Let’s assume tariffs are used as a means to bring manufacturing to the US. By that definition the administration has no idea what level of tariffs will make this happen. Setting up manufacturing in the US for any item is not cheap - we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with. On top of that the cost of manufacturing is many fold compared to china, India, Bangladesh or Taiwan. So 25% or 10% is still not in anyway going to force manufacture to come back.
Tariffs have to be at an insane level to justify bringing manufacturing back. My worry is that the administration is may be prepared to go there. That will cause a deep deep recession across the whole globe. Even then it will take a couple of decades to have meaningful manufacturing in the US
No one is going to spend millions to billions of dollars on manufacturing facilities in the current political situation (read: unstable, risky, constantly changing).
That's the bingo card. The economy runs on expectations.
I've been thinking about the recent layoffs impacting government. If 1% of the workforce is laid off at once for no good reason, are the impact restricted to 1% of economy? I'd assume no, because 90% of the other people would start saving just in case.
To not have that situation, you would need to be convincing that the impact are only restricted to the people that are laid off, but that isn't happening because they weren't laid off with an convincing cause. So now everyone is cowering because this suddenly looks like something that could happen to them.
That's the real problem. We've seen this happen in the rare earths industry over and over since about 1990, with wild swings in prices and profits. When demand and supply have a lot of inertia, minor changes in either cause big change in prices.
A US startup is preparing to mine titanium in Tennessee. Three US startups in different states want to start up rare earth mines. They all need some assurance of not being drastically undercut on price, or some way to hedge that.
If we're going to have protective tariffs, they should be at the consumer product end, not the raw materials end. Smartphones, not steel.
> Let’s assume tariffs are used as a means to bring manufacturing to the US.
I don't think it's that altruistic. This is simply a way to defend or fund income tax cuts.
If you look at the federal gov P&L according to DOGE (https://doge.gov/spend); excise and customs taxes are the best opportunity to drive revenue if you won't raise income tax.
There is also a plan afoot to replace income taxes with tariffs following the McKinley Economic model, involving high tariffs, gold standard, focus on industrialism, and economic imperialism. It kinda made sense in the days where there was a manufacturing base to protect and one could plunder 3rd world economies, but those horses have long left the barn. Also this plan is moronic when you look at the cash flows if implemented today.
It's also very regressive, at least in isolation. Income tax rates are progressive, but lower income families spend more of their total income on goods so tariff will hurt them more proportionally.
I’d think that low income people would spend a larger proportion of their money on stuff made primarily in the US - food being the biggest thing. Clothing aside, most things that we get internationally are wants, not needs…and clothing itself can become that once you have enough.
> I’d think that low income people would spend a larger proportion of their money on stuff made primarily in the US
The distributional effects are still bad for consumers, even purchasing made-in-America goods. The domestic good will still be higher-cost than the pre-tariff foreign good, so low-income consumers will be worse off than the status quo.
If the tariffs are set at a moderate level (i.e. not so high as to make imports effectively impossible), basic supply and demand suggests that the sticker price of American goods should equal the post-tariff price of imported goods. That's essentially what consumers saw with tariffs on appliances in Trump's first term.
Protective tariffs could still arguably make sense in a demand-constrained economy where there was a lot of unemployment to go around: individual consumers would be worse off but more people would be employed. However, breathless media aside this conflicts with basic statistics that show the prime-age employment[†] rate (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1DUXA) near cyclical peak levels, currently above the pre-financial-crisis level.
Tariffs are a lousy solution for the more common complaint that stuff is just too expensive.
[†] — I use the prime age employment rate to avoid problems with "discouraged workers" or disability being excluded from unemployment and to correct for basic demographic shifts. If fewer people are employed because more people are retired, that's an entirely different problem.
I believe the idea is to replace the internal revenue service (income taxes) by the external revenue service (tariffs). The tariffs are kind of a hidden sales tax, with the hidden drawback of making cross border manufacturing pretty painful. The auto industry is especially impacted by this, with parts crossing the US/Can/Mx borders pretty frequently.
I doubt this scheme would work, but from what I understand the rich typically prefer sale taxes to wealth/income taxes since they only consume a small fraction of their net worth in goods, preferring to invest (which wouldn't be taxed). They're also not regressive, meaning that poorer people would end up paying a larger portion of their income in taxes.
> we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with.
That, I believe, is one of the reasons why the H-series and E-series exist in the United States, along with the L visa. It gives you the opportunity to bring foreigners into the United States, either for a limited (but finitely-extendable) period of time, or permanently.
You can argue that the current forms of those visas do not work, but that is not my point: My point is that the above reason is why the visas exist.
To bring my point back around to tariffs: I think making the above-mentioned visas harder to get goes against the purpose of the tariffs. If you want manufacturing etc. brought back here, then make it easy (or easier) to get the knowledgeable folks who you need to train the folks who will do the manufacturing here.
Half of the administration primarily wants to onshore all the things. The other half wants to primarily kick out foreigners to reduce competition with domestic workers.
This administration has no logic, that much is established. They are driven by two different philosophies - a burn it all down and build again and another stop all immigration now. Both these philosophies are both unified by racism/dictatorship tendencies
I am not sure I understand the implications of these tariff. Basically it means that products are becoming more expensive for people in the US. How is that a good thing for them?
I understand this can help some US company to sell more products in their country, but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of industries.
Tariffs are just a tax. Similar to a sales tax, but it needs to be paid on import. To be clear, it's a tax on your own citizens, not foreign exports.
If a product is cheaply produced in another country, and your domestic industry cannot match that price, your domestic industry might disappear. Suppose that other country is subsidizing their industry, then it's quite unfair, and it legitimizes supporting your own industry either by your own subsidies or retaliatory tariffs. As they say, to level the playing field.
If the domestic industry is already dead, tariffs won't magically resurrect it. For example, building a chip industry can take billions of dollars in investments and years of development. All that time, those taxes are basically just costing consumers money. They need to be kept in place up until the new factories come online AND are paid off. This can take decades. Will those tariffs still be there? Will those other countries have ALSO invested? Those uncertainties make it hard to invest in a dead/dying industry, even with tariffs in place.
One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term.
Tariffs can work to retaliate against, and discourage, dumping. They can play a role in protecting vital industries. But arbitrarily imposing them for political points is a dangerous gambit.
> For example, building a chip industry can take billions of dollars in investments and years of development.
Worse than that... you also need all the other things in the "ecosystem" that support them chips, such as discrete components, circuit board fabrication, assembly, etc.
Yes, and if the tariffs are indiscriminate, all of those things will be more expensive, making a domestic industry less competitive, for no good reason.
“One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term.”
I don’t think it’s this simple. The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits.
Furthermore, it depends on how the revenue from tariffs were used. If revenue from tariffs is used to lower taxes for lower income citizens, it would be effectively a progressive tax.
I run a tiny (<$30k annual revenue and much much smaller profit, or negative if I paid myself an hourly wage) side business that relies on custom manufacturing of open source hardware products I've designed. So very much not a "wealthy fat cat" - here's my experience with manufacturing:
For die-cut plastic cards (think custom-shaped gift cards or hotel door hangers), I reached out to several US manufacturers for quotes and most never even responded. The one that did respond basically laughed at me and said my design was impossible to cut. So I went on Alibaba and had tons of quotes instantly and found a manufacturer. Not one of the responses were concerned about the design's manufacturability. And the manufacturer I picked does an incredible job with what is admittedly a challenging die cut design.
As a tiny business, most of my orders end up being under de minimis (which is actually great for helping small businesses avoid the overhead of dealing with tariffs and level the playing field against large players that can be much more efficient at handling regulatory overhead through high volume).
But with the change to eliminate de minimis and increase tariffs another 10% essentially overnight, my COGS is going to increase ~30%, which means either I shut down my business due to losing nearly all of my margin, or I increase prices substantially. It just hurts consumers AND small businesses like mine in the US.
There isn't a US manufacturer I can switch to (again, price wasn't the issue). And the US manufacturers in the space that WERE still selling products despite the international competition will just increase their prices now that competition is more expensive.
That is what people like trump don't understand (not surprising). Instead of gradually rebuilding the manufacturing capabilities of the US while supporting essential industries (like steel production) to create competition, they think slapping tariff will magically make the domestic manufacturing come back. Like you said, the US manufacturers will just ride along the coattails of tariffs instead of trying to be competitive and/or expand their production (they have no incentive to do so).
Again, knowing how short-sighted the US politicians and the society as a whole (e.g., look at how a majority of corps only care about short-term/quarterly profit) have become, it is not surprising but saddening to observe (because I have been living in the US for a bit over two decades and cannot move back to my home country, which is, at the moment, riddle with civil war).
> they think slapping tariff will magically make the domestic manufacturing come back.
Certainly not when tariff policy changes every few days on a whim. That doesn't make you want to build a chip resistor plant in the US. Or even a smartphone plant.
> Instead of gradually rebuilding the manufacturing capabilities of the US while supporting essential industries (like steel production) to create competition, they think slapping tariff will magically make the domestic manufacturing come back.
So what would you propose as the proverbial kick in the butt to encourage domestic production? And before you say “subsidies”, remember that a large segment of the population isn’t wild about those either because they perceive it to be some sort of evil tax dodge for big corporations (see: literally every time some state gives a company incentives to build a plant or office).
The reason we’re in this mess in the first place is because we chased cheaper means of production and once everything at home was gone, we just threw our hands up and went “well it’ll be too painful to fix it, anyone who tries is an idiot.”
We've moved away from lower value manufacturing and are moving higher in the economic chain - that's great for us and how economics works. It isn't just chasing cheaper means of production - we can (and in a limited way have) put people to work elsewhere.
We dodged this in the 90s, but we
need massive training programs to move those displaced workers to new jobs + resettlement assistance to get them to where the jobs are.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of jobs and manufacturing is in The lower value manufacturing chain. So by chasing only the high value chain, you abandon the manufacturing operations that actually hire workers, thereby hollowing out the middle class of your country and reducing the consumers of the products that you sell. A counterproductive and shortsighted strategy.
> see: literally every time some state gives a company incentives to build a plant or office
You're conflating two things here, the subsidies are one issue but the bigger issue is the ability for large companies to "shop around" states looking for the most favorable tax incentives. Our government shouldn't be bidding against ourselves.
Our government shouldn't be bidding against ourselves.
Yes, it should, because that's how individual companies (and governments for that matter) find their optimal operating points.
That is the explicit central dogma behind the United States' system of government. It works pretty well for the most part. If all the states had the same laws, policies, and taxes, there would be no need for federalism at all.
But there is new incentive created here. Now someone can create a small business to serve die-cutting like the parent needs because they have the extra edge over the Chinese competition. These sorts of small shops that did small runs used to be part of the economy before they closed after they couldn't keep up with the low cost coming out of China and they can in theory come back if making stuff in China becomes expensive enough.
Is that an immediate win for the consumer and the economy? Probably not. In the long term it could be reversing the globalization which is maybe a good thing (or at least that's the argument).
Anything imposed on the whim of the executive can be taken away just as easily, so building an entire factory based on an assumption about tariffs remaining in place is probably a hard sell.
> But there is new incentive created here. Now someone can create a small business to serve die-cutting like the parent needs because they have the extra edge over the Chinese competition.
You’d need dramatically higher tariffs for there to be any chance of that. Or a complete trade embargo. And either way, it’s gonna mean much more expensive goods for consumers.
“And the US manufacturers in the space that WERE still selling products despite the international competition will just increase their prices now that competition is more expensive.”
And an industrial entrepreneur, such as yourself, might start a new business, making these products at a cheaper price in the US due to the new inefficiencies of simply raising prices by existing manufacturers. It takes time for these things to move through the system.
I don't get it. You go into the grocery and pay sales tax on food for the week, but you import random trash from China, pay nothing and this is "great for helping small businesses"? No matter what you think about wholesale tariffs, surely this particular arrangement must strike you as odd and impossible to compete with for local producers?
In the EU we pay full taxes on every import, it's really not that complicated once you explain to the Chinese guys to not mark it as "gift" like its 2005.
You're mixing concepts. In the EU you'll generally pay VAT on all imports, but there are still often de minimis rules for import tariffs. This is not unlike the US - I have to always pay sales tax on imports regardless of value (unless it's being resold or incorporated into a product and I have an appropriate resale certificate, because sales tax is generally only required on final sale in the US), but import tariffs have a de minimus threshold.
I'm not saying the primary objective of a de minimus policy is to help small businesses, but in practice it can make a huge difference to correct for economies of scale to promote competition. I can't afford a team of lawyers and lobbyists to creatively classify my products to avoid tariffs like the big companies do; regulatory burden disproportionately hurts smaller players, so it's typically considered good policy to promote competition to phase in regulations based on size/volume/revenue etc.
You pay the same taxes on imports too. In fact in the USA some states will hunt you down to ensure you pay tax on interstate purchases let alone imports.
> The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits.
The companies who moved manufacturing abroad and pocketed the savings for their investors and CEOs aren’t likely to just say “oh well” and take a big hit to their margins—they’ll just mark up their products to make up the difference. Maybe, eventually, domestic competition will emerge but it’s not a given and likely takes time. In the meantime, consumers are paying the increased costs.
Of course it takes time for domestic competition to arrive. Decision decisions cannot only be made because the benefits are not immediately realized. It’s taken decades to get to the point that we are with the outsourcing and oversees manufacturing that has emptied the ability of the US to manufacture basic products. The bottom line is that the products these CEOs are selling need to have a higher price. They’re being subsidized by slave labor and foreign subsidies. The prices will increase. The margins will increase and new domestic competitors will emerge to take advantage of the increased margins, but it takes time. And dismissing it because it takes time is a self-defeating policy.
How will domestic competition be able to emerge? Trying to start a business in this country is already absurdly risky and expensive, there’s a point coming where it’ll be completely impossible unless you’re already rich. Strikes me as the most likely motive for all of this.
Middlemen for overseas manufacturers are not typically what comes to mind when I hear “wealthy fat cats.”
If all the middlemen see the same increase in costs, they are not going to be the one to try to keep prices the same. They know everyone is taking the same hit so they can just pass it along together. The consumer decides to buy or not at that level.
The innovation comes in avoiding the tariff. Often companies with sufficient scale of operations can pay additional lawyers and accountants to restructure and avoid tariffs.
Tariffs can dramatically affect specific companies, but squishy middlemen (and multinationals) can often work around them.
But your view is too shortsighted as I’ve said, in other comments. There will be a reaction to these increases in prices and increases in margins. Small startups and even large companies will enter the space to take advantage of the increased margins. It’s not a static system. However, it does not happen immediately and it takes some time.
First, there are not necessarily increased margins, the margins may stay the same or even decrease. Some companies may choose to keep their margins the same, in which case profit would increase.
But importantly your _profit_ will not decrease, you'll defend that as the seller even if that means your margins decrease.
Second, small companies are _more_ sensitive to taxes (costs), not less sensitive. Existing, large players are better able to absorb costs _and_ command stronger pricing power relative to new entrants to the market.
But overall, your view of the "market" just doesn't play out in reality. You can go look at any industry that encountered tariffs in Trump's first term, you may also look at any consolidated market in the last twenty years. Market power has been heavily concentrated, regulatory capture has gone up, and the result is that markets aren't working as you may expect.
I posted this link separately and it fully demonstrates what I would expect: more jobs in the US to compensate for the increased cost to import. In this case, the jobs were provided by existing manufacturers like LG and Samsung; however, these jobs could also be produced by new competitors entering the space.
Sure, but how is this any different than the income tax system where companies receive tax credits, reduced tax rates, accelerated depreciation, schedules, subsidies to build factories, and direct cushy (high margin and sometimes fraudulent) contracts from government divisions.
>The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits.
I'd love this to be true, but where is there recent evidence this will happen? When Trump put tariffs on washers in 2018, LG and Samsung (importers of machines) didn't lose profits, their prices went up: https://youtu.be/_-eHOSq3oqI?t=130
“Imports did decline. Washing machine imports fell by about 33% the first year the tariffs were in effect and stayed below pre-tariff levels through 2022. During that time, Samsung began producing washing machines at a US factory in South Carolina, and LG opened a plant in Tennessee. Whirlpool also increased domestic production and hired more workers. All told, new domestic production may have accounted for between 1,700 and 2,000 new jobs.“
The wealthy fat cats are often heading companies in oligopolies. They just increase prices to absorb the tariffs, blame inflation and public policy, and continue to make the same profits.
As someone that sells products that are assembled from components that are sold and manufactured globally.
My customers pay me for product. Some of that pays employees. The assembly house. And for parts are are imported. The tariffs basically means I have to pay extra to the government so they can give it to bunch of wealthy financial parasites.
Unless people relocate automated manufacturing lines for export products outside US soil.
Thus, they save the US 25% + 10% tariff off, and whatever symmetric 25% response trading partners inflict on the US exports. i.e. one would save 60% off, avoid an economically hostile customs process, and may shop around for better tax systems. If the US market is isolated from a multi-origin product, than just collect the 35% markup on all products before shipping into the US like the new programs already require.
Best of luck, I don't think people have really thought about this very much... =3
That sort of manufacturing could take longer than 4 years to build much less profit from. Smarter to just wait it out and increase the domestic price to just below the foreign price+tariff.
Perhaps, but most light-industry will likely open secondary factory locations in 8 months or hire contract manufacturing firms in a few days. Then turn around and drop demand deficient labor in the hostile markets.
People respond to actions rather than posturing, and business people view the political process very differently. We'd be fooling ourselves to think it is about anything other than profit. Many people are likely about to lose their jobs, and there is nothing funny about that... Best regards =3
These tariff threats are so broad. They are not aimed at encouraging this or that local industry. (And for the US you would need much more than a few percentage points of margin to encourage that.)
It feels like they are (1) threats. very crude threats. to get entire countries to change their policies a little this way or that - favoring the US a little more in exchange for dropping the threat. and (2) a source of govt revenue that doesn't look to the voters like income or capital gains tax. Although obviously it is - in the US everything ends up there.
Or 3) forcing the dip, buying the dip, lifting the conditions that caused the dip and profiting like nobody in history.
This is all very simple. There is no plan, there is no us, there is no future. There is only him, now, and a revolving list of people trying to ride his coattails to more power for themselves.
> but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of industries.
Entirely logical response from a normal person used to think and act in a normal, decent way.
Criminals break into a museum. There is an artwork there, 4000(!) years old. The thieves wreck the artwork and smelt the gold that is inside it for a €225 profit.
There is a phenomenon of "The Cult of Wealth". Most people here cannot imagine how people with unlimited wealth, unlimited options, almost unlimited power think like.
Have you seen the kids of the president ridicule the dying people in Ukraine? We are inclined to think that if you inherit almost the whole earth, you would be very grateful, kind and compassionate.
Instead, they see the world in terms of just a handful of peers with the rest as resources to be extracted. We live in a world where we are brainwashed to think it is normal for corporate to call human beings "Human Resources".
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As soon as people learn to see what hides behind Trump and Doge, the networks that finance and selects people, they will lose the war. The theater is there to distract you, media will pick it up as bait but will not do the investigation of what it is. And so we are paralyzed by the news of the day.
What society needs to do is to not accept abnormal and egregious behavior as normal. We all know what is decent human interaction, and the few can only take power over the mass, if the people consent to it -- be it actively or passively.
If "the cult of wealth" is a thing, and wealthy people really think different than the rest of us, then a consequence is that the ultra wealthy absolutely shouldn't be allowed to make the rules for the rest of us, or manage public institutions.
>
If "the cult of wealth" is a thing, and wealthy people really think different than the rest of us, then a consequence is that the ultra wealthy absolutely shouldn't be allowed to make the rules for the rest of us, or manage public institutions.
See the number of people arguing that a billionaire can obviously be trusted with their money because he has a lot of it and clearly wouldn't want more.
Sure, we might know it, but we never act on it. We allow super concentrations of super wealth and power to form. We allow corporate media. We allow corporate clients into politics. We allow fake news. We allow lies. We allow the dismantling of science. We allow the purge of competent people. Competence is a soft power, but the power hungry do not like to share.
We know it. We don't believe it. We cannot grasp. For those few, we are nothing but a resource. Why share power with the powerless? Might makes right!
> We are inclined to think that if you inherit almost the whole earth, you would be very grateful, kind and compassionate
That, perhaps, is the reason they are so cruel: because they have been so lucky so far, they do not understand human suffering and are incapable of feeling the pain of fellow humans.
That was some very purposeful misreading to be able to blackpaint Ukraine, while shifting focus away from the topic.
> instead forcing millions into the meat grinder against their will,
How is the weather in St. Petersburg? This is a text book example of projection.
As instructed, you should continue with false balance and whatabboutisms.
---
Oh wait.
I hope you are getting paid for this kind of stuff instead of being someone that died in a ton of psychological mindfucks. If the latter, you do their work.
Sure, but I made sure to be VERY obvious about it, both for the first point and my last point.
I find people in general to be quite smart, I doubt anyone was genuinely convinced I didn't know you were referring to the US President's children.
> while shifting focus away from the topic.
I hope not. There's even quite an important point that gets lost when reading it out of context:
> blackpaint Ukraine
Absolutely not.
Whom I'm greatly displeased by are the previous US administration, the European leaders and Zelensky. Trump just going in and immediately making significant progress during the negotiations proves, that any of them could have stopped this slaughter whenever they wanted.
There was always the question whether Russia's constant pleas for negotiations both prior and during the war were nothing but macabre PR. And yet the moment a genuine chance presented itself, they agreed to it immediately.
Compared to our countries' leaders our own insight into politics is nothing but a joke. And even if they're unsure, they can just pick up the phone and just try.
Yet none of them did. These demons happily sacrificed the lifes of millions of people on the altar of their virtue.
