I purchase many components directly from China for business purposes (Engineering R&D, machinery, etc). Just received an item last week with an $1100 purchase price. The import duty we paid on that single item was $2100. It doesn’t really quite sink in until you sign the actual bill.

I had a machine redirected to an alternative facility in another country because the import duty was around $26K for a $13K piece of equipment. There is no alternative supplier in either case. Unless you want to spend $300K for a custom one off build.

The US Manufacturing sector was in a full blown recession in the last two quarters of 2019, with the rest of the economy expected to follow suit in 2020. Hence the Fed’s attempts to stimulate the economy through rate reductions. That was well before covid was even on the radar.

King Baby got a pass on his tariff induced recession due to the emergence of a global pandemic.