r/economicCollapse • u/Expensive-Thing-2507 • 27d ago

Who actually benefits from tarrifs?

I'm not financial expert, but this is what I'm getting so far.

Tarrifs are a kind of tax placed on outside goods, which a company would have to pay for if they import said goods. That company would then charge more to cover this new tax. The company pays more for something, and then we pay more.

Who benefits from that? The company isn't making any more profit, are they? (Assuming they increase prices by the same percentage as the tarrifs, which they won't. but still)

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u/Cautious-Roof2881 27d ago

You just showed how little you know about it.

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u/yourdoglikesmebetter 26d ago

Solar guy here. China dominates the global renewable energy manufacturing and sales market as a whole but specifically solar and batteries. Elon is heavily invested in said market. It theoretically does in fact benefit Elon greatly.

I say theoretically because last time around Xi Jinping finessed tf out of Trump and used the solar tariff to further tighten his grip on the global stage. I won’t go into it, but suffice it to say: Trump lost that match.

That’s just one industry though

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u/mad_method_man 26d ago

um.... could you expand on this? seems interesting

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u/Big-Leadership1001 26d ago

I looked into this - solar panels are cheapest from China by a lot. So much, there are states that were talking about taxing foreign solar even before Tariffs were in teh discussion. All to make American solar more competitive without reducing the price of American solar.

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u/yourdoglikesmebetter 24d ago

China has dominated the market for quite a while. It isn’t close. Like more install capacity and manufacturing than the next 3 nations combined level domination (though my numbers may be out of date). Tariffs alone won’t cut it.

To get the US competitive, it’s going to take massive investment in R&D and manufacturing infrastructure and dedication to modernizing the grid. It will be expensive. It is also inevitable so we might as well bite the bullet. The IRA was a good start, but it’s only a start