Be ready for the new coming value added tax

Yes, taxes and tariffs are a drag on commerce. So is IT theft, prison camp labor, and potentially CCP interference with shipping and an invasion of Taiwan.

Every option has a downside.

 

Did the ChiComms reduce tariffs after the 2020 election?
Did we reduce OURS for them?

Even fake news and state funded media has addressed this point nearly accurately before and since the 2024 election.

Most people are like Trump's vanquished opponent.
To be charitable they are at least wildly uninformed about what tariffs really do, and how many we ACTUALLY have in place.

Tariffs are a FAFO tool.
You use them to stop people from doing 's' you don't want them to (Japan, raping China, South Africa's apartheid, Iran funding terror, Russia invading.....like, three or four places since the 90s)

You can also use them reciprocally - for every country that places tariffs on US!
(This is the part that MSM 'sometimes' obfuscates.... )

^ THAT!

Yep.
FAFO goes both ways.

 

"The factories in China are feverishly working overtime..." This stimulated some searching:


China Industrial Production


Latest month here (2024 October) was not out of line. But choose a longer-timeline option (e.g. 10 yrs) and see some wild action in 2020 and 2021. So wild that one might seek confirmation from other sources.

Then follows wondering about causes and so on.

 

Other analyses like this one are available on negative effects of tariffs on GDP:

Trump Tariffs & Biden Tariffs: Economic Impact of the Trade War

I cannot asses their accuracy. No idea how to even begin.