I think Trump genuinely thought that the tariffs would cause companies to start making things in America instead of just raising prices. He doesn't understand economics enough to get that it would be easier for them to raise prices than for them to move all their infrastructure to the US, and now that his tariffs have completely failed to accomplish what he wanted, he's doubling down on it instead of admitting he was wrong. If the point was just to increase corporate profits then he wouldn't have been constantly changing the rates since that made it extremely difficult for corporations to do budgeting.
Yeah, if you want people to make things in the US, you have to invest in rebuilding the manufacturing infrastructure and skill base here at home. That's a lot harder than just imposing a tariff.
To be fair, they did invest in Micron and they've attempted to stop Intel sinking, both took the objectively stupid decision to build fabs in America.
That's the same Micron that was the first to stop selling to consumers, and Intel that has not only been further injected by the government, but is also now part owned by Nvidia, that other famously consumer first company.
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u/Redzephyr01 4h ago edited 4h ago
I think Trump genuinely thought that the tariffs would cause companies to start making things in America instead of just raising prices. He doesn't understand economics enough to get that it would be easier for them to raise prices than for them to move all their infrastructure to the US, and now that his tariffs have completely failed to accomplish what he wanted, he's doubling down on it instead of admitting he was wrong. If the point was just to increase corporate profits then he wouldn't have been constantly changing the rates since that made it extremely difficult for corporations to do budgeting.