Scott Lincecum

speaker

168 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Feb 2025 last heard 1 Apr

Scott Lincecum’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 2.

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The Bulwark Daily · Will Saletan and Scott Lincicome: A Crime Boss Has Taken Over · 3 Feb 2025 podcast

canadian oil so canadian oil gets a special 10 tariff not the full 25 now why would you do that if this is going to be good for the american economy well you do it because in reality it's going to raise gas prices in the midwest because we import a ton of canadian crude oil we do that not because we're not energy independent or any of that nonsense we do it because canada makes a certain type of crude oil that goes in the refineries that are in the midwest

And again, we have this wonderful free trade relationship with Canadians. So we stopped buying OPEC oil. We started buying Canadian heavy crude. Everybody ends up better off, or at least they did, right? So even in their actions, their formal actions, they understand that this is going to be painful. But now, of course, it's just the great covering and distraction.

Yeah, and it really reveals a fundamental flaw in a lot of kind of the protectionist mindset is that a lot of the imports from Canada and Mexico are complementary to US production. They do not push out US production. They actually support US production. So a huge chunk of what we import from Canada and Mexico are industrial inputs, so things that we put in cars or microwave ovens or whatever.

And that allows us to make more of those things. It allows us to create cheaper gasoline, right? So these are – complementary supply chains. They are not just simply zero-sum directly competitive. And the whole protectionist idea with trade deficits and imports bad, exports goods really fails when you understand these complementaries, right?

When you understand that production actually goes up in the United States as imports go up. So, it's a big problem for them. And for better or worse, assuming these tariffs actually happen, I think we're going to get a lot of real-world lessons in the next couple weeks of how these complementaries work in practice.

Yeah, so we talk about tariffs when we talk about legal incidents and economic incidents. Legal incidents is who pays at the border. Almost always, it's an American importer. There are a few little exceptions, but forget about those. So a good cross at the border, customs basically hands you a bill. Typically, you actually get the bill later, but you get the idea. And then you pay it.

The economic incidence is trickier, right? Because foreign producers can, in theory, lower their prices to offset the tariff, right? So if you used to be charging 100 and there's a 25% tariff, you start charging 80. 80 plus 20, you're back to 100. Everything's good, right? Another thing is there are currency movements. So the economic incidence is harder.

Generally, though, we have a ton of recent evidence from the Trump 1.0 tariffs. And we found that the economic incidence, the burden of these tariffs was primarily falling on domestic American companies and consumers.

You still get the exact same legal framework. Customs collects the duty from the importer. The only thing that changes is the import price of the good. So basically, a foreign producer can say, you know what, I'm going to lower my prices and effectively offset any additional tariff that's applied at the border. It happens occasionally. And I would imagine you're going to see some –

of this with these new tariffs. But in general, most of it is going to be paid by Americans. And the other thing we should note, though, is there's then an invisible tariff. Because tariffs don't just raise the price of imports. They raise the price of domestic goods, too. Because if you're a domestic producer, you suddenly have more demand and less competition and less supply in the market.

So we, Econ 101, you raise your prices, right? Supply and demand. Yeah. So this morning, Wall Street Journal had the most predictable headline ever, which is that U.S. steelmakers are raising their prices right now. because of these tariffs.

And great for manufacturers, because you and I, I mean, actually, I don't know about your shopping habits, Tim, but I don't go out and buy big hunks of steel.

Okay. So, that's all American manufacturers. So,

automakers aircraft manufacturers energy pipeline producers you name it these are the folks that are going to be eating these new higher prices as well as any higher import prices as well i love that little economics lesson okay just one more time on crossing the border i want you to do the sesame street style all right so we've got like you're imagining it's a cartoon i guess sesame street isn't a cartoon we're gonna do a pbs cartoon

No, it's by value. Typically by value. Sometimes they do it by weight or whatever, but most of our tariffs are what we call ad valorem. It's dumb Latin. It just means by value. So if you have a 25% tariff and you're bringing over $100 worth of avocados, you're going to get a bill at the border for $25.

They charge the importer, yeah.

That's actually a really important point. Mexico isn't launching avocados across the border. These are – I mean – Not yet.

Almost all trade has a willing consumer on the other end, an importer. So think of a company like Walmart. Walmart is buying from a seller in China or Japan or wherever, Mexico. And when the boat arrives with Walmart's purchases, Walmart is then actually taking possession of those at the border. And it's not a guy with avocados from Mexico.

It's actually, they're shipping it, Walmart's taking possession, and that's when they're paying the bill of customs.

So just last week on Cato, my RA and I did a blog post on the automotive sector and North American automotive supply chain. And we had this nice little map that we showed a single product because Bloomberg went out good for them. They actually tracked a single product that crossed the border several times to go into a car seat.

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