American business would be a lot more competitive internationally if it wasn’t hamstrung by tens of thousands of pages of laws and regulations. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
Tariffs are, of course, taxes.
Just the same as other taxes called by different names, such as the Social Security “contributions” workers are forced to make. Changing names does not change the effect.
Assuming the taxes are imposed.
But – as regards the taxes called tariffs – what if they are threatened rather than actually imposed?
Trump has used the threat of tariffs to coerce foreign leaders to accede to his demands, as for instance that the government of Mexico help staunch the human tsunami of “refugees” across the Southern border. The president of Mexico agreed recently to supply 10,000 soldiers to police the Mexican side of the border after Trump threatened to tax Mexico via tariffs.
The same threat seems to have prompted Nissan to consider shifting production from Mexico to America.
“From Mexico to the U.S., we are exporting a significant number of cars this fiscal year. . . 320,000 units are exported from Mexico to the U.S. and if the high tariffs are imposed, we need to be ready for this,” said Nissan’s CEO Makoto Uchida the other day. “Maybe we can transfer the production of these models elsewhere . . . we will think how we can make it a reality while monitoring the situation.”