Ukraine could have had so much. They were offered back all of theit eastern territories and even negotiations regarding the future of Crimea (although those would have been likely derailed) in exchange for keeping neutrality, downsizing their armed forces to 250k people and not allowing any permanent foreign military bases. Russia tried to sneak in veto rights on foreign military exercises on Ukrainian territory, but I doubt there was no way to negotiate that down.
Now, years later, all of that is gone. The country is destroyed, everywhere just death, death and more death and Russia short-circuited and pulled the probably worst geopolitical decision of the 21st century by annexing Ukraine's eastern territories.
And all of these leaders knew very well how this war would progress. It is happening right next to the Russian heartland, where 80% of its population lives. They knew that Russia cannot back down without negotiating an orderly procedure first, even if they suddenly gave up on all their goals and wanted to.
And yet here we are, accusing the one guy who actually tries to put an end to this senseless killing, of only seeing the world in terms of a handful of peers and lacking any compassion.
.
I'm only aware of Trump Jr. mocking Zelensky, not anyone else, but I've already asked below if I'm mistaken about that.
But it doesn't matter. The President's children do not reflect upon the President. And actions speak louder than words. What matters is saving people's lifes.
These are a lot of words for the same concept I've pushed above much more strongly, IMO.
> How is the weather in St. Petersburg?
7m of snow, no end in sight and a polar bear drank my vodka supply.
Ukraine could have had so much. They were offered back all of theit eastern territories and even negotiations regarding the future of Crimea (although those would have been likely derailed) in exchange for keeping neutrality, downsizing their armed forces to 250k people and not allowing any permanent foreign military bases.
Or, in other words, a surrender. Disband your army, isolate yourself from allies, and we - the pathologically lying dictatorship that just violated countless prior agreements with by invading - give a pinky promise not to slaughter you.
On 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, Hitler made a speech in Reichstag where he complained about the very same thing: Poland had been unreasonable by rejecting Hitler's peaceful proposals for limitation of armaments and even full disarmament. A tale as old as history. Invaders always prefer to invade unopposed.
I've been wrong about the 250k troops. That was Ukraine's position at the negotiating table, while Russia's position was 85k. Negotiations on that were still going on.
Yes, it was a surrender, but the conditions were infinitely better than anything achievable right now.
And before the war the conditions were even better, basically just the continuation of Minsk and rejection of NATO membership (as demanded by Putin during the call with Macron just before the invasion).
The conditions were obviously going to get worse and worse the longer this conflict dragged on, but much more importantly:
Yes, it was a surrender, but the conditions were infinitely better than anything achievable right now.
That's where most people, especially Ukrainians, disagree with you. Russia's goal is the complete destruction of Ukraine as an independent country and the eradication of Ukrainians as an ethnicity. Russians already attempted this in the 1930s by starving several million Ukrainians to death through artificial famines. Currently, they are doing their best in occupied areas to root out anything Ukrainian.
Your suggestion to surrender is as good as telling Jews to stop resisting and voluntarily hop on a train to a death camp. Anything is better than certain death.
> Russia's goal is the complete destruction of Ukraine as an independent country and the eradication of Ukrainians as an ethnicity.
Just what would be the motivation behind that?
As an ethnicity, there is little to no difference between eastern Ukrainians and Russians. The Soviet Union even actively preserved local languages like Ukrainian, although they cracked down very harshly on anything culturally they considered at odds with Marxism, like the Orthodox Church, but that wasn't targeted any more against Ukraine compared to other Soviey member states.
> Russians already attempted this in the 1930s by starving several million Ukrainians to death through artificial famines.
Even if this opinion is popular nowadays it's highly misleading.
What caused the holodomor was that agricultural areas and Ukraine in general was highly FAVORED by the Soviets.
Ukraine got a high priority on all the things the Soviets thought of as GOOD. Specifically related to the holodomor:
- Collectivization of farming and industry
- Execution of 'greedy factory and farm owners depriving the proletariat of the fruits of their labor' and those colaborating with them to sabotage communism
- Development and implementation of Marxist sciences, soon after developing into Lysenkoism
- Management of production by implementing quotas based on last year's performance
- Oversight over all production processes, labor and property by party commissars, enforcing the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
- Strict reporting duties to the party management
And in 1928, when the implementation of these policies rapidly accelerated in Ukraine and, to a lesser degree, in other agricultural areas, they seemed like a great success.
The "kulaks" left large amounts of their fields without crops or crops they would later destroy, according to the communists 'to oppress the proletariat and cause the periodic famines', and since of all of the kulaks and their "supporters" had to keep absolutely silent or were executed otherwise, nobody told the Marxists about crop rotation.
Which worked out great in the beginning. The farms could be expanded onto the unused farmland, priority was given to high yield crops like grains and the harvests shot through the roof. And this carried on for another year, despite the soils already starting to be depleted, because the seeds from the previous year stored a lot of the macro and micro nutrients the plants would require throughout their growth.
The Marxists felt greatly vindicated in their believes and the "revolutionary discovery" of Marxist science, that "certain types of seasonal variation of crops could be converted into others by just keeping to grow it throughout the seasons on the same field", allowing for further simplification of growing and storage procedures on the collective farms, created a giant almost nationwide crop monoculture.
Thanks to modern pesticides and fertilizers monocultures have become favored again, but back then this was a catastrophe.
The soil was depleted, the stored nutrients in seeds were depleted, there were unfavorable weather conditions and pests and crop diseases began rapidly spreading throughout the monoculture, accelerated by the weakened plants.
So while the quota was even more increased due to last year's great performance, harvests began decreasing, initially slowly, but soon rapidly.
The Soviet commissars went to the farms to check what was happening and found farmers just throwing aside crops (the ones with diseases) and hungry people, who suffered under the bad harvest combined with high quotas, coming to collect these crops. Of course, as is Communist tradition, these people were quickly executed or shipped of to "internment" camps and collective farms were heavily guarded.
But both soils and seeds became more and more nutrient depleted, the grain quality kept decreasing, requiring more to achieve the same nutritional value, crop diseases became ever more prevalent and harvests were about to hit rock bottom.
The communists, as always convinced by the perfection of their ideology, came to the conclusion that the kulaks and their supporters were sabotaging Communism. As vindictive as demanded by their ideology, they immediately started measures to root out the problem. Collective farms "subverted by the kulaks" had their quotas skyrocketed and leaving them or trading with them was forbidden.
Afraid to end up being targeted next when not meeting their quota, other farms and their officials collected grains from where ever they could, including from normal people, emergency reserves and even seeds for the next year and crops with diseases were cleaned up and included in the shipments.
People became sick due to the low quality and quantity of crops and malnutritioned, they could work less and less effectively, there were still all of the previous unresolved problems and on top of that the emergency rations (except for those managed directly by the party in secret) were gone.
I was born and educated in the USSR. I was in middle school at the height of one of the many Russification campaigns, which went as far as forbidding us, the students, from speaking our native language among ourselves even during recess. We were ordered to "speak like humans", that is, in Russian, and were physically punished if we didn't obey. So please forgive me if I refuse to believe the commie fairy tales about the preservation of local languages. The reality was anything but.
Nor can I offer an entirely rational explanation for why Russians want to murder Ukrainians, why Germans gassed millions of Jews, or why many other such horrible crimes have been committed throughout history. Why are Russians destroying Ukrainian libraries in occupied territories? Why would a sane, rational person burn books?
As for the Holodomor, I'd like to repeat an older comment of mine: a) Stalin and other top-ranking officials were aware of the food shortages in Ukraine, b) they knew that their policies were going to make things worse, c) they still adopted those policies, and d) they expressed satisfaction with the outcome. They deliberately allowed millions of people to die of starvation to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
The utterly criminal intent becomes very clear when examined at the personal level.
If someone came to your city, confiscated all food, harshly punished any attempts to store even a minimal amount for basic survival, caused a horrific starvation that killed many people, drove survivors to such insanity that parents ate the flesh off their children, and still blocked all foreign aid and prevented people from leaving, then how would you call it if not deliberate mass murder?
How is it any different from Germans locking Jews up in ghettos and letting them starve to death? It isn't, at that's why the Holodomor has seen gradual international recognition as genocide, most notably by the European Parliament, which represents 450 million Europeans from 27 countries.
> I was born and educated in the USSR. I was in middle school at the height of one of the many Russification campaigns, which went as far as forbidding us, the students, from speaking our native language among ourselves even during recess.
I guess it's naive for me to assume there was a common situation throughout the entire SU.
My Grandpa was a German living along the Danube and then dragged off by the Communists to a remote village in Uzbekistan, because his dad was pressed into the Wehrmacht.
They were taught in German, Russian and the local language in school. And that was under the definitively very kind hearted but bit austere communist scholar Stalin /s. When Stalin finally made his greatest contribution to mankind (fueled by paranoia, wiping out the Extremists in the Party around him and then going to hell), Gramps got a chance to become a German teacher.
And I guess, after thinking about it for a bit, that might be where our differences in accounts are coming from. Gramps obviously wouldn't ever have seen a school from the inside, that didn't teach multiple languages. Also he despised anything Russian to the point, he refused to talk to any of his own children in anything but German.
And his favorite joke was:
> A war veteran was applying to join the Communist Party. The examiners were greatly pleased by his many achievements to further the people's causes during the war. The only problem were his rather poor educational credentials, which was also shown by the misspelling of the Party: KPS.
> So the examiners told him: "You'd be a great fit and your rapid advancement would be assured, but you need to learn how to spell the name of our Party. Not S, but SS."
> Veteran: "Nein, I've already been in the SS."
Apparently got detained several times over it, so I guess he wasn't holding back. Also applied for travel to Germany every single year, which "surprisingly" wasn't even granted once. Not sure why the Communists kept him around as a teacher...
> We were ordered to "speak like humans"
Apparently that was the attitude of the Russians living in the major cities all over the SU. Never been told any more about it, tho.
Dragging ears, beatings and sending students to the back of the food line during cotton harvest was definitely encouraged for all kinds of disobedience.
> why Germans gassed millions of Jews
The Nazis blamed the Jews for the German Revolution in 1918.
I really dont know the leadup to this claim, the strong dislike of Jews at this point in time in general or how it was managed to sell this to the German people.
It's just not being taught, which is s huge mistake in my opinion. There is very little understanding among Germans on how this situation could have escalated to this absurd degree and therefore also absolutely 0 awareness for potential trends in a similar direction.
Nowadays "Nazis" and "Fascists" are just whoever the left currently intends to purge the most and people can't name a single of the Nazis' policies except "Hitler killed Jews" and "Hitler built the Autobahn." Which is a very sad and, tbh, dangerous state.
I've thought of just reading Hitler's (and his associates') books, speeches and laws myself, but they're ... not very pleasant to read and of questionable value, since the Nazi leadership did seem to believe very little about their own drivel and just spouted whatever they thought would get them in power.
> Why are Russians destroying Ukrainian libraries in occupied territories?
Havent heard about this, but they're emptying museums with the excuse of protecting historic artifacts. Can't really judge this until the war is over, Ukraine asks Russia to return these objects and makes preparations to receive and store them. Then we'll see how much there is to Russia's clakms on this.
> Why would a sane, rational person burn books?
Not a good look if done by Russians, it'd be different if done by the LPR/DPR militias. Same situation as Ukraine getting rid of Russian books. These two sides have been killing each other over a language dispute for quite some time.
Also, it's less about the destruction of knowledge and culture, rather than symbolic. People will just download an ebook nowadays.
> a) Stalin and other top-ranking officials were aware of the food shortages in Ukraine, b) they knew that their policies were going to make things worse, c) they still adopted those policies, and d) they expressed satisfaction with the outcome. They deliberately allowed millions of people to die of starvation to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
a) Yes, but the information they received was often falsified (due to people not daring to admit the failures of collective policies, I guess) and delayed through the process. They still knew, but very convinced of being sabotaged.
b) I dont know of any evidence they intended to worsen the situation for the general population. They certainly intended to make the situation much worse for anyone they thought of trying to sabotage Communism. But that's just a matter of ideology. Germany nowadays arrests anyone showing any Nazi affiliated symbolism, Communists shot everyone showing a slightly furrowed eyebrows during the Party's declarations.
c) It's a death cult. Of course a Communist would never spare a perceived opponent.
d) actually never heard about this. I know they declared the agricultural revolution a great success, trying to brush the holodomor under the carpet (replacing dead population with Russians, preventing people from fleeing, rejecting foreign aid under the pretense that everything is ok, suppressing the release of any details, ...) in pursuit of Communist ideological perfection, but that'd be important to know about. Do you have any links saved? Otherwise I just go digging myself
> to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
For some the latter is certainly true and Stalin was indeed worried about Ukrainian nationalism (since the only major difference between the leftist ideologies of the Second International, Nazism, Fascism and Communism, was their disagreement on whether nationalism (Engels) or internationalism (Marx) was more suited to overthrow capitalism).
But mass starvation generally wasn't how the Communists tried to impose "the dictatorship of the people". They usually relied on violent mobs, kidnappings and assassinations where they weren't already in power and executing people, disappearing people into internment camps and informers among the population where they already took over.
In fact I'd highly doubt they would deliberately sabotage their collectivization pilot project.
Communists are aweful people with 0 respect for human life, but they'd never risk any information on Communist collectivization being anything but a great success spreading.
> [...] then how would you call it if not deliberate mass murder?
A Communist pilot project, resulting in an apocalyptic famine, combined with ensuring the angelic purity of Communism.
If I build a bridge, it collapses with many people on it and I open a dam upstream to flood away all the people and evidence, I didn't intent to kill these people, nor did I try to specifically target the population of this town. The people might survive the flood or not, all I would have cared about is getting rid of the evidence.
What I would have been, is an awful bridge designer, bottom of the barrel human and a severe ideological narcissist with 0 regard a for human life. There might be many mass-murderers with a much more superior moral compass, but all that would be important to me is successfully having saved the reputation of my bridges being the utmost superior and infallible.
> How is it any different from Germans locking Jews up in ghettos and letting them starve to death?
The Nazis desired the utter destruction of the Jewish population in Europe and deliberately designed an efficient system to pull off their genocide.
The Communists desired the best future for the future of their population, designed their perfect system and graciously bestowed it upon the agrcultural regions at gunpoint, unsurprisingly killed millions, and then were concerned about other regions not entirely embracing Communist dictates anymore if they became aware of potential minor flaws in the Party's interpretation of Marxism.
It's not entirely clear which of these two sides of the coin is worse, the Nazis, who would have killed entire population subgroups ever so often, or the Communists, who would have observed their ideology killing millions of people ever so often and would have started reflecting on additional writings of various Marxist authors to devine up the perfect adjustment to their ideology, which sadly wasn't real Communism before, but now it definitively is and if you got any questions about it, the execution wall is right over there.
> that's why the Holodomor has seen gradual international recognition as genocide, most notably by the European Parliament, which represents 450 million Europeans from 27 countries.
Sadly the resolution of the EU is loaded up with ideological drivel and opportunism.
Furthermore, it just barely recognizes that the holodomor affected many other regions and calls to crack down on anything perceived as historical revisionism.
I have no problem with people widening the definition of a genocide in order to fit the atrocity that is the holodomor, and leftist collectivism in general, into it. What I dislike is people actively revising history or misrepresenting it by projecting modern or temporally or spatially separated concepts in general onto it.
You do realize of course that the Russians had already signed the Budapest Memorandum in which the Russian Federation would not use military or economic force against Ukraine except in self defence?
Or Russia's insistence that the Little Green Men in Crimea were not Russians forces, in spite of the fact that somehow these militiamen had the cutting edge of issued Russian Army equipment.
And that the invasion of Ukraine was justified in removing Nazis. As if somehow the single Azov Brigade was somehow actually in control of Ukraine.
This whole argument that Ukraine and the EU could stop this slaughter is inane. What exactly would make you think think Russia's promises about a peace agreement are worth any more then the agreement they've already willingly broken? What makes you think they're telling the truth this time around when they have been disinclined to do so thus far?
> You do realize of course that the Russians had already signed the Budapest Memorandum in which the Russian Federation would not use military or economic force against Ukraine except in self defence?
Not only military, but also economic and political coercion.
In hindsight it was a huge mistake when the US established it as not binding in order to sanction Belarus in 2013.
> Or Russia's insistence that the Little Green Men in Crimea were not Russians forces
I'm not sure on this, but it not unlikely Russia could not officially act until the "Republic of Crimea" requested it.
That's why local militias from overseas were decided by themselves to organize an "election" about whether the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence or on the other hand if the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence. And afterwards these militias finally got to join the Russian forces, for which they all had completed the necessary paperwork years ago.
> And that the invasion of Ukraine was justified in removing Nazis.
This completely breaks my mind as well. Sure, Ukraine has a very ... odd ... relationship with their Nazi past, but Putin was acting as if the Nazis from the dark side of the moon had descended upon Ukraine. And then this issue is turned into a "btw. footnote" during all negotiation attempts.
Also him going on Tucker and starting to ramble about the Cro Magnon making "Rus! Rus!" noises when hunting after mammoths on the future territory of Ukraine.
What sent me down the rabbit hole of what is probably actually going on was Gorbachev telling journalists that "he's rewatched Putins speech on the 2007 Munich Security Conference" when asked why this war is happening. That was just before his death.
On the other hand, we shouldn't underestimate Putin. The guy had unrestricted access to some of the world's best intelligence services for decades, hundreds of analysts looking at every situation from every angle, a direct line of communication to absolutely anyone he wants, unmatched political experience and worst of all, he's devilish smart.
There's probably not a single person on earth who could figure out Putin's true intentions and ways of thinking if he intended to keep them hidden.
> What exactly would make you think think Russia's promises about a peace agreement are worth any more then the agreement they've already willingly broken?
These agreements do not exist in a vacuum. There are motivations behind this war and these might be perfectly addressable via peaceful means. That the US and Russia are now talking makes this even more likely.
Most people dont believe this, but Russia doesnt want Ukrainian territory except for Crimea (due to its strategic control over the Strait of Kerch, I assume). This is because of the utter mess it'll cause in the future.
Even before the current war (2022) Ukraine was the single most mined country in the world. The amount of explosives out in the open is beyond mind boggling and the war was just making it ever more worse.
Then there's the wide spread destruction caused by the Donbass conflict since 2014 and the huge amounts of weapons floating around.
Now you annex that territory. Suddenly you've got yourself a whole army of well trained, well armed and very disgruntled former Ukrainians.
So on top of all the previous problems you've signed yourself up for, you've now got yourself an entire new population of people relying on welfare, because all of the economy in their area was destroyed, millions of homeless, because their cities were destroyed, and many of them are willing to launch the largest insurgency of the century against you and are perfectly trained and equipped to do so.
Every piece of Ukraine Russia tries to gobble up will poison it for decades.
IMO Russia is genuinely scared of Ukraine joining NATO, hence when Ukraine joined the NATO EOP program (used by Sweden and Finland to join NATO) Russia began preparing the 2022 invasion.
>That's why local militias from overseas were decided by themselves to organize an "election" about whether the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence or on the other hand if the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence. And afterwards these militias finally got to join the Russian forces, for which they all had completed the necessary paperwork years ago.
> This completely breaks my mind as well. Sure, Ukraine has a very ... odd ... relationship with their Nazi past, but Putin was acting as if the Nazis from the dark side of the moon had descended upon Ukraine. And then this issue is turned into a "btw. footnote" during all negotiation attempts.
The best theory I've heard, and admittedly these theories put forward by American, is that Putin is lying about the Nazi's. To him at least, part of his world view appears to be in effect that there is Ukraine. In short that Ukraine is a mistake done by Lenin forced about by a anti Russian agenda of some kind, and that erasing the imagine imaginary line between Ukraine and Russia is necessary to return Russia to the world stage like it was it was part of the USSR.
No idea how true it is but it makes more sense then any other explanation I've heard thus far. And the Kremlin has published an essay by Putin that seems to support that world view even if he's very flowery about it. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
That and there's the theory that Putin himself was being fed in effect bad intelligence about both the readiness of his own armed forces as well as the general attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians; namely that the Ukrainians would welcome Russian liberation. Not so much out of malice, but the fact that a lot of folks were telling Putin what they thought he wanted to hear. Given what Putin did to his rivals, not too hard to make a guess why they wouldn't want to give him bad news.
>Most people dont believe this, but Russia doesnt want Ukrainian territory except for Crimea (due to its strategic control over the Strait of Kerch, I assume). This is because of the utter mess it'll cause in the future.
... Ooookay. ...So I've got a really big problem with that theory. Mostly because the actions that Russian military has taken indicates that they want nothing short but to take Ukraine in it's entirety, but were ill prepared for what they got.
But suppose you say is true. What purpose does seizing and holding does Kherson serve to in keeping the control over Crimea and the Strait of Kerch, exactly? It's on the other side of Crimea from Russia. Why attempt go even further and seize Odessa?
Why open a northern front in the Kharkiv Oblast? It's on the opposite side of Ukraine.
Why try to open a front from Belarus into Kyiv?
That's an awful lot of fronts to open up to try take territory that Russia does not want.
>IMO Russia is genuinely scared of Ukraine joining NATO, hence when Ukraine joined the NATO EOP program (used by Sweden and Finland to join NATO) Russia began preparing the 2022 invasion.
First, neither Sweden nor Finland entered into the EOP until after 2014. They were interoperable and friendly, but the EOP didn't happen until May in 2014. Directly in response to the rhe Russian annexation of was more or less done in April of 2014.
Second, Russia got that when they seized Crimea. Ukraine couldn't join even if they wanted at that point by NATO's own rules without renouncing control of Crimea.
> Neither Sweden nor Finland entered into the EOP until after 2014. They were interoperable and friendly, but the EOP didn't happen until May in 2014. Directly in response to the rhe Russian annexation of was more or less done in April of 2014.
Yes, but it prepared them to pull the trigger on joining NATO at any time. It dont blame them and honestly, I don't think Russia cares very much, even if they complain a bit.
