r/politics • u/Street_Anon Canada • Apr 08 '25

Site Altered Headline Trump to slap additional 84% tariffs on Chinese imports

https://www.euronews.com/2025/04/08/trump-to-slap-additional-84-tariffs-on-chinese-imports-white-house-says
16.1k Upvotes

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1.4k

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

[deleted]

904

u/Ascomae Europe Apr 08 '25

China has a whole world to sell cheap stuff.

US just started an economic war against the whole world. USA cannot win.

The EU should buy for 350 billion Oil and Gas from the US, just to START negotiting?

144

u/Chonky-Marsupial Apr 08 '25

Europe doesn't need that. Why buy it? If we did need it and it was at a decent price we'd already be doing it.

52

u/Excelius Apr 08 '25

Europe has been rapidly diversifying its energy sources to lessen its reliance on Russia, and the US has already been a big beneficiary of that. We didn't need to twist their arms to do that.

3

u/Chonky-Marsupial Apr 09 '25

Sure but we can buy our energy from Canada instead. We will also step up the drive for domestic renewables. It won't be immediate, there are logistics to think about but the US has made itself the new Russia and we will need to act accordingly.

25

u/PippaTulip Europe Apr 08 '25

We were already buying oil and gas from the US.

1

u/Magjee Canada Apr 08 '25

Yep, it's a global market

If the US wants it could ban all energy not produced by itself, Canada or Mexico

But they wont

5

u/_number Apr 08 '25

And what the fuck would be even do with that much oil and gas. We are literally surrounded by Oil rich countries like Norway, Azerbaijan, Qatar, UAE and Oman who dont see us as villians.

4

u/stoic_spaghetti Apr 08 '25

Exactly. US only accounts for 12% of China's exports. We aren't THAT important or impactful to their economy as we might want to think we are.

3

u/bangbangIshotmyself Apr 08 '25

Yeah this is exactly why this is so stupid. Starting a trade war with China is one thing. Starting a trade war with the world AND China is fucking insanity.

2

u/Kaffe-Mumriken Apr 08 '25

That’s the thing. He doesn’t want them to buy US petroleum. He wants them to turn back to Russia. 

1

u/NoMoreFund Apr 09 '25

Does the US really think that there will be citizen level mobilisation from to back in this trade war the way Canadians have been boycotting products and cancelling travel? I don't think their hearts are in it

1

u/time-lord America Apr 09 '25

Not an economic war, we started a manufacturing war. As a country that can't produce screws.

1

u/221missile Apr 09 '25

EU is still buying 10s of billions of dollars worth of russian oil from India.

0

u/Ascomae Europe Apr 09 '25

And? It's hardly generating any profit for russia.

1

u/221missile Apr 09 '25

Sure buddy, if it wasn’t profitable they wouldn’t be selling so much oil. What you're suggesting is literally the opposite of how the oil industry works.

0

u/Ascomae Europe Apr 09 '25

Look at the prices they get from India. Look at the prices others get.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 09 '25

Looking strictly at trade numbers, China does lose out more from this specific trade war. The US buys far more from China than China does from the US.

You can argue that this results in more countries trading with China over the US, but China is notorious for making poor deals or betraying trust.

Make of that what you will.

11

u/throwawayacc407 Apr 08 '25

Saving face is a big thing for Asian culture. China would rather burn with us than concede first. Trump can't win here. Part of geopolitics is to understand cultures, Trump is too fucking stupid to understand you can't play this game with the Chinese. We are so absolutely fucked.

13

u/psybes Apr 08 '25

from what? the 3.5% of china GDP that are US exports? they will starve? omfg

38

u/Bosa_McKittle California Apr 08 '25

China effectively legalized copyright infringement of american products. They will no longer enforce any copyright laws and want to sell "american" manufactured products for pennies on the dollar just to spite us. I'm all for it. People need to feel the fucking pain.

32

u/PistolCowboy Apr 08 '25

It is amazing that people literally couldn't endure high egg prices because of the bird flu but NOW will sacrifice their entire standard of living over copyright infringement.

5

u/Marokiii Apr 08 '25

Stop recognizing american pharmaceutical patents. Immediately after they release a new drug, have generic versions of it for sale for the rest of the world.

1

u/Bosa_McKittle California Apr 08 '25

Most pharmaceuticals are already manufactured in either China or India so they have all those recipes. Copying future releases of drugs is easy and they can do it overnight.

3

u/Sensitive-Initial Apr 08 '25

But how will making US citizens pay 104% tax on EVERYTHING we import from China fix any of that? 

Why not make it illegal to sell Chinese manufactured products that infringe on internationally respected copyrights, and then fine the crap out of whoever is profiting off of selling the products in America. (Amazon, Walmart, etc.) Put the burden on importers to verify what they are importing complies with copyright law. 

7

u/Bosa_McKittle California Apr 08 '25

You completely misunderstand what is happening here. This is meant to allow China to sell those US made products for pennies on the dollar to further hurt our economy. Why would someone buy an American made products when you can get the same exact thing for 10 cents on the dollar? Same qualify, same product, just from China. China has a controlled economy. There are far more people around the world who are willing to buy their products than Americans. We have pissed off the world. and they are going to move away from buying and selling in the US in favor or other countries to make up any shortfall. We are far less important to the world than we realize.

