Higher tariffs = Higher prices. How is this helpful?

[disneysteve]

I heard on the news this morning that Trump instituted higher tariffs on foreign-made appliances. Now manufacturers like LG and Samsung have announced 8-10% price hikes on their products as a result.

Not to get political but just to keep this as a financial topic, how does this help anyone in this country? The companies are going to keep making their products in China or India or wherever and we are all just going to be forced to pay more to buy them here in the US. I fail to see how that benefits Americans. What am I missing in that thought process?

[bjl584]

Political moves often don't mesh with reality all that much.

A company isn't going to uproot an entire workforce and build an entire new factory because of some tariffs. They are simply going to raise their prices. Those companies probably have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in the infrastructure that it takes to build and ship those products. Tariff taxes aren't going to force them to start producing domestically.

The steel workers union thought they could do the same with steel tariffs. I live in Pittsburgh. This area used to be nothing but steel mills. That is all but gone these days.

Unless this is a move to raise sales tax dollars to offset some of the tax cuts, then this doesn't benefit end users at all. Thankfully, the average person isn't buying big ticket appliances all that often. I've owned 2 houses in my lifetime, and all I've had to buy so far was a washer and dryer. Both houses came with all the appliances except for the current place, hence the washer and dryer purchase.

[msomnipotent]

From what I have read, LG and Samsung raised their prices with the hopes of averting the tariffs, not because of them. They waited too long. I bought an LG washer/dryer set on Black Friday and was wondering why it was on sale for so much cheaper than a comparable American set. There was such demand for it that I just received them 2 weeks ago. So I think the tariffs will help build demand for US made units just on the basis of price, but people like me will still continue to buy Korean brands at least part of the time. The US washers were ugly to me, and didn't have the options I wanted (like steam). Add in the fact that I have spent many thousands of dollars on brands like GE Profile and have been burned with crappy products. There is more to consider than just price.