The Russia-Finland border is very sparsely populated and it's easily one of the least traversable terrains world wide, excluding mountain ranges and oceans. It's nothing but hills, swamps, lakes, forrest swamps and hill swamps.
The point is: Joining the EOP program is a huge warning sign that you're about to join NATO at any moment.
> Russia got that when they seized Crimea. Ukraine couldn't join even if they wanted at that point by NATO's own rules without renouncing control of Crimea
They could have just given up on Crimea, signed the NATO deal and immediately renewed their claims.
Also, these "rules" are loose guidelines at best. Plenty of countries have joined NATO with ongoing border conflicts. Prime example: Greece and Turkey.
> Putin said that the little green men were Russian military.
Yup, after the fact, probably when it became more feasible to deal with the internal political and bureaucratic fallout.
Hence the intense irony.
> In short that Ukraine is a mistake done by Lenin forced about by a anti Russian agenda of some kind, and that erasing the imagine imaginary line between Ukraine and Russia is necessary to return Russia to the world stage like it was it was part of the USSR.
Putin LOVES to present himself as a hobby historian, but the historical claims Russia has on Ukraine don't make any sense from a practical viewpoint, since these arguments wont add absolutely any weight to Russia trying to further their cause just about anywhere. Especially because the political history of the region is complex enough to challenge just about any claims.
Then there is the catastrophic state of the region even before 2022, before 2014 and even 2004.
Russia is a huge country with incredible wealth, but sparsely populated (beyond the Ukraine-Moscow region), which makes sufficient development of its subregions feasible. People like to laugh at an apparent lack of indoor plumbing in Russia, but that's just because some people want to live that way and often have for generations. There are still many nomads in Russia, secluded villages with little to no contact to the outside for decades, semi-nomadic people moving every few years and pulling up new temporary housing and other variations of people living simple lives.
If you want to live in a higher developed area, there's little stopping you from doing so. What's hard to escape in Russia are the Soviet style apartments and buying yourself into the top cities. Below that and up to that the social mobility is great, easily one of the best worldwide. Beyond thaf, you're screwed, unless you've got good contacts with capable contractors (or VERY deep pockets).
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But now enter the mess that's Ukraine. Much more densly populated, atrociously developed, basically no industry, hardly any profitable natural ressources (all hard and expensive to extract), the social mobility of Hellen Keller, about as well organized as a puzzle tossed from the 10th floor and walking on a random field has a lethality rate of about 20% per 10m.
Taking over responsibility for that catastrophe is signing yourself up for bankruptcy by thousand cuts.
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If Russia were aiming for there former USSR glory, step one would be Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Then Belarus. Most of these countries could be incorporated entirely through political moves, causing little to no international retaliation.
And only then would Ukraine or Georgia be brought to the chopping block. These countries have very high geostrategic value, but also extreme conflict potential, and not only in the military sense.
E.g. Ukraine is both for the US and the EU easy to bully around, if necessary. They're not going to stop buying gas from it, as long as relevant to the markets and available. And Russia can also easily bully Ukraine if necessary, under normal conditions Ukraine isn't going to stop buying gas from Russia. But if Russia and all these other EU/NATO states were to have yet another conflict with eachother, Russia could kiss that revenue good bye.
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And then there's the fact that the USSR failed but just recently before. People dont look favorably on it, neither in Russia nor anywhere else. The risk of people becoming maliciously compliant or outright striking, on top of the various political, social and institutional challenges, is just way too large. It's a good way go turn yourself into a failed state within but a few months.
And Putin would yet again face the reverse version of what he previously called the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century": Millions of people without any national representation being stuck in foreign nations.
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Putin is old and very popular in Russia. I doubt he's going to throw that away over a mission he's not only too old to complete himself, but is also almost certainly going to fail and turn Russia into a failed state.
> That and there's the theory that Putin himself was being fed in effect bad intelligence about both the readiness of his own armed forces as well as the general attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians
Maybe, but the guy has been at the top for too long and has been VERY successfully managing one of the most challenging nations on Earth. With a bureaucracy he's pretty much built himself from scratch after that infamous meeting with the oligarchs, which caused them to resign from politics over night.
The state of the Russian forces was atrocious, but despite all the pandering, it became obvious the military was never a high priority for Russia. They poured a lot of money into research projects/scams, had conscription (who cant be used in conflicts if no war is officially declared ("SMO" ...)) and a rather tiny professional army, that invaded Ukraine in 2022 (+2014, I guess). And a giant Soviet arsenal.
Putin might have been misled, but I think it's more likely that he just ran out of good options. You can almost hear him become desperate and slightly depressed during his call with President Macron just before the invasion. Also the constant begging for guarantees Ukraine wont join NATO during the months before.
I think he knew quite well that his gamble on Ukraine handling this like Georgia in 2008 was VERY risky.
> Given what Putin did to his rivals, not too hard to make a guess why they wouldn't want to give him bad news.
Heard a theory he does that to people who break certain agreements with him. Like Prigozhin. Made a public agreement with Putin not to return to Russia, but then kept cruising around Russia in his private jet for weeks, very publicly.
And for some reason just about anyone involved in the Chechens' raids against Russia during the second Chechen war. Guess there's a personal vendetta hidden somewhere.
> What purpose does seizing and holding does Kherson serve to in keeping the control over Crimea and the Strait of Kerch, exactly?
Quite an important one. The Kerch bridge is highly vulnerable and has little capacity, both for transport and utilities. A land connection would rectify this and Russia gave that very high priority during the beginning of the war. While the units in the north acted rather passively during the start of the invasion (some really bad apples excluded), the southern units went all in straight away.
Also Crimea was running out of water and Ukraine refused to negotiate about reopening the canal supplying 80% of Crimea's water (understandably, although in hindsight it was probably a bad idea). Crimea was absolutely screwed without that canal, many people not having anymore access to fresh water just before the invasion and the economy was in free fall. Russia took over the dam blocking the canal on day 1 and destroyed it on day 3.
> Why attempt go even further and seize Odessa?
I've seen speculations of connecting to Transnistria, but am not convinced that was the primary objective.
We just don't know, but if I had to guess there were 2 important objectives:
1. Taking over the large shipyards with its giant dry docks located along the Ukrainian coast east of Crimea. The docks there were among the largest the Soviets ever built.
2. Turning Ukraine into a landlocked country, then offering it sweetheart deals to achieve strong political control.
Might have also joined the captured area to Transnistria to convince Moldova to finally push ahead with the gradual reunification. In exchange for significant political influence, ofc. Clarification: Moldova isn't trying to sabotage any such efforts, the Transnistrian side absolutely is. But Transnistria will do as Russia commands and Moldova is constantly infighting with itself on a large variety of issues regarding both Romania and Transnistria. And Russia has an undisclosed, but obvious, interest in keeping Moldova away from Romania, at least until there's a favorable deal on Transnistria.
> Why open a northern front in the Kharkiv Oblast?
In the beginning: Overwhelming Kyiv by attacking from multiple directions.
Now: Most of the Ukrainian units are heavily entrenched in the Donbass making advancing very very difficult. Why advance at all? Because the more Ukraine needs to rebuild fortifications and set up new logistics, the more vulnerable they become.
Some of the areas in the Donbass have been built up for a decade. Russia obviously doesn't disclose any of this, but I'd imagine it to be an utter nightmare to push Ukraine out of there.
So the best option is probably making Ukraine move some of its forces elsewhere.
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You could also make the argument that Kharkiv could act as a buffer towards the Russian heartland and shield for the unified deep water system, but the DPR and LPR are WAY more important in that potential role.
> Why try to open a front from Belarus into Kyiv?
Pressure Kyiv, end it quickly. Apparently there were also plans to put pressure on Lviv, but either that was a myth, fizzled out or is being kept hidden very well.
> That's an awful lot of fronts to open up to try take territory that Russia does not want.
But way too few people to hold it. When Ukraine started preparing its counter offensive and Russia built its own fortifications, Russia heavily reduced the width and depth of its frontline. We dont have any accurate numbers for any phase of the war, but Putin mentioned that the Russian forces were distributed extremely sparsely on a much too long frontline. Wagner and later the adsorption of other PMCs rectified that a bit, but if Prigozhin is to be believed, the Russians didn't treat them ... very kindly when they still were a separate force.
People don’t want to make capital investments whose success is based on a loose plan that seems to change weekly.
Add in that you are then almost certainly limited to a domestic market since your goods are only affordable when the competition has to pay a whacking great penalty.
I'm not defending it, but certainly if they then reduce income taxes (which is the plan), consumers would have more money to spend. A portion of that money would then go back into US manufacturing, further driving up wages
If you want to avoid increasing the deficit, you have to take in via tarrifs whatever you cut in income taxes. So no this doesn't mean households now have more disposable income. That money they were paying in income taxes they are now paying in higher prices due to tarrifs.
You may also want to double check the plan. Yes there are income taxes cuts included to make the little guy feel like they got something, but as usual the bulk of the cuts will go to the top.
The tldr version imo of tariffs is to ask yourself if their should be tariffs on Chinese evs and work backwards from there to every other industry.
The more detailed answer boils down to if you as a business can save 1% producing a product by buying a widget you need from overseas, that's what you'll do. So instead of a domestic company paying employees in your country all through it's supply chain, it all goes overseas. This costs you as a business 1%, but in theory has a large enough economic impact to benefit the country overall.
AFAIK the Section 301 tariff (and increases) only applies to parts imported from China/HK. There are lots of manufacturers on DigiKey that make their parts from elsewhere where these tariffs are not assessed. As a data point, I recently bought a bunch of Lite-on LEDs on DK, their COO was Thailand, and I wasn't tariffed for those parts.
> Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse
Companies do not price things as they are now, or how much it cost in the inventory, but about how much they must charge to keep the business afloat. That means that prices will go up only because there's a risk that prices would go up, so that in any event, they can cover whatever they need to keep operations on-going. While prices go up in both a high risk or no competitive markets, prices would only go down if there's a competitive market.
That's the minimum they charge. The maximum they charge is how much they think customers are willing or have to pay. If the general mood is that tariffs will cause inflation, then price gouging will likely occur.
I’d also like some insight on the foreign buyer bit as DigiKey is by far the best and most reliable supplier to my part of the world despite being the other side of an ocean.
I pay local VAT and any local tariffs, all collected by DigiKey, and don’t think I pay any US taxes on the shipment.
By intuition I’d think whatever US tariff wouldn’t apply, but these things don’t exactly make sense a lot of the time.
Edit: Upon reading about the tariff drawback process, and these latest ones not being applicable to it - it does seem that I’ll be paying US tariffs for something [from China] that is then exported to me in another country.
> it does seem that I’ll be paying US tariffs for something [from China] that is then exported to me in another country.
I'm sure that isn't right - Digikey imports and exports from across the world - including existing items with tariffs and duty - effectively their warehouses act like Bonded warehouses - they claim back 99% of Duty and Tariff paid on exported items using Drawback. I don't know the details of the new tariffs but it wouldn't make sense for the US to stop this for reexports.
One way DigiKey helps provide high-quality products at competitive prices is through our Duty Drawback Program, which allows us to recover a portion of the tariffs paid on imported products. However, under this Executive Order, the new 10% duty on all products imported from China and Hong Kong is not eligible for duty drawback programs.
That really is destroying US businesses. DigiKey's size and its amazingly efficient process means a European can order parts made in China via DigiKey and get them next day or the day after, mostly cheaper than from the smaller European suppliers.
The US has now effectively added an 'export' tax on DigiKeys business.
Ouch, if that is the case this is only going to boost the non US suppliers. Has anyone tried lcsc.com? Digikey and mouser are great but if all semiconductors go up 50% that is a problem.
Yes it does seem a bit strange - I guess the goal here is to encourage them to source and sell me a quality American SMD diode at less than $(0.006 + 10%) per unit.
That said I'm struggling to fully understand it all, the site kind of implies that the 50% Semiconductor tariff _is_ drawbackable - and if we look some of those were in effect since 2024. It does say that the 10% 'China tax' is not.
My reading here then is that the 10% extra is for everyone, and the rest of that table in addition is for goods consumed in the US. (And, some of those tariffs don't look very different from some of them in my non-US locale, which I would have to pay anyway)
Still a daft situation, will for sure be looking around for other suppliers.
I've used lcsc.com, and aside from their website being a little janky, it was fine. I would normally have used Digikey/Mouser, but I needed a few parts they didn't stock, but LCSC did. Then I found that a bunch of the other parts I was ordering were significantly cheaper from LCSC, and ultimately ordering everything I could from them cut the bottom line price of my BOM in half.
That said, shipping was $40-50 for one small box with around 50 components (varying quantities), so if you do order from LCSC it's best to order as much as possible within the same order, since the shipping is gonna be a significant chunk of the cost for any order <$1K. It took a few weeks to arrive using DHL, where Digikey/Mouser both generally deliver within a week (domestic shipping, I'm in N. Carolina).
TLDR; I would recommend LCSC if you are buying enough such that the per-part savings offsets the significantly higher shipping costs, and you don't mind waiting a ~10-14 days for your parts to arrive. I personally still use domestic suppliers for most parts, but when I have a larger BOM and I'm not under a deadline, I'll go with LCSC.
If you're ordering from the US, you should also be aware that Trump's tariffs still apply, so be prepared to pay at least 10% more for everything (some items--things like medical equipment, batteries, and semiconductors--are significantly higher, up to 100%). There may also be a processing fee levied by the shipping carrier if they collect the tariffs on your behalf. As I understand it, LCSC includes a customs declaration form with the shipment, and it's your responsibility to pay any duties or tariffs as the importer.
Duties are paid only if the products are being moved from outside into the US. And the other way around it matching tarrifs were enacted (they're almost always are). Digikey Europe might be affected because of global economic consequences but not directly by tarrifs. So short term the price should not change if you're not buying from the US (both ways)
Digikey (and Mouser) don’t have warehouses in Europe - they express ship everything from the US.
As far as I’m aware Farnell are the only major electronics retailer to have European warehouses. They don’t have nearly the same level of stock as the big players. But this will certainly be a big boost for them.
Out of curiosity, can you tell me more about your hobby that involves ship to shore cranes? Or, is this an indirect way of saying that your hobby involves transoceanic shipping? This is Hackernews, so it could plausibly be either.
A third interpretation is this is a joke and they are talking about a business they want to make work without the tariffs, but yeah might have flown over my head too.
You don't pay for how much the item in the store costs, you pay how much it will cost to restock it (see also: petrol/gasoline prices changing throughout the week - it's because there's a fixed charge to refill the tanks, regardless of how much goes in).
> Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse.
Given they didn't have to pay tariffs before, I would assume they've declared all the goods and in that case yes.
> Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
If you re-export goods that was previously imported without using it, like DigiKey, then at least here in EU you can apply to get the duties paid back. However it's quite annoying if you import large quantities and sell small fractions. It works better if you do it on a 1-1 basis.
Not 100% sure how it works in US, but in EU you can have a bonded warehouse, where you store goods before you perform the import declaration to free them for general use.
This allows you to postpone the import declaration, and hence tariffs to be paid, to when you've sold the goods, or even avoid paying tariffs if you export the goods directly from the bonded warehouse.
The latter part is very attractive to companies like DigiKey which sell a lot of their goods abroad.
There are typically strict rules regarding getting a bonded warehouse license, with requirements for bookkeeping and physical separation with access control to avoid mistaking the bonded goods for normal non-bonded and hence technically smuggle goods into the country.
This also affects who's performing the import declaration. Pre-tariffs there's usually not much incentive to do anything more fancy than letting someone else handle the import declarations. However the added bookkeeping and usually means the one responsible for the bonded warehouse is best suited to perform the declarations. At least here in EU there are companies that offer this as a service.
Anyway the point was, if they didn't already have a bonded warehouse and decide to go with one, it's not just sending an email and get some approval. It might affect how DigiKey has to handle this goods deeply.
I have a PCBA order from JLCPCB that should ship any day now. Cost at checkout was a bit over $200, with no mention of tariffs. I've been wondering if I'm going to get hit with it by UPS. Has anyone else here had any experience with this yet?
Likely yes although I’m not sure if the administration has fully got rid of De Minimis or figured out how to reduce from $800 USD.
With UPS the added kicker is UPS charges a $70 processing fee themselves for processing something through Customs for you, paying the tariff for you so the package isn’t delayed and then enabling you to pay them back in advance of delivery on ups.com or the driver will ask for payment at the door when delivering your goods.
I don’t know if UPS going into the states is the same as Canada, but you can avoid the clearance fee by not shipping with UPS ground. The higher levels of UPS service do not have the bullshit fee added on, and you just pay the cost of taxes.
Canadians can also self clear packages in person at a CBSA office through the Courier Low Value Shipment program [1], if the value of the package is under $3300. It's a bit of a hassle, but has saved me >$100 in brokerage fees on some packages when UPS Ground was by far the cheapest option.
From that link: “The CBSA has placed a moratorium on applications for participation in the Courier Low Value Shipment Program effective June 3, 2019, until further notice. For additional information regarding the moratorium please refer to Customs Notice 19-12.”
That only applies to couriers who want to participate in the program, not consumers who want to self-clear their imported shipments. A person doesn't need to register, they can just take the appropriate forms to a CBSA office and pay any taxes/duties themselves. Kind of a confusing thing to have posted at the top of a page that seems more applicable to consumers than commercial importers.
Just got a JLCPCB order this week (below $800) via UPS and it arrived no problem with no tariffs since the de minimis exemption is temporarily still active from the latest of the tariffs EOs.
In the past with a DHL order over $800 they just sent me an invoice to pay before they'd deliver the package. Make sure you check the invoice though - DHL screwed up the HTS codes and tariff calculations and substantially overcharged, so I had to talk to DHL support to get it fixed (which ended up being really straightforward).
If JLCPCB doesn't charge, you will get a bill from CBP, customs and border patrol. I've purchased capex equipment (items over $25k) from China for my small company and that's how we've paid tariffs in the past.
(Contrary to the current US administration's lies, the buyer pays the tariff, not the seller.)
I had a $300 order (ordered late January, arrived last week) and was hit with the tariffs via UPS along with their bogus processing fee as another commenter mentioned. They wait for it to reach the US before holding it hostage. Would recommend using DHL if at all possible, as they make dealing with it a lot less painful.
At least here in Norway, though similar in many other countries that I know, it's not entirely bogus.
Typically there are real costs involved with submitting a customs declaration, especially if it requires actual people looking at the invoice and filling out the customs declaration based on it. An order from JCLPCB or similar would typically fall in that category.
Then there's the duties. Either they hold the goods until you've paid, in which case they need storage space and bookkeeping, along with inspections from customs every so often. Or they just pay up front and bill you after the fact. In either case there are real costs involved.
That said they're certainly not a charity, and I do think they exploit a bit the fact that often the importer doesn't have much of a say or knowledge in picking the shipping company. Perhaps the seller only deals with UPS for example.
I understand it takes more on their end but I hate that it's not baked in the the base shipping fee. They know they're going to have to do the extra work, why not take that into account on the base price?
JLCPCB recently started offering them as a shipping option, and they tend to be $5-10 under DHL's quote. The DHL price takes the additional processing fees into account and I'm not left with a nasty surprise in addition to the tariffs/customs fees.
> They know they're going to have to do the extra work, why not take that into account on the base price?
There's the option of doing it yourself or have some third party doing it, though you usually still end up paying some fee to the express company.
A lot of business customers do that, at least here, especially if they got goods with duties where they might not be confident in the goods classification[1] done by the express company, or if they have exemptions.
Though as I mentioned earlier, I do agree there's too little transparency here, and that they're taking advantage of it. I suspect the only way they'll improve is if customers start voting with their wallet.
I'm not aware of a way to do this in the US, or else I'd absolutely take this on myself. For JLC the classification code is chosen by me at checkout, and I use the industry standard code for the product I sell.
> For JLC the classification code is chosen by me at checkout
Export or import classification? The first six digits are the same, but the rest vary per country so if you specify the export tariff codes then the one doing the import declaration will still have to do the import classification.
Haven't had to classify when ordering from JLC, then again I've only ordered PCBs so that might be why.
Bullshit. It's an entirely predictable cost at the time of shipping, and should be built into _the cost of shipping_ as paid for by the party _paying for the service_. This is simply a means to double dip, knowing that the receiver doesn't know better in advance and can't do anything about it once they find out.
The buyer/importer is paying for the service, either directly or indirectly, so matters little in that regard. The seller ain't a charity either and will pass on any costs. You're not getting DDP for free.
But I agree that the transparency regarding customs processing fees is very lacking. Obviously they don't have an incentive as long as customers don't see this as a differentiator.
But you can already get this, just demand DDP terms[1] when buying. Seller might refuse in which case you can take your business elsewhere, or they might accept but charge extra for the service.
For example DigiKey allows me to select[2] between DDP or CPT, which means I have to pay for importing the goods[3].
There's a piece of furniture in eyeing that's twice as much on Amazon as on AliExpress.
I have two anxieties about Ali that are keeping me from making a decision though:
- You're essentially trusting foreign eBay sellers to get customs right. If they screw up, it's a ding against your Global Entry account. You're making yourself liable for the competence of strangers, and I don't know the system well enough to know if you can trust their ratings.
- I've yet to hear anything about how the tariffs are working out in practice. I don't wanna hit buy and find out everything is way more complicated/expensive than it was last month.
I should probably just buy from Amazon, but it's hard to commit to paying full price when you know everyone else is selling it for way less (but more risk of something shady happening).
I would never buy furniture from Alibaba or Amazon. I’ve bought a couple pieces of basic furniture from Amazon, including a bed frame from a third party seller that was missing essential pieces for which I was given a 50% discount as compensation. But at least if you buy from Amazon directly, the product is more likely to meet regulations. I have no faith that any furniture ordered from Alibaba meets any of the standards (CSPC, California fire code) it might claim.
