How Will We Know If The Trump Tariffs Were A Good Idea?

Submitted ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨yarr@feddit.nl⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

I’ve been reading up on the tariffs that were imposed during the Trump administration and I keep seeing mixed reviews about their effectiveness. On one hand, they seemed to protect certain domestic industries by making imported goods more expensive; on the other hand, there’s a lot of talk about higher prices for consumers and retaliatory measures from trading partners.

The thing is, these tariffs aren’t exactly popular among everyone. If we were to look back 1 year out, 2 years out, and even a few more years down the line, how will we actually know if this was a good move?

Surely there are some metrics or outcomes that can help us evaluate their success or failure. I guess it’s not as simple as checking stock market performance alone, although that’s probably part of it, right?

Is it primarily about looking at changes in trade balances with countries like China, or do we need to consider the broader economic impacts, such as job growth within certain industries? And how much weight should be given to the political ramifications, like strengthened relationships (or tensions) with trading partners?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what metrics or indicators would help determine whether these tariffs were indeed a beneficial strategy. Thanks in advance for any insights!

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db2@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They’re not. If you think they are you’re a moron. There’s no gentle way to put it.

It’s a grift. They already did it once this month, it’s called insider trading.

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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I don’t think it’s a good idea. I just want to know if the badness of the idea can be quantified. Otherwise there’s the chance that in the future, someone decides to do it again.
  
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  - Ziggurat@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Objectively What’s the stated goal (A classic example being green policies which are bad for the economy but good for society) and then compare the results in let’s say one year.
    
    That said, economic have plenty of model whose accuracy go from not worse than rolling a dice to good enough to predict the consequences of policies before implementing them so they can do better
    
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  - db2@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It had been done before, the result was known. Many people spoke up. It made no difference because his goal is to harm others and enrich himself.
    
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Nikls94@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
A lot more people will be unable to acquire a lot of things. There will be a lot more crime.

The higher tariffs are paid by the importers, who make the customer pay for that. And considering that the minimum wage is now below the poverty line, a lot of electronics, even necessities like washing machines and fridges, will be unaffordable by some people.

And what is the result when a lot of people can’t afford basic necessities? Crime.

Give it a year.

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EvilBit@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Any economist or data scientist should be able to pretty easily compare the economic course to a forecast of what would have happened with minimal interference.

Will we listen? No, because experts don’t count for shit in the US anymore.

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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  Will we listen? No, because experts don’t count for shit in the US anymore.
  
  You know, in a world where most people don’t listen to experts and follow data, there’s a lot of money to be made in just doing your research. It seems like over time the people and places that learn to use data to guide their hand will outperform the ones of those that do not.
  
  I guess we will see which one is a winning strategy.
  
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  - EvilBit@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    The problem is that the winners don’t share. They exploit the others. That’s exactly what got us here in the first place.
    
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thermal_shock@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Everything the rapist trump does is to help himself. He does nothing for the food of the people. That’s one major way you know he’s fucked us.

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yesman@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The only person who has any excuse of thinking Tariffs are a good idea is Ferris Bueller because he missed the lecture.

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- dhork@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Bueller?
  
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Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
We already know. We already know they’re bad.

We know because the negative effects are already happening, and literally every expert on the matter has said they are fucking stupid.

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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  We already know. We already know they’re bad.
  
  I don’t find that a convincing argument. If this is such an economy ending thing, certainly you could say “Well, just look at X!” and it would be really bad. There should be some chart showing good before and bad after. Where’s that chart?
  
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  - joelectron@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    History can teach us a lot.
    
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DoubleDongle@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There are ways that tariffs can be used to protect domestic industries. But when they’re done that way, it’s normally specific products, implemented carefully and with some warning. I’m pretty sure there are some tariffs to protect American automakers, off the top of my head.

What the president did is just economic suicide. Sudden, huge, fairly indiscriminate, and fluctuating. I think his goal, in his mind, may have been to replace the income tax, but he really fumbled. And that’s a bad idea anyway, because tariffs and sales taxes hit the middle class hardest, which slows down the economy.

There may also be an explanation that he really doesn’t understand cooperation and believes every deal has a winner and a loser. And then very mistakenly concluded that we were the losers in international trade because of our trade deficit. That’s incorrect. We get large amounts of goods and resources for small amounts of fiat currency, which we always seem to have more of. Our trade deficit considerably improves our quality of life in ways that cannot be replicated by an insular economy.

