US tariff war has failed so far: monthly trade deficit increased to $131 billion

[franky1]

1990 started with the deficit being $66 billion and ended by reaching $412 billion. Under W. Bush and his war of terror against the world that deficit set a new record at $816 billion before 2008 economic crash destroyed global trade and decreased that deficit temporarily to $504 billion. But the rising trend never changed. Today that deficit (2024) sits at $918 billion and rising rapidly.

During all these decades the US regime has been using various tactics to decrease that deficit

heres an enlightening thought that will really get your goat

while you are worrying about the "deficit"
what if i told you there is no actual "deficit".. its just a statistic, given a dramatic label

its just a word that says another country gives more goods then takes.. the other country is under no obligation to take so much goods
if the UK does not want american chicken but america wants UK aberdeen angus beef so be it. .. supply and demand

no country should be forced to take american chlorinated chicken just to meet some mutual give:take balance
there is no deficit
its just a statistic, not an obligation to match

this is the part trump does have it wrong.. not the reciprocal tariffs, but the mindset that because america is not good at exporting, he believes other countries owe him and need to take his stuff by calling the imbalance of demand statistic a "deficit"

[coupable]

If what Trump is doing is implementing a policy that the United States has been working on for years, then his method is very hasty and reckless to a large extent.

Exactly. The problem is that they have run out of time. 20-30 years ago, US was at its peak of power. USSR had just been dissolved and for the first time in history world was enduring unipolarity. For example when Bush wanted to invade Iraq and carry out massacres there, he could easily force everyone to cooperate and even contribute (eg. Ukraine that is playing the victim these days supplied one of the largest number of troops to slaughter Iraqi civilians).
Today, after 3 decades of ridiculously costly wars US regime started, not only they have run out of money (and are in debt) but others like China have gotten so far ahead that USA can never catch up.

This is why they feel they have no time to waste, therefore the hasty and reckless behavior that is pushing everyone away and forcing them to even retaliate! Specially because US is getting weaker every day and the unipolar world is long dead as we've entered a New World Order with multiple power poles.

I get the idea, but what I want to understand is why they insist on pursuing a policy that will further isolate the United States from the rest of the world and deepen the dollar's crises, always considering that we are in a new multipolar world order. Logic dictates that America is aware of its crises, and if its power is declining, it should try to find a place for itself among these poles, rather than adopt a policy of bullying. With the exception of Europe, which finds itself facing Russia alone, all the other countries targeted by tariff sanctions will be lost to America and attracted to China, in addition to the disastrous consequences of these sanctions on the American economy itself.

[takuma sato]

It's a pipedream on the Trump's administration part to bring back manufacturing while maintaining costs and do no create any unbalances or something blowing up in the process.

Let's be clear, the reason we get to enjoy goods for a cheaper cost is (beside automation and other technological advancements) due cheap labor from either poorer countries or from developed countries (basically China) that have brutal policies where you either work or you face consequences that are worse than complaining about the conditions in which you are forced to work. That is basically a dictatorship. And so we profit from this situation by buying their cheap labor products which lower costs. In order to bring back all the manufacturing from China back to the west, the west needs to come up with a way to keep costs lower, or to raise people's wages without creating inflation. The only solution I see is that automation at some point will be so good that it will be even better than Chinese slave labor and thus the west will not need to finance what is basically a regime that is working to conquer them eventually, since China is obviously going for world domination. There is no way around this. You either create robots that work and outperform the chinese, or you will end up creating inflation of some sort. I don't see how there is a way to bypass the hard capped reality of cost of production. You need the cost of production to be low for the products to remain low when they are sold, and people in the west do not want to work like slaves with no rights, but they want the cheap stuff, well, they actually need it, since most people isn't rich enough to spend what made in US or made in EU products would cost as it stands.

[Curious T]

I do not know much about this tariff economy thing than people are complaining that it will later lead to inflation as Trump is indirectly imposing the tariff on United States citizens as usual. If foreign goods price increase, definitely local goods price will increase.

Also some people speculate that at the end, either United States will not be the one that this will still later be favoured or probably the the loser. I think there is something that should be done than thinking of encouraging production in the United States through increasing import tariffs.