To my understanding, your board is a subassembly and not subject to the tariffs. There’s an existing semiconductor tariff as well as this product tariff, and various categories that make it hard to untangle. Anyone correct me if I’m wrong - trying to figure it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/pickup-...
Unless JLCPCB explicitly sold you under DDP terms[1], you'll have to pay applicable tariffs. I'm 99% certain they did not do that, it's usually explicitly mentioned. DigiKey for example has this as an explicit choice when I order to Norway.
Here in Norway that also involves a service fee by express companies like UPS as paying tariffs means they can't use a simplified customs declaration, and they typically front the payment to get you your goods ASAP. YMMV.
edit: Seems I missed that Trump postponded[2] the low-value exemption, De Minimis, so your shipment is probably in the clear. But next one might not be.
Trump is going the peronism route Argentina took. Where protectionism was implemented for the sake of... Making the people in power richer.
You cannot just tariff if your industry is not there, people end up paying higher prices.
Next thing you'll hear is that America is producing but actually they will be assembling (for this you'll need to get along well with China).
Crazy that Milei and Trump get along well mainly because of their social policies, but economic policies are so different. The US needs only two allies, Mexico and Canada, the only countries it has borders with, and instead Trump is just creating hate there.
Given that DigiKey pretty much ships out all of its components from their US warehouses (at least when ordering from India and Canada), but that most of the components are actually made in China or elsewhere, that we could expect them to set up a warehouse outside the US for in order to avoid these tariffs affecting DigiKey customers not based in the US.
I wonder if this also applies to Mouser. I've been buying pretty much all of my components from there, but if it becomes much more expensive I might have to just source from China and learn to read their datasheets. Mouser has much better customer experience and Texas Instruments, Analog Devices etc. have much better chips and docs, but at some point the 10x less expensive Chinese clones (and these days even new Chinese made chips) will just become the rational choice.
(With the assumption that this will be just the start of a trade war around chips)
It also applies to anything you source from China yourself. It's an import tax. Any applicable goods or services introduced to the US market incur it.
The one place it doesn't apply is when Digi-Key (or Mouser) ship to outside the US, their warehouses are apparently transit areas. (Source: I ordered to Switzerland a few days ago. No tariffs. You can probably check yourself by creating an order.)
If you're buying from China, you'll be paying the Trump Sales Tax. And if you try to ship directly from China yourself, you'll pay administrative fees to whoever handles the actual tax payment for you. For a few moments in early February before the administration began backtracking, DHL was charging a $32 fee for each shipment, even for a $1 trinket, and the other shippers (Cainao etc) were rapidly gearing up to do the same. The de minimis exemption for low-value goods was also briefly suspended, which is why the fees were so out of whack, and also why USPS momentarily stopped accepting shipments from China and Hong Kong: they didn't have the infrastructure to suddenly deal with fees on huge volumes of packages.
Buying your Chinese stuff through Mouser or Digikey or Arrow will spread that administrative fee across a whole shipping container of components. You'll still be paying the tax, but the administrative costs will be amortized.
I think tariff targets Chinese goods in general. Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't bring in quantity.
Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
> Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
That's an extremely subtle way of saying "keep your mouth shut".
It's not. You can freely talk about other topics. In fact, talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not too loud. I think it is the same for all countries I have lived in. Talking about politics is always taboo.
Not around where I am, at least withing the various circles I talk to. It can be hard to avoid, even. (to be fair, I live in a city which is relatively an outlier on the political spectrum compared to the country as a whole)
> Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't bring in quantity.
Historically this was true, because the de minimis exemption meant small value imports didn't get charged tariffs. But the recent tariff EO both increased existing tariffs AND removed de minimis, meaning even a $5 import now needs to go through the overhead of tariff calculation and payment.
The de minimis change is temporarily paused because there's no way carriers or enforcement could actually handle the change in tariff volume with no warning, but broadly speaking, the low value direct import route is going away.
Republicans today definitely would be unrecognizable to Republicans of even 16 years ago. Here are some excerpts from the 2008 Republican Party Platform [1]. Are there any Republicans in Congress now who would agree with any of this?
They were for renewable energy:
> Alternate power sources must enter the mainstream. The technology behind solar energy has improved significantly in recent years, and the commercial development of wind power promises major benefits both in costs and in environmental protection. Republicans support these and other alternative energy sources, including geothermal and hydropower, and anticipate technological developments that will increase their economic viability. We therefore advocate a long-term energy tax credit equally applicable to all renewable power sources.
> Republicans support measures to modernize the nation's electricity grid to provide American consumers and businesses with more affordable, reliable power. We will work to unleash innovation so entrepreneurs can develop technologies for a more advanced and robust United States transmission system that meets our growing energy demands.
They were for energy conservation, recycling, telecommuting, and reducing business travel:
> Conservation does not mean deprivation; it means efficiency and achieving more with less. Most Americans today endeavor to conserve fossil fuels, whether in their cars or in their home heating, but we can do better. We can construct better and smarter buildings, use smarter thermostats and transmission grids, increase recycling, and make energy-efficient consumer purchases. Wireless communications, for example, can increase telecommuting options and cut back on business travel. The Republican goal is to ensure that Americans have more conservation options that will enable them to make the best choices for their families.
They wanted better gas mileage for cars and a push for cars that do not rely on oil, with electric cars specifically mentioned:
> We must continue to develop alternative fuels, such as biofuels, especially cellulosic ethanol, and hasten their technological advances to next-generation production. As America develops energy technology for the 21st century, policy makers must consider the burden that rising food prices and energy costs create for the poor and developing nations around the world. Because alternative fuels are useless if vehicles cannot use them, we must move quickly to flexible fuel vehicles; we cannot expect necessary investments in alternative fuels if this flexibility does not become standard. We must also produce more vehicles that operate on electricity and natural gas, both to reduce demand for oil and to cut CO2 emissions.
> Given that fully 97 percent of our current transportation vehicles rely on oil, we will aggressively support technological advances to reduce our petroleum dependence. For example, lightweight composites could halve the weight and double the gas mileage of cars and trucks, and together with flex-fuel and electric vehicles, could usher in a renaissance in the American auto industry.
They had a lot to say about climate change:
> Addressing Climate Change Responsibly
> The same human economic activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. While the scope and long-term consequences of this are the subject of ongoing scientific research, common sense dictates that the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today to reduce any impact on the environment. Those steps, if consistent with our global competitiveness will also be good for our national security, our energy independence, and our economy. Any policies should be global in nature, based on sound science and technology, and should not harm the economy.
> The Solution: Technology and the Market
> As part of a global climate change strategy, Republicans support technology-driven, market-based solutions that will decrease emissions, reduce excess greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, increase energy efficiency, mitigate the impact of climate change where it occurs, and maximize any ancillary benefits climate change might offer for the economy.
> To reduce emissions in the short run, we will rely upon the power of new technologies, as discussed above, especially zero-emission energy sources such as nuclear and other alternate power sources. But innovation must not be hamstrung by Washington bickering, regulatory briar patches, or obstructionist lawsuits. Empowering Washington will only lead to unintended consequences and unimagined economic and environmental pain; instead, we must unleash the power of scientific know-how and competitive markets.
> International Cooperation
> Because the issue of climate change is global, it must become a truly global concern as well. All developed and developing economies, particularly India and China, can make significant contributions in dealing with the matter. It would be unrealistic and counterproductive to expect the U.S. to carry burdens which are more appropriately shared by all.
> Using Cash Rewards to Encourage Innovation
> Because Republicans believe that solutions to the risk of global climate change will be found in the ingenuity of the American people, we propose a Climate Prize for scientists who solve the challenges of climate change. Honoraria of many millions of dollars would be a small price for technological developments that eliminate our need for gas-powered cars or abate atmospheric carbon.
The change in the Republican party over the last 20 years has been shocking.
The conservatives I grew up around called Nixon a "wannabe tyrant" and my dad described as "believing he was king" in the Frost-Nixon interview. People were outraged by "when the president does it, it's not illegal".
My uncle ranted and raved about "billionaires like Soros subverting democracy".
Today, the White House can tweet a picture of trump wearing a crown titled "Long Live the King" and there's not even a peep. The Supreme Court can rule the President to be above the law, and there's no outcry. There's a billionaire talking over the president in fox news interviews, and not a single conservative I know has anything to say about it.
Truly there is no more American principle than "No Kings Here", and yet my uncle, a former marine, KNEELED when he saw Trump on TV during the Super Bowl. It's bewildering - I don't recognize any of these people anymore.
Right-Wing Americans haven't been conservative at least since Gingrich. There was nothing conservative about shutting down the Clinton-era counterterrorism programs prior to 9/11, for instance. There was nothing conservative about invading Iraq, or trying to administer Iraq as a right-wing utopia under the Coalition Provisional Authority.
I continue to be astonished at how the Republican party transformed from libertarians into a personality cult overnight because some weirdo won an election.
Lindsey Graham was on TV being all "never Trump" one week and then fully supportive the next. c.c. almost everyone else in Washington.
I wonder what the tipping point is among Republican voters between those who genuinely support Trump vs those who think the Democratic candidates are so bad for foreign policy, DEI, etc. that they'll vote from Trump in protest.
Who would the Democrats have to nominate to get the libertarians who used to vote Republican to back them instead?
I think Sanders would have unified because my MAGA parents liked his working-class support. But if I mention that among my progressive friends I get glares and stern warnings that Hillary was "the best" candidate and any objection is sexist. It's kinda like being a conservative who doesn't believe in god or is gay, your party will shun you.
I know anecdote vs anecdote is pretty much meaningless and I’m channeling “No true Scotsman”, but I find it hard to believe an actual progressive telling you that - the complaints from the progressive wing about Sanders losing the primaries are evergreen.
No, Sanders would never be a unifying figure. Libertarians see him as being essentially equivalent to Trump: a demagogue who makes emotional appeals to build a cult of personality, deeply misunderstands economics, and seeks to use political power in an unbounded and illegitimate ways.
But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.
They are noise in the data.
Populism is a marketing tool (to quote Hank Green) and Sanders wielded it as well as trump, but to help people, not punish them. Both have decades of track records demonstrating this fact.
> But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.
Various surveys have indicated that 20-30% of the US population broadly align with libertarian principles, regardless of party affiliation or nominal identification. This aligns fairly well with the proportion of the electorate that had negative opinions of both Trump and Harris in the last election (even those who took a "lesser of evils" approach and voted for one of them).
Everyone would agree they'd like to pay less for health care. Much fewer would agree with specific proposals purporting to achieve that. Many people understand that the accumulation of political interventions over the past ~60 years are the primary thing driving costs up.
I don't know if you're new to HN or if you made an alt account just for this, but…
The underlying principle of HN is that discussions should engender curiosity.
Talking point pissing matches and trying to dunk in replies permeate conversation everywhere else, especially when the people in power are controversial. Please take that energy elsewhere.
If you wanna participate in HN, aim for replies that everyone would find interesting. This isn't a board for interpersonal arguments.
> Present day conservatives are just awful people in general in my experience.
I don't think I've seen any conservatives involved in mainstream politics in the past 15 to 20 years. I see people using the word "conservatives" to describe something else entirely, but few actual conservatives.
I see it the other way around. This is real conservatism.
Conservatism as an actual movement was formed after the French Revolution when monarchists found that “deus vult” was no longer sufficient justification for wanting a king. The core principles are just rationalizations for the main idea: there should be a king.
American conservatives got swept away by democratic ideals and focused on the rationalizations, but now they’re getting back to their roots.
> I see it the other way around. This is real conservatism.
It's really not.
> Conservatism as an actual movement was formed after the French Revolution when monarchists found that “deus vult” was no longer sufficient justification for wanting a king.
In fact, conservatism in the Anglo-American world has no relationship whatsoever with the French revolution; the sort of reactionary monarchism that informed the royalist factions during the French revolution was already all but dead in the UK and America by the time of the French revolution -- it had already been driven to the fringes by the English civil war and the Glorious Revolution, and in the aftermath of the Whig ascendancy and the American revolution, was utterly gone by the 19th century.
Modern conservatism descends from the non-radical side of the Whig philosophy, as exemplified by Edmund Burke, and is characterized by preferring stability and continuity rather than forceful change, within a context of limited, balanced government, rule of law, and respect for the individual. Many of the people referring to themselves today as "conservatives" are collectivist, authoritarian radicals, and have much more in common with the extreme left than with traditional conservatism.
I find it tragically hilarious how the leader of the most powerful country in the world sees tarriffs and fails to understand the interconnectedness of economies that benefit both. When someone thinks of the world as a zero-sum game it's pretty clear.
And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get.
I suspect we'll end up seeing the Trump era as a good thing for the rest of the world -- a stable America tends to suck up all the oxygen in the room and the current daily whiplash makes the rest of us just prefer to trade with each other.
While the US still holds a fair bit of monetary power worldwide, we're basically seeing them spend soft power at a ridiculous rate.
Meanwhile, we're refocusing our economy to make it less US-centric, finding new markets for our resources and watching America self-immolate.
I was discussing today with a relative how Cuba's Fidel Castro framed the public opinion in the country in such a way the nation is currently... having a very hard time. Even after Fidel Castro's dead. Worse, Hugo Chavez imported the same set of morose ideas, and a decade later, with both idiots dead, the two countries are competing to see which one has longer blackouts. Never underestimate people's capacity to listen to popular figures and embrace damaging cabals.
Strange but conventional perspective. I would say to never underestimate the long-term sadism of the US when dealing with small countries who insist on abolishing slavery or owning their own natural resources, or the ability of the people who benefit from that sadism to blame the victims of it.
There is something to what you say; like, Marcos Rubio has probably benefited from that sadism. Materially though, I think the Americans are worse off for it.
With that said, the average Cuban is so down that they don't get a chance of being a victim of USA's long-term sadism (though many, many, have benefited from USA's long term generosity. Florida is full of them). Being affected by USA's sanctions require sufficient standing to, well, try to import something from USA or access its financial markets in some way.
Yes, USA's legislation forbids the Cuban government and its citizens from doing business with American entities, and that includes accessing financial instruments. But all Cuban citizens are forbidden by their own government from commercially importing goods and services from any part of the world. Goods for private consumption are under a 100% tariff, except for food, which is under a temporary exception due to famine[^2]. That exemption is re-examined every three months, with government officials showing up on TV and bemoaning the missed tariff income.
Foreign investment is heavily regulated, and only allowed for big industries that the government considers strategical. The business regulation forbids citizens from participating in or forming stock corporations. There is no legal notion of corporate veil.
The Cuban banking system is wholly-government controlled[^1], and it only allows privates and businesses to give foreign currency to the government at a rate set by the government, with no exchange in the other direction. But the Cuban government decided to stop printing its national currency to force everybody to use its digital ledgers, so that they can levy revenue taxes directly (yes, "revenue", not "profit"). It makes sense in some sort of Machiavellian way. Problem is, the power infrastructure has collapsed and nothing digital is currently working. There is still a stiff tariff and insurmountable paperwork on importing solar power infrastructure--which is only allowed for private residences. If you do manage, you are required to connect that infrastructure to the public network but it's impossible to do due to bureaucracy and red-tape, and you are not to be paid by the power delivered into said network. Solar farms which do not belong to the government are not allowed.
I could keep going for a few more pages. Yes, there is USA long-term sadism towards some small nations, I've been affected by it and it's not exactly kosher. But it's a drop in the bucket compared with what those small nations do to their own citizens.
[^1] But there are some interesting corruption twists in that story which I don't have time to go on.
[^2] Famine in a country with great weather and good soils, because the government forbids farmer from selling their produce at market prices and from importing machinery and miscellaneous equipment, fertilizers and seeds.
We're not really spending soft power as much as flushing it down the shitter. I won't be mad at all if Canada wants their own nuclear weapons now. Good fences and all that
Trump's tariffs against China are at least aligned with both his, and long-term America stated strategy and goals. America has tried the free trade trick with China to try to compel it to towards political liberalization - it didn't work. Remember that Trump's tariffs on China from his first term were not cancelled by Biden - infact Biden added to the tariffs, in addition to enacting export restrictions. Both Bush Jr and Obama enacted limited tariffs on Chinese products.
If you look at trade action against China, you can see the contours of a strategy that could maybe actually work. Obviously, tariffs cannot be the only component of such a strategy, since the disparity between Chinese and American manufacturing capability in many fields is absolutely gigantic. It took decades for China to reach their current position, there's no reason to expect that America, or the west as a whole could expect to catch up in anything less than roughly a decade scale, especially with only unpredictable tariffs.
Trumps tariff plans against the rest of North America and the EU however... those fly in the very face of attempting to seriously take on China. USMCA is up for renewal in 2026. Whatever legitimate issues Trump had with Canada and Mexico, and whatever strong arm position he wanted to take, he could have messaged as a part of a prelude to the renewal. This probably would result in better outcomes for the US.
The US is finding that many of their critical supply chains (including defense supply chains) are passing through China. Tariffs alone are not sufficient to disentangle these elements, and the domestic messaging from Trump simply does not create the domestic conditions for sustaining both the tariffs and whatever other policies and aid are required to enact these structural changes. It's difficult to reconcile "lower inflation", "slash the budget and deficit", "tax cuts for the rich", "tariffs", and "reindustrialize America" all at once.
Randomly picking the Toyota EV battery plant that's supposed to come online this year in North Carolina - site selection was announced back in 2021. In many of these critical areas, we're talking multi-year minimal lead times to bring new capacity online.
How the current US administration is treating European and North American countries makes me wonder if they are serious about taking on China.
As a Brit, I've been surprised by how much my view has shifted in the last few weeks. I used to assume we'd be allies with the US and have a probably competitive and maybe adversarial relationship with China. Now I see the US administration basically saying "we're going to make you pay through the nose for everything" (e.g. taking Ukrainian minerals). So I've started thinking "Well, if the US and China will both behave like that, surely we're best off playing them against each other and seeing who'll offer us more?"
That seems like a very bad deal for the US. So I figure that (a) the administration isn't serious about taking on China, or (b) assumes European and North American countries will roll over, or (c) they think they can go it alone.
Yeah as much as I'm very much unhappy with the consequences of this to me directly, I imagine this admin is going to be really important abroad, for the EU in particular, for identifying unnecessary vulnerabilities and dependencies on US infrastructure.
I previously worked in a five-eyes facing role and it's pretty terrifying when one staunch ally loses its mind. So much procedure and process is based on reliability.
> And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get.
Less than half of Americans that voted voted for Trump, and while there are definitely some people happy about what he is doing, there are also many who voted for him that aren't. I'd also like to point out that Trump didn't say anything about annexing Canada until after he had won the election.
And because turn-out was only 63.9%, only %31.8 of the voting-eligible population voted for him. More of the voting-eligible population didn't vote at all than voted for him.
Let’s assume tariffs are used as a means to bring manufacturing to the US. By that definition the administration has no idea what level of tariffs will make this happen. Setting up manufacturing in the US for any item is not cheap - we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with. On top of that the cost of manufacturing is many fold compared to china, India, Bangladesh or Taiwan. So 25% or 10% is still not in anyway going to force manufacture to come back.
Tariffs have to be at an insane level to justify bringing manufacturing back. My worry is that the administration is may be prepared to go there. That will cause a deep deep recession across the whole globe. Even then it will take a couple of decades to have meaningful manufacturing in the US
No one is going to spend millions to billions of dollars on manufacturing facilities in the current political situation (read: unstable, risky, constantly changing).
That's the bingo card. The economy runs on expectations.
I've been thinking about the recent layoffs impacting government. If 1% of the workforce is laid off at once for no good reason, are the impact restricted to 1% of economy? I'd assume no, because 90% of the other people would start saving just in case.
To not have that situation, you would need to be convincing that the impact are only restricted to the people that are laid off, but that isn't happening because they weren't laid off with an convincing cause. So now everyone is cowering because this suddenly looks like something that could happen to them.
That's the real problem. We've seen this happen in the rare earths industry over and over since about 1990, with wild swings in prices and profits. When demand and supply have a lot of inertia, minor changes in either cause big change in prices.
A US startup is preparing to mine titanium in Tennessee. Three US startups in different states want to start up rare earth mines. They all need some assurance of not being drastically undercut on price, or some way to hedge that.
If we're going to have protective tariffs, they should be at the consumer product end, not the raw materials end. Smartphones, not steel.
> Let’s assume tariffs are used as a means to bring manufacturing to the US.
I don't think it's that altruistic. This is simply a way to defend or fund income tax cuts.
If you look at the federal gov P&L according to DOGE (https://doge.gov/spend); excise and customs taxes are the best opportunity to drive revenue if you won't raise income tax.
There is also a plan afoot to replace income taxes with tariffs following the McKinley Economic model, involving high tariffs, gold standard, focus on industrialism, and economic imperialism. It kinda made sense in the days where there was a manufacturing base to protect and one could plunder 3rd world economies, but those horses have long left the barn. Also this plan is moronic when you look at the cash flows if implemented today.
It's also very regressive, at least in isolation. Income tax rates are progressive, but lower income families spend more of their total income on goods so tariff will hurt them more proportionally.
I’d think that low income people would spend a larger proportion of their money on stuff made primarily in the US - food being the biggest thing. Clothing aside, most things that we get internationally are wants, not needs…and clothing itself can become that once you have enough.
> I’d think that low income people would spend a larger proportion of their money on stuff made primarily in the US
The distributional effects are still bad for consumers, even purchasing made-in-America goods. The domestic good will still be higher-cost than the pre-tariff foreign good, so low-income consumers will be worse off than the status quo.
If the tariffs are set at a moderate level (i.e. not so high as to make imports effectively impossible), basic supply and demand suggests that the sticker price of American goods should equal the post-tariff price of imported goods. That's essentially what consumers saw with tariffs on appliances in Trump's first term.
