Patterico's Pontifications

8/14/2019

Trump Postpones Tariffs To Protect Americans From Having To Pay More…

Filed under: General — Dana @ 12:28 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Oh brother:

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would wait until Dec. 15 to impose tariffs on Chinese goods that were supposed to go into effect in September. Other items were removed from the tariff list due to health, safety and national security concerns.

Many of the items on the tariff list are popular holiday gifts. That’s a relief to retailers, which would either eat the added costs or pass them onto shoppers – neither a palatable outcome.

It also means Americans won’t see higher, tariff-inflated prices during their holiday shopping. Those who are traditionally last-minute holiday shoppers may want to skip procrastinating this year, though, and wrap up the shopping before the Dec. 15 deadline.

Why does Trump have to protect consumers from paying more money for popular items during the holidays and *back-to-school season if its the Chinese, and not Americans that are paying billions of dollars, as he claims?

This isn’t hard.

Anyway, here’s what the Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics had to say about the decision:

I think the president wanted to avoid being the Grinch who stole Christmas. These delayed tariff hikes would have landed squarely on American consumers.

Here is the government’s list of items that will be facing tariffs on December 15, which includes cellphones, laptops, video game consoles, toys, shoes and clothing.

Note: Estimates are that an Apple iPhone would be $75 to $100 higher with the tariffs.

(*h/t Gawain’s Ghost)

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

20 Responses to “Trump Postpones Tariffs To Protect Americans From Having To Pay More…”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (fdf131)

  2. Oh, please, look at the list of products. Tariffs are taxes on consumers. It’s not just about holiday sales, which include Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. It’s about back-to-school sales.

    A tariff/tax on consumers of clothing, footwear, laptops, cell phones, electronic devices, backpacks, what have you would have cost the average American family hundreds of dollars they didn’t have, just to send their children to school.

    China understands this. That’s why they’re targeting their tariffs toward agricultural products. They know the American farmer cannot afford to lose market share. They also know that they can sut of the exports of rare earth minerals, which are absolutely necessary for the production of technology–from everything from cell phones and computers to guided missiles and satellites–plus, they own one-third of US Treasury debt, and could dump it at any time. That would cause a severe shock to global markets.

    Trump is playing a weak hand here. If China wanted to, it could literally bankrupt the entire US economy.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  3. dow drops 800 points not good news for republicans/trump as their are non trumpkins supporting him because they have a job. If economy goes south the democrats will have their revenge against all republicans. AOC will want to put you on cattle cars to take you to the re-education camps.

    lany (438583)

  4. I’m really looking forward to his fans explaining how this is evidence of 11 dimensional chess, and not evidence of the sort of dithering you get when you’re not sure what to do.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  5. Gawain’s Ghost, you’re right: it’s also about back-to-school season. I’ve updated the post to include that. Thank you!

    Dana (fdf131)

  6. I’ve got your explanation right here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XeDvKqI4E

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  7. When the economy was going full tilt, the US could afford Trump’s stupidity on tariffs because it only knocked a quarter-point off GDP growth and cost us 150K jobs in an already tight labor market. It’s something else when we’ve gotten the first indicators of a recession such as an inverted yield curve.

    Paul Montagu (e7d63b)

  8. Down 800 today. Fourth highest drop ever. Single indicator, but still…

    Dana (fdf131)

  9. it had to do with issues in germany and china, the matter with hsbc had to do with the princelings using the latter to wash their money,

    consider has the price of tariffed items gone down, or up,

    narciso (d1f714)

  10. This isn’t hard.

    It isn’t easy being orange.

    Dave (1bb933)

  11. Narciso, they’ve gone up.

    Time123 (235fc4)

  12. Thank Goodness I got my Live Chinese foxes before the price rise.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  13. According to CNN the Dow is down due to Orange man. Weirdly, CNN never credited Trump for the Rise of the Dow since Jan 2017. I’m not sure why. Its a puzzle.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  14. According to CNN the Dow is down due to Orange man. Weirdly, CNN never credited Trump for the Rise of the Dow since Jan 2017. I’m not sure why. Its a puzzle.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  15. “Fourth highest drop ever.”

    Really? You sure you want to let that comment stand with no clarification whatsoever?

    Bendover2 (aa5a9b)

  16. I’m not sure why. Its a puzzle.

    Only to the willfully obtuse.

    Trump wasn’t responsible for the rise of the Dow since Jan 2017. It has been rising for almost ten years.

    Dave (1bb933)

  17. Is why orange want Fed to make dollar weak. When dollar weak Wall Street strong. Rich jerkoff friends of orange have rise in paper wealth. Give illusion that economy good. Meantime dollar in pocket of regular American buy less.

    nk (dbc370)

  18. Dave has a point. The US economic engine is incredible. Government need only get out of the way, for the most part. However the government can certainly get in the way.

    Dustin (6d7686)

  19. 15, I was reading about it here:

    The Dow dropped 800.49 points or 3.05% to 2,5479.42, its worst percentage drop of the year and fourth-largest point drop of all time.

    Dana (fdf131)

  20. Dana,

    The operative phrase being “point drop.” You didn’t mention that in your comment.

    Furthermore, a more precise, or honest, measurement of a market drop would be based on the PERCENTAGE of the drop, not the number of points.

    But I bet you already knew this.

    Bendover2 (aa5a9b)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0967 secs.