Chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, tea, bananas, and a fuckload of other things that are completely integrated into our regular diets are almost exclusively imported.
Sugar too. That ain’t healthy and is kinda fancy but… Can you see them losing their shit over sugar prices? I do.
Tomatoes imports were 2.5B in 2023.
Apparently the us imports 15% of it’s food supply.
There’s plenty of corn syrup to replace it with unfortunately.
I understand your perspective but I want to ask a question, not to you, but for you to think about it. What motivation causes the imports?
If corn syrup is a replacement for whatever they are doing, why are they importing raw sugar? If raw sugar is cheaper than you would expect them to already use sugar for everything and not corn syrup, and switching to corn syrup would be an increase in cost . If raw sugar costs the same, import is additional paperwork, why import? Raw sugar is more expensive, why would they pay more?
Raw sugar can’t be replaced easily in their use case? Now that makes sense.
Sugar tastes better than HFCS. Ask anyone who drinks Mexican Coke. “Tastes better” doesn’t matter when there’s no other option.
Fact is, HFCS is cheaper. I haven’t checked the entirety of it’s supply chain to figure out why, but it is cheaper.
If sugar was the same cost, they wouldn’t have switched to HFCS in the first place (why mess with your successful product for no gain?). Fact of the matter is that HFCS is saving them money. It might be pennies per bottle, but when you’re moving 10M bottles of soda, those pennies turn into dividends, literally.
Which is why I am almost certain that there is a reason why they import raw sugar
And the rest is farmed here by undocumented workers.
That can’t be right. Corn can’t be only 85% of our food.
But seriously, there’s so much goddamn corn. Our meat is fed corn. Our processed foods and drinks are pumped full of corn. Even our fucking cars eat corn. We’re up to our fucking ears in ears of corn.
Based on what I find online, the us import about $2B in raw-sugar, while some (about 100M) is exported again.
Source: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/raw-sugar/reporter/usa
How much “processed” sugar leaves the us again? I am not sure. Maybe all of it.
We already use HFCS in everything, it will just get even more extreme.
Gonna have to put a spoonful of HFCS into your ersatz coffee.
The government subsidizes corn, so there’s an incentive to use that corn. There are tariffs on imported sugar so it’s cheaper to use HFCS
W-we gotta get out of here Morty! Everything here is on a fucking cob!
Sugar is fancy now? Man my grandpa would be thrilled were he alive. There’s a colloquial term for the farm-houses of sugar beat farmers in Northern Germany, “beat castles”, as they quickly made a lot of money growing the beats in the late 19th century. When sugar became more accessible due to the processing of the beats to refined sugar. The wealth is long gone now, similarly to how salt used to be a luxury good.
Yeah, we do high fructose corn syrup over here. It’s even more addictive, even less healthy, and it tastes bad. So obviously, we put it in everything, even premade salads
No. That is the point.
Sugar is “fancy” as in “you don’t need sugar for your diet”.
Technically, we don’t need raw sugar for our diet at all. So technically correct?
We also don’t need any sugar substitutes, like HFCS, but you can find that or sugar, in the ingredients list of pretty much all processed foods.
Yay capitalism!
Avocados for your avocado toast. Smh.
not if you live in cali
That’s it, the other states have crossed the line, time for CalExit.
honestly this is more feasible than brexit imo (not advocating for it)
Such a nice opportunity lost. “I’m not avocading for it.”
id rather advocate for is the demolishing of all borders and the guarantee of helping every person on the planet no matter what.
It was just a little pun. Advocating / Avocading.
A lot of fruit/veg is grown in places they can get away with slave wages and then shipped here because that’s how little labor costs. Less than our already super low paid fruit/veg pickers that are primarily the people who escaped the countries and situations that put them in those even lower slave wage places.
Coffee, tea, and everything you’re wearing right now.
Oh no, but I need to buy a new buttplug every day!
Wait, I’m not American, nvm.
Most buttplugs can be washed. Just a money-saving tip for you there.
Nah, it’s not about single-use, it’s about the collection. You can’t take some og the rare ones out of their original packaging or they lose value!
I hear it’s all about the blind box butt plugs today. That way you have to keep buying them and getting duplicates until you get a rare one.
A shiny!!
I wanted some foreign goods to get more expensive. To end slavery, not to escalate a trade war!
I should have checked my vicinity for any stray monkey’s paws when I made that wish.
“Fair Trade” is what you’re looking for. I don’t know how legit all instances are or whether they make a real difference, but its an attempt
This may sound pedantic, but you’re looking for Fairtrade (one word) for the organization with the strictest vetting standards. Fair Trade (two words) isn’t regulated and just means they follow some sort of ethical code. It’s not necessarily bad, but it warrants more product specific research.
Huh I wonder how many Fair Trade items I bought thinking they were Fairtrade. Thanks.
A ton of parts of what you are driving, all your maga hats, a ton of stuff that’s in your house
Your mom wears maga hats.
everything you’re wearing right now
Much of that is cotton. I believe that in the “good” ol’ days the US grew that themselves. Start that industry up again, and you don’t need mass deportations across the border.
