8 ms·

Have there been any studies or economists predicting macro-level benefits to the US economy with the tariffs? I'm not aware of any (much the opposite), but I'm

Have there been any studies or economists predicting macro-level benefits to the US economy with the tariffs? I'm not aware of any (much the opposite), but I'm interested if they exist.

nonethewiser 1y ago
I too have found the discourse around tariffs lacking. This is a common and blatant logical fallacy I see: - Tariffs are bad. They hurt the country enacting overall it in the long run. - It's correct to respond to the US tariffs with tariffs in response. Additionally, people seem to not understand that a country that exports more to the US than it imports stands to lose more when the US/that country have the same level of tariffs. At a large scale, if global trade breaks down the United States will be comparatively (not absolutely) better off because they can support themselves (consumption, food, raw materials). None of this is an endorsement of tariffs. I think the US is in a pretty good spot and things could get a lot worse. Tariffs absolutely will make expensive things more expensive, and it will hurt. But the discussion I've seen online has reduced itself to some sort of weird orthodoxy that doesnt even make sense.
- pcthrowaway 1y ago
  I think this is only the case if there aren't replacements available from other countries. I feel like China is going to be the biggest winner of this tariff war. Just as an example (from Canada), we had long had a 50% tariff on Chinese EVs which helped U.S. EV manufacturers stay competitive. Now I think we're going to relax that (which IIUC was only implemented to appease our relationship with the U.S. in the first place) and cheaper Chinese EVs should start appearing on the market. Good for Canadians, good for China. Not as good for the U.S.
  - drivebyhooting 1y ago
    What’s good for China is not good for Canada in the long run. There are many reasons you can think of. A small and often overlooked one is that a Chinese hegemony would decrease the língua franca status of English.
    - pcthrowaway 1y ago
      Sure, but I don't see much of a difference from importing from China vs. the U.S. in terms of real impact. I don't really care so much for the "lingua franca status of English" (even though it's the only language I speak fluently). While yes, this is one of Canada's main languages (not that we don't have a lot of Cantonese/Mandarin speakers too), China itself would be a good example that one can succeed without speaking the language which has the "lingua franca status" Perhaps it's worth noting that the number of fluent Mandarin/Cantonese speakers in Canada is probably not much lower (as a percentage - ~4% in 2016 and I can imagine it's only increased since then) than the number of fluent English speakers in China (5%) edit: 4% is actually the number of Canadians who spoke Mandarin or Cantonese as a first language in 2016 (which again, is likely higher now). The number of fluent combined Chinese language speakers is almost certainly higher then, even if just a little bit.
      - drivebyhooting 1y ago
        Millions of Chinese learn English in school from a very early age to have access to the global labor market. You have a huge unrecognized privilege in being a native English speaker.
        pcthrowaway 1y ago
        Not sure why you're making this personal. I do of course realize the privilege in speaking English as a first language, being born in a developed nation, as a white cis-man, and so on. To cling to the idea that English need continue to be the most important global economic language though, is a type of linguistic and economic supremacy I don't care to partake in.
        drivebyhooting 1y ago
        If you were playing a strategy game you would definitely value your country’s language remaining the língua franca. The same logic applies in the real world. It’s not personal. It’s the most impersonal thing possible.
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    China is quite reliant on food and energy imports (two critical preconditions for everything) and their consumption rates arent great which is not good for an export based economy. They could be a beneficiary if global trade doesnt go nuclear. And it probably wont. If it does they are in big trouble.
- lakhim 1y ago
  Its not a fallacy but game theory playing out - known as beggar thy neighbour policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    That is very relevant overall and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. But what I'm talking about are people who declare tariffs as an absolute bad and then go on to say enacting them is rational and good. In the beggar thy neighbor policy, the behavior is not considered an absolutely bad thing. This happens with tariffs as well, but people can be even more dogmatic about it.
    - lakhim 1y ago
      Think of it like an invasion - shooting people is probably as close to an absolute bad thing as you can get, but if you're getting shot at its pretty much time to start shooting back
      - nonethewiser 1y ago
        Oh I get that. We have these claims: - Shooting someone is absolutely bad in all scenarios - Its correct to shoot someone if they are trying to shoot you I agree with the second point completely. The problem is if you say that, you should go back and revise the first point, because clearly its not absolutely bad. In the case of tariffs, once you acknowledge that reciprocal tariffs are good, you run into a problem because the US generally has lower tariffs on other countries than other countries have on it.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  War is bad. It is correct to respond to aggression initiating war with defensive war. Trade wars are like regular wars, in that respect.
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    OK. So you support the US enacting reciprocal tariffs. edit: lots of evasion from this point below
    - dragonwriter 1y ago
      The US is not proposing reciprocal tariffs, it is proposing broad tariffs premised on xenophobic fantasies placing blame for US fentanyl consumption and other US failures on foreign governments.
