RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:
whiterock said:
boognish_bear said:
The tariffs restricted supply….. which in the face of continued demand caused prices to rise, which in turn incentivized US beef producers to grow their herds (by retaining stock that would otherwise go to slaughter)…which of course further restricted supply.
Trump is basically trying to fix a problem he created and take a bow. Not surprising. That's just how he rolls.
"Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today's problems are a result of yesterday's solutions."
-Thomas Sowell
This is not hard to understand. We started importing a lot of beef. Our beef herd attritted (both numbers of cattle and numbers of producers). Now, we need to rebuild the beef herd (and, implicitly, the numbers of producers). To do that, we have to increase the price of imported beef (with tariffs). If you put the tariffs too high, the foreign supply constricts too quickly.
Or you can just open our market freely and let the Brazilians run us out of the beef business. Beef will be cheaper, at least until the process is complete. And as Brazilian and Chinese relations improve, China will have some influence of Brazilian beef export policy, to include influence over Brazilian embargo of beef in protest of future US policies. And those Brazilian beef exports to the USA will sail within striking distance of Chinese and Russian and Iranian weapons systems currently stationed in Venezuela. The more beef we import, the more have to worry about all of that stuff.
Or we could put in place policy to incentivize more domestic production of beef. We can put quotas in place, but the shortage of domestic supply will cause prices to rise. We can give subsidies to beef producers to grow herds, but that will cost money. Or we can put on a tariff. It will cause prices to rise, but it will generate modest revenues. Reasonable people can disagree on which is better. But everybody likes beef.