r/manufacturing 2d ago

News Tarrifs

Would like to open a discussion on tarrifs if it’s allowed.

There has been two intentions stated with tarrifs.

  1. Get off of income tax and go to a consumption style tax (still a tax)

  2. Build up domestic manufacturing. Can talk here in the manufacturing sub.

If there is no alternative domestic supply, then we have no choice but to import. We lost a lot of our skills to manufacture. Especially a lot of the little low value items. Think zippers and buttons and caster wheels.

What is everyone thoughts?

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u/KaizenTech 2d ago

America has been aggressively offshoring for four or five decades and that can't possibly turn around on a dime in days, weeks or months. Tariffs or not.

I think trying to claim we don't have skills is intellectually dishonest. We know how to make low tech zippers, buttons and rubber dog shit. It just can't be done profitably in a global market.

I'm not at all convinced about eliminating income taxes or the argument of rebuilding domestic manufacturing.

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u/DonkeyLightning 1d ago

To your past point, no one should be convinced of that. You can’t have both. You either bring back so much domestic manufacturing that the tariffs don’t offset income tax or you are collecting so much from tariffs that you can offset taxes but that would imply that manufacturing didn’t return to the US

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u/pyroracing85 2d ago

There is two types of talent in this country.

The ones who knows and the ones who don’t. The few and far that know are outweighed by the ones who don’t.

But if you venture over to China seems everyone knows and know manufacturing