This is what I do not understand. What gave them the idea that increased tariffs remove the deficit? What they should look to do is find a way to increase production and thereby increase exports. Why not focus on expanding your own economy instead of trying to reduce that of another country?
It's plain for all to see that with increased tariffs, all the companies need to do is transfer that cost over to the consumer and increase the price of their goods.

[pooya87]

As I've said many times, production in the colony is very expensive so they'll have to import everything now since it is cheaper to produce them elsewhere.

I don't understand this sentence. Why is production in the colony expensive? By that logic, postal services and every type of local business shouldn't exist because it's too expensive compared to other countries. I think that if companies appreciate working class and lower salary for those who work in back, get highest pay and do nothing half of the working time, like product designers, developers, marketing specialists and so on, and they'll also lower profit margins, then they'll be very competitive.

It's all about salaries and cost of living.
Cost of living in a lot of countries like China are a lot lower than USA, that means the salaries and minimum wage can be a lot lower. For example a Chinese worker can be paid as low as $1.3 per hour but an American worker has to be paid $7.25 per hour. That's is already a 5.5x higher cost of "reshoring".

In certain products this becomes even worse. Products like iPhones which China wanted to be produced inside China. They intentionally made it even cheaper to be produced inside China by manipulation and a lot of other tactics. If Apple were to transfer manufacturing back to the colony, they may go bankrupt!

You are also missing an important thing in the "if" above: US economy and oligarchs believe in capitalism and liberal economy. What you said is completely against that. Their sole objective is to maximize their own profitability (specially the 1%) not to care for the working class and reduce their profit margin. This is why each time there is the smallest problem we see these companies "downsizing" which is a fancy word for firing people.

while you are worrying about the "deficit"
what if i told you there is no actual "deficit".. its just a statistic, given a dramatic label

Since you love simplifying complex stuff let me do that for you: If your salary is £2000 a month but your expenses are £2700 a month, that £700 deficit is not some statistic. It is a very real deficit and to reduce it you will have to do two things: cut costs and increase your income.

Despite the complexity of this subject the principle is the same when it comes to import/exports balance. Complexities such as the fact that dollar is the only fiat that is being printed out of thin air to be used internationally. An option other countries like UK don't have which is why that trade deficit is £28 billion instead.

I get the idea, but what I want to understand is why they insist on pursuing a policy that will further isolate the United States from the rest of the world and deepen the dollar's crises, always considering that we are in a new multipolar world order. Logic dictates that America is aware of its crises, and if its power is declining, it should try to find a place for itself among these poles, rather than adopt a policy of bullying. With the exception of Europe, which finds itself facing Russia alone, all the other countries targeted by tariff sanctions will be lost to America and attracted to China, in addition to the disastrous consequences of these sanctions on the American economy itself.

The best description of US I've heard is this: They say this colony is like a parasite or a leech. In order to survive, it requires hosts to feed on. The more it feeds, the bigger and hungrier it gets. So it feeds more and more every day until it is too bloated and "bursts".
It's like Jabba the Hutt in the Star Wars thing, the most powerful criminal in the galaxy who fell victim to his own hubris

When the US regime has built itself based on bullying strategies for decades and when being the only superpower for 2-3 decades solidified that strategy and gave them the delusion of strength, it is impossible to change that now. Today they are utterly addicted to bullying others. It may be new to some countries like Canada and Europe but this has been US regime's attitude toward everyone from Africa and Asia for decades. They are now expanding (just like that parasite/leech that has grown huge for feeding too much, now needing more hosts).

Keep in mind that it is not like their bullying fails every time every where. Look at Arab dictators like Saudis for example. Trump tells them to "jump" they only ask "how high"! Same with Panama that abandoned Chinese investments that were helping their economy because of US regime's threats. Or even Ukraine that handed over their valuable resources to US after the recent bullying!
That worsens their delusion.

They are also in denial, they think their colony is still the only superpower and anything they demand must happen. They don't accept that we are in a New World Order in a multipolar world. Just look at how their so called "experts" are still in disbelief of how their "superpower" navy was defeated in the red sea at the hands of the poorest Arab country Yemen!

