We’ll never know

He is not.

A tariff is a tax that increases the price of imported goods.

Tariffs are used to push people toward domestic alternatives to imported goods.

However, today, there are no domestic alternatives to most important goods.

So, all it’s doing is increasing the burden on the average person.

Companies are not going to invest in domestic production. They are going to spend that money lobbying to have tarriffs removed. Because guess what? Once tariffs go away, consumer prices are not going to go back to what they used to be. Instead, megacorps are going to pocket the difference as profit.

I don’t believe this question is being asked in good faith

Yes, as you said, they aren’t a new concept. We have plenty of evidence, of countries that tried that again and again. We know what he is doing is stupid.

Besides, your theory on tariffs won’t even get to be tested. Kidnapping people at random on the street and sending them to concentration camps has an overwhelmingly larger impact on the economy than the tariffs. People from outside of the US will only focus at this if you start to invade other countries, but at this point, nobody inside the US should be concerned with tariffs, at all.

He isn’t. He can’t be; not the way he has handled them.

Bringing industry and manufacturing back to US soil is actually not a bad idea at all but it’s a problem that needs to be tackled smartly and over a period of time so businesses can react. He is trying to force decades worth of economic migration in the span of a few months. For (hopefully) obvious reasons, that is impossible and the US economy is about to collapse.

And considering Trump, along with Musk at DOGE, have systematically destroyed economic and social safety-net programs… the aftermath of this is going to be catastrophic. The only way Trump is “right” about these tariffs is that they are an intentional sabotage of the US economy so him and his wealthy backers can cash out as the walls come crashing down. That is the goal and it’s going according to plan.

I suspect he is right. These tariffs will torpedo the economy just as intended.

The question is inconsequential.

The empirical and historical information we have demonstrates that this is a patently stupid policy.

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The same way they’ll react if someone is right about the Earth being flat.

He won’t be right about tariffs because he (and you, I suppose) has a gross misunderstanding about how tariffs should be implemented. Tariffs are typically used to strengthen a local product. Say that we wanted to support Napa wine. We might introduce a tarrif on importing wines from our largest competitors. This would increase the cost of the foreign product in relation to the domestic product and encourage consumers to buy locally. So, why won’t this work if we just tarrif everyone for everything? Well, we don’t make everything so they’re isn’t a local option to buy instead. Not just for you, but for the companies that make the things you consume. Oh, then let’s just build up the industries to make everything. Even disregarding that we don’t have the ability to produce everything due to, well, climate and resources, that would cost many millions of dollars and years of investment before seeing a profit. Which is a nice idea if businesses had any faith that the tariffs are permanent, which they don’t not only because the current administration (likely lol) won’t be in power forever, but also because the current administration has said that they are willing to negotiate. So why bother making the investment when you can import again soon? And lastly, if we try to strong-arm everyone at the same time, they’ll just band together without us. They don’t need to trade with us if they have an alternative in a more profitable trade partner, and we’ve just incentivized the entire world to look for a better option than us. We did that. All at once. The idiocy is frankly astounding.

I want to smoke the copium you’re high on 🤣

The big difference between the US and China is that China is often close to the bottom of the supply chain.

America doesn’t have the infrastructure already in place to supply the raw materials and basic essentials to manufacturers.

Until this is the case (and I’m phrasing it optimistically but the reality is it never can be the case), all manufacturers have to pay extra just to have access to the things they need to produce their goods.

This cost is passed on to the consumer.

Like another commenter pointed out, there just isn’t a domestic supplier of many products. Crucial rare earth metals and various other minerals just aren’t available. Heck, to my knowledge, there isn’t even a domestic manufacturer of light bulbs anymore.

Without putting anything in place before implementing these tariffs, he’s guaranteed that prices will go up on almost everything.

Wait, you were a child of the Great Depression? 'cause the US has been promoting free trade with low tariff rates since the end of WWII

What we have seen before are small, narrowly focused tariffs. This is about as not- that as it’s possible to be and still be tariffs. So if Trump is somehow right the response will be to question everything we know about economics because we are now living in an alternate time line where taking a hammer to a complex issue that needs a scalpel will have somehow worked for literally the first time in human history. But, ya know, ask silly questions, get silly answers.

Since the odds are so slim of tariffs at this scale further boosting an economy that was already pretty vigorous - I think the more important question is, who are you going to scapegoat when tariffs don’t work as advertised? Immigration? George Soros? Biden? Deep State? Panama and Greenland? Her emails? Will you swallow the doublethink when Murdoch and Bezos’s fake news tell you a recession is really sort of a boom, and vodka rations are up 8%?