Walmart just leveled with Americans: China won’t be paying for Trump’s tariffs, in all likelihood you will
Walmart just leveled with Americans: China won’t be paying for Trump’s tariffs, in all likelihood you will
Trump promised voters tariffs are a panacea for the economy, but Walmart finance chief John David Rainey warned they will be inflationary for customers.
You're viewing a single thread.
Hearing more and more stories about companies cutting bonuses this year so they can buy more supplies now at cheaper prices. They know the prices will go up and they'll have to pass the increase to the consumers. But how much you wanna bet these companies will still raise prices even before they have to pay their tariff increases? They're gonna get extra money on the supplies they paid the lower prices on.
I saw it explained best like this
Current imported price: $30
Current locally made price: $35
New imported price: $70
New locally made price: $69.99
Locally made still won't happen.
Say you're an businessman who's been manufacturing in China. Excel shows that you can make the same product in America for less than the post-tariff cost. Sound good?
But you're not stupid. You know the tariffs will end up wildly unpopular and fuck up the economy. A) Why keep producing when people won't be able to afford your goods? And more importantly, you want to be left holding the bag with your shiny new American factory when the tariffs are repealed?
The amount of money it would take to move manufacturing back to the US would cost billions and companies aren't going to do that. They would have to pay to import (with tariffs, still) any raw materials that can't be made or mined here. Companies are just going to move their manufacturing to Vietnam another SE Asian country (some are already doing it), where labor is still cheap. And labor here for manufacturing wouldn't be cheap. The company would have to worry about unions, and this country does not like unions (or labor, for that matter).
Oh for sure, I should have clarified that I was really speaking to the products that already have a US-based manufacturing presence and already have to compete with imports. Ramping up domestic production on things that aren't already manufactured here because of the demented ramblings of a guy who (ostensibly) won't be around in 4 years is just asking for your business to go under
...This is just normal basic business economics.
Your retail price is not predicated on what you paid to produce or obtain the product, it's based on what you expect to have to pay to produce or procure the next one.
Agreed, but some people don't understand or realize this. We're not going to see this huge manufacturing influx back to the US.