Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "Trump’s tariffs are bad news for everyone" video.

  1. All this comment shows is that you haven't been paying attention enough. That's means reading around the issue and analysing evidence. And you know what, it wouldn't be a bad thing if he was. Is both as Chartered Accountant and an Economist, and has been in the real world running his own business. Moreover, he's an expert on taxation. And has never gone bankrupt either. And he's not algorithmically driven. He's what you might actually need in the US - a expert.
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  2. You're not taking into account the problem of tarrifs being an imprecise tool. Firstly, 60% tarrifs on China, will not hurt them, because they will just cut prices and increase exports elsewhere, whilst issuing retaliatory tarrifs against the US. And that will undercut US export prices elsewhere in the World. Secondly, global supply chains are heterogeneous - people buy components from where it's cheapest everywhere, and then manufacture finished products, and export those. These may be multipart components, and how is anyone going to tell how much of a component is Chinese? So, global supply chains are directly and indirectly dependent on Chinese manufacturing, from beginning to end. Direct imports from China thst are 100% Chinese are easy to identify, but those that aren't are not. And a blanket 10% tarrifs for non-Chinese imports will not escape retaliation either, hurting US exports. for anyone country not to retaliate would be political suicide for their governments. So there will be a backlash which will cost US exporters dear. Thirdly, by causing inflation, the cost of substituting those goods that are tarriffed will hurt US consumers who don't even buy Chinese goods, as the cost of their borrowing will increase alongside their spending because the Fed will impose blunt force trauma by hiking interest rates. That's a doom loop in the making. If tarrifs are used selectively, US manufacturers may still offshore to anywhere but China. The US cannot compete on Labour costs, and tarrifs will create greater cost differentials, forcing more offshoring. Nobody negotiates with a gun to their head. Tarrifs create Trade Wars and black markets. This isn't the 19th century when the US was a developing economy. It's the 21st century, and the US is a developed economy. And Tarrifs right now, are going to hurt the US more than it's going to heal it. It's an expensive face saving exercise.
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  3. I disagree. China will be looking for customers if they lose US ones. They will reduce prices to get them. The real issue is whether the value of Sterling will hold up relative to USD, whose value will be inflated, as US inflation goes up, and the Fed starts hiking interest rates to fight it. And that's not a problem for the UK alone. That's a problem for everyone else rather than the Americans, as international trade is mostly conducted in USD. There's already liquidity and collateral problems in the global financial markets, because demand for USD always out strips supply. That will cause problems everywhere.
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