Protective tariffs could still arguably make sense in a demand-constrained economy where there was a lot of unemployment to go around: individual consumers would be worse off but more people would be employed. However, breathless media aside this conflicts with basic statistics that show the prime-age employment[†] rate (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1DUXA) near cyclical peak levels, currently above the pre-financial-crisis level.
Tariffs are a lousy solution for the more common complaint that stuff is just too expensive.
[†] — I use the prime age employment rate to avoid problems with "discouraged workers" or disability being excluded from unemployment and to correct for basic demographic shifts. If fewer people are employed because more people are retired, that's an entirely different problem.
It does seem like that is The Point.
yes, a broad based sales tax raises revenue. The nice thing about a broad sales tax is its not distortionary
I believe the idea is to replace the internal revenue service (income taxes) by the external revenue service (tariffs). The tariffs are kind of a hidden sales tax, with the hidden drawback of making cross border manufacturing pretty painful. The auto industry is especially impacted by this, with parts crossing the US/Can/Mx borders pretty frequently.
I doubt this scheme would work, but from what I understand the rich typically prefer sale taxes to wealth/income taxes since they only consume a small fraction of their net worth in goods, preferring to invest (which wouldn't be taxed). They're also not regressive, meaning that poorer people would end up paying a larger portion of their income in taxes.
> we don’t have the know how, labor to do it to begin with.
That, I believe, is one of the reasons why the H-series and E-series exist in the United States, along with the L visa. It gives you the opportunity to bring foreigners into the United States, either for a limited (but finitely-extendable) period of time, or permanently.
You can argue that the current forms of those visas do not work, but that is not my point: My point is that the above reason is why the visas exist.
To bring my point back around to tariffs: I think making the above-mentioned visas harder to get goes against the purpose of the tariffs. If you want manufacturing etc. brought back here, then make it easy (or easier) to get the knowledgeable folks who you need to train the folks who will do the manufacturing here.
Half of the administration primarily wants to onshore all the things. The other half wants to primarily kick out foreigners to reduce competition with domestic workers.
They don’t have a plan, only hopes.
They don't have hopes either, only impulses. Pure id.
This administration has no logic, that much is established. They are driven by two different philosophies - a burn it all down and build again and another stop all immigration now. Both these philosophies are both unified by racism/dictatorship tendencies
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I am not sure I understand the implications of these tariff. Basically it means that products are becoming more expensive for people in the US. How is that a good thing for them? I understand this can help some US company to sell more products in their country, but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of industries.
Tariffs are just a tax. Similar to a sales tax, but it needs to be paid on import. To be clear, it's a tax on your own citizens, not foreign exports.
If a product is cheaply produced in another country, and your domestic industry cannot match that price, your domestic industry might disappear. Suppose that other country is subsidizing their industry, then it's quite unfair, and it legitimizes supporting your own industry either by your own subsidies or retaliatory tariffs. As they say, to level the playing field.
If the domestic industry is already dead, tariffs won't magically resurrect it. For example, building a chip industry can take billions of dollars in investments and years of development. All that time, those taxes are basically just costing consumers money. They need to be kept in place up until the new factories come online AND are paid off. This can take decades. Will those tariffs still be there? Will those other countries have ALSO invested? Those uncertainties make it hard to invest in a dead/dying industry, even with tariffs in place.
One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term.
Tariffs can work to retaliate against, and discourage, dumping. They can play a role in protecting vital industries. But arbitrarily imposing them for political points is a dangerous gambit.
> For example, building a chip industry can take billions of dollars in investments and years of development.
Worse than that... you also need all the other things in the "ecosystem" that support them chips, such as discrete components, circuit board fabrication, assembly, etc.
And the most important bit, people who can staff the plants and operate the machinery required.
And divesting capital and workers from other industries that might benefit the country more.
Yes, and if the tariffs are indiscriminate, all of those things will be more expensive, making a domestic industry less competitive, for no good reason.
“One feature of tariffs is that it's a tax on consumption, so it's ultimately paid by consumers, and it's a regressive tax; the wealthiest will pay the smallest ratio of their income and/or wealth, while the working Joe will just see stuff getting more expensive - especially in the short term.”
I don’t think it’s this simple. The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits.
Furthermore, it depends on how the revenue from tariffs were used. If revenue from tariffs is used to lower taxes for lower income citizens, it would be effectively a progressive tax.
I run a tiny (<$30k annual revenue and much much smaller profit, or negative if I paid myself an hourly wage) side business that relies on custom manufacturing of open source hardware products I've designed. So very much not a "wealthy fat cat" - here's my experience with manufacturing:
For die-cut plastic cards (think custom-shaped gift cards or hotel door hangers), I reached out to several US manufacturers for quotes and most never even responded. The one that did respond basically laughed at me and said my design was impossible to cut. So I went on Alibaba and had tons of quotes instantly and found a manufacturer. Not one of the responses were concerned about the design's manufacturability. And the manufacturer I picked does an incredible job with what is admittedly a challenging die cut design.
As a tiny business, most of my orders end up being under de minimis (which is actually great for helping small businesses avoid the overhead of dealing with tariffs and level the playing field against large players that can be much more efficient at handling regulatory overhead through high volume).
But with the change to eliminate de minimis and increase tariffs another 10% essentially overnight, my COGS is going to increase ~30%, which means either I shut down my business due to losing nearly all of my margin, or I increase prices substantially. It just hurts consumers AND small businesses like mine in the US.
There isn't a US manufacturer I can switch to (again, price wasn't the issue). And the US manufacturers in the space that WERE still selling products despite the international competition will just increase their prices now that competition is more expensive.
That is what people like trump don't understand (not surprising). Instead of gradually rebuilding the manufacturing capabilities of the US while supporting essential industries (like steel production) to create competition, they think slapping tariff will magically make the domestic manufacturing come back. Like you said, the US manufacturers will just ride along the coattails of tariffs instead of trying to be competitive and/or expand their production (they have no incentive to do so).
Again, knowing how short-sighted the US politicians and the society as a whole (e.g., look at how a majority of corps only care about short-term/quarterly profit) have become, it is not surprising but saddening to observe (because I have been living in the US for a bit over two decades and cannot move back to my home country, which is, at the moment, riddle with civil war).
> they think slapping tariff will magically make the domestic manufacturing come back.
Certainly not when tariff policy changes every few days on a whim. That doesn't make you want to build a chip resistor plant in the US. Or even a smartphone plant.
Indeed.
Or when you have trade agreements in place, but then use emergency powers granted to you in 1977 to push aside those agreements and add tariffs
It doesn't engender trust.
Businesses within and without are not a fan of constantly shifting sands.
> Instead of gradually rebuilding the manufacturing capabilities of the US while supporting essential industries (like steel production) to create competition, they think slapping tariff will magically make the domestic manufacturing come back.
So what would you propose as the proverbial kick in the butt to encourage domestic production? And before you say “subsidies”, remember that a large segment of the population isn’t wild about those either because they perceive it to be some sort of evil tax dodge for big corporations (see: literally every time some state gives a company incentives to build a plant or office).
The reason we’re in this mess in the first place is because we chased cheaper means of production and once everything at home was gone, we just threw our hands up and went “well it’ll be too painful to fix it, anyone who tries is an idiot.”
We've moved away from lower value manufacturing and are moving higher in the economic chain - that's great for us and how economics works. It isn't just chasing cheaper means of production - we can (and in a limited way have) put people to work elsewhere.
We dodged this in the 90s, but we need massive training programs to move those displaced workers to new jobs + resettlement assistance to get them to where the jobs are.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of jobs and manufacturing is in The lower value manufacturing chain. So by chasing only the high value chain, you abandon the manufacturing operations that actually hire workers, thereby hollowing out the middle class of your country and reducing the consumers of the products that you sell. A counterproductive and shortsighted strategy.
> see: literally every time some state gives a company incentives to build a plant or office
You're conflating two things here, the subsidies are one issue but the bigger issue is the ability for large companies to "shop around" states looking for the most favorable tax incentives. Our government shouldn't be bidding against ourselves.
Our government shouldn't be bidding against ourselves.
Yes, it should, because that's how individual companies (and governments for that matter) find their optimal operating points.
That is the explicit central dogma behind the United States' system of government. It works pretty well for the most part. If all the states had the same laws, policies, and taxes, there would be no need for federalism at all.
Looking for the most favorable tax climate is fine. The practice where states will roll out huge one-off incentive packages is where I take issue.
But there is new incentive created here. Now someone can create a small business to serve die-cutting like the parent needs because they have the extra edge over the Chinese competition. These sorts of small shops that did small runs used to be part of the economy before they closed after they couldn't keep up with the low cost coming out of China and they can in theory come back if making stuff in China becomes expensive enough.
Is that an immediate win for the consumer and the economy? Probably not. In the long term it could be reversing the globalization which is maybe a good thing (or at least that's the argument).
Anything imposed on the whim of the executive can be taken away just as easily, so building an entire factory based on an assumption about tariffs remaining in place is probably a hard sell.
As the joke goes only two things are certain in life, death and income taxes.
Seriously though- yes. But it moves the needle a little bit on the expected value. If the tariffs survive for a year it'll move the needle more.
> But there is new incentive created here. Now someone can create a small business to serve die-cutting like the parent needs because they have the extra edge over the Chinese competition.
You’d need dramatically higher tariffs for there to be any chance of that. Or a complete trade embargo. And either way, it’s gonna mean much more expensive goods for consumers.
“And the US manufacturers in the space that WERE still selling products despite the international competition will just increase their prices now that competition is more expensive.”
And an industrial entrepreneur, such as yourself, might start a new business, making these products at a cheaper price in the US due to the new inefficiencies of simply raising prices by existing manufacturers. It takes time for these things to move through the system.
I don't get it. You go into the grocery and pay sales tax on food for the week, but you import random trash from China, pay nothing and this is "great for helping small businesses"? No matter what you think about wholesale tariffs, surely this particular arrangement must strike you as odd and impossible to compete with for local producers?
In the EU we pay full taxes on every import, it's really not that complicated once you explain to the Chinese guys to not mark it as "gift" like its 2005.
You're mixing concepts. In the EU you'll generally pay VAT on all imports, but there are still often de minimis rules for import tariffs. This is not unlike the US - I have to always pay sales tax on imports regardless of value (unless it's being resold or incorporated into a product and I have an appropriate resale certificate, because sales tax is generally only required on final sale in the US), but import tariffs have a de minimus threshold.
I'm not saying the primary objective of a de minimus policy is to help small businesses, but in practice it can make a huge difference to correct for economies of scale to promote competition. I can't afford a team of lawyers and lobbyists to creatively classify my products to avoid tariffs like the big companies do; regulatory burden disproportionately hurts smaller players, so it's typically considered good policy to promote competition to phase in regulations based on size/volume/revenue etc.
You pay the same taxes on imports too. In fact in the USA some states will hunt you down to ensure you pay tax on interstate purchases let alone imports.
Eg. https://www.quora.com/Do-I-need-to-pay-California-sales-tax-...
Now tariffs are different because they are applied in addition to the above and only affect imports specifically.
Not really. EU sales tax is typically 19…21% while the highest sales tax in tge US is in CA and it's 7.25%.
Buy hey, now you,'ve got trarrifs, congrats on your election.
> The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits.
The companies who moved manufacturing abroad and pocketed the savings for their investors and CEOs aren’t likely to just say “oh well” and take a big hit to their margins—they’ll just mark up their products to make up the difference. Maybe, eventually, domestic competition will emerge but it’s not a given and likely takes time. In the meantime, consumers are paying the increased costs.
Of course it takes time for domestic competition to arrive. Decision decisions cannot only be made because the benefits are not immediately realized. It’s taken decades to get to the point that we are with the outsourcing and oversees manufacturing that has emptied the ability of the US to manufacture basic products. The bottom line is that the products these CEOs are selling need to have a higher price. They’re being subsidized by slave labor and foreign subsidies. The prices will increase. The margins will increase and new domestic competitors will emerge to take advantage of the increased margins, but it takes time. And dismissing it because it takes time is a self-defeating policy.
How will domestic competition be able to emerge? Trying to start a business in this country is already absurdly risky and expensive, there’s a point coming where it’ll be completely impossible unless you’re already rich. Strikes me as the most likely motive for all of this.
Middlemen for overseas manufacturers are not typically what comes to mind when I hear “wealthy fat cats.”
If all the middlemen see the same increase in costs, they are not going to be the one to try to keep prices the same. They know everyone is taking the same hit so they can just pass it along together. The consumer decides to buy or not at that level.
The innovation comes in avoiding the tariff. Often companies with sufficient scale of operations can pay additional lawyers and accountants to restructure and avoid tariffs.
Tariffs can dramatically affect specific companies, but squishy middlemen (and multinationals) can often work around them.
Fat cats don't get fat by letting the cost of producing goods eat into their profit (completely tortured sentence I know).
Companies simply add the cost of the tariff into the price of the final good to the consumer. It does not eat into the margin.
To wit, every tax a business pays today is included in the cost of the final good sold, there is no reason to believe these tariffs won't be as well.
But your view is too shortsighted as I’ve said, in other comments. There will be a reaction to these increases in prices and increases in margins. Small startups and even large companies will enter the space to take advantage of the increased margins. It’s not a static system. However, it does not happen immediately and it takes some time.
Two points:
First, there are not necessarily increased margins, the margins may stay the same or even decrease. Some companies may choose to keep their margins the same, in which case profit would increase.
But importantly your _profit_ will not decrease, you'll defend that as the seller even if that means your margins decrease.
Second, small companies are _more_ sensitive to taxes (costs), not less sensitive. Existing, large players are better able to absorb costs _and_ command stronger pricing power relative to new entrants to the market.
But overall, your view of the "market" just doesn't play out in reality. You can go look at any industry that encountered tariffs in Trump's first term, you may also look at any consolidated market in the last twenty years. Market power has been heavily concentrated, regulatory capture has gone up, and the result is that markets aren't working as you may expect.
Sorry, but your statements are inaccurate.
I posted this link separately and it fully demonstrates what I would expect: more jobs in the US to compensate for the increased cost to import. In this case, the jobs were provided by existing manufacturers like LG and Samsung; however, these jobs could also be produced by new competitors entering the space.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/higher-prices-extra-jobs-less...
They won’t be using tariffs to lower taxes for lower income citizens. Tax cuts for the rich have already been proposed.
Sure, but how is this any different than the income tax system where companies receive tax credits, reduced tax rates, accelerated depreciation, schedules, subsidies to build factories, and direct cushy (high margin and sometimes fraudulent) contracts from government divisions.
>The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas or simply operating as middlemen for overseas manufacturers are going to have a reduction of income and profits.
I'd love this to be true, but where is there recent evidence this will happen? When Trump put tariffs on washers in 2018, LG and Samsung (importers of machines) didn't lose profits, their prices went up: https://youtu.be/_-eHOSq3oqI?t=130
“Imports did decline. Washing machine imports fell by about 33% the first year the tariffs were in effect and stayed below pre-tariff levels through 2022. During that time, Samsung began producing washing machines at a US factory in South Carolina, and LG opened a plant in Tennessee. Whirlpool also increased domestic production and hired more workers. All told, new domestic production may have accounted for between 1,700 and 2,000 new jobs.“
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/higher-prices-extra-jobs-less...
Prices went up in short term, but imports went down and jobs increased due to manufacturers bringing jobs to the United States. Seems like it worked.
The wealthy fat cats are often heading companies in oligopolies. They just increase prices to absorb the tariffs, blame inflation and public policy, and continue to make the same profits.
> The wealthy fat cats that are making money producing their stuff overseas
I think that kind of logic only applies to iPhones.
Also tariffs are paid upfront when the goods leave the customs. Sales tax is paid only when the goods are sold to the final consumer.
As someone that sells products that are assembled from components that are sold and manufactured globally.
My customers pay me for product. Some of that pays employees. The assembly house. And for parts are are imported. The tariffs basically means I have to pay extra to the government so they can give it to bunch of wealthy financial parasites.
Unless people relocate automated manufacturing lines for export products outside US soil.
Thus, they save the US 25% + 10% tariff off, and whatever symmetric 25% response trading partners inflict on the US exports. i.e. one would save 60% off, avoid an economically hostile customs process, and may shop around for better tax systems. If the US market is isolated from a multi-origin product, than just collect the 35% markup on all products before shipping into the US like the new programs already require.
Best of luck, I don't think people have really thought about this very much... =3
That sort of manufacturing could take longer than 4 years to build much less profit from. Smarter to just wait it out and increase the domestic price to just below the foreign price+tariff.
Perhaps, but most light-industry will likely open secondary factory locations in 8 months or hire contract manufacturing firms in a few days. Then turn around and drop demand deficient labor in the hostile markets.
People respond to actions rather than posturing, and business people view the political process very differently. We'd be fooling ourselves to think it is about anything other than profit. Many people are likely about to lose their jobs, and there is nothing funny about that... Best regards =3
> this can help some US company
These tariff threats are so broad. They are not aimed at encouraging this or that local industry. (And for the US you would need much more than a few percentage points of margin to encourage that.)
It feels like they are (1) threats. very crude threats. to get entire countries to change their policies a little this way or that - favoring the US a little more in exchange for dropping the threat. and (2) a source of govt revenue that doesn't look to the voters like income or capital gains tax. Although obviously it is - in the US everything ends up there.
Or 3) forcing the dip, buying the dip, lifting the conditions that caused the dip and profiting like nobody in history.
This is all very simple. There is no plan, there is no us, there is no future. There is only him, now, and a revolving list of people trying to ride his coattails to more power for themselves.
> but that seems to benefit only a very small amount of industries.
Entirely logical response from a normal person used to think and act in a normal, decent way.
There is a phenomenon of "The Cult of Wealth". Most people here cannot imagine how people with unlimited wealth, unlimited options, almost unlimited power think like.Have you seen the kids of the president ridicule the dying people in Ukraine? We are inclined to think that if you inherit almost the whole earth, you would be very grateful, kind and compassionate.
Instead, they see the world in terms of just a handful of peers with the rest as resources to be extracted. We live in a world where we are brainwashed to think it is normal for corporate to call human beings "Human Resources".
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As soon as people learn to see what hides behind Trump and Doge, the networks that finance and selects people, they will lose the war. The theater is there to distract you, media will pick it up as bait but will not do the investigation of what it is. And so we are paralyzed by the news of the day.
What society needs to do is to not accept abnormal and egregious behavior as normal. We all know what is decent human interaction, and the few can only take power over the mass, if the people consent to it -- be it actively or passively.
If "the cult of wealth" is a thing, and wealthy people really think different than the rest of us, then a consequence is that the ultra wealthy absolutely shouldn't be allowed to make the rules for the rest of us, or manage public institutions.
> If "the cult of wealth" is a thing, and wealthy people really think different than the rest of us, then a consequence is that the ultra wealthy absolutely shouldn't be allowed to make the rules for the rest of us, or manage public institutions.
That's why democracy was invented. :-)
You read my mind.
And the tools to create democracy.
> We are inclined to think that if you inherit almost the whole earth, you would be very grateful, kind and compassionate.
Why would you be inclined to think that?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Being greatful is not manufactured by having stuff.
Being kind has nothing to do wtih what you have.
I'm inclined to think that if someone inherit the whole earth you are
1. A person who sought after that, which is bad
2. Even if you were magically a good person before, will be ruined by it at a minimum the way winning the lottery ruins a person.
3. Even if you survive 1-2 you will become famous and will have to cope with that insanity.
> Why would you be inclined to think that?
See the number of people who say they voted for trump because they think he's a successful business man.
> Why would you be inclined to think that?
See the number of people arguing that a billionaire can obviously be trusted with their money because he has a lot of it and clearly wouldn't want more.
Sure, we might know it, but we never act on it. We allow super concentrations of super wealth and power to form. We allow corporate media. We allow corporate clients into politics. We allow fake news. We allow lies. We allow the dismantling of science. We allow the purge of competent people. Competence is a soft power, but the power hungry do not like to share.
We know it. We don't believe it. We cannot grasp. For those few, we are nothing but a resource. Why share power with the powerless? Might makes right!
> We are inclined to think that if you inherit almost the whole earth, you would be very grateful, kind and compassionate
That, perhaps, is the reason they are so cruel: because they have been so lucky so far, they do not understand human suffering and are incapable of feeling the pain of fellow humans.
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That was some very purposeful misreading to be able to blackpaint Ukraine, while shifting focus away from the topic.
> instead forcing millions into the meat grinder against their will,
How is the weather in St. Petersburg? This is a text book example of projection. As instructed, you should continue with false balance and whatabboutisms.
---
Oh wait.
I hope you are getting paid for this kind of stuff instead of being someone that died in a ton of psychological mindfucks. If the latter, you do their work.
> That was some very purposeful misreading
Sure, but I made sure to be VERY obvious about it, both for the first point and my last point.
I find people in general to be quite smart, I doubt anyone was genuinely convinced I didn't know you were referring to the US President's children.
> while shifting focus away from the topic.
I hope not. There's even quite an important point that gets lost when reading it out of context:
> blackpaint Ukraine
Absolutely not.
Whom I'm greatly displeased by are the previous US administration, the European leaders and Zelensky. Trump just going in and immediately making significant progress during the negotiations proves, that any of them could have stopped this slaughter whenever they wanted.
There was always the question whether Russia's constant pleas for negotiations both prior and during the war were nothing but macabre PR. And yet the moment a genuine chance presented itself, they agreed to it immediately.
Compared to our countries' leaders our own insight into politics is nothing but a joke. And even if they're unsure, they can just pick up the phone and just try.
Yet none of them did. These demons happily sacrificed the lifes of millions of people on the altar of their virtue.