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- VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  There isn’t even a federal sales tax to replace, just state sales taxes.
  
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SolidShake@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Short answer. They’re not.

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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Well, this is what I want to know. If someone wanted to open the door in the winter, I could take the temperature and say “It was 20F in our house last night. That wasn’t a good idea.” What do you measure here? What’s the long answer?
  
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jeffw@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’ll take a stab at a “serious” answer, although be cautioned that this thinking is irrational.

If they worked, we would see manufacturers almost instantly beginning construction on US factories, opening new ones and reopening shuttered plants. We would see trade “balance” in terms of imports and exports with every trading partner we have.

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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  If they worked, we would see manufacturers almost instantly beginning construction on US factories, opening new ones and reopening shuttered plants.
  
  I think the almost instantly is the problem there for me. If I was someone that could afford to build a factory, I know that it would take a couple of years to come up to speed. I also know that if the tariffs disappear, that my money is gone. It won’t work under “normal” conditions. So, I’ll want some assurance these will be in place for a while. Since no one will make that assurance, or at least someone who would would be lying, I wouldn’t feel confident enough to build anything.
  
  I assume anyone with enough money to build a factory would think about some variation of that above. I think for that reason, no serious numbers of factories will get built. And, if none get built… what are we doing?
  
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  - bradorsomething@ttrpg.network ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I have two smaller businesses, and I’ve both laid off due to expected decrease in business and bought supplies ahead due to expected shortages.
    
    You’re good putting together that you wouldn’t build a factory right now because uncertainty doesn’t let you predict returns. Not only can you not predict the next president and their tariff policy, I wouldn’t say you can predict trump’s actions tomorrow. I heard an interview John Bolton did today, and he said something along the lines that “trump doesn’t think, he reacts.” Tariffs could be zero or 500% next month or next year or tomorrow. The safe move is to wait and see - and while everyone waits and sees, only small-scale production will start, definitely not enough to sustain demand.
    
    Honestly, if I had the money to build a factory right now, I’d park it and wait to buy one from a company that fails in all this. It would save so much money.
    
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- FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  why? it costs millions of dollars to construct new factories. Maybe billions, depending on the industry. It takes 7+ years to bring a new factory online. more to get all the kinks worked out and at full production.
  
  Trump is supposed to be in office for only 4 years, at best, after which his tariffs will go away. it would be easier to simply just not ship to the US. which is how trade partners responded to the Hawley-Smoot Act in 1930, and which made the Great Depression that much harder to get out of.
  
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  - xavier666@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    
    It takes 7+ years to bring a new factory online. more to get all the kinks worked out and at full production
    
    Not to take away from your point but they also have to
    
    product is at par with the previous alternative in terms of quality
    
    your supply chain is willing to shift to your new product
    
    healthy supply of workers OR
    
    good automation in your production line (automation supply should also be sourced from within the country)
    
    Once you have created this factory (which needs to be subsidized by the government in order to compete with the foreign product), we then apply targeted tarrifs so that people can slowly shift to the homegrown product. Doing all this can takes decades of careful planning.
    
    Tarrif is not an ON/OFF switch which Trump thinks
    
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  - nous@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    Trump is supposed to be in office for only 4 years, at best,
    
    That assumes America is still a democracy in 4 years. We are only a few months in and it is already not looking great.
    
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  - yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    Trump is supposed to be in office for only 4 years, at best, after which his tariffs will go away. it would be easier to simply just not ship to the US. which is how trade partners responded to the Hawley-Smoot Act in 1930, and which made the Great Depression that much harder to get out of.
    
    Yes, I think this is very wise. So, unless we are just saying “well, I guess this 3.7 years is a loss now…” that’s the end.
    
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LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If you like paying more for stuff, then yes, it’s a win 🥇

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nous@programming.dev ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
They were a beneficial strategy. They made Trump and his buddies massive amounts of money from manipulating the stock market. They were even bragging about it after the fact.

Oh, you meant for the country and its people… Nah, that was never the point. If they were thought out at all it was only how it benefits Trump and his buddies.

