Any plans for fighting tariffs?

[meme6253]

These tariffs are going to impact all of us either directly or indirectly, I am curious if any sellers have a plan for fighting this problem outside of just surrendering & lowering your prices to ridiculous levels just to make a sale., It's going to be a tough road ahead, No Doubt!

[compscrap]

it may effect you and it may not.  a lot of countries are talking tough so they can be phony to their citizens but if they want access to the American market they will lower their tariffs and we will lower ours. 

   take chine for instance.  We are a HUGE portion of their economy. close to 500 billion compared to the 150 billion America ends to them. of that 150 billion , 50 billion are financial services ( who knows how that plays out) and a large portion of what's left over is oil and natural gas.  They do very little for us.  $50 billion in financial services is nothing to a country like America and not selling our oil to them will only increase supplies here in America and lower loyal prices.   But for them it could mean an economic collapse.  China won't last very long in this trade war. 

     The same thing can be said of Canada. For some strange reason we allow them to manufacture automobile parts for us. Why are we doing that? I have no idea. It has something to do with that goofy NAFTA thing but we're not saving any money by having a labor force that gets paid more than the American labor force create parts for us.  ( those parts seem to be exempt for some reason) so that needs to stop.

   And they already had huge tariffs on any dairy or lumber products that America produces. And for some reason we except lumber and dairy from them with no tariff.  NOW there is a tariff on those products. We support their economy they don't support ours. So for all their bluster they are the ones that are gonna be harmed the most.  There is not a single thing that Canada produces that we don't produce here in the United States. We are supporting them. 

      I personally don't see this thing lasting very long.  

[gurlcat]

I wish more people who are "as conservative as anyone could be" had as much common sense as you, in this regard.  Look at all the replies by sellers only considering where they source their items from, as if that's all there is to consider .... not if buyers will have spending money to purchase their items.  

Like you I was fortunate to have a Depression-surviving relative, a Great-Grandmother born in 1908 who lived until 2010, with all her mental capacities fully intact.  I not only knew her but we were very close until she passed (I was 37).  And it was from her that I learned the concept of frugality with stuff like ziplocs and foil, and a long laundry list of other self-sufficiency tactics.  But from the fact that she did strange things like keep canned goods under her bed ... but her jewelry on display on the bedside table .... I always had the sense that the Depression was far more terrifying than most people can even imagine.

[gone.c-33]

I’m sure those 228 000 new jobs created will be of great comfort to the 275 240 people who lost theirs during the same period (with many more to come as the tariffs go in effect.

Tariffs don’t work as stimulus for local economy and never have. It will still be cheaper for American manufacturers to outsource their labor to other countries than building the infrastructure needed and pay US labor costs to bring manufacturing back and they’ll pass the tariffs on to the end consumers while the CEOs still get their bonuses and shareholders still get their dividends.

I love how I’ve seen people here say they won’t be affected since their home is all paid up, they don’t buy foreign made items and have plenty of cars to last them a lifetime. THAT is the problem here. That is NOT a representation of the average American and not caring what happens to other is why the country is in the state it is now.

Just because I have the skills, the equipment and the means to make my own clothing out of locally sourced, long lasting natural fibers doesn’t mean that I don’t understand that many are not as privileged and depend on cheaper, foreign made alternatives.

Same goes for cars, homes, foodstuff and everything else.  It’s the people who were already hurting the most (who aren’t here) who are going to hurt even more because the president thought he had an idea no one else had had before. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will just rebuild those trade relations with new partners while Americans eat beet soup, driving old beat up cars held together by duct tape and can’t afford to have their roof fixed.

[gurlcat]

100% spot on, but there's not much point in telling anyone who literally says they care only about themselves and their families that lots of other people will definitely be hurting.   I'd say they should think more about what hurting people do when they run out of options.  Some jump in front of cars; others steal them.  And I suppose here is where Ye Olde 2nd Amendment rhetoric rears its head, but again it's something that can go both ways. The barrel-pointing direction, that is.  Oh goodie, America great again like the literal 'Wild West.' 

[telegraph_mercantile]

Sorry to get off topic, but would you be willing to describe your photo production process? The photos in your listings with the beautiful backdrops make your items look, well, kind of magical. They make me want to buy your items, and I don’t need them!

[tarotfindsandmore]

Even if the factories themselves take a couple years to get up and running, it will be American workers getting them built (again, in accordance with U.S. labor laws and OSHA requirements).

https://www.reuters.com/business/companies-eye-us-expansion-lessen-fallout-potential-tariffs-2025-01...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2025/03/31/international-companies-bet-big-on-america-a-new-w...

https://www.industryselect.com/blog/new-us-factories-announced-in-february-2025

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/03/president-trump-is-putting-american-workers-first-and-br...

[fbusoni]

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@tarotfindsandmore wrote:

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@farmalljr wrote:

Yea? What happens if it doesn't work

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As it stands, the world is tariffing the hell out of us now, but we get nothing in return.  

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@tarotfindsandmore 

It may appear that we get nothing in return, but in fact that's not always the case.

With respect to large, developed nations, tariffs have long been employed as a diplomatic and political tool, tolerated by the US in many cases as part of the give and take that takes place in bilateral relationships with foreign countries.

The US might tell a country like Japan for example that in exchange for leaving Japanese tariffs in place, Japan will agree to send troops to a US-led peacekeeping mission somewhere abroad.  Mind you, that is just one of literally thousands of such scenarios.   If the US needs a "favor" of some sort from Japan -- related, say, to casting a vote in the UN, monitoring the activities of a certain Russian diplomat in Tokyo, or using Japanese underwater capabilities to sever a Russian undersea cable in the area -- we have the freedom to ask and we can reasonably expect Japan to comply.  

