[denismi]

This pre-election BBC summary - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy343z53l1o - pretty clearly spells out what has eventuated, describing it as a "central campaign pledge":

> Trump has made tariffs a central campaign pledge in order to protect US industry. He has proposed new 10-20% tariffs on most imported foreign goods, and much higher ones on those from China.

[esseph]

That is not the 40-60-200% tariffs he has placed on things, depending on the day of the week.

That uncertainty makes it very hard to manufacture goods or buy raw materials.

[donalhunt]

It also disrupts JIT supply chains. Companies make decisions with certain variables not being volatile.

You now have a situation where one week the cost of a commodity is X and the following week it could be 2X. The butterfly effect across industries also cannot be predicted.

Many industries also seem to be still recovering from the pandemic period with supply of spare parts still being de-prioritised over making parts available for new units. :/

[trebligdivad]

I don't think there's that much surprise at the tariffs on China; it's the tariffs on the rest of the world, especially friendly countries like Canada that are the big surprises. Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges?

[verzali]

Why on Earth not? Didn't people pay attention during his first term? This was 100% predictable.

[burnerthrow008]

> Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges?

Only all the people who voted for them and all the people who voted against them?

[dml2135]

> Also, who believes politicians campaign pledges?

People who actually understand politics and who realize that the extent to which politicians keep their campaign pledges is usually related to how their parties end up performing in the legislature, rather than just being dishonest.