• idiomaddict@lemmy.world
    125·
    6 days ago

    Chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, pepper, tea, bananas, and a fuckload of other things that are completely integrated into our regular diets are almost exclusively imported.

    • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
      37·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • MrVilliam@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        6 days ago

        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.

        • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          6 days ago

          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.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
            41·
            6 days ago

            Sugar tastes better than HFCS. Ask anyone who drinks Mexican Coke. “Tastes better” doesn’t matter when there’s no other option.

          • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            6 days ago

            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.

      • RidderSport@feddit.org
        3·
        6 days ago

        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.

          • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            6 days ago

            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!

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
      2·
      6 days ago

      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.

    • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
      131·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • superkret@feddit.org
        21·
        6 days ago

        You could even run the farms the same way as in the olden days, if you criminalize and incarcarate enough black people.

        • MrVilliam@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          6 days ago

          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.

      • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
        7·
        6 days ago

        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

      • Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        The US still makes massive amounts of cotton. That all gets exported to other countries before getting turned into garments and things.

      • Kalysta@lemm.ee
        2·
        6 days ago

        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

    • Eiri@lemmy.ca
      8·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
        5·
        6 days ago

        “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

        • Ultraviolet@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          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.

  • CForsyth@lemmy.ca
    532·
    6 days ago

    Most competent governments think like this goose because their believe in rules based order and systems. Trump doesn’t ascribe to that view and I think he will make a sweeping change and will personally govern exceptions until it suits himself and his base. Hopefully that mangment consumes his time enough to make him less effective.

  • Liz@midwest.socialEnglish
    32·
    6 days ago

    People listing Hawaii like they could meet the total US demand, even if they could scale to maximum production overnight.

    Most of the corn we eat is Brazilian. Most of the corn we grow is feed corn for cows and process corn for HFCS and other processed food ingredients.

    • Johnmannesca@lemmy.world
      6·
      6 days ago

      As an American born and raised in Illinois I can also inform the rest of the populace our corn also gets used to make ethanol, an alternative fuel source.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 days ago

        Ethanol is incredibly inefficient as a fuel source.

        If not for the massive subsidies it would not exist.

        Still, ethanol is a better fuel additive than lead. (Both reduce knocking)

        Still, the far better use is to grow food.

    • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
      3·
      6 days ago

      Im guessing they also never seen how much the coffee from there cost. Plus supply and demand you dumb fucks. The cost will skyrocket. Kona coffee ranges from $30 to $100 a bag. Think of a massive increase of demand. Are we going to pay $100 a bag for low end stuff?

  • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
    18·
    6 days ago

    I’m not American, but tariffs to fix import issues is pretty stupid.

    This is the capitalist dream, export all the production of the goods you use daily to third world countries, who will have shit labor practices like the US used to have when slavery was a thing (and bluntly, for quite a while afterwards), so that the boots-on-the-ground laborers that produce everything are either treated like slaves or literally are slaves, then import the raw material to be manufactured into whatever you’re selling in the US, so you can slap a “made in the USA” sticker on your shit to enhance sales and charge more. Meanwhile “made in the USA” doesn’t and shouldn’t imply that there’s no imported goods going into the manufacturing process to make that thing, just that you took raw materials (from wherever) and made this thing in the USA.

    Tariffs unduly harm end consumers, pretty much everything we buy and own is, or has components that are, imported shit.

    Most microchips, a large amount of the food we eat, most electronics, pretty much everything you’ll find at a dollar general, etc (the list is very very long)… all imported in whole or in part.

    Hell, there was a time that it was more economical to have your raw materials, even if they’re mined/harvested/produced in the USA, shipped overseas for assembly by slave labor, then shipped back for sale to the US public, than to have it assembled inside the US. Much of that is still true. The US neither has the manufacturing capacity, nor the desire to build their own shit. The only time that’s not the economical option is for large cost (and scale, either in size or money) items, like housing or vehicles. Assembly generally happens in the country/landmass where the vehicle will be sold and used. Even a company like Toyota, a Japanese brand, will have assembly plants in the USA for cars sold in the USA, because that’s cheaper than importing hundreds of vehicles. For everything else, it’s generally cheaper to assemble it outside of the country and import the final product.

    You think process are high now? Wait until the tariff wars really kick off.

    No company is going to accept the costs of tariffs and be okay with that eating their profits, they’re passing that cost into consumers, because we’re the saps that are still going to buy it.

    When the tariffs come down, and they will eventually, prices will drop, but not to where they were from before the tariffs. Companies will continue to post record profits, justifying not giving raises because tariffs, and wages will remain stagnant. We’ll earn less, while they rob is for more than they already do.

    The worst part is that when the tariffs are lifted, we’ll thank them for lowering the prices by buying more of their shit. We’ll be grateful for the opportunity to pay even more into their profit margins.

    Congratulations, you’re experiencing late stage capitalism. The system is working as intended. You are poor, you remain poor, barely able to scratch out a living, while your owners profit more and more off of your hard work, and you get to thank them for that opportunity.

    I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    20·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    151·
    6 days ago

    You think it’s going to be bad when people find out coffee prices are shooting up? Wait until they find out about chocolate.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    11·
    6 days ago

    I just remembered that Coca-Cola requires denatured coca leaves from South America.

    So enjoy that $8 Coke can, America

  • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.mlEnglish
    185·
    6 days ago

    Coffee :(

    Honestly though the coffee industry is really awful and I should probably stop drinking it