Week 15 Discussion — Who Bears the Tariff, and How Far Abroad? — Traditional alternative (no AI)
Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.
Hook
A tariff is a tax charged at the border, and the law says who owes it there. What happens to that cost afterward, and how far abroad a small business should reach, are questions where careful people disagree. This week you weigh one of them for the coffee cart.
Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.
Option A: Suppose a 10 percent tariff applied to the coffee beans the illustrative coffee cart buys from abroad. The importer of record owes that duty to the United States at the border; how the cost is shared afterward among the importer, the cart and its customers, and the foreign grower is an open question economists study. Which party do you think ends up bearing the largest share in this case, and what should the cart do about its 5-dollar price as a result? Take a side, separate the documented fact from your judgment, name who gains and who gives something up, and state the strongest case for a different reading.
Option B: The illustrative coffee cart sells its bottled cold brew through a distributor across the border, the first rung of the entry ladder. Should its next step stay at exporting, or climb to licensing, a joint venture, or direct foreign investment? Take a side, use risk and control to support it, separate what the case states from what you judge the owner should do, name who gains and who gives something up, and state the strongest case for the rung you did not choose.
There is no single right answer. Two people can agree that the importer of record owes the duty, or that risk and control rise together on the ladder, and still choose differently, because the choice rests on how they weigh the owner, the customers, the foreign grower or partner, and the cart's own future. The cart is illustrative, and nothing here is legal, tax, customs, or investment advice for a real business. Pick the option you actually care about, and make your case.
Expectations
Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.
Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):
- Say which option you chose.
- For Option A, say which party you think bears the largest share of the bean tariff and what the cart should do about its 5-dollar price, and keep the documented fact (the importer of record owes the duty at the border) apart from your reading of who bears it; for Option B, name the rung you would choose for the cold brew's next step, support it with risk and control, and name who gains and who gives something up.
- Use at least two of this week's terms (tariff, importer of record, entry ladder, exporting, licensing, joint venture, direct foreign investment) correctly.
- State the strongest case for a view you do not hold, in one or two sentences.
- Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):
- Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
- A substantive reply does more than agree: name a person the poster left out, show where a post says the foreign country pays the tariff at the border, test whether the poster placed the rungs of the entry ladder in order, or make the strongest fair case for the choice the poster rejected. "Good post!" on its own does not count.
What a strong post looks like:
I chose Option B and think the cart should stay at exporting for another year. Selling cold brew through a distributor puts little money at risk, and the case says the owner already weighed a second cart against 1,600 dollars of yearly interest. That is a fact about the case; staying put is my judgment. A joint venture would give the owner more control over how the drink is sold, but it would also put more of the cart's money at risk with a partner the owner has never worked with. The owner gives up some growth, and the distributor keeps the say over shelving. The strongest case against me is that waiting lets a rival reach those buyers first.
Notice how it uses the case's facts, ties the choice to risk and control, names specific people, and states a fair case for the other side without calling it wrong. That is the bar.
Participation rubric
This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.
| Criterion | Full credit | Partial credit | No credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality of the initial post (4 pts) | A clear position on who bears the bean tariff or on the cold brew's next rung, with the people who gain and give something up named, a reason for the weighing, and a fair statement of another view | A position is present, but the people involved are vague or the weighing is asserted without a reason | Missing, off-topic, or no reasoning about the choice |
| Use of course concepts (3 pts) | States that the importer of record owes the duty at the border and treats the later share as open, or orders the entry ladder accurately with risk and control rising together | Uses a term loosely, says the foreign country pays the tariff, or places a rung out of order | No course terms, or used incorrectly |
| Engagement with peers (3 pts) | Two or more substantive replies that extend or challenge a classmate's reasoning | One substantive reply, or replies that only agree | No replies, or "I agree" with nothing added |
Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.
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