The different between taxes (you -must- pay (unless X loopholes applies to you))
whereas tariffs are voluntary and even more so then sales tax.
You may chose not to buy any products or goods that requires you
to pay tariffs.
Which is the primarily goal to begin with.
Influence consumer behaviour.
I realize that for some products and goods there may not be a
an alternative choice of products or goods that do have tariffs.
In theory, over time, these will be increasingly replaced by
products and services that have the competitive advantage of
not having to tariffs applied to them.
Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible
that, domestic producers have expand capacity, have created jobs
have caused supply chains shift and new production is based on
the tariff based price structure
This however takes time.
And to what extent it happens is not easy to predict.
Some may think that the next president will remove all tariffs
the moment he or she takes office, so it is a short term problem.
The problem with removing them all, is if the above has happened,
and removing them will destroy American jobs.
There's certainly a case to be made for targetted tarrifs, legally enacted, to support specific industries.
The problem with broad tarrifs by executive order under emergency powers to address longstanding issues are numerous.
Longevity and stability of the tarrifs is questionable because a new executive is likely to cancel them, the executive that issued them is likely to cancel them, and they may also be cancelled by the courts because their basis isn't solid. For some goods where production is easy to shift, it still makes sense to move it ... but then it's easy to shift out again when the winds change; goods where setting up production is a many years thing aren't likely to move with the winds.
The broad tarrifs mean that for goods that are manufactured from components of many origins, it may not make sense to pay tarrifs on the components in order to reduce tariffs on the finished goods. Or that it makes more sense to move manufacturing from one foreign country to another than to move to the US. I get it if you want to move both manufacturing and resource extraction to the US; but it would make more sense to do it one step at a time... first develop demand for the resources in the US, then push to onshore the resource extraction... OTOH a lot of americans prefer resource extraction to be out of sight, and some resources are simply not abundant here.
The other factor is that many countries respond to our broad tarrifs on their exports with their own tarrifs on our exports. This can easily hurt US producers more than it helps them. US products become more expensive in those countries due to their import tarrifs as well as US import tarrifs on the inputs and often there are many non-US suppliers to choose from; possible increases in US domestic demand may not materialize because costs will go up for US consumers as well due to tarrifs on input and potentially loss of economies of scale if the reduction in exports is significant.
I may be a free trade maximalist, but IMHO, the current admin's tariff policy is a recipie for economic slowdown. Which does help their goal of reducing immigration: the best way to reduce economic immigration is to have a deeper recession or depression than the world at large; it also helps with traffic. Big inflation numbers also push stock indexes up and reduce the cost of servicing old debt, but increase the cost of revolving and issuing new debt.
> Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible that, domestic producers have expand capacity
That's how tariffs would work if wielded for the right reasons. But now domestic producers have to pay tariffs on the very machines and inputs needed to expand capacity.
Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible that, domestic producers have expand capacity
Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible that consumers will be paying higher prices for inferior goods from providers that can't compete elsewhere.
In other words, there are both positive and negative effects --- and no clear way to predict which will prevail.
It's 19 century economics applied in the 21st century --- it's direct government interference in the marketplace --- the opposite of what Republicans spent decades railing against.
You may chose not to buy any products or goods that requires you to pay tariffs.
Which is the primarily goal to begin with. Influence consumer behaviour.
I realize that for some products and goods there may not be a an alternative choice of products or goods that do have tariffs.
In theory, over time, these will be increasingly replaced by products and services that have the competitive advantage of not having to tariffs applied to them.
Once tariffs are in place for a year or two it is possible that, domestic producers have expand capacity, have created jobs have caused supply chains shift and new production is based on the tariff based price structure
This however takes time. And to what extent it happens is not easy to predict.
Some may think that the next president will remove all tariffs the moment he or she takes office, so it is a short term problem. The problem with removing them all, is if the above has happened, and removing them will destroy American jobs.