[franky1]

while you are worrying about the "deficit"
what if i told you there is no actual "deficit".. its just a statistic, given a dramatic label

Since you love simplifying complex stuff let me do that for you: If your salary is £2000 a month but your expenses are £2700 a month, that £700 deficit is not some statistic. It is a very real deficit and to reduce it you will have to do two things: cut costs and increase your income.

since you fell into the word trap of thinking that its a debt owed by other countries, let me simplify it

other countries are under NO OBLIGATION to take american goods
they is no debt, there is no contract that things have to be equal

nothing is equal in the real world
if another countries does not want american goods, so what! they just dont want it.

you fell deep into the label trap of thinking that another country owes america so needs to buy an extra $130b of goods from america
no country owes america to need to buy another $130b of goods. the 'deficit' is just word-salad


as for your silly analogy about salary
america are not spending 700 more than they have made.. you really have no idea

heres a better analogy

i as a brit decide i want $269 of Tennessee whiskey
an american wants to buy $400 of british aberdeen angus beef
both happy with what we want, so take just what we want

the DIFFERENCE is $131 . but thats it, its a number. it does not mean anyone now owes someone else something. we got what we wanted and we are happy with what we got, thats it, end of

..
another example
two neighbours both do garage sales to get rid of their kids toys
first neighbour notices the second neighbour has 40 pack of sealed pokemon cards for $1 each. so hands 2nd neighbour $40
nice deal, complete

2nd neighbour notices first neighbour has 2 action figures at $13.45 each so pays $26.90 for 2 action figures
nice deal, complete

there is no fight later on saying that 2nd neighbour owes a further $13.10 to 1st neighbour so second neighbour has to take extra things from first neighbour for a further $13.10 even if 2nd neighbour isnt interested in anything else

[Darker45]

Trump's tariff policies are bound to fail. The main reason is that they aren't a product of serious study and analyses. It seems Trump doesn't know what he's doing. Decide now, study later seems to be the approach. They're like spur-of-the-moment policies or perhaps even products of emotional outburst.

He's like "Let's do it! Oh wait, shit, suspend it! Hey, let's get it back on! No, double it! Wait, cut it into half. Wait a second, only for this and not this. No, let's use the earlier rate. Hey, let's just pause it for now. But only for this. The other one continues."

Why can't he and his team sit down and study what they're going to implement, consider the impacts, consider the retaliations, the leverages, and so on?

[franky1]

Trump's tariff policies are bound to fail. The main reason is that they aren't a product of serious study and analyses. It seems Trump doesn't know what he's doing. Decide now, study later seems to be the approach. They're like spur-of-the-moment policies or perhaps even products of emotional outburst.

He's like "Let's do it! Oh wait, shit, suspend it! Hey, let's get it back on! No, double it! Wait, cut it into half. Wait a second, only for this and not this. No, let's use the earlier rate. Hey, let's just pause it for now. But only for this. The other one continues."

Why can't he and his team sit down and study what they're going to implement, consider the impacts, consider the retaliations, the leverages, and so on?

he surprisingly does actually know exactly what he is doing and using them exactly as intended

the problem is that media has never really studied tariffs or mentioned them much in many decades, so get things wrong when trying to imply the intent of tariffs to viewers. which people then think trump must be doing it wrong because he isnt doing it the way media misunderstood

here is the thing, for decades countries that do other international duties that benefit a country get a preferential rate with that country. tariffs were and are not suppose to be a set a standard and fix it for decades. its suppose to be a trade deal carrot vs stick tool that adjusts and changes depending on the periods negotiations

most of the tariffs were ANNOUNCED in jan feb that he is going to use them as a carrot/stick giving other countries fair notice, with a implementation of april,
where negotiations for preferential treatment then occur and yes tariffs can and always have been subject to change depending on trade deals. but yea media isnt telling you how things actually work they just want to report the click bait fear factor version, because they are the news

[pooya87]

since you fell into the word trap of thinking that its a debt owed by other countries, let me simplify it

You are very confused about what trade balance is and why having a deficit is bad. I never even mentioned debt although it is one of the consequences of having a trade deficit. Your examples are also too small scale.

