
The Largest US Trading Partners All Put Higher Tariffs on the US Than Vice Versa - Four_Star
http://thesoundingline.com/nearly-all-the-uss-largest-trading-partners-impose-higher-tariffs-on-us-goods-than-vice-versa/
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Nokinside
This is overly simplistic.

You should look at the trade from in value added basis and how the trade
benefits different couturiers differently.

Take for example US vs China. US products exported to China have value added
close to 80-90%. Chinese products exported to US have value added around 40%.
If Chinese import stuff, join them together into a thing that has export value
$100, only $40% of the value stays in China. When the US does the same $80-$90
of the value stays in the US.

Trade agreements are negotiated over long time to be beneficial for everyone
involved and nobody can claim that US is easy negotiation partner that has
been taken an advantage. US allows higher taxation from other countries in
exchange of some other things (lobbied by the the financial sector inside the
US).

In general the whole "imports bad, exports good" outdated folk mercantilism is
just silly. It's unfortunate that the political discussion anywhere can't
raise above that.

~~~
bkor
It's also telling that the chart shows tariffs in %, not in absolute numbers.
From what I saw in other articles it mostly balances out. This aside from the
bit which you mentioned that it's a bit more detailed than import/export.

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cletus
Ok, so this is complicated. Tariffs are only part of the story.

First I agree that some countries will protect industries they consider to be
of national interest or are just politically important, like the Canadian
dairy industry. I actually think this is OK.

Second I think it is true that there is some hypocrisy here on both sides.
It's fair to say US trading partners impose tariffs on US goods and ask why
the US shouldn't do the same.

But the US doesn't play fair here either. Take wheat. Or agricultural products
in general. In the US (and the EU) these are massively subsidized.

If you're talking about tariffs, you should also include subsidies.

But it gets worse: as an example the the US has historically blocked
Australian agricultural products (including wheat) on quarantine grounds.
While protecting local ecosystems is valid (eg Australia has, I believe, the
only disease-free farmed salmon in the world) it's also used as a barrier to
trade. It's clear the US here has historically used quarantine as an excuse to
protect US farmers (ironically when Australian farmers aren't subsidized and
US farmers are).

Fun fact: this little trade spat led to a deal in ~2006 that resulted in the
Australian-only E3 US work visa.

The problem here is we have a complete buffoon in the White House who is the
poster-child for anti-intellectualism. So, why put tariffs on Chinese tech
goods? Those are primarily just assembled in China these days. China imports
most of the parts from Korea, Japan and other places.

It's also clear that China plays favourites with local tech companies. It's a
fair question to ask why the US should open up to Chinese tech companies when
China won't reciprocate?

~~~
Retric
Buying subsidized products from another country means you benefit from the
subsidy. Having native producers to cover basic food needs via plants is
reasonable, but importing subsidized beef is a net economic benefit.

~~~
cletus
So here's the problem: doing so can decimate a local industry, which is fine
until the subsidies stop or, now having eliminated the competition, the
exporters jack up the price or otherwise hold the importer hostage in some
way.

Australian dairy exporters have been suffering from this because a traditional
export market (SE Asia) has been flooded with cheap (subsidized) dairy
products from the EU (particularly Italy IIRC). This typically gets labelled
"dumping".

Now market forces (and since subsidies are in play it's not really market
forces) will otherwise kill the local industry. When those producers are gone
and a change of government ends the dumping those producers don't magically
reappear. It takes time.

This sort of thing is why so often self-sufficiency and key industries are
touted as being in the national interest.

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DenisM
Tariffs are backdoor wealth redistributon in some sense. Hear me out.

US export industries are more high tech with higher wages, imports are
comparatively low tech. When US imposes tariffs it creates low-tech jobs in
the US. When the trade partners impose tariffs they destroy high tech jobs in
the US.

The net result is high tech jobs lost, low tech jobs gained. Overall economic
efficiency goes down due to loss of high tech jobs and benefits of
specialization.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> When US imposes tariffs it creates low-tech jobs in the US.

I can kind of follow your argument. I can see how it might be true for, say,
the recent US steel tariffs (although I don't know enough to say that steel
production is 'low tech' these days).

But, in general, doesn't your argument depend upon which mix of goods the US
includes in the tariff?

I mean, I wouldn't call car engines, cell phones, memory chips, television
sets, game consoles, etc 'low tech' but the US imports a good deal of them.

I also wonder how countries like Germany and Japan manage the blend of
tariffs. They certainly produce a lot of high tech goods.

