- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
Among the reciprocal tariff levels Trump announced:
China: 34%
European Union: 20%
South Korea: 25%
India: 26%
Vietnam: 46%
Taiwan: 32%
Japan: 24%
Thailand: 36%
Switzerland: 31%
Indonesia: 32%
Malaysia: 24%
Cambodia: 49%
United Kingdom: 10%
Rest of the world: 10%
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Please bring sweeping back. Sweeping is cleanly and good.
In case anyones looking at this and asking question like “Why has Cambodia been dunked with 49% when they’re clearly not a competitor to the US” or “Why is Trump claiming that the European Union has a 40% tariff on the US when the actual mean tariff on US goods into the EU is less than 5%”, here’s your answer to how these figures have been calculated.
- Take the US trade deficit with a given country (eg. China is $292bn)
- Take the total good imported by US (for China that’s $439bn)
- Divide the first figure by the second! Why? Who knows! It’s a number! Less talk more first grade arithmetic (if you’re still following that gives us 67%)
- That gives us a random number which we’ll pretend is that country’s tariff of US goods even though it’s completely unrelated in every way. We’ll divide it by two to get the new tariff rate for imports from that country. Why? Honestly if you’re still expecting there to be an answer to that question I’m wondering if you’ve been following. (that gives us 34%, well actually it gives us 33.5% but I’m not sure the Trump administration understands the idea of fractions so we’ll just round it up from there)
The “reason” behind this is that Trump seems to think trade deficits are really bad, which is bad news for the US because it’s had a trade deficit for the last 50 years. We’ll ignore the fact that based on GDP it’s been the wealthiest country in the world for that time though.
Anyway, just to give everyone an idea of how completely, utterly unrelated to anything meaningful that figure is, let’s take Cambodia. The country is very poor compared to the US so can’t afford to buy anything that the US manufacters (Cambodians aren’t driving round in Teslas or IMessaging each other). Some US companies use it for clothing manufacture because labour is cheap in Cambodia (see the previous bit about Cambodia being much poorer than the US). This means that Cambodia imports close to nothing from the US compared to what it exports, giving it a close to 100% trade deficit, so we wind up with a 49% tariff on Cambodia.
I genuinely don’t understand the mindset that looks at the US’s explotation of cheap labour in Cambodia and interprets the US as the victim in that relationship, but hey-ho maybe I’m just not biggly-smart enough to understand the 4d chess moves at play here. . .
Reference (because unfortunately none of what I said was made up and that geniunely is the calculation): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/trumps-idiotic-and-flawed-tariff-calculations-stun-economists
Edit: After making fun of Trump for not understanding the enconomy, I went and conflated per capita GDP with GDP. Doh! Now corrected.
Conveniently left Russia out. I wonder why.
Russia and North Korea.
It’s official. We are the baddies now.
They are rest of the World. How dissrespectfull.
Ironically crashing the economy is one of the best things you can do to slow down climate change
isn’t this just going to fuck up the US economy rather than meaningfully affect any other country? you don’t fucking produce anything worth a shit anymore.
Trump has no idea how the economy works, his wealth is propped up by Russian oligarchs laundering money through his assets.
This move is almost certainly being directed to him through foreign agents the traitor has as advisors (though they consider themselves handlers) on behalf of Putin and other regimes hostile to the US who back door’d their way into the situation through his greed and lack of morality.
Also intentionally crashing the economy to hurt political enemies and cause civil unrest (mass government firings = lots of educated qualified people out of work, also drives down wages of other educated qualified people). Techo-fascist corporate cities and Gilead don’t need a Dow Jones index.
The overabundance doesn’t just vanish. When the poor have less, the wealthy have more. There may be more homeless people fighting over food but the billionaires will be able to get a fleet of yachts.
This is really not true. The wealthy aren’t playing 4D chess with the economy, they are just as short-sighted behind closed doors. The Great Depression fucked a lot of wealthy people up and turned the entire nation against them. It can happen again.
Edit - and for the record, the abundance does vanish in a depression scenario. Factories shut down, productivity collapses. The world will literally extract, refine, process, and build less of everything. You can’t build a fleet of yachts without a functioning economy.
The Great Depression fucked a lot of wealthy people up and turned the entire nation against them. It can happen again.
One might argue it already is happening. Right now. In real time.
Be safe.
Just like how a rising tide raises all boats, a sinking ship takes everyone down with it. The billionaires think being on the life rafts will make them more wealthy compared to those that are sinking.
It will have an effect on other countries, but fuck up the US economy the worst. Other countries have the benefit of having 190+ other countries to do trade with. Over the next few years, they will increasingly go for alternatives to whatever they’ve previously traded with the US. Thanks to the stable genius, the US will permanently be left poorer, while other countries will soon have economic growth again.