When there is a trade deficit it shows that the country as a whole has become a bigger consumer than a producer. Which means jobs are being lost, specially when products that could be produced domestically are being imported. That increases the debt (both national and personal debt) and it slowly turns the economy into a debt-based economy which in long term can not be sustained.
There are other problems that you can find if you search it on google!

This is what US regime is desperately trying to fix. Although "Emperor Trump" believes in 2 century old ideas like Mercantilism but basically they are trying to decrease that deficit by decreasing imports (the reason for tariffs) and increasing domestic production therefore exports (the reason for "reshoring" thing they started a couple of years ago).

The main reason why it doesn't work (apart from retaliation by others and a couple of other reasons) is the dollar. They can't have an expensive fiat (ie. the USD having a high exchange rate) and compete on the international scene with products produced in countries with low exchange rate like China.

[franky1]

When there is a trade deficit it shows that the country as a whole has become a bigger consumer than a producer. Which means jobs are being lost, specially when products that could be produced domestically are being imported. That increases the debt (both national and personal debt) and it slowly turns the economy into a debt-based economy which in long term can not be sustained.

i have to laugh at you soo many times

your silly math would be a case if the deficit also included domestic sales whereby the deficit showed that domestic sales+exports was less than imports

EG imagine US had trillions of domestic sales, and had $400b imports and only $269b exports
on the whole scale of things.. the $131b deficit is meaningless in the big scale of trillions domestically.. so its you that is thinking "too small of scale"
for instance industries in america can increase jobs and production on a purely 'sell domestically' bases
so again the deficit is not a sign that the us is losing jobs within the us because the deficit does not even account for us domestic production


oh and one last lesson

lets say an american buys $400 of chinese goods, at the yuan exchange rate $1: ¥6.35 ($400:¥2,540)
now lets say china keep their prices ¥2,540 but forex changed.. to say $1:¥7.24 (¥2,540:$350)

oh look china still got the yuan for goods but now the "deficit" is $50b less, yep US saved money purely due to forex
not due to china losing industry, not due to less jobs on china not due to china selling less goods.. but purely the forex rate

yep number of physical goods didnt change but the "deficit" changed by $50b in americas favour
so try not to say its due to increased US jobs or selling more goods or other things. when it can be simply math tricks of exchange rates

..
anyway my point is the "deficit" is a stat and a stat only. no one is obligated to buy extra goods if there is an imbalance favouring one country over another. if a country just doesnt want goods from X country, they just dont want it.. there is no owing or debt ..

and as said some of the change in "deficit" math is based purely on exchange rate. not jobs market or produce created/sold

[shield132]

When there is a trade deficit it shows that the country as a whole has become a bigger consumer than a producer. Which means jobs are being lost, specially when products that could be produced domestically are being imported. That increases the debt (both national and personal debt) and it slowly turns the economy into a debt-based economy which in long term can not be sustained.
There are other problems that you can find if you search it on google!

This is what US regime is desperately trying to fix. Although "Emperor Trump" believes in 2 century old ideas like Mercantilism but basically they are trying to decrease that deficit by decreasing imports (the reason for tariffs) and increasing domestic production therefore exports (the reason for "reshoring" thing they started a couple of years ago).

The main reason why it doesn't work (apart from retaliation by others and a couple of other reasons) is the dollar. They can't have an expensive fiat (ie. the USD having a high exchange rate) and compete on the international scene with products produced in countries with low exchange rate like China.

My country is a huge consumer country and this is killing us. Local jobs that involve local services like working in supermarkets, in delivery and similar jobs, don't pay well, they don't pay enough to eat food and this is getting very unbearable because we import everything. We produce a very small amount of food and even that goes to other countries and in exchange we import cheaper but lower quality products.

Btw I believe that quality matters the most during production. For example, if Jeans is made in China, costs $10, is low quality but on the other hand there is an USA-made jeans that costs $50 but has a very high quality, I'd personally save money and buy expensive American jeans. My father has original American jeans that he still uses while every other Chinese jeans that he bought gets ripped very easily.

[pooya87]

My country is a huge consumer country and this is killing us. Local jobs that involve local services like working in supermarkets, in delivery and similar jobs, don't pay well, they don't pay enough to eat food and this is getting very unbearable because we import everything. We produce a very small amount of food and even that goes to other countries and in exchange we import cheaper but lower quality products.