Ukraine could have had so much. They were offered back all of theit eastern territories and even negotiations regarding the future of Crimea (although those would have been likely derailed) in exchange for keeping neutrality, downsizing their armed forces to 250k people and not allowing any permanent foreign military bases. Russia tried to sneak in veto rights on foreign military exercises on Ukrainian territory, but I doubt there was no way to negotiate that down.
Now, years later, all of that is gone. The country is destroyed, everywhere just death, death and more death and Russia short-circuited and pulled the probably worst geopolitical decision of the 21st century by annexing Ukraine's eastern territories.
And all of these leaders knew very well how this war would progress. It is happening right next to the Russian heartland, where 80% of its population lives. They knew that Russia cannot back down without negotiating an orderly procedure first, even if they suddenly gave up on all their goals and wanted to.
And yet here we are, accusing the one guy who actually tries to put an end to this senseless killing, of only seeing the world in terms of a handful of peers and lacking any compassion.
.
I'm only aware of Trump Jr. mocking Zelensky, not anyone else, but I've already asked below if I'm mistaken about that.
But it doesn't matter. The President's children do not reflect upon the President. And actions speak louder than words. What matters is saving people's lifes.
These are a lot of words for the same concept I've pushed above much more strongly, IMO.
> How is the weather in St. Petersburg?
7m of snow, no end in sight and a polar bear drank my vodka supply.
On 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, Hitler made a speech in Reichstag where he complained about the very same thing: Poland had been unreasonable by rejecting Hitler's peaceful proposals for limitation of armaments and even full disarmament. A tale as old as history. Invaders always prefer to invade unopposed.
I've been wrong about the 250k troops. That was Ukraine's position at the negotiating table, while Russia's position was 85k. Negotiations on that were still going on.
Yes, it was a surrender, but the conditions were infinitely better than anything achievable right now.
And before the war the conditions were even better, basically just the continuation of Minsk and rejection of NATO membership (as demanded by Putin during the call with Macron just before the invasion).
The conditions were obviously going to get worse and worse the longer this conflict dragged on, but much more importantly:
So many people could have kept on living.
Your suggestion to surrender is as good as telling Jews to stop resisting and voluntarily hop on a train to a death camp. Anything is better than certain death.
> Russia's goal is the complete destruction of Ukraine as an independent country and the eradication of Ukrainians as an ethnicity.
Just what would be the motivation behind that?
As an ethnicity, there is little to no difference between eastern Ukrainians and Russians. The Soviet Union even actively preserved local languages like Ukrainian, although they cracked down very harshly on anything culturally they considered at odds with Marxism, like the Orthodox Church, but that wasn't targeted any more against Ukraine compared to other Soviey member states.
> Russians already attempted this in the 1930s by starving several million Ukrainians to death through artificial famines.
Even if this opinion is popular nowadays it's highly misleading.
What caused the holodomor was that agricultural areas and Ukraine in general was highly FAVORED by the Soviets.
Ukraine got a high priority on all the things the Soviets thought of as GOOD. Specifically related to the holodomor:
- Collectivization of farming and industry
- Execution of 'greedy factory and farm owners depriving the proletariat of the fruits of their labor' and those colaborating with them to sabotage communism
- Development and implementation of Marxist sciences, soon after developing into Lysenkoism
- Management of production by implementing quotas based on last year's performance
- Oversight over all production processes, labor and property by party commissars, enforcing the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
- Strict reporting duties to the party management
And in 1928, when the implementation of these policies rapidly accelerated in Ukraine and, to a lesser degree, in other agricultural areas, they seemed like a great success.
The "kulaks" left large amounts of their fields without crops or crops they would later destroy, according to the communists 'to oppress the proletariat and cause the periodic famines', and since of all of the kulaks and their "supporters" had to keep absolutely silent or were executed otherwise, nobody told the Marxists about crop rotation.
Which worked out great in the beginning. The farms could be expanded onto the unused farmland, priority was given to high yield crops like grains and the harvests shot through the roof. And this carried on for another year, despite the soils already starting to be depleted, because the seeds from the previous year stored a lot of the macro and micro nutrients the plants would require throughout their growth.
The Marxists felt greatly vindicated in their believes and the "revolutionary discovery" of Marxist science, that "certain types of seasonal variation of crops could be converted into others by just keeping to grow it throughout the seasons on the same field", allowing for further simplification of growing and storage procedures on the collective farms, created a giant almost nationwide crop monoculture.
Thanks to modern pesticides and fertilizers monocultures have become favored again, but back then this was a catastrophe.
The soil was depleted, the stored nutrients in seeds were depleted, there were unfavorable weather conditions and pests and crop diseases began rapidly spreading throughout the monoculture, accelerated by the weakened plants.
So while the quota was even more increased due to last year's great performance, harvests began decreasing, initially slowly, but soon rapidly.
The Soviet commissars went to the farms to check what was happening and found farmers just throwing aside crops (the ones with diseases) and hungry people, who suffered under the bad harvest combined with high quotas, coming to collect these crops. Of course, as is Communist tradition, these people were quickly executed or shipped of to "internment" camps and collective farms were heavily guarded.
But both soils and seeds became more and more nutrient depleted, the grain quality kept decreasing, requiring more to achieve the same nutritional value, crop diseases became ever more prevalent and harvests were about to hit rock bottom.
The communists, as always convinced by the perfection of their ideology, came to the conclusion that the kulaks and their supporters were sabotaging Communism. As vindictive as demanded by their ideology, they immediately started measures to root out the problem. Collective farms "subverted by the kulaks" had their quotas skyrocketed and leaving them or trading with them was forbidden.
Afraid to end up being targeted next when not meeting their quota, other farms and their officials collected grains from where ever they could, including from normal people, emergency reserves and even seeds for the next year and crops with diseases were cleaned up and included in the shipments.
People became sick due to the low quality and quantity of crops and malnutritioned, they could work less and less effectively, there were still all of the previous unresolved problems and on top of that the emergency rations (except for those managed directly by the party in secret) were gone.
Queue the holodomor.
I was born and educated in the USSR. I was in middle school at the height of one of the many Russification campaigns, which went as far as forbidding us, the students, from speaking our native language among ourselves even during recess. We were ordered to "speak like humans", that is, in Russian, and were physically punished if we didn't obey. So please forgive me if I refuse to believe the commie fairy tales about the preservation of local languages. The reality was anything but.
Nor can I offer an entirely rational explanation for why Russians want to murder Ukrainians, why Germans gassed millions of Jews, or why many other such horrible crimes have been committed throughout history. Why are Russians destroying Ukrainian libraries in occupied territories? Why would a sane, rational person burn books?
As for the Holodomor, I'd like to repeat an older comment of mine: a) Stalin and other top-ranking officials were aware of the food shortages in Ukraine, b) they knew that their policies were going to make things worse, c) they still adopted those policies, and d) they expressed satisfaction with the outcome. They deliberately allowed millions of people to die of starvation to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
The utterly criminal intent becomes very clear when examined at the personal level.
If someone came to your city, confiscated all food, harshly punished any attempts to store even a minimal amount for basic survival, caused a horrific starvation that killed many people, drove survivors to such insanity that parents ate the flesh off their children, and still blocked all foreign aid and prevented people from leaving, then how would you call it if not deliberate mass murder?
How is it any different from Germans locking Jews up in ghettos and letting them starve to death? It isn't, at that's why the Holodomor has seen gradual international recognition as genocide, most notably by the European Parliament, which represents 450 million Europeans from 27 countries.
> I was born and educated in the USSR. I was in middle school at the height of one of the many Russification campaigns, which went as far as forbidding us, the students, from speaking our native language among ourselves even during recess.
I guess it's naive for me to assume there was a common situation throughout the entire SU.
My Grandpa was a German living along the Danube and then dragged off by the Communists to a remote village in Uzbekistan, because his dad was pressed into the Wehrmacht.
They were taught in German, Russian and the local language in school. And that was under the definitively very kind hearted but bit austere communist scholar Stalin /s. When Stalin finally made his greatest contribution to mankind (fueled by paranoia, wiping out the Extremists in the Party around him and then going to hell), Gramps got a chance to become a German teacher.
And I guess, after thinking about it for a bit, that might be where our differences in accounts are coming from. Gramps obviously wouldn't ever have seen a school from the inside, that didn't teach multiple languages. Also he despised anything Russian to the point, he refused to talk to any of his own children in anything but German.
And his favorite joke was:
> A war veteran was applying to join the Communist Party. The examiners were greatly pleased by his many achievements to further the people's causes during the war. The only problem were his rather poor educational credentials, which was also shown by the misspelling of the Party: KPS.
> So the examiners told him: "You'd be a great fit and your rapid advancement would be assured, but you need to learn how to spell the name of our Party. Not S, but SS."
> Veteran: "Nein, I've already been in the SS."
Apparently got detained several times over it, so I guess he wasn't holding back. Also applied for travel to Germany every single year, which "surprisingly" wasn't even granted once. Not sure why the Communists kept him around as a teacher...
> We were ordered to "speak like humans"
Apparently that was the attitude of the Russians living in the major cities all over the SU. Never been told any more about it, tho.
Dragging ears, beatings and sending students to the back of the food line during cotton harvest was definitely encouraged for all kinds of disobedience.
> why Germans gassed millions of Jews
The Nazis blamed the Jews for the German Revolution in 1918.
I really dont know the leadup to this claim, the strong dislike of Jews at this point in time in general or how it was managed to sell this to the German people.
It's just not being taught, which is s huge mistake in my opinion. There is very little understanding among Germans on how this situation could have escalated to this absurd degree and therefore also absolutely 0 awareness for potential trends in a similar direction.
Nowadays "Nazis" and "Fascists" are just whoever the left currently intends to purge the most and people can't name a single of the Nazis' policies except "Hitler killed Jews" and "Hitler built the Autobahn." Which is a very sad and, tbh, dangerous state.
I've thought of just reading Hitler's (and his associates') books, speeches and laws myself, but they're ... not very pleasant to read and of questionable value, since the Nazi leadership did seem to believe very little about their own drivel and just spouted whatever they thought would get them in power.
> Why are Russians destroying Ukrainian libraries in occupied territories?
Havent heard about this, but they're emptying museums with the excuse of protecting historic artifacts. Can't really judge this until the war is over, Ukraine asks Russia to return these objects and makes preparations to receive and store them. Then we'll see how much there is to Russia's clakms on this.
> Why would a sane, rational person burn books?
Not a good look if done by Russians, it'd be different if done by the LPR/DPR militias. Same situation as Ukraine getting rid of Russian books. These two sides have been killing each other over a language dispute for quite some time.
Also, it's less about the destruction of knowledge and culture, rather than symbolic. People will just download an ebook nowadays.
> a) Stalin and other top-ranking officials were aware of the food shortages in Ukraine, b) they knew that their policies were going to make things worse, c) they still adopted those policies, and d) they expressed satisfaction with the outcome. They deliberately allowed millions of people to die of starvation to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
a) Yes, but the information they received was often falsified (due to people not daring to admit the failures of collective policies, I guess) and delayed through the process. They still knew, but very convinced of being sabotaged.
b) I dont know of any evidence they intended to worsen the situation for the general population. They certainly intended to make the situation much worse for anyone they thought of trying to sabotage Communism. But that's just a matter of ideology. Germany nowadays arrests anyone showing any Nazi affiliated symbolism, Communists shot everyone showing a slightly furrowed eyebrows during the Party's declarations.
c) It's a death cult. Of course a Communist would never spare a perceived opponent.
d) actually never heard about this. I know they declared the agricultural revolution a great success, trying to brush the holodomor under the carpet (replacing dead population with Russians, preventing people from fleeing, rejecting foreign aid under the pretense that everything is ok, suppressing the release of any details, ...) in pursuit of Communist ideological perfection, but that'd be important to know about. Do you have any links saved? Otherwise I just go digging myself
> to suppress Ukrainian national identity and punish them for perceived disloyalty.
For some the latter is certainly true and Stalin was indeed worried about Ukrainian nationalism (since the only major difference between the leftist ideologies of the Second International, Nazism, Fascism and Communism, was their disagreement on whether nationalism (Engels) or internationalism (Marx) was more suited to overthrow capitalism).
But mass starvation generally wasn't how the Communists tried to impose "the dictatorship of the people". They usually relied on violent mobs, kidnappings and assassinations where they weren't already in power and executing people, disappearing people into internment camps and informers among the population where they already took over.
In fact I'd highly doubt they would deliberately sabotage their collectivization pilot project.
Communists are aweful people with 0 respect for human life, but they'd never risk any information on Communist collectivization being anything but a great success spreading.
> [...] then how would you call it if not deliberate mass murder?
A Communist pilot project, resulting in an apocalyptic famine, combined with ensuring the angelic purity of Communism.
If I build a bridge, it collapses with many people on it and I open a dam upstream to flood away all the people and evidence, I didn't intent to kill these people, nor did I try to specifically target the population of this town. The people might survive the flood or not, all I would have cared about is getting rid of the evidence.
What I would have been, is an awful bridge designer, bottom of the barrel human and a severe ideological narcissist with 0 regard a for human life. There might be many mass-murderers with a much more superior moral compass, but all that would be important to me is successfully having saved the reputation of my bridges being the utmost superior and infallible.
> How is it any different from Germans locking Jews up in ghettos and letting them starve to death?
The Nazis desired the utter destruction of the Jewish population in Europe and deliberately designed an efficient system to pull off their genocide.
The Communists desired the best future for the future of their population, designed their perfect system and graciously bestowed it upon the agrcultural regions at gunpoint, unsurprisingly killed millions, and then were concerned about other regions not entirely embracing Communist dictates anymore if they became aware of potential minor flaws in the Party's interpretation of Marxism.
It's not entirely clear which of these two sides of the coin is worse, the Nazis, who would have killed entire population subgroups ever so often, or the Communists, who would have observed their ideology killing millions of people ever so often and would have started reflecting on additional writings of various Marxist authors to devine up the perfect adjustment to their ideology, which sadly wasn't real Communism before, but now it definitively is and if you got any questions about it, the execution wall is right over there.
> that's why the Holodomor has seen gradual international recognition as genocide, most notably by the European Parliament, which represents 450 million Europeans from 27 countries.
Sadly the resolution of the EU is loaded up with ideological drivel and opportunism.
Furthermore, it just barely recognizes that the holodomor affected many other regions and calls to crack down on anything perceived as historical revisionism.
I have no problem with people widening the definition of a genocide in order to fit the atrocity that is the holodomor, and leftist collectivism in general, into it. What I dislike is people actively revising history or misrepresenting it by projecting modern or temporally or spatially separated concepts in general onto it.
You do realize of course that the Russians had already signed the Budapest Memorandum in which the Russian Federation would not use military or economic force against Ukraine except in self defence?
Or Russia's insistence that the Little Green Men in Crimea were not Russians forces, in spite of the fact that somehow these militiamen had the cutting edge of issued Russian Army equipment.
And that the invasion of Ukraine was justified in removing Nazis. As if somehow the single Azov Brigade was somehow actually in control of Ukraine.
This whole argument that Ukraine and the EU could stop this slaughter is inane. What exactly would make you think think Russia's promises about a peace agreement are worth any more then the agreement they've already willingly broken? What makes you think they're telling the truth this time around when they have been disinclined to do so thus far?
> You do realize of course that the Russians had already signed the Budapest Memorandum in which the Russian Federation would not use military or economic force against Ukraine except in self defence?
Not only military, but also economic and political coercion.
In hindsight it was a huge mistake when the US established it as not binding in order to sanction Belarus in 2013.
> Or Russia's insistence that the Little Green Men in Crimea were not Russians forces
I'm not sure on this, but it not unlikely Russia could not officially act until the "Republic of Crimea" requested it.
That's why local militias from overseas were decided by themselves to organize an "election" about whether the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence or on the other hand if the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence. And afterwards these militias finally got to join the Russian forces, for which they all had completed the necessary paperwork years ago.
> And that the invasion of Ukraine was justified in removing Nazis.
This completely breaks my mind as well. Sure, Ukraine has a very ... odd ... relationship with their Nazi past, but Putin was acting as if the Nazis from the dark side of the moon had descended upon Ukraine. And then this issue is turned into a "btw. footnote" during all negotiation attempts.
Also him going on Tucker and starting to ramble about the Cro Magnon making "Rus! Rus!" noises when hunting after mammoths on the future territory of Ukraine.
What sent me down the rabbit hole of what is probably actually going on was Gorbachev telling journalists that "he's rewatched Putins speech on the 2007 Munich Security Conference" when asked why this war is happening. That was just before his death.
On the other hand, we shouldn't underestimate Putin. The guy had unrestricted access to some of the world's best intelligence services for decades, hundreds of analysts looking at every situation from every angle, a direct line of communication to absolutely anyone he wants, unmatched political experience and worst of all, he's devilish smart.
There's probably not a single person on earth who could figure out Putin's true intentions and ways of thinking if he intended to keep them hidden.
> What exactly would make you think think Russia's promises about a peace agreement are worth any more then the agreement they've already willingly broken?
These agreements do not exist in a vacuum. There are motivations behind this war and these might be perfectly addressable via peaceful means. That the US and Russia are now talking makes this even more likely.
Most people dont believe this, but Russia doesnt want Ukrainian territory except for Crimea (due to its strategic control over the Strait of Kerch, I assume). This is because of the utter mess it'll cause in the future.
Even before the current war (2022) Ukraine was the single most mined country in the world. The amount of explosives out in the open is beyond mind boggling and the war was just making it ever more worse.
Then there's the wide spread destruction caused by the Donbass conflict since 2014 and the huge amounts of weapons floating around.
Now you annex that territory. Suddenly you've got yourself a whole army of well trained, well armed and very disgruntled former Ukrainians.
So on top of all the previous problems you've signed yourself up for, you've now got yourself an entire new population of people relying on welfare, because all of the economy in their area was destroyed, millions of homeless, because their cities were destroyed, and many of them are willing to launch the largest insurgency of the century against you and are perfectly trained and equipped to do so.
Every piece of Ukraine Russia tries to gobble up will poison it for decades.
IMO Russia is genuinely scared of Ukraine joining NATO, hence when Ukraine joined the NATO EOP program (used by Sweden and Finland to join NATO) Russia began preparing the 2022 invasion.
>That's why local militias from overseas were decided by themselves to organize an "election" about whether the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence or on the other hand if the "Republic of Crimea" should declare independence. And afterwards these militias finally got to join the Russian forces, for which they all had completed the necessary paperwork years ago.
... Putin said that the little green men were Russian military. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20796 It's translated servicemen but basically military.
> This completely breaks my mind as well. Sure, Ukraine has a very ... odd ... relationship with their Nazi past, but Putin was acting as if the Nazis from the dark side of the moon had descended upon Ukraine. And then this issue is turned into a "btw. footnote" during all negotiation attempts.
The best theory I've heard, and admittedly these theories put forward by American, is that Putin is lying about the Nazi's. To him at least, part of his world view appears to be in effect that there is Ukraine. In short that Ukraine is a mistake done by Lenin forced about by a anti Russian agenda of some kind, and that erasing the imagine imaginary line between Ukraine and Russia is necessary to return Russia to the world stage like it was it was part of the USSR.
No idea how true it is but it makes more sense then any other explanation I've heard thus far. And the Kremlin has published an essay by Putin that seems to support that world view even if he's very flowery about it. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
That and there's the theory that Putin himself was being fed in effect bad intelligence about both the readiness of his own armed forces as well as the general attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians; namely that the Ukrainians would welcome Russian liberation. Not so much out of malice, but the fact that a lot of folks were telling Putin what they thought he wanted to hear. Given what Putin did to his rivals, not too hard to make a guess why they wouldn't want to give him bad news.
>Most people dont believe this, but Russia doesnt want Ukrainian territory except for Crimea (due to its strategic control over the Strait of Kerch, I assume). This is because of the utter mess it'll cause in the future.
... Ooookay. ...So I've got a really big problem with that theory. Mostly because the actions that Russian military has taken indicates that they want nothing short but to take Ukraine in it's entirety, but were ill prepared for what they got.
But suppose you say is true. What purpose does seizing and holding does Kherson serve to in keeping the control over Crimea and the Strait of Kerch, exactly? It's on the other side of Crimea from Russia. Why attempt go even further and seize Odessa?
Why open a northern front in the Kharkiv Oblast? It's on the opposite side of Ukraine.
Why try to open a front from Belarus into Kyiv?
That's an awful lot of fronts to open up to try take territory that Russia does not want.
>IMO Russia is genuinely scared of Ukraine joining NATO, hence when Ukraine joined the NATO EOP program (used by Sweden and Finland to join NATO) Russia began preparing the 2022 invasion.
First, neither Sweden nor Finland entered into the EOP until after 2014. They were interoperable and friendly, but the EOP didn't happen until May in 2014. Directly in response to the rhe Russian annexation of was more or less done in April of 2014.
Second, Russia got that when they seized Crimea. Ukraine couldn't join even if they wanted at that point by NATO's own rules without renouncing control of Crimea.
> Neither Sweden nor Finland entered into the EOP until after 2014. They were interoperable and friendly, but the EOP didn't happen until May in 2014. Directly in response to the rhe Russian annexation of was more or less done in April of 2014.
Yes, but it prepared them to pull the trigger on joining NATO at any time. It dont blame them and honestly, I don't think Russia cares very much, even if they complain a bit.
The Russia-Finland border is very sparsely populated and it's easily one of the least traversable terrains world wide, excluding mountain ranges and oceans. It's nothing but hills, swamps, lakes, forrest swamps and hill swamps.
The point is: Joining the EOP program is a huge warning sign that you're about to join NATO at any moment.
> Russia got that when they seized Crimea. Ukraine couldn't join even if they wanted at that point by NATO's own rules without renouncing control of Crimea
They could have just given up on Crimea, signed the NATO deal and immediately renewed their claims.
