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Ask HN: Could tariffs be a good thing?

1 points by silexia ↗ HN
If we want to have all of these environmental and labor laws to protect our people, we cannot just throw our workers right back under the bus by buying cheap goods from nations that use slave, labor and toxic lakes. We are worsening the problems of climate change and human trafficking and slavery by adding long distance shipping to it and hiding it out of sight. If we ACTUALLY want to help the environment with our Environmental Protection laws, we cannot just have people in foreign nations do even worse practices than our manufacturers here would do. We need to eliminate the problem here. Think about this: would it be worse for climate change to have a factory burning coal here or to have a factory burning coal in China THEN burning tar-like bunker fuel thousands of miles to come here drop it off then go back? Is it worse to have our goods cost more because they are made by highly paid and well cared for American workers or to have our goods made by Uyghurs in slavery in central China? America's entire government budget was once paid by tariffs on imports, wouldn't it be nice to return to no taxes?

8 comments

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toomuchtodo
If you tie tariffs to policy that encourages domestic production capacity and a tariff ramp rate so that tariffs eventually encourage domestic consumption economically, certainly. This provides time to build, and prevents supply and price shocks. That is unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future. With that said, full blown automation is more likely to replace poor labor practices over the long term, as well as eliminating conflict materials from production supply chains.

China deploys more robotics than anyone else in the world. Who is likely to solve this problem first? The world is rapidly aging, and the future of physical labor in manufacturing is not human. I somewhat humorously imagine a future where some of my products will be certified "100% non human labor produced."

UN: Ageing - https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/ageing ("In 63 countries and areas – containing 28 per cent of the world’s population in 2024 – the size of the population peaked before 2024. This group includes China, Germany, Japan and the Russian Federation.")

Global Older Adult Population Projected to Nearly Double by 2060 - https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/older-ad... - August 31st, 2026

China Makes AI-powered Robots Core of National Strategy: China´s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) marks pivot to innovation - https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/china-makes-ai-power...

> Frankfurt, May 05, 2026 — China has launched its 15th Five-Year Plan by placing robotics at the heart of its modern industrial system. The aim is to pivot its AI research towards physical applications with robots as main drivers for economic growth. This is a next step in the country´s strong automation development: China´s manufacturing industry already has an operational stock of around 2 million units — approximately 4.5 times more than the global no. 2, Japan. 54% of annual industrial robots installed worldwide were deployed in China. This is according to the World Robotics 2025 Report, presented by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

Additional facts for context:

71% of the global population lives in countries below replacement rate, as of this comment.

China is expected to reach low carbon energy generation being 70% of their total electrical generation in 2027.

China's electricity generated from coal has fallen below 50% as of 2026.

China is the economy decarbonizing the fastest, ergo where you would want manufacturing to take place if carbon impact were a component of decisioning.

silexia
Excellent reply, thank you.

I agree with you that the tariffs would need to ramp up over time, maybe +10% a year.

You are right that AI is likely to end human labor (and then human lives shortly after).

You trust any numbers produced by a totalitarian dictatorship?

toomuchtodo
I certainly trust the numbers coming out of China that can be verified independently from directly observing or observing second order effects. Renewables, batteries, oil storage and depletion/fill rate, exports, etc.
verdverm
China is rapidly moving away from coal, they also have the most super-critical coal generators (trump's "clean coal" that has never materialized). America is unlikely to build another coal plant. Solar and wind are now cheaper, coal does not have the expected lifetime to pay back the the upfront costs of a new generator. It's unclear who has worse energy policies for climate change, but it is no longer China (even though they are still the largest burner of coal, that is rapidly changing and their direction is clear)

Are there any instance where tariffs left the people of the country in a better place?

> Is it worse to have our goods cost more

Apparently for Americans it is worse, that's why we continue to buy cheap stuff from Amazon and Walmart. Cost of living / affordability is the #1 issue for more than a decade now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

silexia
America's government was primarily funded by tariffs during our fastest growth period through the 18th and 19th centuries, our own history shows that tariffs are very good for building our own industries.

You trust any numbers produced by a totalitarian dictatorship?

verdverm
I trust the experts analyzing these things, yes

The world is very different from when America had tarriffs, and the results are not as rosie as you paint, don't forget we were the ones stealing intellectual property back then from Europe

esalman
Tariff has already proven to be a bad thing.

Prices have increased due to tariff.

Government lost a case and refunded money to corporations. Consumers got nothing.

Tariff induced inflation has caused volatility in the bond market. I was forced to refinance our mortgage at 7% when it could've been less than 6%, had it not been for the volatility and uncertainty. As a result I'm $900 poorer every month.

And the whole argument about bringing manufacturing jobs back- never materialized.

JohnFen
Tariffs are unlikely to achieve that.

> America's entire government budget was once paid by tariffs on imports, wouldn't it be nice to return to no taxes?

Tariffs are taxes on Americans.