Real domestic production is very important for all countries to survive and have a healthy economy. Unfortunately with China flooding the international markets with cheap goods, the production in all countries have been affected because local production cannot compete; some more than others. This is where tariffs come in and can sometimes actually help.

We face the same challenges too, maybe not as bad as most countries but still challenging. In fact we entered a new year 3 days ago and this year was named "Investment in Production" and the general policy is to push the government in the direction of helping such domestic investments so that local production can grow and become "healthier". And that's very important, because people aren't just going to get off their fannies and start producing! Governments have to intervene and get things going.

But the difference is that our fiat exchange rate is low, cost of living is also low in comparison and minimum wage is unreasonably low which means stuff produced domestically are going to end up being cheap anyway. But it is not true in the USA because dollar is very expensive and the government is not lowering it and the cost of living over there is extremely high with wages also being high the production will be expensive even with tariffs!

Btw I believe that quality matters the most during production. For example, if Jeans is made in China, costs $10, is low quality but on the other hand there is an USA-made jeans that costs $50 but has a very high quality, I'd personally save money and buy expensive American jeans. My father has original American jeans that he still uses while every other Chinese jeans that he bought gets ripped very easily.

I'm like that as well. Sometimes I even spend too much time finding a good brand (of anything not just clothes) and buy that even if it costs more. But not everyone can afford to pay more money (like 5x for a pair of jeans) for the stuff they buy. Majority of the population of the world are middle class and that is why Chinese economy thrives so much. The demand existed already, they just produced the supply.

[philipma1957]

One of the main reasons US regime started the tariff war against the world a couple of years ago (something Trump is continuing in his own way) is to decrease the ever rising trade deficit that the colony has with the rest of the world (ie. US imports more than it exports). As I've said many times, production in the colony is very expensive so they'll have to import everything now since it is cheaper to produce them elsewhere.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/us-international-trade-goods-and-services-january-2025
In this recent stats released by the U.S. department of commerce, we can see how that deficit has significantly grown in January 2025 to $131 billion (from $98.1 billion in December after reaching a total of $918.4 billion in 2024 up from $784.9 billion in 2023). So we can already see the trend of increasing trade deficit with an upward trajectory.

Something interesting in this stat is the increasing trade deficit with India. It seems like my speculation about India replacing China is coming true slowly but surely. The link about mentions the increased deficit to $13.2 billion in fourth quarter and even though there is a long way to go from $129.2 billion total trade with $45.7 billion deficit with India to total trade of $582.4 billion and a deficit of $295.4 billion with China but the path seems very familiar.
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/south-central-asia/india
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china

Seeing these stats gives us a better understanding on why the US regime is declaring [economic] war against the rest of the world and is currently desperately imposing tariffs on everyone while it has not yet worked which is clearly seen in the increasing trade deficit.
IMO the only choices they have is to either dump the dollar value which they neither want to nor their policies allow it, or have others increase their fiat currency exchange rate against the dollar (like Plaza Accord that destroyed Japanese growing economy) which nobody wants to do!!! Therefore the impasse!

 propaganda.

the musky trumpeter did not activate tariffs by the dates you are using.

and people know that tariffs were coming rushed to buy in january.

The tariffs should have real numbers for april or may.

So you pretty much were and still are talking out of proper time context.

now I am usa based. but I am not a fan of trump.

but you really should not create false narrative because you are anti USA 🇺🇸

I can look at the map and tell you we are in a world wide alignment in which usa and russia and northern countries are looking to melt the icecaps mostly to fuck China 🇨🇳 india Pakistan 🇵🇰  and Bangladesh 🇧🇩

Frankly I am rooting for aliens to take over and run the place as people including myself are really fucked up.

[pooya87]

One of the main reasons US regime started the tariff war against the world a couple of years ago (something Trump is continuing in his own way) ...

propaganda.
the musky trumpeter did not activate tariffs by the dates you are using.

As I've pointed out in the post you quoted the tariff war was started by the US regime quite a while ago. The Emperor wannabe Trump is only continuing it with his own methods as a loudmouth with lots of threats and chest-pounding. Therefore the data I linked here is as the title says about the "US Tariff War" not "Trump's Tariff War".

