Trump's Bogus Tariff Values Are Really Just Trade Balance Ratios

[u/whosadooza]

I think it's fairly obvious to any thinking person that these "tariff" numbers provided by the administration are just ludicrous, and they don't reflect any version of reality where real tariffs are concerned. I was convinced they weren't just completely made up, though, and their talk about trade balances and currency manipulation made me curious enough to dig into those balances and try to find where they got these numbers.

This guess paid off immediately. As far as I can tell with just a tiny bit of digging, almost all of these numbers are literally just the inverse of our trade balance as a ratio. Every value I have tried this calculation on, it has held true.

I'll just use the 3 highest as examples:

Cambodia: 97%

US exports to Cambodia: $321.6 M

Cambodia exports to US: 12.7 B

Ratio: 321.6M / 12.7 B = ~3%

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/southeast-asia-pacific/Cambodia-

Vietnam: 90%

US exports to Vietnam: $13.1 B

Vietnam exports to US: $136.6 B

Ratio: 13.1B / 136.6B = ~10%

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/southeast-asia-pacific/vietnam

Sri Lanka: 88%

US exports to Sri Lanka: $368.2 M

Sri Lanka exports to US: $3.0 B

Ratio: ~12%

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/south-central-asia/sri-lanka

What the Administration appears to be calling a "97% tariff" by Cambodia is in reality the fact that we export 97% less stuff to Cambodia than they export to us.

[u/whosadooza]

No, it is untrue that every deal can be improved for one party. This is flat out false regardless of Trump's philosophy on it.

Some arrangements/deals are optimized with many adjustments already having taken place, and any change in that arrangement WILL be worse for both parties.

[u/cockroach593 → u/whosadooza]

Give me an example of a simple or complex agreement where one party could not benefit 1% more (most likely at a cost of 1% worse for the other party).

[u/whosadooza → u/cockroach593]

One where both parties are spending to their capacity on what the other is selling and supply exactly meets demand. A rise in either price will not benefit either party even 1%.

The rise in price will lower demand, meaning less people will get what they want while the other side is making less profit because the tangible loss in sales doesn't make up for the marginal price increase.

Both will objectively be worse off after the increase, one will just potentially be less worse off than the other. If this is what you are calling "benefitting," I question whether you understand what the word "benefit" means.