Escalating Tariffs on Mexico - Do You Agree?

[Agent0range]

Just now, OverSword said:

Yes, at the very least 33% how many American car companies get parts and assemble in Mexico? Electronics are also a big import. Mexico is our second largest trading partner, which is HUGE, anyone who thinks this is a good thing or even a good threat is clueless.

I think it's worse than being clueless.  It's blind allegiance, and the unwillingness to see beyond what Trump tells them is good for them.

[+OverSword]

1 minute ago, Agent0range said:

I think it's worse than being clueless.  It's blind allegiance, and the unwillingness to see beyond what Trump tells them is good for them.

You know it’s bad when you and I are on the same page  

Kidding aside people need to really ask themselves seriously what measurable negative affect has illegal immigration had on them. Did you lose your job? Would your taxes be lower (like that ever happened, my tax return was a couple hundred dollars less after trumps tax plan) did one rape your sister? No, they picked your tomatoes and sewed you shirt or mowed your lawn. 

People have been whipped up into a frenzy over this nothing of an issue that in reality has little to no influence on their existence.

[+OverSword]

17 minutes ago, Agent0range said:

Double post can’t remove well from phone 

Edited June 1, 2019 by OverSword

[+and-then]

6 hours ago, Uncle Sam said:

I have no problem. Let him raise the Tariff, we need to get this crisis under control and Mexico is allowing it to happen. Their pockets needs to hurt before they do something.

 

[+and-then]

19 minutes ago, OverSword said:

You know it’s bad when you and I are on the same page  

Kidding aside people need to really ask themselves seriously what measurable negative affect has illegal immigration had on them. Did you lose your job? Would your taxes be lower (like that ever happened, my tax return was a couple hundred dollars less after trumps tax plan) did one rape your sister? No, they picked your tomatoes and sewed you shirt or mowed your lawn. 

People have been whipped up into a frenzy over this nothing of an issue that in reality has little to no influence on their existence.

I have always supported legal immigration.  The numbers here are the difference.  Look into it more carefully and you'll understand.  We either have a sovereign country with borders or we don't.  Several diseases that we had considered conquered are reappearing and the numbers of illegals are so great that they cannot be housed, they simply have to be released.  My guess is that none of them are vying for your job but they are driving down the wages of the low education types every day.  This isn't a hatred or xenophobia issue, man.  This is a literal invasion from Central America and the people who are in charge of defending our border are all saying so in unison.  Do we just ignore them?

The president made overtures to the Congress and they stiff-armed him.  He asked Obrador and again was told to pound sand.  He got 1.5 billion promised from the Pentagon and a Liberal judge stopped that.  We have hundreds of thousands of illegals flooding across our southern border.  WHAT, exactly, would y'all have him do?  Nothing?  Is everything that's occurring down there okay in your mind?  Should we just open the gates to millions?

[+OverSword]

6 minutes ago, and then said:

I have always supported legal immigration.  The numbers here are the difference.  Look into it more carefully and you'll understand.  We either have a sovereign country with borders or we don't.  Several diseases that we had considered conquered are reappearing and the numbers of illegals are so great that they cannot be housed, they simply have to be released.  My guess is that none of them are vying for your job but they are driving down the wages of the low education types every day.  This isn't a hatred or xenophobia issue, man.  This is a literal invasion from Central America and the people who are in charge of defending our border are all saying so in unison.  Do we just ignore them?

The president made overtures to the Congress and they stiff-armed him.  He asked Obrador and again was told to pound sand.  He got 1.5 billion promised from the Pentagon and a Liberal judge stopped that.  We have hundreds of thousands of illegals flooding across our southern border.  WHAT, exactly, would y'all have him do?  Nothing?  Is everything that's occurring down there okay in your mind?  Should we just open the gates to millions?

I don’t, in general principle disagree with you about most of your post. But this is the dumbest solution. The view of what the problem is and how to fix it goes counter to the common sense way to actually identifying and solving it. Instead of this being a sovereign nation with borders problem we should view it as a supply and demand issue. People are crossing the border mainly to work, they do this because there is enough jobs demanding workers. If this were not the case then we wouldn’t have record low unemployment numbers. The economicly common sense most efficient way to fix this is to raise the number of work visas and cut the red tape it takes to get one and get the workers here. You can then keep track of them and tax them. You save money because you don’t have to spend so much on border patrol. You don’t spend billions on a wall. Do this and now you have more resources to deal with war and political refugees thus that issue shrinks in significance instantly. The course of going counter to economic common sense is going to cost us more than money at the end of the day. Working in harmony with market demands and trends is the real answer.

