And if investors think the future is extremely bleak they will cancel plans to expand, “right-size” their workforce, and so-on, which will smash the economy. The future looks incredibly bleak right now. Many businesses have stopped ordering at all from China because they have no idea what the tariffs will be once the goods arrive.

The tariff on goods from China is more than 100% now. Why do you think the price would only go up by 10-20%?

Imagine even a business that is supposed to benefit from tariffs, like garment manufacturing. Previously it wasn’t worth it because other countries could do it cheaper. So, now you could set up a garment factory and start making things in the US. You can buy cotton from Texas, spin it into yarn, make that yarn into cloth, do it all from seed to finished garment all in the USA.

But, can you really trust that these tariffs are going to be around for the long haul? If you invest $200k to start making clothing in the US, then Trump, the master negotiator, does a deal with Bangladesh and their tariffs go to zero again there’s no way you can compete and you’re out $200k.

Even if you’re extremely lucky and already had a US-based business that was surviving vs. overseas competition, would now be a good time to ramp up production? Sure, your goods are now much cheaper than your competitor’s goods, but with the economy cratering is anybody going to be buying?

There are times when tariffs can work extremely well for certain lucky companies, but they have to be targeted long-term tariffs. Not this chaos.

I wonder how it works though. Do they get finished laptops off a ship from China, or do they do final assembly in the US?

If they do anything in the US, then they’ll have to pay import tariffs to get the things they’re using, and then have to make up that tariff when selling it to other countries. I assume that the only way to avoid tariffs is to avoid any part of their products ever entering the US. But, how easy is it to change their business so despite being a US-based business their products avoid the US entirely?

Is anybody going to buy them when the price triples?

Yeah, there were never any wars in the middle east before the Ottomans or British came along. Right? Right!?

Or she set it to private because she was overwhelmed with the messages she was getting.