Stand up to the bully - buy British!

Syracute

petra

Mercedes have had a plant in Alabama since 1995.
All engines and parts are made in Germany, exported to the US and assembled.
The reason: cheap Labour.
Several German car manufacturers are eying up the US to manufacture the whole vehicle because of the high energy costs in Europe.
Germany have been shafting the US for years irrespective of which president they had.

How exactly. Has Germany been shafting the USA ?

The figures speak for themselves.

www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/documents/technology-evaluation/ote-data-portal/country-analysis/3407-2022-statistical-analysis-of-us-trade-with-germany/file#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20of%20%24146.6%20billion,20.9%25%20of%20such%20total).

OK petra I read that link and it's clear that the US has a huge trade deficit with Germany, but I'm not sure how it shows that Germany has been shafting the US. Presumably Germany has been producing goods the US couldn't produce itself, but nobody was forcing the US to buy from Germany. The US could have looked for other sellers or started producing the goods itself. I expect there were negotiations about price and, as in all business transactions, deals were reached. How is that being shafted? The result of increased tariffs will increase the price of the goods or mean that the US will have to go without goods for which it has in the past not been able to find another supplier and can't produce itself.

And billionaires will buy at the lowest, wait and sell when it recovers.

They will makes further billions.

What fun.

Meanwhile ordinary folk totter along being blown from pillar to post at the billionaires whims.

The difference in the tariffs puts us in a strong bargaining position with the EU. The question is, is Starmer strong enough to take advantage of it, or will he meekly give in to the demands of VDL?

USA’s five top imports from China and Vietnam are:

• Smartphones: China 76% Vietnam 13% Total 89%
• Portable Computers: China 78% Vietnam 17% Total 95%
• Lithium-ion batteries: China 70% Vietnam 1% Total 71%
• Toys: China 77% Vietnam 8% Total 85%
• Video games console: 87% Vietnam 6% Total 93%

Vietnam is mentioned here as China moved some of its production to Vietnam after Trump’s trade wars of 2018.

If his tariffs are about buying American and encouraging domestic production what is he planning to do about these products? Meantime who is going to bear the brunt of these tariffs?

I stand with Pingu.

Long ago I tried to persuade our British supermarkets to have a British produce section, both instore and online, so that those wishing to buy British can do so with ease. It did not generate much enthusiasm from them!

Smileless2012

That's what I've been thinking too Baggs. The US is now imposing tariffs on the countries that have imposed them on the US for years.

It's Trump's rhetoric about how ill used America has been that I don't understand; America could have imposed its own tariffs long ago.

Trump has lied a lot though, some of the high tariffs he has quoted only come into play after a certain level of imports and have never been applied eg dairy produce imported from Canada. He has claimed that if the balance of trade between imports and exports is negative the USA is subsidizing the country in question; he has also excluded services from his calculations. In this as in his claims about how much the USA has given to Ukraine he has lied ‘bigly’.

When my iPad gives up I will be looking for a non US replacement. My favourite wine is Californian rose, I don’t drink wine regularly but when I do I will choose something else. Asda and Morrisons are both US owned and don’t pay corporation tax so we have boycotted them. Our last visit to the USA was in 2016 and we did plan to go again but not now.

I don’t use any of those places. Like to use our local shops, the village iron monger has just closed down because it can’t keep up with amazon, plus the town rates. I hate coke, too tight to buy Starbucks & wouldn’t use them on principle anyway.

I recently bought some cotton tea cloths, which advertised that they were British made. When they arrived printed on the label was a union jack flag made in Britain and in very small print at the bottom of the label it said ' made in Pakistan'. I did query this with the seller and they said " they buy rolls of cotton from Pakistan and make the tea cloths themselves.

Jane43- I think both those super markets are really expensive, I didn’t realise they were American owned. I don’t use them anyway 😅

Chocolate...we all can do that one. Any suggestions?

Luckygirl 3, let's make our own list. Everyday products.

