[imadethis]

No services, only goods. This is according to @JamesSurowiecki on Twitter, one of the first to reverse engineer the equation for how they’re coming up with the numbers. So Office, Netflix, etc wouldn’t count against the deficit.

[aurareturn]

This is where the calculation is extremely unfair to a country like Vietnam. They export low value physical goods and import high value services like ChatGPT, engineering consultations, etc. They're getting screwed by this tariff plan.

Any tariff based on trade deficit needs to account for services.

[amarshall]

Well the U.S. gets screwed too, the admin just doesn’t realize it.

[rtkwe]

You shouldn't put tariffs based on deficits period because it's a brain dead way to think about international trade. The whole idea is flawed from the jump so there's no way to make it rational, it's inherently irrational.

[ozozozd]

Nothing will happen to Vietnam. US consumers will just pay.

It’s ok to be Republican/conservative and increase taxes now.

[macinjosh]

No it doesn't. Trump's whole issue here isn't making more money for the federal government. His issue is that the American economy no longer works for you if you are a blue collar worker.

The services we export are performed largely by white collar, college educated people. A good number of whom are here on H1-B visas. What service can an unemployed factory worker export to Vietnam? We have to end globalization of industry or wealth inequality will just continue to spiral.

[seanalltogether]

I'm glad I read your comment because I've been wondering the whole time whether services are factored in. It's absolutely insane that the administration is ignoring the exported value of some of the biggest companies in America that all these countries are buying services from.