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dragonwriteryesterday at 8:20 AM2 repliesview on HN

> > assuming no additional countervailing policy changes

> When you add this qualifier who is disagreeing?

Anyone who disagrees that tariffs are inflationary. If you enact them, price level increases are produced which are sustained unless some other event unrelated to the tariffs introduces a deflationary effect which offsets the inflationary effect of the tariffs.


Replies

caminanteyesterday at 1:34 PM

>some other event unrelated to the tariffs introduces

I appreciate your good faith approach to discussion.

IMHO, this has devolved into semantics and has fallen astray from the original discussion above.

Here's an example to demonstrate semantics:

1. Trump put tariffs.

2. USMCA (read: NAFTA 2.0) exemptions, pre-existing policy, started to get used more to avoid tariffs.

They are unrelated in that the policies are different. However, they are related because companies became more incentivized to use the exemptions as a result of the tariff. Nothing new (AFAIK) was "introduced" on just this combo alone.