Although I can argue that Trump's approach is the threats themselves not the tariffs. Meaning he wants to threaten others to decrease the deficit and even that is already backfiring.

[Japinat]

Meaning he wants to threaten others to decrease the deficit and even that is already backfiring.

It was a bad strategy,  there was already a deficit even before he increased the tariffs, and it only got worse. Trump was so reckless; he just pushed through with what came to his mind without fully thinking it through.

He’s just a new president, a lot of policies needs to be reviewed first carefully, he should’ve at least studied the problem and assessed whether his actions were appropriate. Now, what’s going to happen if he decides to withdraw the tariff increase, knowing that it hasn’t helped at all?

[takuma sato]

As I've said many times, production in the colony is very expensive so they'll have to import everything now since it is cheaper to produce them elsewhere.

I don't understand this sentence. Why is production in the colony expensive? By that logic, postal services and every type of local business shouldn't exist because it's too expensive compared to other countries. I think that if companies appreciate working class and lower salary for those who work in back, get highest pay and do nothing half of the working time, like product designers, developers, marketing specialists and so on, and they'll also lower profit margins, then they'll be very competitive.

You can't compare a postal service with the insane supply chains involved in manufacturing more complex goods like industrials and technology. Just to make a piece of a car, in order to achieve competitive prices in the US, the same part will to from the US, to Mexico, to Canada and back to the US, this is well documented, and this is why tariffs are inflationary in practice in a globalized economy. Too many moving parts, and so you are introducing friction in all this process by increasing cost of import/export dynamics. In order to equalize this and get competitive-prices in a post-tariff environment, the supply chain needs to change, and they will need to come up with a way to supply the gap that is created by dispensing with all the cheap labour and all the more efficient manufacturers that you are pretending to replace with locally-made goods or services. This may take years to adjust if it's possible, and this may cause a recession, which may or not cause a considerable crash in the stock market.

[Synchronice]

Meaning he wants to threaten others to decrease the deficit and even that is already backfiring.

When you become a billionaire, you are losing the sense of reality, especially when you use dopaminergic drugs (most of the rich people do). Trump is a billionaire, he recently won elections at the age of 78, escaped the Prison, has all the power in the USA, he thinks that he is a god because just one thing is enough to get his wish fulfilled.

You can't compare a postal service with the insane supply chains involved in manufacturing more complex goods like industrials and technology. Just to make a piece of a car, in order to achieve competitive prices in the US, the same part will to from the US, to Mexico, to Canada and back to the US, this is well documented, and this is why tariffs are inflationary in practice in a globalized economy. Too many moving parts, and so you are introducing friction in all this process by increasing cost of import/export dynamics. In order to equalize this and get competitive-prices in a post-tariff environment, the supply chain needs to change, and they will need to come up with a way to supply the gap that is created by dispensing with all the cheap labour and all the more efficient manufacturers that you are pretending to replace with locally-made goods or services. This may take years to adjust if it's possible, and this may cause a recession, which may or not cause a considerable crash in the stock market.

I do not compare a postal service to the manufacturing, I'm simply saying that it's insane when they say that they move production in other countries because its expensive locally. If that's really the case, then why do they design iPhone in California? Isn't it better to hire people from China to design your iPhone? If you can manufacture them in China, I'm sure you'll find very talented designers among one billion people who will do it 100x cheaply and as good as current ones do.

I completely understand what you say, my point simply is that manufacturing locally is a better thing to do. First of all, all the manufacturing technology and secrets stay within your country. You can create a quality product over crap product and in the end, iPhone made this way will be much cheaper than creating a new one every year in China but capitalism sucks very much in this case and they intentionally do it to profit as much as possible even if the damage to the environment doesn't outweigh pros.