Listening to Radio 4 yesterday evening, they were discussing chlorinated chicken. The process is designed to kill all the salmonella. Apparently it doesn’t.

I hope this current government will not allow the import of chicken and antibiotic beef from the USA, nor allow them to impose on the NHS. USA are no longer to be trusted.

I’ll be changing my i-products to others. Fairphone, based in Netherlands but no idea what pad. No Cola products, Starbucks etc. Look on Amazon and see if the smaller company has its own website with .co.uk. I generated only buy fresh fruit and vegetables so label reading is a must.

I feel sorry for all those in the USA who rely on tourism but some of the deportation and detention horror stories put me off ever visiting the USA again.

Maremia

I stand with Pingu.

You might as well. The world has gone mad.

Conflicting reports about Cadbury in Google search. It's British, it's American. They still sell it in Russia despite sanctions. Use child labour in Ghana.

ayse, yes I worry about friends who go to visit family in the States. Advised one to delete lots on his phone.

I was in Aldi yesterday and noticed the shelves with Californian wines were full whereas wines from other countries were depleted. Coincidence maybe? or are people making a stand?

Out of curiosity, I just looked up the richest people in the world (all men). Eight of the richest ten are American. Their combined total worth is $1,457.2 billion.

Apart from Tesla, not one of them produces any tangible goods - they're all services: X (Twitter), Amazon, Facebook, Oracle, Google, Microsoft. I wonder if that provides a clue as to why Trump has avoided tariffs on services.

It also occurred to me that if Trump wants some cash to plug holes in the US national debt, maybe these people could help out. Even just 10% of their wealth would be $147.5 billion, which I expect could help a bit.

Err ... no ... he's going to slap tariffs on imported goods, which will push up costs for ordinary Americans. (And maybe protect Tesla.)

I don't think I could cope if I boycotted the real big players: Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. (I'd already given up on Twitter.)

Exactly, growstuff.

Tariffs are just a tax on the people least able to afford it.

Simple explainer from political economist Richard Murphy:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwOrTz8Epgs

Baggs

I thought the reason for Trump slapping tariffs on other countries was in revenge for them slapping tariffs on their products being sold in the US. I thought his goal was to jerk other countries into removing their tariffs and even trade out a bit.

I'm all for buying British to support our own industries and businesses.

This is what Trump is claiming, however he is clearly deluded so I never know if what he is saying has any grains of truth.

There’s stuff we can easily not buy, but when it’s McD, KFC etc it’s not the USA who will directly suffer but the franchises and British staff.

Chatte

I recently bought some cotton tea cloths, which advertised that they were British made. When they arrived printed on the label was a union jack flag made in Britain and in very small print at the bottom of the label it said ' made in Pakistan'. I did query this with the seller and they said " they buy rolls of cotton from Pakistan and make the tea cloths themselves.

We don't have a cotton industry in this country any more, apart from a very small industry

Here are some brands to add to the banned list:

Tropicana
Doritos
Quaker Foods
Naked
Costa Coffee
Kraft
Heinz
Philadelphia
Maxwell House
Daddies
HP Sauce
Mars
Snickers
Skittles
Starburst
M&Ms
Ben's Original
Bounty
Dolmio
Maltesers
Pedigree Petfoods
Royal Canin
Twix
Milky Way
Whiskas
Galaxy
Cadbury

Personally, I won't bother because it won't make much difference to the ultimate owners. The really wealthy people are as above. In any case, the big food producers operate in the UK and employ British people. TBH I don't buy much from the list anyway.

Allira

Chatte

I recently bought some cotton tea cloths, which advertised that they were British made. When they arrived printed on the label was a union jack flag made in Britain and in very small print at the bottom of the label it said ' made in Pakistan'. I did query this with the seller and they said " they buy rolls of cotton from Pakistan and make the tea cloths themselves.

We don't have a cotton industry in this country any more, apart from a very small industry

That's what I was thinking. Cotton itself has always been imported and I don't think there any cotton mills left.