Other countries don't do blanket tariffs and if they do, they're retarded for making their citizens pay more for shit, too.
Let me guess, you're one of those retards who thinks the other country pays the tariffs and the costs don't get passed to consumers and you actually believe prices are going down because the politician you worship told you so
They do, they just don't call them tariffs.
VAT applies to exports into the countries receiving the good and applies again on sale of the item.
Europe and even China utilise the same basic framework for VAT. America's lack of nationwide tax on sales and imports makes them the biggest and most desirable consumer market in the world but also remains(ed?) unique in that it pretty much extracts negligible amounts of wealth from foreigners whereas foreigners can extract a ton of wealth from Americans.
This creates a situation where American companies, by and large, see smaller market shares abroad compared to non-American companies, whilst non-American companies can have larger shares of the American market to no real benefit for Americans. The investments from prospering companies don't often see investment on American soil, or simply going into the buyback loop. And it's so much cheaper to manufacture in China and ship into the US that even American companies invest abroad rather than invest domestically.
Apple invested
$275 Billion in China over the course of 5 years from 2016 to 2021, and are building a great deal of
energy infrastructure on behalf of the Chinese as well. The latter is extra fucked because it means China, who also produces the batteries and panels that Apple are putting up for them, effectively get paid to have solar panels installed for free by an American company. Meanwhile they announced a
$500 billion investment in the USA 1 month after the tariffs were enacted. Keep in mind, when Trump saved them tens of billion with his tax reliefs during his 1st term, they just
sunk it into stock buybacks, so if you hate corporations taking the stick to them like this is just a net positive.
The stealth-tariffs are also why it's more common for American companies to partner or buy foreign companies outright rather than try to break into the market, because they're already positioned at a disadvantage as I spoke about
here. The company has to be based domestically to avoid the double-charge that affects companies who try to remain bound in their home country but sell into a foreign one.
The closest America can benefit from the wellbeing of foreign companies is corporation tax, but companies can minimise the hit by atomising themselves into subsidies, which count as a separate taxable entity and/or can benefit from tax credits/reductions.
A (possible) explanation for why Trump went hard after China is due to China enacting a new
VAT law in January 2025, setting a (relevant) percentage charge of 13% and bringing them closer to the European model of import/domestic taxation.
China's Value-Added Tax (VAT) Law was passed on 25 December 2024 and will take effect on 1 January 2026. The law maintains the current three-tier tax rate system (13%, 9%, and 6%) while introducing significant policy changes and improvements in international alignment.
This is on top of China's 25% corporation tax, and the aforementioned
squeeze of foreign companies to invest heavily in domestic infrastructure projects.
A left-winger and a right-winger can "one struggle" over this because it has enabled the largest companies to benefit with negligible domestic gains and it allowed countries besides America to extract as much wealth from the US as humanly possible.
