Trump is right.

No, he isn't. Cause ALL companies do is circumvent the tariff currently. All the sudden those Chinese products are imported from Thailand and wow, we just got past a tariff.

But even beyond that, you're talking about trying to get around certain raw materials that the US just does not have strong reserves of, specifically precious metals.

Wrong because they pay for it in lost business because American companies stop importing their tariffed goods.

Oh don't forget that the Trump tariffs also bankrupted soybean exporting which China was THE primary buyer of. They switched suppliers and then Trump had to spend hundreds of millions to billions to bail out an entire industry he single handedly destroyed.

Based on what? The amount of cost difference you'd need to make in order to make the numbers work is extremely high. Not to mention northern China is quite literally one of the most plentiful areas of precious metals in the world. Electronics companies have to handle some amount of Chinese intervention.

Oh, and Trump's tariffs we're already circumvented by China easily. They just went through Vietnam or Thailand and poof, tariffs bypassed.

The point of tariffs is to prop up domestic industry by making the foreign competition more expensive for domestic consumers.

Yes, but when the domestic industry was wiped out and shipped off then tariffs only live to hurt consumers, not the exporting company. No company wants to spend billions setting up manufacturing in the US with its strict labor laws, wage requirements and safety requirements and more. That industry is just gone and it's not coming back. Hell, China is now exporting labor to Mexico who then sends it back to China then to Thailand then to the US. That is cheaper than US labor doing it.

Who is it that doesn't understand this?

A guy running for president that wants to put 100% tariffs on all imports without knowing what that means.

One of the only ones tbh

What? Tariffs as a one size fits all tool evaporated centuries ago. The US does not have enough RESOURCES within its owned borders to supply itself for modern day needs. The strength of the US economically is in its buying power. It's why China hasn't cut off resource selling to the US. The US buys a shit ton of items with precious metals or the metals themselves. economically it would hurt China to not sell them...

However, China has the efficiency of a singular leader, a dictator essentially, to make immediate decisions. When I say efficiency I simply mean immediate decisions without any need for legislative or judicial agreement. China could straight up deny sales of items to the US and hurt the US far more than what the US could retaliate with. The sheer weight of economic reliance on Chinese factories would cause immediate and painful stock price shock and electronics would skyrocket in cost. In reverse, China bought a lot of US agriculture, but has shifted a lot of that to Russia due to Trump. China can easily shift further by cutting a deal with Ukraine to help end their war (even better if Putin is dead, so China can take further control of Russia) thus gaining a massive share of Ukraine's agriculture which would be a net gain for both parties there.

Much more nuanced than that. “Fair trade” only works if both parties adhere to agreements and have similar regulations, labor standards, etc.

That's quite idealistic. I like it, but lol. US Capitalism doesn't give a shit about regulations or labor standards in other countries. Never has, never will.

Tariffs can be one way of combating abuses.

Not really. It's still likely cheaper even with tariffs vs onshoring a whole industry.

In an extreme example, let’s say a country uses strictly slave labor to produce whatever. Compelling argument we shouldn’t not important that as is and apply a tariff

And yet near slave labor was and in many parts is the standard and unfortunately no company actually cares.