He is gambling on the fact that Us economy can hold off longer than other countries and they’ll cave
It’s like two people holding their breath bad for both but neither wants to lose
Cave about what though?
Tariffs. Donald wants other countries to have less tariffs on American products
Those numbers on his poster are made up and don’t reflect actual tariffs that exist and can be cut.
Yep, they just took the trade deficit to each country and turned it into a tariff 😆
Most of the kit that is made in US uses parts distributed by other countries… So even domestic sales of US created products are likely to be impacted. Gotta give it to Krasnov, he’s doing a bloody good job at the task he’s been set.
Could you imagine if Biden declared what essentially amounts to a 10% sales tax?
Oh no. We produce stuff. The best weapons for killing people are made here.
Boycott the USA. Do not consume American products. Do not travel to the US. Cancel your subscriptions, find alternatives or pirate their software and media. Make Americans tourists feel unwelcome.
I’m an American, and I endorse this message.
Same. Got chickens, veg seeds, and I’m about to buy a bow for hunting my own meat. Fuck the US, time to crack out that survivalism I’ve been practicing.
But like, could I come visit if I need to seek asylum? That would be different than tourism, right? I’m not really happy or comfortable with the situation here, nor have my efforts been able to change other people’s views (e.g. make them think about consequences).
Ok to be fair… You may come as long as you’re a queer / trans baddie or if your name is Luigi, or take the “death to America” pledge. 😌
I’ll take that pledge without even visiting your country! Then again when I do!
Seriously though, this regime is terrible and some of us are protesting every opportunity we can get. I’ll be the first to admit America has deeply rooted problems but some of us are trying to fix it and would like to not be treated like shit for the actions of the magats
Admitting your country has problems is “woke”, though. /s
Deal. I stopped pledging “allegiance to the flag” over a decade ago when I realized this wasn’t a nation with “liberty and justice for all”. I’ll also bring some trans baddie friends with me.
Why would I say that? The country is already dead.
“Death to America” is no longer a call to action; now it’s just remarking on current events.
Immigrants are welcome, tourists as well.
Bless up Lemming, I’ll hit you up if things become desperate.
Make America go away!
I’m doing my part! More to strengthen the EU, than to weaken the US, but: Cancelled all US tech subscriptions (not a small deal as a software dev). Cloud services all moved to Scaleway in France, AI migrated to Mistral, mail to Tuta, maps to Mapy.cz and more…
I get where you’re coming from, but the whole tourist thing . . . remember half of us fucking despise Trump and his merry band of fascist fuckwits.
Not sure about that part.
Did you happen to notice the one country not on the list?
Here I’ll give you a hint it’s name starts with an “R” and is run by a man who’s name starts with a “P” and is currently at war with a country that starts with a “U”…
Me, checking what the damage is: oh good, my European defence stocks went up 2 to 4 percent today while the American stocks are tanking, happy days!
Me, after thinking on it a bit longer: oh God, my European defence stocks went up while the world economy is taking a hit, better get ready for whatever’s coming
I don’t have a ton of “the court is wrong” opinions, but Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution flatly gives Congress the responsibility of regulating trade and imposing tariffs. The President just doesn’t (shouldn’t) have the authority to change rates. The executive needs to execute the will of the Legislative branch.
Pls 100% world wide tax.
I like to go straight to the “Find Out” phase.
👀
(Remember, when the great depression happens, its our duty to eliminate nazis)
Thanks for typing out the percentages, so far I’ve only seen emotional news reports about it without any detailed info.
Are these tariffs on ALL goods from a certain country? Eg, does 34% on China mean 34% on ALL Chinese goods or just certain ones like cars?
Well, one of two things will happen now.
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The US economy will recede by roughly 30% over the coming years (classified by economists as “catastrophic collapse”)
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It will turn out that trade was “fake and gay” all along and autarky is the way to go, despite centuries of historic lessons to the contrary.
Take your pick.
It’s all goods from those countries.
30% seems pretty generous. Nevermind the complete collapse of trade and alliances we built over the past century, won’t countries stop using the us dollar as the backing reserve? Which will likely set america on an even further downward trend, especially since the dollar isn’t on the gold standard anymore?
won’t countries stop using the us dollar as the backing reserve
Yeah. Putin’s gonna be so pleased.
I hope Euro takes over
BRICS will take over, which will benefit Russia and China. Putin is getting his money’s worth out of pimping Trump.
american juche now!
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Been browsing the conservative subreddit this morning just to see what they all are thinking. There is a surprising number of “This is a terrible idea” comments but its also funny seeing a whole bunch of republicans who now suddenly like higher taxes, inflation and stock crashes.
