[transcriptase]

Exactly. You make it more attractive to do business with someone domestically by increasing the cost of doing business with nations that subsidize their exports or undercut your companies with slave labour or lax environmental regulations. Over the long term, domestic capacity either grows or emerges to take advantage of business models that were unprofitable due to impossibly cheap imports before.

[doom2]

The problem is, as the end consumer, it doesn't _feel_ like the domestic options are suddenly the cheap or desirable option. I am just paying more for the thing I was already buying. Similar to, eg, custom PCBs I ordered from China that were more expensive due to the end of the de minimus exemption, where there really isn't a good domestic option. Will an American Shenzhen ever pop up to provide that capacity? I'm very doubtful. Also similar to the Chinese drone ban. Domestically produced drones are both more expensive and there are fewer options in the consumer market. Again, I'm extremely skeptical that we will see an emergence of a competitive domestic UAV industry oriented towards consumers.

In short, it remains to be seen if tariffs have the desired effect in the long term. Their current implementation is merely a tax on consumers without driving them to domestic brands because they weren't introduced gradually but all at once.

[bootsmann]

> by increasing the cost of doing business with nations that subsidize their exports or undercut your companies with slave labour or lax environmental regulations

This is why the ”overregulated” EU got hit with a 30% tariff?

[transcriptase]

That was symbolic. Europe hasn’t produced anything except regulations, the fumes of mismanaged luxury brands, and cured meats for nearly 30 years. Nobody on either side was actually impacted.

[thoughtstheseus]

You also lower the profits from the exporting country (China) through reduced volumes. China has been on a massive productivity growth agenda that is only sustained through open trade and exports.