[DarkHunter]

1 hour ago, OverSword said:

Yes, at the very least 33% of produce, how many American car companies get parts and assemble in Mexico? Electronics are also a big import. Mexico is our second largest trading partner, which is HUGE, anyone who thinks this is a good thing or even a good threat is clueless.

Where are you getting this we get 33% of our produce from Mexico.  If you use the worldbank website it has total food imports from Mexico being 18.4% of the total food imports.

https://wits.worldbank.org//CountryProfile/en/Country/USA/Year/2016/TradeFlow/Import/Partner/ALL/Product/Food

America only imports about 15% of its total consumed food of which 50% of all fruit is imported and 20% of vegetables.  Of the imported fruits Mexico makes up about 40% and for vegetables about 25.6%.  So it total 20% of all fruit in America comes from Mexico and about 5.12% of all vegetables in America come from Mexico.

So we can stop pretending this will drastically hurt Americans unless you live on avocados which disproportionately come from Mexico.

[+and-then]

7 minutes ago, OverSword said:

I don’t, in general principle disagree with you about most of your post. But this is the dumbest solution. The view of what the problem is and how to fix it goes counter to the common sense way to actually identifying and solving it. Instead of this being a sovereign nation with borders problem we should view it as a supply and demand issue. People are crossing the border mainly to work, they do this because there is enough jobs demanding workers. If this were not the case then we wouldn’t have record low unemployment numbers. The economicly common sense most efficient way to fix this is to raise the number of work visas and cut the red tape it takes to get one and get the workers here. You can then keep track of them and tax them. You save money because you don’t have to spend so much on border patrol. You don’t spend billions on a wall. Do this and now you have more resources to deal with war and political refugees thus that issue shrinks in significance instantly. The course of going counter to economic common sense is going to cost us more than money at the end of the day. Working in harmony with market demands and trends is the real answer.

I don't dispute your logic.  But this isn't being handled, it's being ignored and hundreds of thousands today will lead to an absolute open season if something isn't done to staunch the flow.  This issue could long ago have been handled by our Congress if they had been willing to do so.  They obviously would rather allow the flow to go on unimpeded.  These are NOT streams of young men looking for work as used to be so typical.  These are whole family units with many dependents in tow that will immediately become burdens on all of our social welfare systems.  Those systems are already overburdened.  Anyone who tells the truth about this is branded hateful or uncaring as a means to silence them.  This country is 22T in debt and our systems are overburdened to the point of near collapse now.

The area I live in is mainly a tourism-based economy now but 20 years back it was primarily agricultural and we had a large seasonal immigrant population.  Many began to stay, legally and otherwise, and were welcomed as new members of our community.  What is happening now is going to cause a backlash against ALL Hispanics in our area if the flow continues unchecked and it becomes obvious that the president's promises are being sandbagged by people who don't want a solution.  It will lead to ugliness and anger.  In short, it will spoil what was a peaceful and harmonious relationship.  We aren't markedly different from any other part of the nation where one on one interactions are concerned so look for the same kind of thing to occur all over the country, with few exceptions.  

[the13bats]

i didnt vote as i dont believe it will do all that much, just more bluster

[+OverSword]

18 minutes ago, DarkHunter said:

Where are you getting this we get 33% of our produce from Mexico.  If you use the worldbank website it has total food imports from Mexico being 18.4% of the total food imports.

https://wits.worldbank.org//CountryProfile/en/Country/USA/Year/2016/TradeFlow/Import/Partner/ALL/Product/Food

America only imports about 15% of its total consumed food of which 50% of all fruit is imported and 20% of vegetables.  Of the imported fruits Mexico makes up about 40% and for vegetables about 25.6%.  So it total 20% of all fruit in America comes from Mexico and about 5.12% of all vegetables in America come from Mexico.

So we can stop pretending this will drastically hurt Americans unless you live on avocados which disproportionately come from Mexico.