      - nonethewiser 1y ago
        [flagged]
        ziddoap 1y ago
        I like how you just ignored everything they said, to try and coerce them into saying "yes", presumably so you can extrapolate that out to some other point you're trying to make.
        nonethewiser 1y ago
        He thinks its xenophobic and sees tariffs that are not reciprocal. I recognize that. It just has no bearing whether or not the US should enact retaliatory tariffs. Does he believe the US should enact tariffs to meet the tariffs other countries already have on the US? He can evade and resort to accusations of xenophobia all he wants but that is the question I'm posing.
        1y ago
- BenFranklin100 1y ago
  Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. See Samuelson for instance. The online discourse is poor because the vast majority of people, even those who are educated, have never cracked open a 1st year Econ textbook.
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    >Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. I think its poor because people see tariffs not immediately derided and they swoop in to denigrate them. Please re-read my entire comment.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 1y ago
    I think most people are not thinking on purpose, and just accepting the dogma of one side or the other.
Willingham 1y ago
I too am interested in learning more about the other side of the debate. "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion" --John Stuart Mill
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  I think an interesting angle to this discussion is the fact that before the "temporary" income taxes (in 1913), tariffs were the primary source of tax revenue in the United States. There are lots of modern economists in favor of consumption taxes over income taxes. And in a climate where people are up in arms about billionaires skirting income taxes, you'd think it might be a popular idea to tax all the money they spend.
  - D-Coder 1y ago
    "No more billionaires. None. After you reach $999 million, every red cent goes to schools and healthcare. You get a trophy that says, “I won capitalism,” and we name a dog park after you." — Mikel Jollett
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      Can you contextualize this quote in response to my comment?
      - D-Coder 1y ago
        It's an alternate technique for raising taxes. It incidentally also reduces the social impact of a small number of extremely wealthy people, thus helping democracy. It's probably not legal without a Constitutional amendment, but one can dream.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
    Consumption taxes are wildly regressive. US tax policy since 1913 (and arguably even before) is (perhaps suprisingly) very progressive (*). Not a good fit. (*) progressive in the sense of following the principle that the impact of taxes should be roughly the same for all, not in the general political sense.
tialaramex 1y ago
My understanding is that in principle you could use this to cause onshoring, but you want to target the tariffs narrowly and you need everybody to believe that they're long term. Trump's plan doesn't do the former and no US President could achieve the second.
milesvp 1y ago
I don't know about any credible economist currently making positive predictions (marginal revolution might be a good place to keep your finger on the pulse), but I did see a paper a few years ago that showed protectionist tariffs in britain several hundred years ago had a strong correlation to current day prevalance/strength of current industries. Which is to say, that industries with higher tariffs had a stronger pressence today. All things being equal, I might expect that strategic tariffs on important sectors to be vital in maintaining them. But, given how global the economy is, and how many more non-obvious substitutions there are today, I'm not sure these protections provide as much value going forward as they did 200 years ago. Worse, is blanket tariffs are not likely to do anything in the short term but drive up local prices to match foreign import goods costs, and is likely going to be a major wealth redistribution event towards physical capital holders.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  The idea is to encourage "at home" investment because the consumer-facing cost of production inside the tariff border will be less, and thus the products will sell better and thus ... capitalism. This is such a childish, simplistic, naive view of both capitalism and material production in 2025 that it barely deserves a mention.
sctb 1y ago
Yanis Varoufakis has been writing about this with a mostly neutral, inquisitive tone. Recently: https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterplan/ https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterpl... https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the-world/ https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the...
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  Good links, though I would not call that a "mostly neutral, inquisitive tone". Varoufakis knows that the outcome of Trump's imagined/proposed tariffs cannot be known at this point, and so he explores a couple of the possible results.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
AFAICT a lot of studies and economists predict macro-level benefits to the US economy for tariffs, but they also predict that the costs will outweigh the benefits. For example, this analysis of the term 1 tariffs show 1,000 jobs gained and up to 75,000 jobs lost. https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
tim333 1y ago
Peter Navarro says it's going to be good. >“The message is that tariffs are tax cuts, tariffs are jobs, tariffs are national security,” Navarro told Fox News Sunday. “Tariffs are great for America. They will make America great again.” https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-tariffs-3620170 https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-ta...