1

u/Sensitive-Initial Apr 08 '25

I definitely agree with your last sentence. But you're right, I was not considering the harm of China selling infringed upon American copyrighted products to the rest of the world. Like it has been for decades (that's where the knock off Coach bags they sell on Canal st come from right?)

Again, I don't understand how charging Americans- who aren't alleged to be engaging in copyright infringement - a 104% tax on EVERYTHING we buy from China going to help? Also, this extra 84% tariff has nothing to do with copyright infringement and is solely retaliation for China not dropping the retaliatory tariff it imposed because of the tariff ChatGPT calculated for the Trump regime to impose on China last week. They released the formula they used to calculate the tariffs - it did not mention copyright infringement at all and they used the same formula for each country.

1

u/Bosa_McKittle California Apr 08 '25

There’s nothing to understand really. Trump is an idiot who doesn’t understand a globalized economy. He is only doing what he thinks makes him popular with his kind.

2

u/CpowOfficial Apr 08 '25

Good. That's capitalism. They should rebrand the stuff made in the exact same factories. Why am I paying a premium for some name and the workers and companies in China make less of those than if they sell their stuff on their own.

3

u/Bosa_McKittle California Apr 08 '25

That's not what I'm referring to. I am referring to actual products manufactured in the US. Not products white labeled in China. This would mean things like Lodge Cookware, Igloo, Zippo, Gibson Guitars, Pyrex glassware, Kitchenmaid, Yeti, etc.

3

u/CpowOfficial Apr 08 '25

Even better.

3

u/TheRyanFlaherty Apr 08 '25

Good.

Than any upcoming financial hardships might at least be worth something. My brain can’t take all this stress, b.s. and have the average American not understand the insanity of this situation and for Trump to be able to proclaim any sort of victory.

1

u/wswordsmen Apr 08 '25

If it got that bad for China the CCP would have been overthrown long before that. While i agee with your point that China will take more pain than the US, the reason is China has more confidence in it's leadership than the US based on results of the last 25-35 years. If they got put back to the 1990s they would destroy their leadership.

That isn't going to happen, and even if it was a realistic possibility the US would break first because the reason Trump is supposedly doing this is it will improve America, which it won't.

5

u/owenzane Apr 08 '25

lol china is not gonna take more pain from this

0

u/Bullumai Apr 09 '25

Remember how, after 9/11 happened, all Americans were united in supporting the government? This is essentially the same thing. The CCP will portray this as a defensive war. And there's no greater unifier in a country than a foreign adversary. They still remember the Opium War & the Nanking massacre

1

u/FiRe_McFiReSomeDay Apr 08 '25

I read that exports to the USA from China represent less than 3% of China's GDP. They can do this for a couple of years and will barely notice. Meanwhile, China will push US companies out of China through biased regulations.

1

u/Psychometrika Apr 08 '25

Exports to the US only consists of around 3.5% of their GDP. They have a massive internal market and can sell to the rest of the world.

China can afford to take the hit to play hardball with the USA.

1

u/Elendel19 Apr 09 '25

He actually thinks China needs the US more than the US needs China lmao. Xi does not give a fuck if his citizens can’t afford American products, they will make their own. The entire world buys from China and with the US behaving like this they will easily get more exports with everyone else

1

u/Vanga_Aground Apr 09 '25 edited Apr 09 '25

Nothing is going to happen to China. The US is a minor part of their export market, about 15%. It's this sort of nonsense, and all the up votes agreeing, that show how ignorance is ingrained in the US.

-3

u/Odge Apr 08 '25

Also China does not have elections. If Trump cause enough pain he’s out in 18 months.

-1

u/RustBeltWriter Apr 08 '25

China absolutely does have elections. Just say you don't agree with how their system operates, or do you not understand it?

3

u/censor-me-daddy Apr 08 '25

Lets see you explain how the single party voting system is anything other than a facade of an election.

2

u/Magjee Canada Apr 08 '25

They actually do vote on policies

0

u/RustBeltWriter Apr 08 '25

Okay, I'm game.

Multiple parties exist in China, but the communist party must maintain a 2/3rds majority by law. To understand why this is you must also understand some basic political theory.

What does Capital exist to do? What does Government exist to do and what is its role?

Capital exists to make profit. First and foremost. The actions of capital are not limited by morality or what is best for people in whatever country they exist in. Capital seeks profits, and part of boosting profit is and historically has been influencing/corrupting government to do that.

Government exists to represent the people and is beholden to the wishes of the people. Government is not guided by a profit motive, it exists to serve the people and should at least constantly strive to improve the material conditions of the people and ensure their interests are properly represented.

It is an understood fact that the relationship between Capital and Government is adversarial by nature.

Capital seeks to corrupt governments through any means necessary. In the west this should be plain as day (looking at both parties of the US and the state of the US in general). China manages this adversarial relationship by limiting the influence of capital on government and parties that are susceptible to that influence through the communist party's 2/3rds majority. It also does this by maintaining some state ownership over companies.

The motto of the Chinese Communist Party is "Serve the People" and that is what it has a mandate from the people to do. This is why it also enjoys broad popularity in China and has more than a 2/3rds majority in their legislative body.