We’re both wrong. We import 43% and 54% of that is Mexican 

if I read it right. On a phone drinking beer playing guitar and posting at the same time at the moment 

[DarkHunter]

1 hour ago, Agent0range said:

What I'm saying is, that if 5% would cause a huge difference in the amount of sales, that a 5% price cut would yield more profit.  If you sell 200,000 product at x amount of dollars and making a 10% profit, but cutting your price by 5% will cause you to undercut the competition and sell 800,000 product at 7% profit, you are still making more money.  5% is nothing.  If 5% made a difference, American companies would adjust.  And really, what you are saying is that this is going to help American corporations.  You know damn well this is going to do nothing but cause the consumer to spend more money.  

That is not how any of that works at all and makes absolutely no sense at all, untangling all of that is going to be a pain.

First off you cant just always do a price cut of 5% and remain profitable.  If that 5% price cut causes you to sell at less then what it cost you to produce it doesnt matter how much you sale you will never make a profit as every unit sold will be a loss.  In a lot of industries that isnt really a problem but in farming since most farmers have a profit margin of 10% or less then a 5% tariff increase is rather significant let alone the 25% it may rise to.

Second your numbers are just complete and utter nonsense, I know my numbers in my example were arbitrarily picked to show an example but at least then were all connected and followed logical sense instead of just picking random big numbers out of the eather.  Why would it cause 800,000 more to be sold and no 8,000,000 or why not just 8,000.  If you use numbers at least connect them and not pick them randomly to make you look intelligent.

I said it would help competitors of Mexico, more then likely it will result in America importing more from other countries then helping American corporations, and I never said consumers wouldnt spend more but unlike in your example the cost increase is likely going to be significantly less then the increase in the tariffs unless you live on something like avocados which America imports like 80% of our total consumption from.  

[+OverSword]

You all need to convert to libertarianism. We need separation of economy and state. 

[+and-then]

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

You all need to convert to libertarianism. We need separation of economy and state. 

I'll note again that he used this means as a last resort after every other attempt had failed.  Obrador and some of his people are coming up to have a chat about ti so who knows?  Maybe he finally got their attention?  Hell, I'd be willing to help fund their efforts to stop this brach on THEIR southern border as well.  No one can tell me that they are unable to stop or severely lessen that flow if they really wanted to do.  They were pushing him for reasons of their own and he just pushed back.

[Tatetopa]

7 hours ago, Uncle Sam said:

I have no problem. Let him raise the Tariff, we need to get this crisis under control and Mexico is allowing it to happen. Their pockets needs to hurt before they do something.

You don't care because you don't think it will affect you. You  might be right. 

But if we put the financial screws to Mexico and their factories began to shut down, they can join the Hondurans and Nicaraguans and Guatemalans heading north.  Instead of 100,000 at a time it will be 300,000 at a time.   Add to that 10-20,000 out of work auto plant employees who can't build cars without spare parts and they will be coming for your job too.    How about we try to fix things without making other things worse?

[DarkHunter]

1 minute ago, OverSword said:

We’re both wrong. We import 43% and 54% of that is Mexican 

if I read it right. On a phone drinking beer playing guitar and posting at the same time at the moment 

You definitely read it wrong but why you did was understandable.

What it is saying is that out of total fruit and vegetable imports about 43% come from Mexico and 54% of total agricultural imports comes from Mexico.  It doesnt state anywhere what percentage of fruit and vegetable or agriculture is imported instead of produced domestically.  

[Tatetopa]

5 hours ago, Captain Risky said:

Simple solutions often work the best. Maybe Mexico needs to clean its act together and not push all the dregs and ills of its society towards the U.S. I think Trump should also have tied this to drug violence to since they seem to go hand in hand. 

Indeed.  The United States could serve as an example of how to fix drug cartels.  Look how well we have handled the opiod crisis and legalized cartels consisting of doctors as pushers and big pharma as the supplier.

Or we can look at how well we have put a stop to random violence and mass shootings.

Every nation has problems.  We might be better off ourselves if we help them fix the problems that affect us rather than punishing them and hurting ourselves more.

 

If we are successful in shutting down auto plants in Mexico and putting more people out of work, drug running becomes an even more urgent problem.

[Imaginarynumber1]

2 hours ago, OverSword said:

 

People have been whipped up into a frenzy over this nothing of an issue that in reality has little to no influence on their existence.

It's your typical boogeyman. A non-issue.

Trump has whipped his base up with a classic fear of the other and it's paid off for him in spades.

[+OverSword]

1 hour ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

It's your typical boogeyman. A non-issue.

Trump has whipped his base up with a classic fear of the other and it's paid off for him in spades.