~~~
jethro_tell
>I wouldn't call car engines, cell phones, memory chips, television sets, game
consoles, etc 'low tech' but the US imports a good deal of them.

Making them is pretty low tech, there's a team of people that design machines,
robots, and human processes to manufacture the parts. That would be high tech
but it's not that many jobs, and many of those jobs were already here. Then,
there's a few people to get the stuff the robots can't do, and a couple guys
to grease the robots, and a couple guys to maintain the conveyors and such.
None of those are really high tech jobs. The senior machinery tech and the
senior robotics guy and a sysadmin may be 'high tech' but most of the work,
even working with the robots, is swaping parts, lubing and calibrating. And
that, while it pays more than the floor workers, is still far below what we
would think of as a high tech salary.

------
resters
For the benefit of HN readers, no serious economist supports tariffs in any
form. Tariffs appeal to the naive idea that trade imbalances between two
nations are a bad thing. They simply are not a bad thing.

But due to the political history of tariffs it becomes possible for
politicians to claim (falsely) that tariffs will benefit the economy, when in
fact they are (at best) a handout to specific industries.

What really boggles my mind about the groundswell of support for tariffs is
that much of it is coming from people who would traditionally have frowned
upon receiving welfare. Yet they are happy to receive it when it's called
tariffs and also happy to receive bailout money when their industry is harmed
by the tariffs.

Put another way, tariffs are simply a way of introducing the government into
economic transactions. If a foreign government foolishly decides to tax its
citizens via a tariff on US goods, this harms the foreign citizens. When the
US then plays tit-for-tat and adds its own tariff, this punishes American
consumers in an attempt to harm foreign exporters.

But I repeat, no serious economist (someone who studies the economy
scientifically) supports tariffs. They are a political phenomenon and the
rhetoric used to support them has no basis in reality. There have been
countless blog posts and articles from economists since the president began
talking about tariffs that have pointed out the many ways in which the
president confuses the meaning of some of the big numbers he presents as
justification, etc.

The understanding that tariffs are foolish is a universal among economists and
is not remotely a partisan issue.

It's one thing to want to grant welfare to a specific industry for some
political reason, but completely another to introduce a distorting factor like
a tariff.

I have a trade deficit with my grocer, for example. Why? Because I chose to
exchange money for groceries. How is this bad? The same applies to nations.

~~~
commandlinefan
> traditionally have frowned upon receiving welfare

You weaken your (otherwise solid) argument when you do that. Tariffs and
welfare are two different things, and you know that, and everybody reading
this knows that, but you try to sneak in a conflation anyway. They're both
bad, but they're bad for different reasons: accepting that taxation is a
necessary evil (I'm not sure I do, but set that aside), welfare involves
paying out of tax revenues into individuals pockets. Tariffs are exactly the
opposite - tariffs involve increasing tax revenue by collecting taxes on
imports, and then using that tax revenue for whatever you use all the other
tax revenue for. Trying to imply that they're the same just looks like you're
trying to score cheap points with people who have poor critical thinking
skills.

~~~
EvilEndures
> They're both bad, but they're bad for different reasons: accepting that
> taxation is a necessary evil (I'm not sure I do, but set that aside),
> welfare involves paying out of tax revenues into individuals pockets.
> Tariffs are exactly the opposite - tariffs involve increasing tax revenue by
> collecting taxes on imports, and then using that tax revenue for whatever
> you use all the other tax revenue for.

