reuters.com
www.reuters.com

A U.S. federal court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs from going into effect, ruling that the president overstepped his authority by imposing across-the-board duties on imports from nations that sell more to the United States than they buy.

  • spongebue@lemmy.world
    11·
    4 days ago

    for me it is a moral imperative that we stop mass consumption of goods produced by people in abhorrent conditions

    Yes, I’d love to see a decrease in the cheap utter crap we are producing/consuming on this planet, and of course I’m all for humans being treated properly. But blanket tariffs with no apparent consideration of how people are generally treated in those countries (only how we are tariffed) won’t encourage anyone to solve that.

    I would argue that mangoes aren’t a necessity to your diet, you can replace them with fruits that do grow in the US

    It was a flipping example. There are plenty of fruits you can replace that with. And in the winter we have hardly any fresh produce and have to rely on, for example, Chile (which has its summer conveniently during our winter. Yay geography). IIRC a ton of the world’s garlic comes from China. Could we survive on our own locally-produced food alone? Perhaps. Would we have the same variety we enjoy today? Probably not. Year round? Almost certainly not. Can it all be done as quickly as these tariffs are implemented? Fuck to the no!

    • Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      16·
      4 days ago

      It doesn’t matter if he considered the conditions because he can’t force them to stop exploiting their workforce. But the net effect would have been a floor to the price of production at a global level so corporations would have to choose between slave labor, complex supply chains and overseas shipping costs or domestic labor with lower shipping costs and somewhat simpler supply chains.

      Yes the economy would suffer. Medicine is bitter. The option is watching the train derail in slow motion.

      • spongebue@lemmy.world
        4·
        3 days ago

        It doesn’t matter if he considered the conditions because he can’t force them to stop exploiting their workforce

        Sure he can. Or at least use it as a tool to help curb it. Anyone with the authority to exercise tariffs (in this case, that turned out to be the issue, but aside from that) can say that x industry in y country is exploiting their workers and products related to that industry is subject to whatever tariff they choose to implement. They may even use their powers (if only advocacy here) to help those affected. Thing is, Trump doesn’t give two shits about any of that, so if any progress is made in the areas in which you’re concerned it’s out of dumb luck and nothing else.

        If Trump’s message is to be trusted, he wants to make deals and have more people buy from us, meaning global consumption might shift (assuming deals are made and all) but certainly not go down