Trump Tariff Watch

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

Looks like that’s versus the Trump 1.0 tax cuts expiring, and without regard to the drag from tariffs, I think?

[The_Polymath]

Yes. And tariffs will in fact make things worse by pushing up inflation for the bottom half of the income distribution.

[tommie.frazier]

i will be voting against my interests from the top quintile #humblebrag

[NormalDan]

[The_Polymath]

Fed projections for GDP and inflation due to tariffs using rate decisions as a timeline.

And as I predicted this is the latest Trump rant:

In a post on his Truth Social platform late on Wednesday, Trump renewed his pressure on the central bank, calling for the Fed to reduce borrowing costs to offset new tariffs he plans to unveil next month. “The Fed would be MUCH better off CUTTING RATES as US Tariffs start to transition (ease!) their way into the economy,” the president wrote. “Do the right thing.”

[The_Polymath]

So we now have our first set of April tariffs.

25% on all auto imports. From FT:

The US will impose tariffs of 25 per cent on foreign-made auto imports, Donald Trump said on Wednesday, as the president announced a significant escalation in his trade war with America’s allies. “This is the beginning of Liberation Day in America,” said Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday. “If you build your car in the United States there will be no tariff,” he added. Trump said the new tariff would lead to “tremendous growth” in the US car industry.

[dr_t_non-fan]

Who is being “liberated” in this scenario?

[Triweasel]

Car-buyers’ dollars?

[Mathman]

Stealing this from Reddit:

We need to put auto factories on the border so we can run the assembly lines in either direction, depending on how tariffs look this week.

[Cooke]

I have re-read Trump’s comments and it is still not clear to me how the automobile tariffs will work on parts sourced within the CUSMA countries. Car parts move back and forth across these borders several times before the vehicle is finished. There seems to be some relief as a result but Trump was unclear.

Regardless of the details it is bad news for car manufacturers and customers in the three countries.

[The_Polymath]

They are apparently only targeting the foreign parts.

Cars that were compliant with the trade terms of the USMCA and enter the US would only face a tariff on their foreign parts, a US official said.

And the crazy just keeps on trucking.

The revenues we’re going to use to give the largest tax cut in American history,” a US official said. “Tariffs equal tax cuts.”

The White House invoked a 1962 national security law to apply the tariffs, arguing that the country’s auto industry was “vital” for national security and “has been undermined by excessive imports threatening America’s domestic industrial base and supply chains”

And this sort of comment is precisely what makes investors run for the hills.

Basically, I view it as reducing taxes and also reducing debt,” Trump said, of his tariffs. “And within a fairly short period of time, I think we’re going to have a balance sheet that’s going to be outstanding.”

[ArthurItas]

This admin has always been all about the biggest spending and biggest tax cuts in history, dressed up as fake savings because we cut off aid to Africa.

The eliminations of IRS employees alone are causing a bigger revenue shortfall than all the savings Elon made up.

[Cooke]

US exports more cars to Canada than vice-versa. Accordingly, I see one of two possible outcomes.

(1) The current integrated CUSMA car industry will morph into national car industries in each country. That is, each country’s manufacturers will sell only to the local market, or

(2) Canada will abandon car manufacturing and remove their tariffs with China. Canada will import their cars from China and countries other than the US.

Under both scenarios, US car manufacturing decreases.

[Maphistos_Sidekick]

@Cooke

Under both scenarios, US car manufacturing decreases.

Google tells me:

• One source says that 6.8-8m motor vehicles were imported into the US annually from 2017-2020. I’m not quickly finding more recent unit counts.
• Another source says that 15.9m new cars and light trucks were sold in the US in 2024.
• A third source says that among new car sales in the US, the domestic/foreign ratio was 2.6:1 for 2023.
• A fourth source says that 1.65m new cars/light trucks were exported from the US in 2023.

While I agree that when you focus on just US-Canada trade, car tariffs are a net negative to American car manufacturers, I’m not certain that holds when you look at the American car market as a whole.

Without a tariff, there was a decent chance that I was going to buy another Subaru Forester next year. Now…

[Cooke]

@Maphistos_Sidekick

While I agree that when you focus on just US-Canada trade, car tariffs are a net negative to American car manufacturers, I’m not certain that holds when you look at the American car market as a whole.

I was just focusing on US-Canada trade as Trump keeps saying the Canadian manufacturing jobs will just move to the US. That won’t happen.

[SpaceLobster]

I was just looking at those chinese electro cars last night. Veeery interesting and the price, wow.

[NormalDan]

You’re gonna make me jealous. I want my 10k commuter EV

[The_President]

We need a 40mph class of urban vehicles. We have golf carts for side streets that have near 0 safety features and cars for everything else that require full crash testing and safety standards. I assume the electro cars from China don’t meet a lot of those standards.

[Rastiln]

I read online that it’s totally legal to purchase cars in Canada and bring them into the US to own and drive, you just have to pay a fee of something like 2% of the car and register in in your state. Then it’s just a US-owned car registered in the US.

So wouldn’t it be advantageous for a lot of people to just fly to Canada, buy a car, and drive it back?

[SpaceLobster]

I don’t know why they wouldn’t. They don’t have any emissions problems which seems like the real problem.
But I dont actually know.