What follows are not my words. They are the words of experts in history, business, and economics. If I were to summarize it would be, “Buckle up. If you are a low or middle income family, your budget is about to get really tight.” This isn't about concerns that we aren't financially comfortable. I am deeply concerned about how financial instability and poverty impact human flourishing in the United States. When our economy suffers, the financially stable experience hurdles and will largely be okay; the financially unstable experience devastation, and will not. That is not okay.
I hope that all of these prognosticators are wrong. I doubt that all of them are wrong.
If you want to leave a comment or provide links that counter this narrative, you are welcome to do so. Please, if you do so, read all the excerpts rather than just a few, and feel free to go all the links to see that my excerpts did justice to the articles. These are mostly in chronological order, just to record the history of what made the radar of people concerned about how tariffs will impact the average person.
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"Daniel Laguna of LevelUp warned that Trump’s proposed 60% tariff on Chinese imports could raise the costs of gaming consoles by 40%, so that a PS5 Pro gaming system would cost up to $1,000.
One of the old justifications for tariffs was that they would bring factories home, but when the $3 billion shoe company Steve Madden announced yesterday it would reduce its imports from China by half to avoid Trump-promised tariffs, it said it will shift production not to the U.S., but to Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil...”
(Historian Heather Cox Richardson, November 8 email)
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“Automotive companies like Nissan and Stellantis are already bracing for cost increases and have announced impending layoffs to mitigate anticipated losses... Leaders from major U.S. corporations, including AutoZone, have confirmed that price increases are on the way, with some anticipating hikes as early as next year.”
“Some Trump Voters Already Regret Their Decision Amid Concerns Over Tariffs, Job Cuts, and Rising Costs." November 10, 2024. Meidas.com
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"Mexico’s economy minister Marcelo Ebrard said his country would consider retaliating with tariffs of its own should the incoming US administration impose taxes on Mexican imports. In the last days of the campaign, President-elect Donald Trump vowed toimpose tariffs of as much as 25% on Mexican imports should its southern neighbor fail to crack down on migration and the flow of drugs into the US. “If you apply tariffs, we’ll have to apply tariffs. And what does that bring you? A gigantic cost for the North American economy,” he said...
Trump’s tariff threats do not take into account the countries’ bilateral economic dependence, wrote Americas Quarterly: Mexico sends up to 80% of its exports to the US. Decoupling trade with Mexico would make the fight against Washington’s even larger target, China, more difficult: US imports from China totaled $536.3 billion in 2022, undercutting prices of US products and encouraging foreign manufacturing. Trump has stated that he will also introduce trade tariffs on China of up to 60%. However, too many tariffs risk increasing domestic prices.“[Trump] continues to make China the bogeyman and has indicated he will get more aggressive,” one expert told CNBC, leaving Mexico as a key trade ally to mitigate against the worst economic impacts of Trump’s hard line on China.
"Mexico mulls retaliatory tariffs on US." November 12, 2024. semafor.com.