The US still makes massive amounts of cotton. That all gets exported to other countries before getting turned into garments and things.
Ah, yes…
All we need to keep that industry running like the good ol’ days is a massive industry of government subsidized illegal immigration of easily identified persons
You could even run the farms the same way as in the olden days, if you criminalize and incarcarate enough black people.
Well boy howdy, it turns out we already been done doin that there part about criminalizing and incarcerating them black people just out of sheer racism. You’re telling me that there could’ve been a profit motive to it this whole time too?
jk, private contracted prisons were already profiting deeply off of that.
I thought you were already doing that…
I mean, that’s how cotton is produced nowadays too, except Uyghurs are the ones doing it.
Cotton takes a LOT of water to grow. And takes up farmland that could grow food.
Most of your clothes are artificial fabrics these days. Or blended
Yea, and I hear children’s tiny hands are perfect for picking it.
Politically-motivated tea tax, what could go wrong?
“No tariffs without Harris”
what would the boston tea party equivalent for america be? dumping an entire mcdonalds worth in the sewers?
Nationalizing energy infrastructure
They wouldn’t handle it.
That’s just eating at McDonald’s with … less steps.
The Boston tea party was the American equivalent of the Boston tea party.
I think they meant to say modern American, no?
The Galveston Coffee Shootout.
Then they should’ve
Maybe they a word
Tbh thats just one step less than how it normally works.
All this insecurity about tariffs has me hoping he have a Boston Tea Party situation. If I recall the story correctly, they threw the expensive British Tea overboard to protest the tax.
Similarly, I also recall a sugar tax, and either an ink or paper one: basically, I hope I can see something similar to see there’s still a small piece of American values from our ancestors (not the twisted Conservative heaven MAGA wants, but on the American dream of freedom, liberty, and justice for ALL.)
No Taxation Without Representation!
Can we do it without fucking up the environment in the process?
Nah. Environment needs to pay
What has Mother Earth ever done for us?
It’s hilarious how everyone knows the Tea Party and all of the taxes, when the real reason the American revolution happened was that England wasn’t going to let us drive Native Americans out
They were definitely just going to protect the natives, that’s the lovable British empire that I know
For sure, this wasn’t out of benevolence. The Brits mostly wanted to avoid more war. Remember why those all those taxes were raised? Sending soldiers over to fight Frenchmen and Indians is expensive. If those backwards colonists keep fucking with them, the Indians are going to cooperate more with the French.
You think it’s going to be bad when people find out coffee prices are shooting up? Wait until they find out about chocolate.
And meat after all that feed gets tariffed.
Good news - chocolate rations have increased from 30 grams to 20 grams
This calls for 50 milliliters of Victory Gin!
I’d bet they exempt it. The corporate grinder doesn’t really work without stimulants for the workers to purchase so they can work (and consume) more and sleep less.
No, need to keep the peasants to tired to revolt
Wonder if we will see an uptick in American made “koffee”?
Something like the Ersatzkaffee from yesteryear. I mean they have the means of making caffeine so maybe it will be better?
Black Rifle Koffee
But (assuming a tarrif is something that can even pass) I imagine you’re going to see a swiss cheese of exemptions for favored countries. And these countries will become a back door for imports.
Expect all of your coffee to be mysteriously harvested from Canada.
Why do you think Canada would be spared tariffs?
The intent is clearly to “fix” the USs trade deficit, so Canada being the biggest trade partner would be prime for these.
I think any tariff that passes will have a swiss cheese of exemptions, because that’s just how the game is played in Congress.
Lobby hard enough and you’ll get your country excused one way or another.
Canada being the biggest trade partner would be prime for these.
It would be prime for Canadian ports, and for a host of middle men who get to launder trade goods through a legal loophole.
But that’s the real end game. Not domesticating manufacturing, but monopolizing channels for import/export.
I mean sure that’s the way it went before, but just on the intention of the incoming administration (who will have full control of all three branches) the planned tariffs will target something.
No don’t. Last mandate, Trump out tarrifs on Canadian steel, labeled it a strategic risk. Read somewhere that it boosted Russian owned us steel mills somehow. Canada is not getting any favors from that guy.
Read somewhere that it boosted Russian owned us steel mills somehow.
Given the degree of US sanctioning on Russia, I’m not clear what a “Russian owned US Steel Mill” is even supposed to look like.
I remember Japanese Manufacturer Nippon Steel is moving towards full acquisition of US Steel, the largest steel maker in the country. That has, at least in part, been driven by the threat of US tariffs. But this only further illustrates the problem. Foreign mega-corps gobbling up domestic industry do nothing to improve the US economy.
I just remembered that Coca-Cola requires denatured coca leaves from South America.
So enjoy that $8 Coke can, America
Finally a real cure for American obesity.
We’ll just drink mountain dew, instead. It has bonus brominated vegetable oil.
Ah, well, if the vegetable oil has been brominated by the council of bros, it should be all good, bro.