Meantime, there are many small, underdeveloped nations around the world whose leaders depend for their domestic political survival on projecting a certain anti-American / anti-western public stance, or at least a policy of demonstrable even-handedness vis-a-vis the other dominant world powers (China for example).

In exchange for unpublicized arrangements -- say, a covert US military base in an isolated area of said country from which we can easily fly reconnaissance missions to spy on desirable targets which otherwise would be impossible for the US to reach -- the US tolerates tariffs imposed by these small nations.  

The leader  of said small country gets to proclaim to his / her public that they are "preserving national dignity" by "standing up to American economic imperialism," even while secretly having cut a deal with us (usually through a third party -- a "cut out" -- for plausible deniability).

These sorts of things are quite common but obviously unreported.  

[calgal19572014]

I believe many of my buyers are either older or retired, so I think the tariffs will impact my sales greatly. In addition many of the items I offer are not a "necessity" so that is where people automatically cut back. My views are already way down the last couple days. Luckily I sold a lot the last few months and I sell just a part-time hobby. My husband was going to retire next year, hopefully he still can. His retirement accounts already are taking a hit. 

[tarotfindsandmore]

I fully appreciate and understand your point, but the U.S. does the same, while still enduring the lop-sided tariff system.  I also agree that the U.S. should offer protection to small, undeveloped nations, and allow those tariff arrangements to remain in place.

That said, I do not believe there is any reason whatsoever that the U.S. needs to continue enduring tariffs from the EU, China, or even Japan.  If you look at the table of tariffs I included in my previous post, you will see there are many countries imposing duties that no longer have any justification.  If a country is big enough and strong enough to "retaliate", then they obviously believe they're in a position of power.  If they're in a position of power, we don't need to "help" them by allowing them to continue to tariff our goods while we freely allow their goods into this country.

I also find it fascinating how all of these supposed humanitarians on the left are okay with the current trade relationships with countries that we know are engaging in massive exploitation of their workers to maintain the status quo.   You would think these would be the first people to cheer an end to these horrible arrangements.

[duffy4444]

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@inhawaii wrote:

I'm not that concerned about tariffs, I am worried about being picked up at my home

in the middle of the night and sent to a El Salvador prison by mistake. 

"Whoops-a-daisy!"

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@inhawaii:

   Run for the hills, James!

   I hear one can hide out for a short amount of time on Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea (kinda cold, though), or even downtown Honolulu... maybe even blend in with the tourists at a luau.

Cheers, Duffy

[gurlcat]

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@tarotfindsandmore wrote:

I also find it fascinating how all of these supposed humanitarians on the left are okay with the current trade relationships with countries that we know are engaging in massive exploitation of their workers to maintain the status quo.   You would think these would be the first people to cheer an end to these horrible arrangements.

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If by ending these horrible arrangements you mean those exploited workers becoming completely unemployed, who would cheer that? 

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Actually it's not the TP we get from Canada, it's the pulp that is used in the USA to make said TP (and Paper Towels) and they're set up to use that particular pulp and can't swiftly retool to use the pulp from the USA, plus the quality of the Canadian pulp makes for a better product.

So we can probably expect the price of those paper products at least to rise.

[fbusoni]

@tarotfindsandmore 

Yes… as you suggest, ultimately it’s a political calculation made by the occupant of the White House.   

I am not sufficiently familiar with tariffs to comment whether they should or should not be in place.  What I do know is that the world today is somewhat interconnected, supply lines can be quite fragile and easily subject to disruption, and the ripple effect of an economic rupture halfway around the world can have profound implications for American workers in even the most remote town here in the United States.

I too would love to see the United States take more aggressive action to defend our own national interests.  

I suppose that like with most everything else in life, it’s a matter of calibration.  

[tarotfindsandmore]

Yes, I would be for that.  What do you think those people were doing before their governments yanked them from their agrarian lives and forced them into factories so we could buy junk for nothing?  Do you think they'll just curl up and die? 

I do not believe the U.S. should be supporting any economy that routinely starves its own population and forces its people to work in conditions that aren't even suitable for a zoo animal (which I also oppose).  The U.S.'s desire for, and reliance on, cheap ish has destroyed the lives of millions (if not billions) of people all over the world.  The left wants its doodads so to heck with the American worker, and to heck with the lives of all the people all over the world who have taken their places for pennies a day.

This opposition to tariffs is nothing more than a reflexive response to a POTUS the left just doesn't like.  When Pelosi made the case for the exact thing a couple decades ago, the left was fully on board.  That tells you everything.  

[chariot_badges]

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@inhawaii wrote:

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@ja_67403411 wrote:

Although I don’t expect my eBay sales to be affected—since I only sell vintage items made in the USA—I’m holding off on any assumptions until we see how the tariffs play out.

I anticipate we’ll witness some intense negotiations between the U.S. and other nations aimed at softening the impact through bilateral agreements. Economic uncertainty tends to bring even hesitant partners to the table—and, as we've seen time and again, that kind of pressure is very much in line with President Trump's approach.

Jerome Powell addressed the situation today in relation to Federal Reserve policy. He emphasized that the Fed is well-positioned to respond to any outcome and will act as needed depending on how events unfold. That perspective seems reasonable to me.

For now, it feels like many people are stuck in a state of anxious anticipation—heightened by the sharp decline in the stock market and its ripple effects on retirement savings.

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So instead of prices of everything coming down on "day one" as promised,  they are going up.

So the average hard-working American struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck  will just wait and see what happens.

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Did you really believe that, when he said it?

LoL.   I don't think so, but if you did I have a 1975 Gremlin with low, low miles (because it never ran) for sale for the low, low price of ...

This is a problem 50 years in the making -- it's gonna take a few weeks to get it straightened out.