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Since the tariffs target the whole world, my responses look at imports rather than constraining to China.

> How many American houses are built in China?

Roughly 30% of the softwood lumber consumed in the US is imported, and Canada accounts for over 80% of those imports. Other key suppliers include China, Brazil, and Mexico. And that’s just lumber.

The US now imports 1.5 million metric tons of rice. See trend:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/806643/us-rice-import-vo...

> How much American electricity is produced in China?

Generating and distributing electricity requires equipment. More expensive (or hard to acquire) equipment means more expensive energy, affecting just about everything.



Also: some US electricity actually is produced in Canada. One option that seemed to be seriously considered early in this whole dust-up was Canada cutting off electricity supplied to the US. It would've caused chaos in the Northeast.

I think they only pulled back from doing that because it probably would have fairly-directly killed quite a few people.


That begs the question why electricity is cheaper in many countries which have the highest tariffs in the world?

My original questions were of course rhetorical, shining a light on the matter that neither the US nor any country in the world lives only on imported goods.

Since the economy, trade, and production is completely interconnected in a modern, industrialized world, then any changes in policy will have widespread effects. Including good effects.




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