Have there been any studies or economists predicting macro-level benefits to the US economy with the tariffs? I'm not aware of any (much the opposite), but I'm interested if they exist.

nonethewiser 1y ago

I too have found the discourse around tariffs lacking. This is a common and blatant logical fallacy I see: - Tariffs are bad. They hurt the country enacting overall it in the long run. - It's correct to respond to the US tariffs with tariffs in response. Additionally, people seem to not understand that a country that exports more to the US than it imports stands to lose more when the US/that country have the same level of tariffs. At a large scale, if global trade breaks down the United States will be comparatively (not absolutely) better off because they can support themselves (consumption, food, raw materials). None of this is an endorsement of tariffs. I think the US is in a pretty good spot and things could get a lot worse. Tariffs absolutely will make expensive things more expensive, and it will hurt. But the discussion I've seen online has reduced itself to some sort of weird orthodoxy that doesnt even make sense.

pcthrowaway 1y ago
I think this is only the case if there aren't replacements available from other countries. I feel like China is going to be the biggest winner of this tariff war. Just as an example (from Canada), we had long had a 50% tariff on Chinese EVs which helped U.S. EV manufacturers stay competitive. Now I think we're going to relax that (which IIUC was only implemented to appease our relationship with the U.S. in the first place) and cheaper Chinese EVs should start appearing on the market. Good for Canadians, good for China. Not as good for the U.S.
- drivebyhooting 1y ago
  What’s good for China is not good for Canada in the long run. There are many reasons you can think of. A small and often overlooked one is that a Chinese hegemony would decrease the língua franca status of English.
  - pcthrowaway 1y ago
    Sure, but I don't see much of a difference from importing from China vs. the U.S. in terms of real impact. I don't really care so much for the "lingua franca status of English" (even though it's the only language I speak fluently). While yes, this is one of Canada's main languages (not that we don't have a lot of Cantonese/Mandarin speakers too), China itself would be a good example that one can succeed without speaking the language which has the "lingua franca status" Perhaps it's worth noting that the number of fluent Mandarin/Cantonese speakers in Canada is probably not much lower (as a percentage - ~4% in 2016 and I can imagine it's only increased since then) than the number of fluent English speakers in China (5%) edit: 4% is actually the number of Canadians who spoke Mandarin or Cantonese as a first language in 2016 (which again, is likely higher now). The number of fluent combined Chinese language speakers is almost certainly higher then, even if just a little bit.
    - drivebyhooting 1y ago
      Millions of Chinese learn English in school from a very early age to have access to the global labor market. You have a huge unrecognized privilege in being a native English speaker.
      - pcthrowaway 1y ago
        Not sure why you're making this personal. I do of course realize the privilege in speaking English as a first language, being born in a developed nation, as a white cis-man, and so on. To cling to the idea that English need continue to be the most important global economic language though, is a type of linguistic and economic supremacy I don't care to partake in.
        drivebyhooting 1y ago
        If you were playing a strategy game you would definitely value your country’s language remaining the língua franca. The same logic applies in the real world. It’s not personal. It’s the most impersonal thing possible.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  China is quite reliant on food and energy imports (two critical preconditions for everything) and their consumption rates arent great which is not good for an export based economy. They could be a beneficiary if global trade doesnt go nuclear. And it probably wont. If it does they are in big trouble.
lakhim 1y ago
Its not a fallacy but game theory playing out - known as beggar thy neighbour policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggar_thy_neighbour
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  That is very relevant overall and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. But what I'm talking about are people who declare tariffs as an absolute bad and then go on to say enacting them is rational and good. In the beggar thy neighbor policy, the behavior is not considered an absolutely bad thing. This happens with tariffs as well, but people can be even more dogmatic about it.
  - lakhim 1y ago
    Think of it like an invasion - shooting people is probably as close to an absolute bad thing as you can get, but if you're getting shot at its pretty much time to start shooting back
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      Oh I get that. We have these claims: - Shooting someone is absolutely bad in all scenarios - Its correct to shoot someone if they are trying to shoot you I agree with the second point completely. The problem is if you say that, you should go back and revise the first point, because clearly its not absolutely bad. In the case of tariffs, once you acknowledge that reciprocal tariffs are good, you run into a problem because the US generally has lower tariffs on other countries than other countries have on it.
dragonwriter 1y ago
War is bad. It is correct to respond to aggression initiating war with defensive war. Trade wars are like regular wars, in that respect.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  OK. So you support the US enacting reciprocal tariffs. edit: lots of evasion from this point below
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    The US is not proposing reciprocal tariffs, it is proposing broad tariffs premised on xenophobic fantasies placing blame for US fentanyl consumption and other US failures on foreign governments.
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - ziddoap 1y ago
        I like how you just ignored everything they said, to try and coerce them into saying "yes", presumably so you can extrapolate that out to some other point you're trying to make.
        nonethewiser 1y ago
        He thinks its xenophobic and sees tariffs that are not reciprocal. I recognize that. It just has no bearing whether or not the US should enact retaliatory tariffs. Does he believe the US should enact tariffs to meet the tariffs other countries already have on the US? He can evade and resort to accusations of xenophobia all he wants but that is the question I'm posing.
        1y ago
BenFranklin100 1y ago
Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. See Samuelson for instance. The online discourse is poor because the vast majority of people, even those who are educated, have never cracked open a 1st year Econ textbook.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  >Just about any undergraduate textbook will discuss tariffs and why they are nearly universal regarded as poor policy. I think its poor because people see tariffs not immediately derided and they swoop in to denigrate them. Please re-read my entire comment.
- dkjaudyeqooe 1y ago
  I think most people are not thinking on purpose, and just accepting the dogma of one side or the other.