I’d say he didn’t have to whip too hard. This has been a hot issue for quite some time. The truth is that illegal immigration is fine as long as it’s truly illegal. Once people that aren’t legal can collect benefits they truly do become a drain on the system. That’s the root of the current crisis and yet one more thing that can be alleviated by following the recommendations concerning more work visas I mentioned earlier.

[Gingitsune]

I am the second who voted "who cares", because I'm already in Canada.

Anyway, the tariffs will just rearrange the world supply network within six months, both Mexico and United-States will sell/buy a fair share of their goods elsewhere on which no tariffs will be paid. For example, since the first wave of tariffs, Mexico has been importing more agricultural products from Brazil, replacing what they usually got from the United States. That share of Brazilian products won't go where it used to go, so they will look for a new supplie, and so on, until someone buy from Americans what Mexicans used to.

What can't be bought elsewhere will be adjusted to stay competitive in spite of the tariffs.

in the end,this won't fix the illegal immigrant problem, but it'll look like they do something about it.

[Space Commander Travis]

9 hours ago, Gromdor said:

You know, this most recent president of Mexico really isn't that assertive.  He has let Trump dump all kinds of abuse on himself and his country.

I suspect he may well feel that the Orange Genius will go all Venezuela on him if he did dare. 

[Alchopwn]

LOL Agent Orange strikes again.

[Space Commander Travis]

4 hours ago, OverSword said:

Instead of this being a sovereign nation with borders problem we should view it as a supply and demand issue. People are crossing the border mainly to work, they do this because there is enough jobs demanding workers.

It shows that the American Dream ^(TM) is still alive and well *pauses  to salute* 

[RavenHawk]

People do realize that until the early 20th Century, the tariff is how the government raised money.  Today, it can be an effective tool to correct some bad situation.  There might be short term pain but it'll produce long term gain.  In this case we get cheap reliable yet perishable produce from Mexico.  Because of the fact that what we get is perishable, where else is Mexico going to sell that produce?  Where is that American steel will?  Have we become victims?  People can't survive not having avocados or blueberries for a while? 

 

The vast majority of illegal low-skilled labor are not here to work but to receive monetary support.  In return, they bring into this country disease, poverty, and crime.  That's not a smart trade off.  The low unemployment rate is due to millions of Americans returning to the workforce.  At some point when jobs become saturated, the unemployment rate will begin to tick upward.  This will be when the wages begin to fall because too many illegal low-skill labor will have flooded the workforce.  This will cause Americans to leave the workforce again.

[RAyMO]

Is it just a coincidence that this policy, which has obvious appeal to some, but which will cost Americans money, make other countries more wary of doing deals with the USA, and possibly make the problem worse, came just after Mueller statement. 

[Tatetopa]

1 hour ago, RavenHawk said:

People do realize that until the early 20th Century, the tariff is how the government raised money.  Today, it can be an effective tool to correct some bad situation.  There might be short term pain but it'll produce long term gain.  In this case we get cheap reliable yet perishable produce from Mexico.  Because of the fact that what we get is perishable, where else is Mexico going to sell that produce?  Where is that American steel will?  Have we become victims?  People can't survive not having avocados or blueberries for a while? 

People stomp their  feet, shake their fists and rage at new taxes, but they should be OK with tariffs? It is another tax we pay.  And as usual, it is mostly the working people who will pay it for vehicles and appliances and all sorts of goods besides avocados.and blueberries.  People can do without guacamole and blueberries, and they can even deal with shutting down American auto plants and other manufacturing facilities because they can't get parts to assemble IF there is a good, logical  reason.   Telling people they will be better off in the long run will not wash; especially hard-headed business types who can do the numbers.

So what we want Mexico to do for us is build a wall and put guards on it  to keep people in, sort of like the communist regimes in North Korea and last generation in East Germany   Encouraging our neighbors to control their borders like North Korea does not seem like a request from the pinnacle of freedom.  But we will punish them if they do not.  And what happens if they can no longer afford to pay the guards and repair the wall?  Our problems continue to get worse.

Use that American steel will you mentioned to build the friggin wall you and many others said would solve the problem.  And then make it work. 

1 hour ago, RavenHawk said:

The vast majority of illegal low-skilled labor are not here to work but to receive monetary support.  In return, they bring into this country disease, poverty, and crime. 

Fact or opinion?  It seems our own hippie dippy  anti-vaxers are the ones responsible for the measles cases, not immigrants.