If Mr. Widget isn't competitive at $100 vs. imports sold at $90, and you add a
tariff of $10 so its "competitive", suddenly Mr. Widget's sales will increase.
The other country, knowing their widgets aren't competitive (except $$ wise)
then tariffs something like solar panels to protect a nascent solar panels
industry.

Tariffs are a form of welfare for domestic corporations. Creating a new Mr.
Widget on the assumption that tariffs will remain the same is an expensive
gamble you take only if you are sure your widgets are better than Mr. Widget's
widgets.

Subsidized loans (i.e. "The Bank of Boeing") are another example of welfare
for domestic corporations.

~~~
commandlinefan
Well, you can argue (as you seem to be, although I'm not entirely convinced)
that tariffs and welfare lead to the same result, but to imply that opposing
welfare means you must also oppose tariffs is a non-sequitur.

------
coliveira
The US is not a serious country. During decades they spent millions trying to
convince smaller countries to open up their economies, because this was
supposedly good. Now that they're starting to slip back in the competition
against other countries (particularly China), they do a sudden 180 degree
change and introduce tariffs. Only the uninformed can take this seriously.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The USA is a democracy, and therefore can have a president like Obama
sometimes or one like Trump sometimes. Even then, the USA is hardly
homogenous, many people in the country take many sides of different positions.

I suppose many other countries are like that as well. Fickle because you
know...people.

------
dang
> I don't know if you're being intellectually dishonest on purpose

That crosses into personal attack. Please edit such bits out of your comments
here, and follow the rest of the guidelines as well:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Edit: We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17718957](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17718957)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
simonsarris
Edited

~~~
dang
Appreciated!

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megaman22
No shit. Protectionism is only bad when we do it, for some reason.

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CompelTechnic
The headline's use of the word "put" has an oddly vague interpretation.

The first time I read the headline, I imagined "put" was in the past tense,
which implied the recent past, i.e. the last 6 months, due to the recent
political action. Which would give the impression that Trump was foolish and
got backlash worse than the benefit he gained.

Then I read the article and i realized "put" is in the present tense, which
implies this is the way it has been for the long time, which gives the
impression that Trump is smart for just trying to catch up and make things
fair.

~~~
tehlike
A better one would be "the largest ys trading partners all had higher tariffs
on the US goods than vice versa"

~~~
itsmenotyou
also ambiguous as had in this case suggests that might no longer be the case

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brookhaven_dude
It's their loss and US consumers' gain. Why is everyone so quick to assume
that anything that benefits exporters is the what we must pursue?

~~~
aceon48
Thats your theory at least. At some point, you don't need any more cheap shit
from Amazon, but you need a decent job. As a top 5%er or whatever, surely
cheaper is better for you... But prob not your lower middle class neighbor who
has to compete more globally in the low skill labor market, where other
countries are protecting their people in that regard

~~~
wpietri
In which case, I'd much rather we increased taxes on income and/or wealth to
a) help workers move up the value chain, and b) provide a safety net for
people who lose out on trade.

A tariff on "cheap shit from Amazon" is a heavily regressive tax, and acts to
reduce total delivered value. Whereas taxing the well-off to pay for education
and encourage investment increases total delivered value.

~~~
zip1234
How does taxing the well-off to pay for education encourage investment?

~~~
gremlinsinc
More education = higher jobs for more people = more people have money = more
people spend money at walmart/amazon/malls/movies/local restaurants/etc...
Some of these people will use their money to start businesses.

Some of these people may have ended up in a poverty trap all their lives, and
never contributed. One may even go on to end cancer, or do something amazing
with the extra opportunity they now have.

Education ALWAYS contributes to society as a whole, not just that individual.
America needs to start valuing education more, I see dumbasses on social media
and elsewhere who don't fact check anything, believe everything they're told
and can't even tell which side of the civil war Lincoln was fighting on.

They are the same people Jay Leno used to make fun of by asking simple
questions on his Jay Walking bit.