Also, these "rules" are loose guidelines at best. Plenty of countries have joined NATO with ongoing border conflicts. Prime example: Greece and Turkey.
> Putin said that the little green men were Russian military.
Yup, after the fact, probably when it became more feasible to deal with the internal political and bureaucratic fallout.
Hence the intense irony.
> In short that Ukraine is a mistake done by Lenin forced about by a anti Russian agenda of some kind, and that erasing the imagine imaginary line between Ukraine and Russia is necessary to return Russia to the world stage like it was it was part of the USSR.
Putin LOVES to present himself as a hobby historian, but the historical claims Russia has on Ukraine don't make any sense from a practical viewpoint, since these arguments wont add absolutely any weight to Russia trying to further their cause just about anywhere. Especially because the political history of the region is complex enough to challenge just about any claims.
Then there is the catastrophic state of the region even before 2022, before 2014 and even 2004.
Russia is a huge country with incredible wealth, but sparsely populated (beyond the Ukraine-Moscow region), which makes sufficient development of its subregions feasible. People like to laugh at an apparent lack of indoor plumbing in Russia, but that's just because some people want to live that way and often have for generations. There are still many nomads in Russia, secluded villages with little to no contact to the outside for decades, semi-nomadic people moving every few years and pulling up new temporary housing and other variations of people living simple lives.
If you want to live in a higher developed area, there's little stopping you from doing so. What's hard to escape in Russia are the Soviet style apartments and buying yourself into the top cities. Below that and up to that the social mobility is great, easily one of the best worldwide. Beyond thaf, you're screwed, unless you've got good contacts with capable contractors (or VERY deep pockets).
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But now enter the mess that's Ukraine. Much more densly populated, atrociously developed, basically no industry, hardly any profitable natural ressources (all hard and expensive to extract), the social mobility of Hellen Keller, about as well organized as a puzzle tossed from the 10th floor and walking on a random field has a lethality rate of about 20% per 10m.
Taking over responsibility for that catastrophe is signing yourself up for bankruptcy by thousand cuts.
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If Russia were aiming for there former USSR glory, step one would be Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Then Belarus. Most of these countries could be incorporated entirely through political moves, causing little to no international retaliation.
And only then would Ukraine or Georgia be brought to the chopping block. These countries have very high geostrategic value, but also extreme conflict potential, and not only in the military sense.
E.g. Ukraine is both for the US and the EU easy to bully around, if necessary. They're not going to stop buying gas from it, as long as relevant to the markets and available. And Russia can also easily bully Ukraine if necessary, under normal conditions Ukraine isn't going to stop buying gas from Russia. But if Russia and all these other EU/NATO states were to have yet another conflict with eachother, Russia could kiss that revenue good bye.
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And then there's the fact that the USSR failed but just recently before. People dont look favorably on it, neither in Russia nor anywhere else. The risk of people becoming maliciously compliant or outright striking, on top of the various political, social and institutional challenges, is just way too large. It's a good way go turn yourself into a failed state within but a few months.
And Putin would yet again face the reverse version of what he previously called the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century": Millions of people without any national representation being stuck in foreign nations.
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Putin is old and very popular in Russia. I doubt he's going to throw that away over a mission he's not only too old to complete himself, but is also almost certainly going to fail and turn Russia into a failed state.
> That and there's the theory that Putin himself was being fed in effect bad intelligence about both the readiness of his own armed forces as well as the general attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians
Maybe, but the guy has been at the top for too long and has been VERY successfully managing one of the most challenging nations on Earth. With a bureaucracy he's pretty much built himself from scratch after that infamous meeting with the oligarchs, which caused them to resign from politics over night.
The state of the Russian forces was atrocious, but despite all the pandering, it became obvious the military was never a high priority for Russia. They poured a lot of money into research projects/scams, had conscription (who cant be used in conflicts if no war is officially declared ("SMO" ...)) and a rather tiny professional army, that invaded Ukraine in 2022 (+2014, I guess). And a giant Soviet arsenal.
Putin might have been misled, but I think it's more likely that he just ran out of good options. You can almost hear him become desperate and slightly depressed during his call with President Macron just before the invasion. Also the constant begging for guarantees Ukraine wont join NATO during the months before.
I think he knew quite well that his gamble on Ukraine handling this like Georgia in 2008 was VERY risky.
> Given what Putin did to his rivals, not too hard to make a guess why they wouldn't want to give him bad news.
Heard a theory he does that to people who break certain agreements with him. Like Prigozhin. Made a public agreement with Putin not to return to Russia, but then kept cruising around Russia in his private jet for weeks, very publicly.
And for some reason just about anyone involved in the Chechens' raids against Russia during the second Chechen war. Guess there's a personal vendetta hidden somewhere.
> What purpose does seizing and holding does Kherson serve to in keeping the control over Crimea and the Strait of Kerch, exactly?
Quite an important one. The Kerch bridge is highly vulnerable and has little capacity, both for transport and utilities. A land connection would rectify this and Russia gave that very high priority during the beginning of the war. While the units in the north acted rather passively during the start of the invasion (some really bad apples excluded), the southern units went all in straight away.
Also Crimea was running out of water and Ukraine refused to negotiate about reopening the canal supplying 80% of Crimea's water (understandably, although in hindsight it was probably a bad idea). Crimea was absolutely screwed without that canal, many people not having anymore access to fresh water just before the invasion and the economy was in free fall. Russia took over the dam blocking the canal on day 1 and destroyed it on day 3.
> Why attempt go even further and seize Odessa?
I've seen speculations of connecting to Transnistria, but am not convinced that was the primary objective.
We just don't know, but if I had to guess there were 2 important objectives:
1. Taking over the large shipyards with its giant dry docks located along the Ukrainian coast east of Crimea. The docks there were among the largest the Soviets ever built.
2. Turning Ukraine into a landlocked country, then offering it sweetheart deals to achieve strong political control.
Might have also joined the captured area to Transnistria to convince Moldova to finally push ahead with the gradual reunification. In exchange for significant political influence, ofc. Clarification: Moldova isn't trying to sabotage any such efforts, the Transnistrian side absolutely is. But Transnistria will do as Russia commands and Moldova is constantly infighting with itself on a large variety of issues regarding both Romania and Transnistria. And Russia has an undisclosed, but obvious, interest in keeping Moldova away from Romania, at least until there's a favorable deal on Transnistria.
> Why open a northern front in the Kharkiv Oblast?
In the beginning: Overwhelming Kyiv by attacking from multiple directions.
Now: Most of the Ukrainian units are heavily entrenched in the Donbass making advancing very very difficult. Why advance at all? Because the more Ukraine needs to rebuild fortifications and set up new logistics, the more vulnerable they become.
Some of the areas in the Donbass have been built up for a decade. Russia obviously doesn't disclose any of this, but I'd imagine it to be an utter nightmare to push Ukraine out of there.
So the best option is probably making Ukraine move some of its forces elsewhere.
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You could also make the argument that Kharkiv could act as a buffer towards the Russian heartland and shield for the unified deep water system, but the DPR and LPR are WAY more important in that potential role.
> Why try to open a front from Belarus into Kyiv?
Pressure Kyiv, end it quickly. Apparently there were also plans to put pressure on Lviv, but either that was a myth, fizzled out or is being kept hidden very well.
> That's an awful lot of fronts to open up to try take territory that Russia does not want.
But way too few people to hold it. When Ukraine started preparing its counter offensive and Russia built its own fortifications, Russia heavily reduced the width and depth of its frontline. We dont have any accurate numbers for any phase of the war, but Putin mentioned that the Russian forces were distributed extremely sparsely on a much too long frontline. Wagner and later the adsorption of other PMCs rectified that a bit, but if Prigozhin is to be believed, the Russians didn't treat them ... very kindly when they still were a separate force.
The President of Ukraine's children did not mock any dying Ukrainians.
The President of the United States' did.
Mind sharing or telling what to google for?
The search results are swamped with "Jr. mocking Zelensky" and "Trump making fun of the guy who died at his rally."
> I understand this can help some US company to sell more products in their country
If they are even able to satisfy the needs of the customer, either in quality, price or supply.
They wont be at first for sure. The vain hope is that it will settle out and eventually people will build manufacturing.
People don’t want to make capital investments whose success is based on a loose plan that seems to change weekly.
Add in that you are then almost certainly limited to a domestic market since your goods are only affordable when the competition has to pay a whacking great penalty.
I'm not defending it, but certainly if they then reduce income taxes (which is the plan), consumers would have more money to spend. A portion of that money would then go back into US manufacturing, further driving up wages
If you want to avoid increasing the deficit, you have to take in via tarrifs whatever you cut in income taxes. So no this doesn't mean households now have more disposable income. That money they were paying in income taxes they are now paying in higher prices due to tarrifs.
You may also want to double check the plan. Yes there are income taxes cuts included to make the little guy feel like they got something, but as usual the bulk of the cuts will go to the top.
The tldr version imo of tariffs is to ask yourself if their should be tariffs on Chinese evs and work backwards from there to every other industry.
The more detailed answer boils down to if you as a business can save 1% producing a product by buying a widget you need from overseas, that's what you'll do. So instead of a domestic company paying employees in your country all through it's supply chain, it all goes overseas. This costs you as a business 1%, but in theory has a large enough economic impact to benefit the country overall.
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Says semiconductors have a 50% extra tarriff. That includes LEDs, presumably.
I'm trying to do some things with LEDs, and ouch.
AFAIK the Section 301 tariff (and increases) only applies to parts imported from China/HK. There are lots of manufacturers on DigiKey that make their parts from elsewhere where these tariffs are not assessed. As a data point, I recently bought a bunch of Lite-on LEDs on DK, their COO was Thailand, and I wasn't tariffed for those parts.
I guess there's always Goodwill, landfill. You can pull PCBs, desolder components.
Similarly my hobby involving ship to shore cranes is going to be painful.
Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse. If this is already imported and paid for then it should be exempt right?
The page doesnt state what happens to foreign customers. Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
> Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse
Companies do not price things as they are now, or how much it cost in the inventory, but about how much they must charge to keep the business afloat. That means that prices will go up only because there's a risk that prices would go up, so that in any event, they can cover whatever they need to keep operations on-going. While prices go up in both a high risk or no competitive markets, prices would only go down if there's a competitive market.
That's the minimum they charge. The maximum they charge is how much they think customers are willing or have to pay. If the general mood is that tariffs will cause inflation, then price gouging will likely occur.
I’d also like some insight on the foreign buyer bit as DigiKey is by far the best and most reliable supplier to my part of the world despite being the other side of an ocean.
I pay local VAT and any local tariffs, all collected by DigiKey, and don’t think I pay any US taxes on the shipment.
By intuition I’d think whatever US tariff wouldn’t apply, but these things don’t exactly make sense a lot of the time.
Edit: Upon reading about the tariff drawback process, and these latest ones not being applicable to it - it does seem that I’ll be paying US tariffs for something [from China] that is then exported to me in another country.
> it does seem that I’ll be paying US tariffs for something [from China] that is then exported to me in another country.
I'm sure that isn't right - Digikey imports and exports from across the world - including existing items with tariffs and duty - effectively their warehouses act like Bonded warehouses - they claim back 99% of Duty and Tariff paid on exported items using Drawback. I don't know the details of the new tariffs but it wouldn't make sense for the US to stop this for reexports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_drawback
From the page:
One way DigiKey helps provide high-quality products at competitive prices is through our Duty Drawback Program, which allows us to recover a portion of the tariffs paid on imported products. However, under this Executive Order, the new 10% duty on all products imported from China and Hong Kong is not eligible for duty drawback programs.
That really is destroying US businesses. DigiKey's size and its amazingly efficient process means a European can order parts made in China via DigiKey and get them next day or the day after, mostly cheaper than from the smaller European suppliers.
The US has now effectively added an 'export' tax on DigiKeys business.
Ouch, if that is the case this is only going to boost the non US suppliers. Has anyone tried lcsc.com? Digikey and mouser are great but if all semiconductors go up 50% that is a problem.
Yes it does seem a bit strange - I guess the goal here is to encourage them to source and sell me a quality American SMD diode at less than $(0.006 + 10%) per unit.
That said I'm struggling to fully understand it all, the site kind of implies that the 50% Semiconductor tariff _is_ drawbackable - and if we look some of those were in effect since 2024. It does say that the 10% 'China tax' is not.
My reading here then is that the 10% extra is for everyone, and the rest of that table in addition is for goods consumed in the US. (And, some of those tariffs don't look very different from some of them in my non-US locale, which I would have to pay anyway)
Still a daft situation, will for sure be looking around for other suppliers.
I've used lcsc.com, and aside from their website being a little janky, it was fine. I would normally have used Digikey/Mouser, but I needed a few parts they didn't stock, but LCSC did. Then I found that a bunch of the other parts I was ordering were significantly cheaper from LCSC, and ultimately ordering everything I could from them cut the bottom line price of my BOM in half.
That said, shipping was $40-50 for one small box with around 50 components (varying quantities), so if you do order from LCSC it's best to order as much as possible within the same order, since the shipping is gonna be a significant chunk of the cost for any order <$1K. It took a few weeks to arrive using DHL, where Digikey/Mouser both generally deliver within a week (domestic shipping, I'm in N. Carolina).
TLDR; I would recommend LCSC if you are buying enough such that the per-part savings offsets the significantly higher shipping costs, and you don't mind waiting a ~10-14 days for your parts to arrive. I personally still use domestic suppliers for most parts, but when I have a larger BOM and I'm not under a deadline, I'll go with LCSC.
If you're ordering from the US, you should also be aware that Trump's tariffs still apply, so be prepared to pay at least 10% more for everything (some items--things like medical equipment, batteries, and semiconductors--are significantly higher, up to 100%). There may also be a processing fee levied by the shipping carrier if they collect the tariffs on your behalf. As I understand it, LCSC includes a customs declaration form with the shipment, and it's your responsibility to pay any duties or tariffs as the importer.
Duties are paid only if the products are being moved from outside into the US. And the other way around it matching tarrifs were enacted (they're almost always are). Digikey Europe might be affected because of global economic consequences but not directly by tarrifs. So short term the price should not change if you're not buying from the US (both ways)
Digikey (and Mouser) don’t have warehouses in Europe - they express ship everything from the US.
As far as I’m aware Farnell are the only major electronics retailer to have European warehouses. They don’t have nearly the same level of stock as the big players. But this will certainly be a big boost for them.
Digi-Key's US warehouse seems to be a customs transit area. At least I didn't get charged any tariff when ordering to Switzerland a few days ago.
Not doing it that way would be an immense disadvantage for Digi-Key against non-US distributors.
TME is European as well, and I think Arrow has warehouses in Europe.
I missed that, I guess I got them confused. I bought once from them and from Farnell a few more times and in my head it came from around.
Maybe its a good time for they to create one then.
Same.
Most credible alternative in Europe: Distrelec/RS Components (both part of RS Group).
Out of curiosity, can you tell me more about your hobby that involves ship to shore cranes? Or, is this an indirect way of saying that your hobby involves transoceanic shipping? This is Hackernews, so it could plausibly be either.
A third interpretation is this is a joke and they are talking about a business they want to make work without the tariffs, but yeah might have flown over my head too.
You don't pay for how much the item in the store costs, you pay how much it will cost to restock it (see also: petrol/gasoline prices changing throughout the week - it's because there's a fixed charge to refill the tanks, regardless of how much goes in).
> Seriously though they have a lot of stock in their warehouse.
Given they didn't have to pay tariffs before, I would assume they've declared all the goods and in that case yes.
> Does the duty only apply for domestic buyers?
If you re-export goods that was previously imported without using it, like DigiKey, then at least here in EU you can apply to get the duties paid back. However it's quite annoying if you import large quantities and sell small fractions. It works better if you do it on a 1-1 basis.
Not 100% sure how it works in US, but in EU you can have a bonded warehouse, where you store goods before you perform the import declaration to free them for general use.
This allows you to postpone the import declaration, and hence tariffs to be paid, to when you've sold the goods, or even avoid paying tariffs if you export the goods directly from the bonded warehouse.
The latter part is very attractive to companies like DigiKey which sell a lot of their goods abroad.
There are typically strict rules regarding getting a bonded warehouse license, with requirements for bookkeeping and physical separation with access control to avoid mistaking the bonded goods for normal non-bonded and hence technically smuggle goods into the country.
This also affects who's performing the import declaration. Pre-tariffs there's usually not much incentive to do anything more fancy than letting someone else handle the import declarations. However the added bookkeeping and usually means the one responsible for the bonded warehouse is best suited to perform the declarations. At least here in EU there are companies that offer this as a service.
Anyway the point was, if they didn't already have a bonded warehouse and decide to go with one, it's not just sending an email and get some approval. It might affect how DigiKey has to handle this goods deeply.
I have a PCBA order from JLCPCB that should ship any day now. Cost at checkout was a bit over $200, with no mention of tariffs. I've been wondering if I'm going to get hit with it by UPS. Has anyone else here had any experience with this yet?
Likely yes although I’m not sure if the administration has fully got rid of De Minimis or figured out how to reduce from $800 USD.
With UPS the added kicker is UPS charges a $70 processing fee themselves for processing something through Customs for you, paying the tariff for you so the package isn’t delayed and then enabling you to pay them back in advance of delivery on ups.com or the driver will ask for payment at the door when delivering your goods.
I don’t know if UPS going into the states is the same as Canada, but you can avoid the clearance fee by not shipping with UPS ground. The higher levels of UPS service do not have the bullshit fee added on, and you just pay the cost of taxes.
USPS and Canada Post were the most cost-effective way to deal with customs for the longest time. Unsure if that's the case anymore.
Canadians can also self clear packages in person at a CBSA office through the Courier Low Value Shipment program [1], if the value of the package is under $3300. It's a bit of a hassle, but has saved me >$100 in brokerage fees on some packages when UPS Ground was by far the cheapest option.
[1]: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/lvs-efv/menu-eng....
From that link: “The CBSA has placed a moratorium on applications for participation in the Courier Low Value Shipment Program effective June 3, 2019, until further notice. For additional information regarding the moratorium please refer to Customs Notice 19-12.”
That only applies to couriers who want to participate in the program, not consumers who want to self-clear their imported shipments. A person doesn't need to register, they can just take the appropriate forms to a CBSA office and pay any taxes/duties themselves. Kind of a confusing thing to have posted at the top of a page that seems more applicable to consumers than commercial importers.
Just got a JLCPCB order this week (below $800) via UPS and it arrived no problem with no tariffs since the de minimis exemption is temporarily still active from the latest of the tariffs EOs.
In the past with a DHL order over $800 they just sent me an invoice to pay before they'd deliver the package. Make sure you check the invoice though - DHL screwed up the HTS codes and tariff calculations and substantially overcharged, so I had to talk to DHL support to get it fixed (which ended up being really straightforward).
If JLCPCB doesn't charge, you will get a bill from CBP, customs and border patrol. I've purchased capex equipment (items over $25k) from China for my small company and that's how we've paid tariffs in the past.
(Contrary to the current US administration's lies, the buyer pays the tariff, not the seller.)
I had a $300 order (ordered late January, arrived last week) and was hit with the tariffs via UPS along with their bogus processing fee as another commenter mentioned. They wait for it to reach the US before holding it hostage. Would recommend using DHL if at all possible, as they make dealing with it a lot less painful.
> their bogus processing fee
At least here in Norway, though similar in many other countries that I know, it's not entirely bogus.
Typically there are real costs involved with submitting a customs declaration, especially if it requires actual people looking at the invoice and filling out the customs declaration based on it. An order from JCLPCB or similar would typically fall in that category.
Then there's the duties. Either they hold the goods until you've paid, in which case they need storage space and bookkeeping, along with inspections from customs every so often. Or they just pay up front and bill you after the fact. In either case there are real costs involved.
That said they're certainly not a charity, and I do think they exploit a bit the fact that often the importer doesn't have much of a say or knowledge in picking the shipping company. Perhaps the seller only deals with UPS for example.
I understand it takes more on their end but I hate that it's not baked in the the base shipping fee. They know they're going to have to do the extra work, why not take that into account on the base price?
JLCPCB recently started offering them as a shipping option, and they tend to be $5-10 under DHL's quote. The DHL price takes the additional processing fees into account and I'm not left with a nasty surprise in addition to the tariffs/customs fees.
> They know they're going to have to do the extra work, why not take that into account on the base price?
There's the option of doing it yourself or have some third party doing it, though you usually still end up paying some fee to the express company.
A lot of business customers do that, at least here, especially if they got goods with duties where they might not be confident in the goods classification[1] done by the express company, or if they have exemptions.
Though as I mentioned earlier, I do agree there's too little transparency here, and that they're taking advantage of it. I suspect the only way they'll improve is if customers start voting with their wallet.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonized_System#Classificati...
I'm not aware of a way to do this in the US, or else I'd absolutely take this on myself. For JLC the classification code is chosen by me at checkout, and I use the industry standard code for the product I sell.
> For JLC the classification code is chosen by me at checkout
Export or import classification? The first six digits are the same, but the rest vary per country so if you specify the export tariff codes then the one doing the import declaration will still have to do the import classification.
Haven't had to classify when ordering from JLC, then again I've only ordered PCBs so that might be why.
I'm not sure. When you use their PCBA services you choose from a large list that gets fairly granular as the last step in the ordering process.
Bullshit. It's an entirely predictable cost at the time of shipping, and should be built into _the cost of shipping_ as paid for by the party _paying for the service_. This is simply a means to double dip, knowing that the receiver doesn't know better in advance and can't do anything about it once they find out.
The buyer/importer is paying for the service, either directly or indirectly, so matters little in that regard. The seller ain't a charity either and will pass on any costs. You're not getting DDP for free.
But I agree that the transparency regarding customs processing fees is very lacking. Obviously they don't have an incentive as long as customers don't see this as a differentiator.
It's not about getting it for free, it's getting billed at the time money is already changing hands.