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gedaliyah@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The most meaningful metric of any economy in my opinion is always median real income. It means whether most people are more able or less abke to live the life they want (to vastly over-simplify).

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eating3645@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Roll a die, if it’s greater than 7, then they’re a good idea.

Even proponents of tariffs have to admit that the level of thought and planning that went in their execution are incredibly lacking.

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- SolidShake@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Better luck flipping a coin
  
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- FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I submit we should go to a d20, and say roll a nat 21.
  
  with this die: Image
  
  (sorry, if I don’t laugh, I’m going to cry.)
  
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Skyrmir@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Tariffs always raise prices. Sometimes they do protect local industry, by raising prices so that local industries can compete against foreign competitors. At least for a time. Usually it leads to the eventual failure of the industry due to making less competitive products.

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bitterstoat@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I am not an economist, but I’d think a couple of reasonable metrics would be:

Taxes raised through tariffs are enough to significantly replace a significant portion of personal income tax burden across all taxpayers, while not raising the price on goods so much as to negate that benefit.

The math we’ve seen so far does not come anywhere close to supporting this. According to the St. Louis Fed, personal income taxes collected in 2024 was about $9.6 trillion. The increased tariffs have pulled in $6.3 billion in the past month, according to the Treasury Department, as reported in Newsweek. Extrapolated for the year, that comes out to about $0.08 trillion, or 0.8% of what is collected in income tax. The numbers don’t add up even if the tariffs collected increase once the actual rates are stable, nor does this administration seem interested in giving a tax cut to anyone other than the wealthiest taxpayers, nor would I implicitly trust the numbers from this administration’s Treasury Department.

Furthermore, that doesn’t address how much of the tariffs are past to the consumer - which will be damn near all. Also, around 30%* of tax returns were for $0 in taxes due to low income and various exemptions, so the inflation in goods will be a net negative - as you can’t cut a $0 tax - for what is mostly the poorest third of the population. Inflation induced by tariffs are about as regressive a tax as there is. (*The figure I have for this is 31.42% in 2022 according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. I’m assuming the figures aren’t wildly different for 2024.)

Increased manufacturing in the US, especially in strategically valuable goods, such as semiconductors.

This is a less quantifiable benefit, but can be good for supply chain stability and national security, in theory. It will take years to come to fruition, as factories take a long time to set up, and businesses will need a clearer picture about where the economy is headed before taking on such large investments. On-again, off-again policies delivered in tweets don’t provide that - quite the opposite. Moreover, said goods will mostly be more expensive due to higher labor costs, providing little to no relief on the inflation front. It also should be pointed out that successes on this front will reduce tariffs coming in, acting against my previous metric.

What effect this has on the trade deficit I don’t see as important. You run a trade deficit relative to your local grocery store since they don’t buy things from you, and what would you do to remedy this? Start a farm? Having invested the time and money in a farm, would you come out ahead? Not likely. The trade deficit is a political football that fiscal conservatives love to complain about, but do not follow up on when they’re in power.

All that said, I emphatically do not agree with the current administration on these policies, or really any policies, just to admit my biases.
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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thanks for putting some numbers on it. A lot of people are just downvoting and saying “well it’s bad!”. I want to know why and I think some of those numbers above really help to quantify it. Collecting 0.8% doesn’t seem very effective, so if someone tried to defend this as a replacement for Income tax, I would say that gets an F.
  
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zxqwas@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
For the factory workers in the industrial heartland it will be good.

For the general population it will be bad.

The idea of manufacturing more, cutting budget deficit etc may be a good idea. The way they go about it with trade wars pissing off countries usually friendly to the US is dubios. The DOGE and internal politics does not seem much better but that is not really any of my business as a non American.

Also if you want to cut deficit you should fund the IRS more, not less.

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- dragontamer@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  investors.com/…/auto-tariffs-stellantis-mexico-ca…
  
  Mexico was importing these car parts. Because we Tariffed Mexico and Canada, the Mexico and Canadian factories are closing down.
  
  Which is now closing down factories in the heartland of America.
  
  Lose lose for everyone.
  
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- yarr@feddit.nl ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  For the factory workers in the industrial heartland it will be good.
  
  So we should expect to see more manufacturing jobs? How long will they take to show up? What kind of products will they build?
  
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