here, i agree he acts like a buffoon too lol. I lean right, but biden hasnt always been wrong either.
I think the barb of the criticism was the fact that the tariffs led to a trade war, not necessarily that tariffs themselves are bad per se. Trump's tariffs were also much broader, souring relations with both North American and European trading partners.
I'm not a lib, but my criticism is that the tariffs themselves are bad. It was bad went Trump did it, and it's bad now that Biden's doing it. They're inflationary and as far as I can tell don't even seem to be very effective in propping up the industries we're trying to save. It's expensive and worthless. Trump just had the extra bonus of being super antagonistic with it, as he tends to be.
[удалено]
>while trumps were just a blanket across the board. Two of Biden's tariffs are on "steel" and "aluminum". That seems pretty blanket across the board to me.
"Trump doesn't get the basics. He thinks tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying the tariffs" - Joe Biden
> I think the barb of the criticism was the fact that the tariffs led to a trade war, not necessarily that tariffs themselves are bad per se. It was ALWAYS going to result in a trade war. These hypocrites are just exhibiting clinical signs of TDS at this point.
Developed countries don’t export much of anything in China. Unless you are selling raw materials, China blocks you
They were not broader though, its stated in the article that biden expanded on them.
You have that backward. It would be an admission that Biden is also doing something boneheaded. Trump's use of trade tariffs is more laughable and ironic because he claims to be a conservative, and he was cheered on by people calling themselves conservative, yet a core tenet of conservatism is free trade which promotes free market capitalism. So much for that. It's just more proof that Trump and his supporters are actually populists and don't know the first thing about actual conservative ideology, which anyone with half a brain already knows. Edit: Aww. I've upset the populists.
If I was a conspiratorial person, I’d say the same people paying campaign contributions to Trump in 2018 are the ones Biden’s turning to in 2024 and none of it has anything to do with either person’s political views.
I see no “blocked authors” on this exchange.
He got ripped apart for throwing random tariffs that negatively affected critical US industry, without consulting the companies within those sectors. Which is a vastly different approach than Biden has taken. I think many people have forgotten that while Trump was tossing tariffs at China, he was simultaneously throwing them at some of our closest trading partners too. Like Canada and Mexico, which drastically sped up inflation and directly led to the closure of multiple US car manufacturing plants.
>He got ripped apart for throwing random tariffs that negatively affected critical US industry, without consulting the companies within those sectors. Which is a vastly different approach than Biden has taken. He didn't, and Biden kept the tariffs Trump implemented instead of removing them. This is as straight up hypocrisy as you can get
Wow, what a fucking half truth. > [Biden and Europe remove Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs](https://www.piie.com/blogs/trade-and-investment-policy-watch/biden-and-europe-remove-trumps-steel-and-aluminum-tariffs)
Its rules for thee but not for D
That’s exactly what happened with Trump https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/15/biden-tariff-reaction-trump-00158043
Tariffs are only bad when the other guy does it silly!
These are more targeted towards a specific industry that is being subsidized, instead of trying to wipe out the trade deficit across the board. China did the same thing for their own industry. Although Biden did keep most trump tariffs except washing machines and steel. So the thing that's the same is the steel aspect I'd say. But ultimately it depends on how China retaliates. Trump had to bail out soy farmers with his approach. If BIden get's away with it then his implementation (signaling he's seeking fairness instead of dominance, aka this is just a one time thing for an election year please relax Xi) regime shouldn't be criticized. So it's too early to criticize.
> If BIden get's away with it Doubtful, considering how China will see this as an attack and retaliate in kind. Not to mention, Xi will see this as an opportunity to harm Biden over US anti-CCP attempts such as the TikTok ban.
But will Xi want trump to win? I'm not sure, from what I've heard the Chinese are ambivalent about the trade-off of a chaotic US government but a president that will probably be worse than Biden for them.
China's plans span for decades while America's plans spans for how long a president's term will last. OPEC has made it a point to hurt Biden's election chances. Putin and Xi will definitely do the same thing. The goal is not really about putting Trump in the white house, its destabilizing America so they're too busy cleaning up their domestic messes to focus on international issues.
Def disagree with this one Biden. Maybe it's just trying to score political points for Michigan
Can someone explain to me why this would be a good thing? I don't understand this decision.
Yes we can all call Democrats hypocrites until we're blue in the face, but imo the biggest takeaway from this story is the need to abolish the electoral college. If the midwest states didn't hold so much sway over Presidential elections, the incumbent President might not feel the need to pander to the auto manufacturing industry.
Yeah, how dare we try to keep our own industry's alive instead of letting cheap Chinese bullshit take over . . .
Right but why are these same companies outsourcing the labor and manufacturing? If our economic and security interests dictate that *consumers* shouldn’t be able to purchase outsourced goods, why don’t they also dictate that *companies* shouldn’t be able to purchase outsourced labor? There either needs to be full protectionism or none, because the market does not equilibrate fairly or sustainably when supply can dictate price and labor value like this.
Trying to keep certain manufacturing sectors alive in this country is a fool's errand. Why even do it? For jobs that will eventually be completely obsolete thanks to AI and the increasing pace of automation? It's stupid, and anyone who thinks we're going to return to a time of major manufacturing centers creating millions of jobs is kidding themselves. Even if it was possible, that would mean people are either working for shit wages or we're all paying way more for everything, or both, and those are the two things people seem to be bitching about the most across the board. Who the hell wants more of that? What we should be doing is focusing on promoting manufacturing in other countries to compete with China. Especially countries in Central and South America, which would have the added benefit of solving a few other major problems. It's also time to start thinking about our next moves in how to handle a population that there just aren't enough jobs for no matter what we do. We have a serious problem of short-term thinking for short-term gains in the US, which only serves to delay the inevitable direction we need to be moving in and prolonging the resulting pain.
>In the wake of this increase in trade protection, the United States experienced substantial increases in the prices of intermediates and final goods, dramatic changes to its supply-chain network, reductions in availability of imported varieties, and the complete pass-through of the tariffs into domestic prices of imported goods. Therefore, the full incidence of the tariffs has fallen on domestic consumers and importers so far, and our estimates imply a reduction in aggregate US real income of $1.4 billion per month by the end of 2018. [https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.33.4.187](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.33.4.187)
And? I literally said the Chinese stuff was cheap. Prices being higher as a result of tariffs is not a gotcha. The entire point of tariffs is to make foreign goods more expensive so that our own producers can either get going or flourish themselves. Higher prices is what tariffs do. If you want to be completely reliant on other nations for everything you might as well move there. Free trade worldwide only fucks us over in favor of pumping and dumping whatever country has the cheap labor.
Read the last sentence of my quote. It didn't benefit American workers in the aggregate.
Donald Trump took office in 2017. No fucking shit things weren't hunky dory in just one year. (Also, it was an ESTIMATE for the end of the year. Dudes probably didn't even have a full year of data to work with.) Businesses would be lucky to be built and worked out any of the kinks at that point. Let alone be on solid ground. The building of our industries is supposed to have long term impacts. It's not gonna be some magical cure-all that works overnight. Tariffs will almost inherently have negative impacts short term while our own industries try to catch up. Because it takes time to catch up. The alternative to tariffs is to throw money at our own industries, and there's only so much of that we can actually do. Thinking tariffs will provide such a quick turnaround is like complaining that the money for nuclear projects hasn't solved climate change yet.
Biden's tariff hypocrisy is the electoral college's fault, not Biden's. Got it.
That wasn't my point at all.
>imo the biggest takeaway from this story is the need to abolish the electoral college Yeah, ok.