But you can already get this, just demand DDP terms[1] when buying. Seller might refuse in which case you can take your business elsewhere, or they might accept but charge extra for the service.
For example DigiKey allows me to select[2] between DDP or CPT, which means I have to pay for importing the goods[3].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#DDP_%E2%80%93_Delive...
[2]: https://www.digikey.no/en/help-support/delivery-information/...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#Allocations_of_costs...
There's a piece of furniture in eyeing that's twice as much on Amazon as on AliExpress.
I have two anxieties about Ali that are keeping me from making a decision though:
- You're essentially trusting foreign eBay sellers to get customs right. If they screw up, it's a ding against your Global Entry account. You're making yourself liable for the competence of strangers, and I don't know the system well enough to know if you can trust their ratings.
- I've yet to hear anything about how the tariffs are working out in practice. I don't wanna hit buy and find out everything is way more complicated/expensive than it was last month.
I should probably just buy from Amazon, but it's hard to commit to paying full price when you know everyone else is selling it for way less (but more risk of something shady happening).
I would never buy furniture from Alibaba or Amazon. I’ve bought a couple pieces of basic furniture from Amazon, including a bed frame from a third party seller that was missing essential pieces for which I was given a 50% discount as compensation. But at least if you buy from Amazon directly, the product is more likely to meet regulations. I have no faith that any furniture ordered from Alibaba meets any of the standards (CSPC, California fire code) it might claim.
In this case, it is the exact same article. It's rather distinctive.
I think the de minimis exemption is still in effect temporarily because they don't have a system set up to charge the tariffs yet.
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/industry-news/2025/02/07/tru...
To my understanding, your board is a subassembly and not subject to the tariffs. There’s an existing semiconductor tariff as well as this product tariff, and various categories that make it hard to untangle. Anyone correct me if I’m wrong - trying to figure it out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/pickup-...
Not true, all my boards have been subject to the tariffs going back to the first Trump administration.
It will be $85: 35% customs plus $15 brokerage charges from UPS.
Unless JLCPCB explicitly sold you under DDP terms[1], you'll have to pay applicable tariffs. I'm 99% certain they did not do that, it's usually explicitly mentioned. DigiKey for example has this as an explicit choice when I order to Norway.
Here in Norway that also involves a service fee by express companies like UPS as paying tariffs means they can't use a simplified customs declaration, and they typically front the payment to get you your goods ASAP. YMMV.
edit: Seems I missed that Trump postponded[2] the low-value exemption, De Minimis, so your shipment is probably in the clear. But next one might not be.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incoterms#Allocations_of_costs...
[2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/02/07/trump-reins...
Thanks for the links.
Related: Bunnie Huang on us tariffs impacting educators from 2018: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2018/new-us-tariffs-are-a...
Trump is going the peronism route Argentina took. Where protectionism was implemented for the sake of... Making the people in power richer.
You cannot just tariff if your industry is not there, people end up paying higher prices.
Next thing you'll hear is that America is producing but actually they will be assembling (for this you'll need to get along well with China). Crazy that Milei and Trump get along well mainly because of their social policies, but economic policies are so different. The US needs only two allies, Mexico and Canada, the only countries it has borders with, and instead Trump is just creating hate there.
Given that DigiKey pretty much ships out all of its components from their US warehouses (at least when ordering from India and Canada), but that most of the components are actually made in China or elsewhere, that we could expect them to set up a warehouse outside the US for in order to avoid these tariffs affecting DigiKey customers not based in the US.
I wonder if this also applies to Mouser. I've been buying pretty much all of my components from there, but if it becomes much more expensive I might have to just source from China and learn to read their datasheets. Mouser has much better customer experience and Texas Instruments, Analog Devices etc. have much better chips and docs, but at some point the 10x less expensive Chinese clones (and these days even new Chinese made chips) will just become the rational choice.
(With the assumption that this will be just the start of a trade war around chips)
> I wonder if this also applies to Mouser.
Yes.
> I might have to just source from China
It also applies to anything you source from China yourself. It's an import tax. Any applicable goods or services introduced to the US market incur it.
The one place it doesn't apply is when Digi-Key (or Mouser) ship to outside the US, their warehouses are apparently transit areas. (Source: I ordered to Switzerland a few days ago. No tariffs. You can probably check yourself by creating an order.)
If you're buying from China, you'll be paying the Trump Sales Tax. And if you try to ship directly from China yourself, you'll pay administrative fees to whoever handles the actual tax payment for you. For a few moments in early February before the administration began backtracking, DHL was charging a $32 fee for each shipment, even for a $1 trinket, and the other shippers (Cainao etc) were rapidly gearing up to do the same. The de minimis exemption for low-value goods was also briefly suspended, which is why the fees were so out of whack, and also why USPS momentarily stopped accepting shipments from China and Hong Kong: they didn't have the infrastructure to suddenly deal with fees on huge volumes of packages.
Buying your Chinese stuff through Mouser or Digikey or Arrow will spread that administrative fee across a whole shipping container of components. You'll still be paying the tax, but the administrative costs will be amortized.
I think tariff targets Chinese goods in general. Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't bring in quantity.
Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
> Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.
That's an extremely subtle way of saying "keep your mouth shut".
It's not. You can freely talk about other topics. In fact, talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not too loud. I think it is the same for all countries I have lived in. Talking about politics is always taboo.
"Talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not too loud."
and
"Talking about politics is always taboo."
Hahahaha. That's not the airtight argument against "a subtle way of saying keep your mouth shut" that you apparently think it is.
>Talking about politics is always taboo.
Not around where I am, at least withing the various circles I talk to. It can be hard to avoid, even. (to be fair, I live in a city which is relatively an outlier on the political spectrum compared to the country as a whole)
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> Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't bring in quantity.
Historically this was true, because the de minimis exemption meant small value imports didn't get charged tariffs. But the recent tariff EO both increased existing tariffs AND removed de minimis, meaning even a $5 import now needs to go through the overhead of tariff calculation and payment.
The de minimis change is temporarily paused because there's no way carriers or enforcement could actually handle the change in tariff volume with no warning, but broadly speaking, the low value direct import route is going away.
There are also tariffs being applied to goods from China, so "just source from China" may not allow you to avoid the tariffs.
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I miss the 'no new taxes' generation of conservatives
Republicans today definitely would be unrecognizable to Republicans of even 16 years ago. Here are some excerpts from the 2008 Republican Party Platform [1]. Are there any Republicans in Congress now who would agree with any of this?
They were for renewable energy:
> Alternate power sources must enter the mainstream. The technology behind solar energy has improved significantly in recent years, and the commercial development of wind power promises major benefits both in costs and in environmental protection. Republicans support these and other alternative energy sources, including geothermal and hydropower, and anticipate technological developments that will increase their economic viability. We therefore advocate a long-term energy tax credit equally applicable to all renewable power sources.
> Republicans support measures to modernize the nation's electricity grid to provide American consumers and businesses with more affordable, reliable power. We will work to unleash innovation so entrepreneurs can develop technologies for a more advanced and robust United States transmission system that meets our growing energy demands.
They were for energy conservation, recycling, telecommuting, and reducing business travel:
> Conservation does not mean deprivation; it means efficiency and achieving more with less. Most Americans today endeavor to conserve fossil fuels, whether in their cars or in their home heating, but we can do better. We can construct better and smarter buildings, use smarter thermostats and transmission grids, increase recycling, and make energy-efficient consumer purchases. Wireless communications, for example, can increase telecommuting options and cut back on business travel. The Republican goal is to ensure that Americans have more conservation options that will enable them to make the best choices for their families.
They wanted better gas mileage for cars and a push for cars that do not rely on oil, with electric cars specifically mentioned:
> We must continue to develop alternative fuels, such as biofuels, especially cellulosic ethanol, and hasten their technological advances to next-generation production. As America develops energy technology for the 21st century, policy makers must consider the burden that rising food prices and energy costs create for the poor and developing nations around the world. Because alternative fuels are useless if vehicles cannot use them, we must move quickly to flexible fuel vehicles; we cannot expect necessary investments in alternative fuels if this flexibility does not become standard. We must also produce more vehicles that operate on electricity and natural gas, both to reduce demand for oil and to cut CO2 emissions.
> Given that fully 97 percent of our current transportation vehicles rely on oil, we will aggressively support technological advances to reduce our petroleum dependence. For example, lightweight composites could halve the weight and double the gas mileage of cars and trucks, and together with flex-fuel and electric vehicles, could usher in a renaissance in the American auto industry.
They had a lot to say about climate change:
> Addressing Climate Change Responsibly
> The same human economic activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. While the scope and long-term consequences of this are the subject of ongoing scientific research, common sense dictates that the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today to reduce any impact on the environment. Those steps, if consistent with our global competitiveness will also be good for our national security, our energy independence, and our economy. Any policies should be global in nature, based on sound science and technology, and should not harm the economy.
> The Solution: Technology and the Market
> As part of a global climate change strategy, Republicans support technology-driven, market-based solutions that will decrease emissions, reduce excess greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, increase energy efficiency, mitigate the impact of climate change where it occurs, and maximize any ancillary benefits climate change might offer for the economy.
> To reduce emissions in the short run, we will rely upon the power of new technologies, as discussed above, especially zero-emission energy sources such as nuclear and other alternate power sources. But innovation must not be hamstrung by Washington bickering, regulatory briar patches, or obstructionist lawsuits. Empowering Washington will only lead to unintended consequences and unimagined economic and environmental pain; instead, we must unleash the power of scientific know-how and competitive markets.
> International Cooperation
> Because the issue of climate change is global, it must become a truly global concern as well. All developed and developing economies, particularly India and China, can make significant contributions in dealing with the matter. It would be unrealistic and counterproductive to expect the U.S. to carry burdens which are more appropriately shared by all.
> Using Cash Rewards to Encourage Innovation
> Because Republicans believe that solutions to the risk of global climate change will be found in the ingenuity of the American people, we propose a Climate Prize for scientists who solve the challenges of climate change. Honoraria of many millions of dollars would be a small price for technological developments that eliminate our need for gas-powered cars or abate atmospheric carbon.
[1] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2008-republican-pa...
The change in the Republican party over the last 20 years has been shocking.
The conservatives I grew up around called Nixon a "wannabe tyrant" and my dad described as "believing he was king" in the Frost-Nixon interview. People were outraged by "when the president does it, it's not illegal".
My uncle ranted and raved about "billionaires like Soros subverting democracy".
Today, the White House can tweet a picture of trump wearing a crown titled "Long Live the King" and there's not even a peep. The Supreme Court can rule the President to be above the law, and there's no outcry. There's a billionaire talking over the president in fox news interviews, and not a single conservative I know has anything to say about it.
Truly there is no more American principle than "No Kings Here", and yet my uncle, a former marine, KNEELED when he saw Trump on TV during the Super Bowl. It's bewildering - I don't recognize any of these people anymore.
I miss conservatives.
Not a conservative but I can respect the old school conservatives to some extent.
Present day conservatives are just awful people in general in my experience.
Right-Wing Americans haven't been conservative at least since Gingrich. There was nothing conservative about shutting down the Clinton-era counterterrorism programs prior to 9/11, for instance. There was nothing conservative about invading Iraq, or trying to administer Iraq as a right-wing utopia under the Coalition Provisional Authority.
I continue to be astonished at how the Republican party transformed from libertarians into a personality cult overnight because some weirdo won an election.
Lindsey Graham was on TV being all "never Trump" one week and then fully supportive the next. c.c. almost everyone else in Washington.
I wonder what the tipping point is among Republican voters between those who genuinely support Trump vs those who think the Democratic candidates are so bad for foreign policy, DEI, etc. that they'll vote from Trump in protest.
Who would the Democrats have to nominate to get the libertarians who used to vote Republican to back them instead?
I think Sanders would have unified because my MAGA parents liked his working-class support. But if I mention that among my progressive friends I get glares and stern warnings that Hillary was "the best" candidate and any objection is sexist. It's kinda like being a conservative who doesn't believe in god or is gay, your party will shun you.
I know anecdote vs anecdote is pretty much meaningless and I’m channeling “No true Scotsman”, but I find it hard to believe an actual progressive telling you that - the complaints from the progressive wing about Sanders losing the primaries are evergreen.
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I'm from Nevada.
I know lots of conservatives who aren't religious.
> I think Sanders would have unified
No, Sanders would never be a unifying figure. Libertarians see him as being essentially equivalent to Trump: a demagogue who makes emotional appeals to build a cult of personality, deeply misunderstands economics, and seeks to use political power in an unbounded and illegitimate ways.
But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.
They are noise in the data.
Populism is a marketing tool (to quote Hank Green) and Sanders wielded it as well as trump, but to help people, not punish them. Both have decades of track records demonstrating this fact.
> But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.
Various surveys have indicated that 20-30% of the US population broadly align with libertarian principles, regardless of party affiliation or nominal identification. This aligns fairly well with the proportion of the electorate that had negative opinions of both Trump and Harris in the last election (even those who took a "lesser of evils" approach and voted for one of them).
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Everyone would agree they'd like to pay less for health care. Much fewer would agree with specific proposals purporting to achieve that. Many people understand that the accumulation of political interventions over the past ~60 years are the primary thing driving costs up.
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I don't know if you're new to HN or if you made an alt account just for this, but…
The underlying principle of HN is that discussions should engender curiosity.
Talking point pissing matches and trying to dunk in replies permeate conversation everywhere else, especially when the people in power are controversial. Please take that energy elsewhere.
If you wanna participate in HN, aim for replies that everyone would find interesting. This isn't a board for interpersonal arguments.
> Present day conservatives are just awful people in general in my experience.
I don't think I've seen any conservatives involved in mainstream politics in the past 15 to 20 years. I see people using the word "conservatives" to describe something else entirely, but few actual conservatives.
I see it the other way around. This is real conservatism.
Conservatism as an actual movement was formed after the French Revolution when monarchists found that “deus vult” was no longer sufficient justification for wanting a king. The core principles are just rationalizations for the main idea: there should be a king.
American conservatives got swept away by democratic ideals and focused on the rationalizations, but now they’re getting back to their roots.
> I see it the other way around. This is real conservatism.
It's really not.
> Conservatism as an actual movement was formed after the French Revolution when monarchists found that “deus vult” was no longer sufficient justification for wanting a king.
In fact, conservatism in the Anglo-American world has no relationship whatsoever with the French revolution; the sort of reactionary monarchism that informed the royalist factions during the French revolution was already all but dead in the UK and America by the time of the French revolution -- it had already been driven to the fringes by the English civil war and the Glorious Revolution, and in the aftermath of the Whig ascendancy and the American revolution, was utterly gone by the 19th century.
Modern conservatism descends from the non-radical side of the Whig philosophy, as exemplified by Edmund Burke, and is characterized by preferring stability and continuity rather than forceful change, within a context of limited, balanced government, rule of law, and respect for the individual. Many of the people referring to themselves today as "conservatives" are collectivist, authoritarian radicals, and have much more in common with the extreme left than with traditional conservatism.
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These guys have been doing something similar for just Canada <> US, was surprised to see this stuff popping up: https://www.zerodraftai.com/insights/2025-canadian-tariff-re...
I find it tragically hilarious how the leader of the most powerful country in the world sees tarriffs and fails to understand the interconnectedness of economies that benefit both. When someone thinks of the world as a zero-sum game it's pretty clear.
And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get.
I suspect we'll end up seeing the Trump era as a good thing for the rest of the world -- a stable America tends to suck up all the oxygen in the room and the current daily whiplash makes the rest of us just prefer to trade with each other.
While the US still holds a fair bit of monetary power worldwide, we're basically seeing them spend soft power at a ridiculous rate.
Meanwhile, we're refocusing our economy to make it less US-centric, finding new markets for our resources and watching America self-immolate.
I was discussing today with a relative how Cuba's Fidel Castro framed the public opinion in the country in such a way the nation is currently... having a very hard time. Even after Fidel Castro's dead. Worse, Hugo Chavez imported the same set of morose ideas, and a decade later, with both idiots dead, the two countries are competing to see which one has longer blackouts. Never underestimate people's capacity to listen to popular figures and embrace damaging cabals.
Strange but conventional perspective. I would say to never underestimate the long-term sadism of the US when dealing with small countries who insist on abolishing slavery or owning their own natural resources, or the ability of the people who benefit from that sadism to blame the victims of it.
There is something to what you say; like, Marcos Rubio has probably benefited from that sadism. Materially though, I think the Americans are worse off for it.
With that said, the average Cuban is so down that they don't get a chance of being a victim of USA's long-term sadism (though many, many, have benefited from USA's long term generosity. Florida is full of them). Being affected by USA's sanctions require sufficient standing to, well, try to import something from USA or access its financial markets in some way.
Yes, USA's legislation forbids the Cuban government and its citizens from doing business with American entities, and that includes accessing financial instruments. But all Cuban citizens are forbidden by their own government from commercially importing goods and services from any part of the world. Goods for private consumption are under a 100% tariff, except for food, which is under a temporary exception due to famine[^2]. That exemption is re-examined every three months, with government officials showing up on TV and bemoaning the missed tariff income.
Foreign investment is heavily regulated, and only allowed for big industries that the government considers strategical. The business regulation forbids citizens from participating in or forming stock corporations. There is no legal notion of corporate veil.
The Cuban banking system is wholly-government controlled[^1], and it only allows privates and businesses to give foreign currency to the government at a rate set by the government, with no exchange in the other direction. But the Cuban government decided to stop printing its national currency to force everybody to use its digital ledgers, so that they can levy revenue taxes directly (yes, "revenue", not "profit"). It makes sense in some sort of Machiavellian way. Problem is, the power infrastructure has collapsed and nothing digital is currently working. There is still a stiff tariff and insurmountable paperwork on importing solar power infrastructure--which is only allowed for private residences. If you do manage, you are required to connect that infrastructure to the public network but it's impossible to do due to bureaucracy and red-tape, and you are not to be paid by the power delivered into said network. Solar farms which do not belong to the government are not allowed.
I could keep going for a few more pages. Yes, there is USA long-term sadism towards some small nations, I've been affected by it and it's not exactly kosher. But it's a drop in the bucket compared with what those small nations do to their own citizens.
[^1] But there are some interesting corruption twists in that story which I don't have time to go on.
[^2] Famine in a country with great weather and good soils, because the government forbids farmer from selling their produce at market prices and from importing machinery and miscellaneous equipment, fertilizers and seeds.
We're not really spending soft power as much as flushing it down the shitter. I won't be mad at all if Canada wants their own nuclear weapons now. Good fences and all that
Trump's tariffs against China are at least aligned with both his, and long-term America stated strategy and goals. America has tried the free trade trick with China to try to compel it to towards political liberalization - it didn't work. Remember that Trump's tariffs on China from his first term were not cancelled by Biden - infact Biden added to the tariffs, in addition to enacting export restrictions. Both Bush Jr and Obama enacted limited tariffs on Chinese products.
If you look at trade action against China, you can see the contours of a strategy that could maybe actually work. Obviously, tariffs cannot be the only component of such a strategy, since the disparity between Chinese and American manufacturing capability in many fields is absolutely gigantic. It took decades for China to reach their current position, there's no reason to expect that America, or the west as a whole could expect to catch up in anything less than roughly a decade scale, especially with only unpredictable tariffs.
Trumps tariff plans against the rest of North America and the EU however... those fly in the very face of attempting to seriously take on China. USMCA is up for renewal in 2026. Whatever legitimate issues Trump had with Canada and Mexico, and whatever strong arm position he wanted to take, he could have messaged as a part of a prelude to the renewal. This probably would result in better outcomes for the US.
The US is finding that many of their critical supply chains (including defense supply chains) are passing through China. Tariffs alone are not sufficient to disentangle these elements, and the domestic messaging from Trump simply does not create the domestic conditions for sustaining both the tariffs and whatever other policies and aid are required to enact these structural changes. It's difficult to reconcile "lower inflation", "slash the budget and deficit", "tax cuts for the rich", "tariffs", and "reindustrialize America" all at once.
Randomly picking the Toyota EV battery plant that's supposed to come online this year in North Carolina - site selection was announced back in 2021. In many of these critical areas, we're talking multi-year minimal lead times to bring new capacity online.
How the current US administration is treating European and North American countries makes me wonder if they are serious about taking on China.
As a Brit, I've been surprised by how much my view has shifted in the last few weeks. I used to assume we'd be allies with the US and have a probably competitive and maybe adversarial relationship with China. Now I see the US administration basically saying "we're going to make you pay through the nose for everything" (e.g. taking Ukrainian minerals). So I've started thinking "Well, if the US and China will both behave like that, surely we're best off playing them against each other and seeing who'll offer us more?"
That seems like a very bad deal for the US. So I figure that (a) the administration isn't serious about taking on China, or (b) assumes European and North American countries will roll over, or (c) they think they can go it alone.
Yeah as much as I'm very much unhappy with the consequences of this to me directly, I imagine this admin is going to be really important abroad, for the EU in particular, for identifying unnecessary vulnerabilities and dependencies on US infrastructure.
I previously worked in a five-eyes facing role and it's pretty terrifying when one staunch ally loses its mind. So much procedure and process is based on reliability.
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I mean, we're not exactly jazzed about getting measles or being homeless over here...
> And as a Canadian whose country been the target of a certain leader's 51st state jibes, I find it pretty hard to sympathize with the pain that Americans are going through and how bad inflation is going to get.
Less than half of Americans that voted voted for Trump, and while there are definitely some people happy about what he is doing, there are also many who voted for him that aren't. I'd also like to point out that Trump didn't say anything about annexing Canada until after he had won the election.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall him talking about about Greenland or the Panama canal prior to the election either.
And because turn-out was only 63.9%, only %31.8 of the voting-eligible population voted for him. More of the voting-eligible population didn't vote at all than voted for him.
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