There's an entire world to trade with. If the Americans choose to shoot themselves in the foot, we won't be the ones paying for the bandage.
Also, it's deeply naïve to assume tariffed countries would absorb the cost. Why would they? It's like going into a shop and asking for a discount because you just took out a loan. Why would the shop give you a discount for something you inflicted on yourself? And what makes you think other customers wouldn't ask for the same discount?
Also see recent trade deal between Canada and China. And of course Canada and the EU have a trade deal. And Merz was visiting India recently so there are also trade deals between India and the EU coming. In short, everybody is trading with everybody.
The US might have an easy to choice to make after Trump. Regardless of who takes over. Simply roll back tariffs and instantly boost the economy. The protection aspect of tariffs will probably have proven to be mostly counter productive by then.
At least I don't see the US car industry doing any better when it can't export. Coal probably won't ever recover from being obsolete, etc. I think this mostly won't be controversial a few years down the line.
> The US might have an easy to choice to make after Trump. Regardless of who takes over. Simply roll back tariffs and instantly boost the economy.
I’m afraid it won’t be so easy. Countries deeply distrust unreliable trading partners. Europe will prefer to keep trading with Mercosur rather than risk trading with the US. If the US wants to trade again, it could; but at a price that justifies the risk.
I bought a mini PC today. On the US website, it goes for $460, on the German website it goes for 360 euros or $420. But that price includes 20% tax so its actually $335.
Prices for the same product are about 37.5% higher in the US. It's nuts and the reverse of how it used to be not long ago.
I was intrigued by what you have said, because I have also bought an ASUS NUC mini-PC today, in Europe.
I paid EUR 510, which means $593. This is with all taxes included, so the price without tax would be about $490.
I have searched now the ASUS mini-PC on Newegg, and its cost is $679, around +38.5% more expensive.
This is wild, because indeed, until recently the price of electronics devices was significantly lower in USA in comparison with Europe, while now it is the reverse.
This is not a "Made in China" mini-PC, which might have been affected by worse tariffs.
Moreover, I have equipped the mini-PC with 32 GB DDR5 & 1 TB SSD, while cursing the more than triple price of DDR5 compared with last summer, so that now the DRAM has been more than a third of the price of the complete computer.
This configuration has cost me the equivalent of slightly less than $900, without taxes. The same configuration has a price on Newegg of almost $1200.
Also, it's deeply naïve to assume tariffed countries would absorb the cost. Why would they? It's like going into a shop and asking for a discount because you just took out a loan. Why would the shop give you a discount for something you inflicted on yourself? And what makes you think other customers wouldn't ask for the same discount?