Willingham 1y ago

I too am interested in learning more about the other side of the debate. "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion" --John Stuart Mill

nonethewiser 1y ago
I think an interesting angle to this discussion is the fact that before the "temporary" income taxes (in 1913), tariffs were the primary source of tax revenue in the United States. There are lots of modern economists in favor of consumption taxes over income taxes. And in a climate where people are up in arms about billionaires skirting income taxes, you'd think it might be a popular idea to tax all the money they spend.
- D-Coder 1y ago
  "No more billionaires. None. After you reach $999 million, every red cent goes to schools and healthcare. You get a trophy that says, “I won capitalism,” and we name a dog park after you." — Mikel Jollett
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    Can you contextualize this quote in response to my comment?
    - D-Coder 1y ago
      It's an alternate technique for raising taxes. It incidentally also reduces the social impact of a small number of extremely wealthy people, thus helping democracy. It's probably not legal without a Constitutional amendment, but one can dream.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  Consumption taxes are wildly regressive. US tax policy since 1913 (and arguably even before) is (perhaps suprisingly) very progressive (*). Not a good fit. (*) progressive in the sense of following the principle that the impact of taxes should be roughly the same for all, not in the general political sense.

tialaramex 1y ago

My understanding is that in principle you could use this to cause onshoring, but you want to target the tariffs narrowly and you need everybody to believe that they're long term. Trump's plan doesn't do the former and no US President could achieve the second.

milesvp 1y ago

I don't know about any credible economist currently making positive predictions (marginal revolution might be a good place to keep your finger on the pulse), but I did see a paper a few years ago that showed protectionist tariffs in britain several hundred years ago had a strong correlation to current day prevalance/strength of current industries. Which is to say, that industries with higher tariffs had a stronger pressence today. All things being equal, I might expect that strategic tariffs on important sectors to be vital in maintaining them. But, given how global the economy is, and how many more non-obvious substitutions there are today, I'm not sure these protections provide as much value going forward as they did 200 years ago. Worse, is blanket tariffs are not likely to do anything in the short term but drive up local prices to match foreign import goods costs, and is likely going to be a major wealth redistribution event towards physical capital holders.

PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
The idea is to encourage "at home" investment because the consumer-facing cost of production inside the tariff border will be less, and thus the products will sell better and thus ... capitalism. This is such a childish, simplistic, naive view of both capitalism and material production in 2025 that it barely deserves a mention.

sctb 1y ago

Yanis Varoufakis has been writing about this with a mostly neutral, inquisitive tone. Recently: https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterplan/ https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trumps-tariffs-are-a-masterpl... https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the-world/ https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-liberation-day-transform-the...

PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
Good links, though I would not call that a "mostly neutral, inquisitive tone". Varoufakis knows that the outcome of Trump's imagined/proposed tariffs cannot be known at this point, and so he explores a couple of the possible results.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

AFAICT a lot of studies and economists predict macro-level benefits to the US economy for tariffs, but they also predict that the costs will outweigh the benefits. For example, this analysis of the term 1 tariffs show 1,000 jobs gained and up to 75,000 jobs lost. https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited https://econofact.org/steel-tariffs-and-u-s-jobs-revisited

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

tim333 1y ago

Peter Navarro says it's going to be good. >“The message is that tariffs are tax cuts, tariffs are jobs, tariffs are national security,” Navarro told Fox News Sunday. “Tariffs are great for America. They will make America great again.” https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-tariffs-3620170 https://inews.co.uk/news/world/peter-navarro-behind-trump-ta...