Hahaha, shame on you. I live in a country where we make the coffee and we still pay taxes for it.
Where is that? Brasil?
My remembrance fo colombian coffee is that it was stupidly good and stupidly cheap to buy freaking everywhere inside the country… I may be wrong though
Yep, Brazil. We pay around 10 to 15% IIRC. Could be more, idk.
Well, someone has to pay to keep the land off of poor people.
Some people have never even looked at a dang banana
It’s one banana Michael. What could it cost, $10?
In trump’s economy, maybe?
The joke will take on a new meaning when $10 is the good old days.
That’s the thing I find most depressing about a trump presidency, there will be a time when the rational Left looks back on it as “when things weren’t so bad.”
Like, when I was a kid I, and many others, never imagined there could be a president dumber than Bush…
Don’t they grow bananas in Hawaii? I know they have coffee out on Kona.
You can grow a banana at home. Dwarf banana plants can grow inside. The normal size banana plant is not living room sized, no wonder people think they grow on trees
But how many people drink coffee? And how many bananas can you grow for your self?
Coffee grows on Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and recently in a little bit in CA (to add to water problems)
But Labor + limited amounts means it won’t be cheaper
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Some folks were a little late to figuring out what tariffs were okay!
Wanna bet that the search trend spikes again when/if they come into affect?
I feel like most people I have heard talking about them while supporting Trump seem to know that tariffs are taxes, but have no concept of how they play out in a real economic situation. Most fall into one or both of two camps:
A) Tariffs are taxes, but they’re taxes for companies not individuals, and they’re only applied to importing, so they won’t affect me.
B) Tariffs are taxes for foreign companies, to level the playing field and keep American business competitive. Since the companies that have to pay it are foreign, it won’t affect me.
Spoiler alert, guys: no matter where the tax is levied in the system, the consumer is the only person who ever pays for it, since they’re the only ones that can’t pass that cost on to anyone else.
Also, while this can make domestic competitors more competitive, it’s important to remember two things: first, if it works, it’s only working by making things more expensive for consumers, and second, this assumes that the domestic competitors want more business, have the ability and posture to increase their production to meet the new greater demand, and will operate in good faith. Much more likely is that they simply also increase their prices in reaction to the tariffs, so they’re not producing or selling any more volume and aren’t creating any jobs… they’re just padding their profit margins at the corporate/shareholder level while doing nothing for their employees, all while having the average consumer foot the bill.
That’s exactly what happened with the steel tariffs in the first Trump term and that’s exactly what will happen now…the only difference is that this time it seems like there will be significantly fewer economic buffers between the tariff and the consumer, so more people will more directly feel the sting here…and presumably the mental gymnastics from the MAGAts will be even sadder in their attempts to somehow make it not a criticism of their orange leader’s incompetence.
“Surely the company that sells a product for $100 will keep selling the product for that price once tariffs mean that it costs a $125 to produce and import!” - crazy people.
Tariffs are taxes, but they’re taxes for companies not individuals, and they’re only applied to importing, so they won’t affect me.
Typical Magoo (literally my dad in 2016): “you can’t tax business owners, they’re going to just make everything more expensive for us! They pass on the burden to us!”
Also Magoo: “Yay tarrifs! They are a tax on business but that won’t get passed on to me!”
The Magoo motto: Whatever words I need to use to suit my purpose I will use, to hell with reality.
It sure would help if Americans weren’t generally ignorant about uh… tons of stuff and especially anything that involves other countries. All sorts of fruits and vegetables are imported - green beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, berries, bananas, onions, cauliflower, broccoli, eggplant. And then at the same time, the Trump bros want to crack down on groups of people who make up a large portion of the domestic agricultural workforce? It’s difficult to see some conservative policies as intended to do anything other than just fuck people over and cause chaos.
There is also seasonal trade to US even when it grows in US.
New FDA head will just change the food pyramid to Coca Cola is a vegetable.
Right, if all you eat is meat, wheat, corn syrup and potatoes, no problem!
Yep. If you’re rich enough to can profit off the economy tanking
I think thats what the crypto people are banking on. Rapid inflation. You’re better off just buying imported goods now though, you can always sell them the crypto people at a markup later. Real goods have far more intrinsic value.
They are going to blame the deep state or some marginalized group other than the one they just deported
It’s those darn liberal environmental and labor regulations
They would blame Biden, Harris, Obama and Hillary Clinton for these things and more.
Jokes aside, people will only start being outraged when Starbucks and Dunkin’ start selling their favorite drinks for $15+. I only hope that when things get to that point people start taking the streets in protest.
and I’ll probably just pay the tariffs and move on because half the time stuff made in the US falls apart or is laced with pesticides banned elsewhere
Apparently, farmers buy a lot of fertilizer from China.
Don’t worry, that can be sourced locally. Trump produces enough bullshit to supply the country.
Yeah but all his hot air isn’t got for global warming.
Unfortunately toxic bullshit isnt great for growing things.
Well, the US turning into a banana republic will at least solve the problem for bananas.
