Sri Lankan here. They just slapped 44% on us (higher than on China). The country is just trying to recover from the economic crisis and the sovereign debt default of 2022, so we have very high import duties on certain items (e.g. vehicles) to discourage dollar outflow. Looks like the US just saw that as hostile and decided to strike back.
Take the US’s goods trade deficit with any particular country, and divide it by the total amount of goods imported from that country. Cut that percentage in half, and there’s the US’s “reciprocal” tariff rate.
All countries tested against this theory are correct within 1-2 percent.
This is interesting. I don't know the details of Trump's tariff policy, but if this is correct, it would follow that the policy should have some mechanism to reduce the tariffs as the trade imbalance is reduced.
Not sure why? It’s an irrational policy not based on any kind of sense. I don’t think I’d expect it to be logically consistent. Besides, what do you do with a country where US is a net exporter? Provide subsidies for imports?
It’s all drunk monkeys driving a train… there is no economic theory to expect consistency from.
Unless they think that because it came out of an Excel formula, there's a logic behind it - and honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if these folks have that insight.
> Besides, what do you do with a country where US is a net exporter? Provide subsidies for imports?
In this instance, I believe the thought pattern is: "we're being smart here".
I'll be damned, I had no idea and I still got it right.
Once people accept that this administration is very much like the Russian regime, where everyone is the type of person playing to an aesthetic, you see this stuff coming miles away.
It’s not “irrational.” It’s crude, but it’s based on a logic that, on average, trade deficits should generally reduce to zero. And I strongly suspect this is about our large, diversified trade partners (EU, China) and is simply being imposed across the board for appearances.
There is no “logic” that any two country pairs should have an equal trade balance.
“Belief” or “dogma” or even “idea” would work, but there’s no logic in that claim.
There’s not even a policy goal. If the intent is to convert the US from a net importer to neutral or even a net exporter, it means our cost of production needs to be about average. Which means our populace’s quality of life needs to be about average; wealthy countries are more expensive to produce in. Mix in the supposed interest in economic and social liberty, and you’ve got a country trying to destroy its own wealth in the name of controlling what its freedom-loving citizens buy
There is no logic here. It’s drunk monkeys all the way down.
Imagine the classical triangular trade. Three countries can have entirely balanced trade, yet each country has a 100% trade deficit with another country. Everyone benefits, and no one runs a trade deficit. Throw a huge tariff in and a country’s trade, imports and exports, will collapse.
It does nothing with "hostile". For China, yes, but for most other countries tariff is simply ($USA-import - $USA-export)/$USA-import. That simply, numbers are check for many many countries. I'm sure, USA imports a lot of tea from Sri Lanka and some fruits and wood/furniture.
(Freshly made Sri Lankian tea is the best, IMHO! I mean, proper tea, not all these grasses, berries and synthetic aromas which are named "tea" in modern western world).
Unfortunately, no, as I've changed country of living year ago and still can not find way to good tea in new place. Also, I'm not sure, that recommendations from Europe is actual for you even if I have one.
But really best "black" tea of my life (and I spent most of my life in country with strong tea culture, where loose tea and teapots are still very popular, and not, it is not UK!) was bough at random tea factory in the middle of nowhere in Sri Lanka, packed in simple 1kg vacuum bags. No brand, no name, only date of picking (two days ago) and packing (today at the day of bought) :-)
As a local, the brand called Dilmah is just a regular supermarket brand for us, but I hear it's quite popular in places like Australia and New Zealand.
Yeah, they are the poshest tea shop in London, of course they're expensive. If you know of a more affordable place with shipping and high quality, I'm all ears.
It is THE problem for me: tea become "posh" in Europe. You have tea dust from Lipton in bags on one end of the spectrum, posh tea which costs about 100x to its origin (26€/$ per 50g! 520€ for a kilo! It is insane, it is lifestyle price, not food/grocery price!) on the other end of the spectrum and nothing in-between.
Ok, Germany or Netherlands never were known for tea tradition, but UK was THE Tea country. UK created Assam, Darjeeling, Ceylon teas in the first place! How did this happen?
Do we speak about "black" ("red" in Chinese classification) tea?
To be honest, I've tried many red teas from China and all of them... Very Chinese.
It is not bad at all (some of them are very interesting!, but it is other style compared to Ceylon, Darjeeling and Assam teas (which are not the same too, but close to each other than to Chinese red tea).
Different styles of green ad white teas I like too, but as specialty, not on as day-to-day many-time-a-day go-to drink.