[franky1]

I do not compare a postal service to the manufacturing, I'm simply saying that it's insane when they say that they move production in other countries because its expensive locally. If that's really the case, then why do they design iPhone in California? Isn't it better to hire people from China to design your iPhone? If you can manufacture them in China, I'm sure you'll find very talented designers among one billion people who will do it 100x cheaply and as good as current ones do.

designing is the cheapest task, which makes the cost irrelevant in the big scheme of things
EG making a decision to go with X GB or Y GB, and have it as 'rose gold' instead of silver case for different models is just management decision. you dont need to hire outsiders for that.. if you know you are going to make 1billion phones to can spread the management decision costs into a billion small costs spread per phone which become less than a penny per phone cost for design

the making of the actual phone is the costly part.. where by if mostly made parts are chinese and its all shipped to the US for a quick 5 minute US assembly, to be classed as made in US, then gets the benefits of cheap parts but made in US status to skip passed tariffs

[pooya87]

designing is the cheapest task, which makes the cost irrelevant in the big scheme of things

Designing is not some kid with a whiteboard doodling shapes. It is Research and Development or R&D which can be the most expensive part of production depending on the design. So it has to be analyzed on a case by case basis, you can't say it is cheapest step by default.

the making of the actual phone is the costly part.. where by if mostly made parts are chinese and its all shipped to the US for a quick 5 minute US assembly, to be classed as made in US, then gets the benefits of cheap parts but made in US status to skip passed tariffs

Then they add tariffs on those parts and make it a lot more expensive or maybe China retaliates and sells it at a higher price to US to make it more expensive so that they can't compete.

But with all that aside you are forgetting the other objective of this economic war which is to weaken China and its massive economy. The US regime can not weaken China if they are still buying cheap parts made in China because that would still strengthen Chinese economy...

[takuma sato]

Meaning he wants to threaten others to decrease the deficit and even that is already backfiring.

When you become a billionaire, you are losing the sense of reality, especially when you use dopaminergic drugs (most of the rich people do). Trump is a billionaire, he recently won elections at the age of 78, escaped the Prison, has all the power in the USA, he thinks that he is a god because just one thing is enough to get his wish fulfilled.

You can't compare a postal service with the insane supply chains involved in manufacturing more complex goods like industrials and technology. Just to make a piece of a car, in order to achieve competitive prices in the US, the same part will to from the US, to Mexico, to Canada and back to the US, this is well documented, and this is why tariffs are inflationary in practice in a globalized economy. Too many moving parts, and so you are introducing friction in all this process by increasing cost of import/export dynamics. In order to equalize this and get competitive-prices in a post-tariff environment, the supply chain needs to change, and they will need to come up with a way to supply the gap that is created by dispensing with all the cheap labour and all the more efficient manufacturers that you are pretending to replace with locally-made goods or services. This may take years to adjust if it's possible, and this may cause a recession, which may or not cause a considerable crash in the stock market.

I do not compare a postal service to the manufacturing, I'm simply saying that it's insane when they say that they move production in other countries because its expensive locally. If that's really the case, then why do they design iPhone in California? Isn't it better to hire people from China to design your iPhone? If you can manufacture them in China, I'm sure you'll find very talented designers among one billion people who will do it 100x cheaply and as good as current ones do.

I completely understand what you say, my point simply is that manufacturing locally is a better thing to do. First of all, all the manufacturing technology and secrets stay within your country. You can create a quality product over crap product and in the end, iPhone made this way will be much cheaper than creating a new one every year in China but capitalism sucks very much in this case and they intentionally do it to profit as much as possible even if the damage to the environment doesn't outweigh pros.

I would assume they refuse to outsource design due security reasons. Why would you risk that it gets designed too by China? they just want the cheap labor to get the parts done and sell at better margins, as well as to stay competitive vs Chinese phone market itself, since if you were to pay the wages that the chinese get for manufacturing the same phones in the west, there would be protests that they are being exploited basically. People don't want to do those time consuming tasks for peanuts, they will demand better wages and conditions, rights and so on, things that you can bypass in china, since it's either you work or you get sent into the gulag. Ideally we would want everything done here for security purposes too, but it is what it is for now. I guess they must be really sure that they aren't getting backdoors installed on the parts that are manufactured in china and analyze each part before assembly.

And beside china, the materials used for the phones often come from really cheap african mines. So good luck getting those margins with western miners. It's all a game of reducing cost on the goods. If everything was made and obtained in the west, prices would go up, I don't see a way around this for now.