Growing trade deficit is selling the nation out from under us (2003) [pdf]

Strange. I, as a UK citizen, don't seem to buy almost any physical USA goods at all.

There are valuable things out there other than "physical goods".

Sent from iPhone

Well, how are going to charge for them?

For example, how to deal with Steam? most of the games I buy there (Baldurs Gate 3 for e.g.) are not made in the USA.

Congratulations. But not from me - I wouldn't touch an iPhone with a stick.

The tariffs are only about physical goods though, so I'm not sure how this point is relevant?

And USA get 30% (or 20% depending on the studio) of the price you paid. Do you use Android, windows or Apple, or any licensed software?

> any physical USA goods

Do you see the word "physical" in my original comment? And me saying that I don't buy such things?

I will admit to buying Intel CPUs, but aren't they manufactured in the Far East?

I am from EU and the only physical idem proudly wearing "Made in USA" label I saw over the years is the Urimat pad in public toilets.

P.S. Upon inspecting my memory, I think the other one was an HP cesium clock, but that was many years ago.

Intel have fabs in the US, Israel and Asia. So it depends.

To a forum run by an American company, moderated by Americans.

As an individual you would own consumer goods.

A lot of international trade is other goods. Think of how much the UK has paid for things like American aircraft, ships, machinery, or materials used in manufacturing. Our armed forces use a lot of American stuff, and often even British made things have American parts (and a lot of it is covered by ITAR, to an even greater extent than the rest of Europe).

People also tend to hugely underestimate the amount of British manufacturing for the same reason, and because of lot of it is Foreign branded (e.g. Nissan cars).

As a UK non-citizen resident, my observation is that our economy is pretty much involved with USA (and the global economy more generally).

I just looked up the latest trade and investments factsheet[1] and there are some interesting deets. If you're wondering about direct investment in the US as well as imports:

- Total UK imports from United States amounted to £111.5 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2024 (a decrease of 5.1% or £5.9 billion in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023).

- In 2023, the outward stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) from the UK in United States was £494.1 billion accounting for 26.7% of the total UK outward FDI stock.

In addition to direct investment I would also count portfolio investment since we're sort of involved at an individual level through our workplace pensions (and/or personal), savings, stocks and shares ISAs, and so on. A preliminary report[2] foreign holdings of US securities as of June 2024 puts the UK as the top holder at over 3 trillion USD.

1. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67b6f8efbd116...

2. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0037

I certainly don't need planes, war stuff nor ships and machinery. The food I eat mostly come from my country, my car is made in countries close to mine and so are the materials used to repair my house... And my gaz is Poutine's.

So I fail to see why I need America at all...

Ah, yeah, one big exception: my computer. Argh!

> As an individual you would own consumer goods.

Not American ones I don't.

Is Trump suggesting tariffs on incredibly over-priced and under-performing military and civil aircraft, when we can buy from Europe, or make our own?

To me it seems that the only things the USA sells us are horrible foods, and crap cars for fat people.

UK citizen. My latest laptop is an Asus, made in Taiwan. The Intel CPU is designed in the USA I will admit, but manufactured elsewhere, I think.

I don't think that dang (or the new guy) is going to over-moderate this stuff.

HP oscilloscopes were pretty good too, back when . But I haven't been there for many years, and I guess you can get good, cheap, LCD ones today for much less money.

And rotating rusty hard drives, I suppose. But still all gone.

And don't get me started on American urinals!

How much American media do you consume? Things like movies, tv shows, or music? Or is it mostly home grown? That's America's export, along with software.

But no tariffs on them? And actually I mostly watch home grown stuff - can't stand US TV series.

Most of the software I use is open source, and again even if I pay for it, is there a tariff?

And yet here you are on HN. Turns out there is more to an economy in 2025 than physical goods.

I think that's what they're trying to fix. They want stuffs around you that says "Made in China(PRC)" to instead say "Made in USA", and everyone is saying that that is a really weird hill to die on, but they want to.

At this point, capital controls might be back on the menu?

But as I keep on pointing out the tariff is on PHYSICAL goods. It's probably next to impossible to tax digital stuff.

I was thinking about this, outside of services the only thing I do buy is Park Tool bike tools (which are excellent).

I suppose I could include Apple products on the basis that the majority of the profits go to the US rather than the country of manufacture. Apple sells £1.5b of goods and services in the UK although that won't appear in the UK-US trade figures.

>Total UK imports from United States amounted to £111.5 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2024 (a decrease of 5.1% or £5.9 billion in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023).

Also "Total UK exports to United States amounted to £182.6 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2024 (a decrease of 0.5% or £889 million in current prices, compared to the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023);"

Which is why the current government is being particularly cautious at the moment.

Not at all. I meant it more as response to the sentiment that someone in the UK doesn’t need American goods and services, while posting on HN.

Yep, and this is the problem. The US doesn’t export nearly enough.

> I certainly don't need planes, war stuff nor ships and machinery.

So you would be happy for the Russians, the Chinese etc. to be able to overfly the UK and send ships into UK waters at will?

You want all the factories using American made machinery, or American inputs to close?

and none of the many other parts are US manufactured?

You can probabl work out where the CPU was made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...

I responded specifically in your steam comment, not the original one, because i did not thing you original comment was wrong.

i think the other parts are probably Chinese