Yunuen Valenzuela MD

Addressing the dumbest arguments about tariffs. 1. Tariffs are ALWAYS paid by the importer. Every time. Without fail. The importer has to pay the US Treasury the tariff before it is released from its port. That's what a tariff is. It's how they work. 2. Tariffs are typically passed on to customers. How much they are passed on is called a "pass-through rate. Remember Trump's tariffs on washing machines? The pass-through rate on Trump's 2018 washing machine tariff was between 108% and 225%. And it also raised the price of dryers, since they are usually sold as a set. 3. "Buying American" is a myth. No matter what you buy, the cost is affected by tariffs on some level. Let's say you buy American grown beef. The cattle has to eat, right? So the farmer gets silage from a corn farmer. And that corn farmer needs fertilizer, and that fertilizer probably comes from Canada. So the cost of growing the corn goes up, which causes the cost of feeding the cattle to go, which causes the cost of beef to go up. 4. Even if by some miracle, you found something 100% home-grown in every imaginable way where all the manufacturing parts are also made in America and all the aluminum and steel and raw materials for the parts were made in America (Grok said there weren't any) the prices would STILL go up because the price of all the items needed to produce it would go up because of the laws of supply and demand. 5. Countries don't pay tariffs. Can we stop this stupid-ass argument? There is no transaction between COUNTRIES. An IMPORTER (a private business) imports goods from an EXPORTER (another private business) because people in the importing country want those goods and will buy them. 6. There is a big difference between "tariffs" and "corporate taxes." For starters, not all importers are big corporations. But also corporate taxes are taxes on corporate income, not taxes on costs. If you make the taxes on COST go up you make the sell price go up. 7. Corporate taxes are PROGRESSIVE which means the more you make, the more of your income is taxed. Tariffs are REGRESSIVE, meaning the LESS you make the more of your income is taxed. 8. Taiffs are already starting to affect prices, but we haven't had the full brunt of it yet for a couple of reasons. First, most of the tariffs have only just gone through in the last 2-3 months and it takes time for the ripple effect to hit. Second, many corporations stocked up on imports ahead of the anticipated trade war (hence the negative GDP growth rate in the first quarter, as net exports is part of GDP). 9. It is not about whether tariffs are "good" or "bad." It's about whether Trump's use of them is completely fucking stupid or not. And it is. Fire is a tool, just like tariffs. But if you burn down your house to cook dinner, you're an idiot. Trump's "tariff every product on every country in the world" is like burning down the house to light a match. It's appallingly stupid. 10. I don't have a 10 yet, but I felt I needed to put this here to round it out. Congrats if you read this far.