This has got to be the real purpose: make deals on lower tariffs from them. How else could this end other than Trump simply stopping this madness, folding essentially, declaring the victory and carving his stupid hair into Mount Rushmore?
This has got to be the real purpose: make deals on lower tariffs from them. How else could this end other than Trump simply stopping this madness, folding essentially, declaring the victory and carving his stupid hair into Mount Rushmore?
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This has got to be the real purpose: make deals on lower tariffs from them. How else could this end other than Trump simply stopping this madness, folding essentially, declaring the victory and carving his stupid hair into Mount Rushmore?
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Trump folding and declaring victory would not be out of character
Why? They don’t need us. They have all the rest of the world to trade with freely more or less. Say goodbye to the USD as reserve currency
I imagine behind the scenes some in the administration are frantically trying to find things they can bring to Trump to say that he made a “great deal” with these countries, like last month when Canada and Mexico promised to “do more” at the border by doing what they were already doing, and Trump declared victory.
That is the “good outcome”, that Trump backtracks but Europe and China throw him a bone so he can save face.
Of course that assumes the goal isn’t to crash the economy. If the goal is to crash the economy we are in for a bumpy road
The big question is if Trump will honor any sort of trade deal made? If he’s willing to blow up USMCA (which he signed in his first term), why would he be bound by any future agreement?
Why would they?
We’ve been proven to be completely unreliable. I mean USMCA was negotiated…. by trump.
Regardless, trump himself seemingly flips on a dime. This is like his 4th attempt at tariffs, and every time he does it the market crashes. Usually he’ll try and get some token concession (i.e. a drug czar canada had already agreed to, that sort of thing) claim he fixed it and then reverse the tariffs. Repeat like a week later.
What actual benefit is there to conceding? That comes at a domestic political cost for leaders abroad, cause it looks like you’re caving to a madman, and trump is deeply unpopular abroad. A lot of people want to stand up to him and don’t want to be bullied.
So you have uncertain benefits, cause he may flip on a dime, and a serious domestic political cost. Why not just form a trading bloc that excludes the US and is much more stable? That’s basically what happened with the TPP and china after trump withdrew and it looks like that’s what Europe and Canada are gearing up for now.
So no, there will be no concessions. Because we are led by a fucking moron
What concessions can the countries who have no tariffs on US imports even make?
Maybe, and it’s likely a potential benefit the admin considered when enacting these tariffs.
That being said, unlike Trumps first term, I dont think the world is holding their nose to get back in bed with us until the next admin anymore. There are trade pacts forming right now, and the heads of state explicitely stating that they’re transitioning to non-US trading partnerships.
There is no hoping for the US to return to normal again. Trump is seen as the new normal for us now. Any gains made with him are ephemeral, and any gains made with democratic leaders are likely targets for retaliation.
I mean that’s what I think he’s hoping for. Strong arm everyone into giving him concessions to get around the tariffs. It’s why he’s mad china announced reciprocal tariffs and they’re telling other countries not to panic. If we actually had the cards to throw up these tariffs and just make everything here, that wouldn’t matter. So I think there’s 2 likely outcomes
Trump folds, which seems more likely. He’ll claim victory anyway. But we won’t actually have gained anything, and the US won’t be seen as a stable place for safe investments because Trump isn’t being reigned in.
Everyone else, knowing Trump by now, will stroke his ego a bit to bypass the worst of the economic damage for themselves while establishing better trade elsewhere. They’re gunna know Trump’s a lazy dipshit. He evidently doesn’t understand what trade barriers are, and are not, already in place with other countries. He’s not going to take the time to understand any nuance in the trade we do with every other country. I’m sure they could offer to rectify some terrible injustice Trump has made up to ease the worst of the damage on themselves while they start doing more trade everywhere else.
God, I certainly hope not. I want to hang the self-inflicted Tremendous Trump Depression around the neck of every Republican for generations.
I don’t think there’s a real purpose, I think Trump is a genuine believer here. He thinks America is getting screwed by everyone, that we don’t have to take it anymore, and we can tell them to get stiffed becasue we’re so strong and they’ll have no choice but to do what we say becasue we’re so valuable.
He’s basically the Presidential version of that selfish, greedy person we all know whose constanly paranoid of everything being a scam because they would definitely scam you the first chance they get.
I think the most likely ends for this in order are
The US just having less foreign trade and paying whatever price that ends up costing us.
Trump folding and declaring victory.
Countries trying to make concessions and not being able to because Trump can’t hold a consistent position long enough to effectively be negotiated with.
Actually gaining any concessions however someone might define it.
Honestly, it seems more likely that the rest of the world will just start to build an economic order that doesn’t include us, or that at least doesn’t revolve around us. That’s what leaders in the newly America-less ‘free world’ are basically saying right now.
What’s interesting about this is that even if the most rational move here is to give Trump some concessions (and that’s very debatable), people aren’t necessarily rational actors. There’s a lot of understandable anger at the United States right now, and that strongly disincentivizes any sort of concession.
That’s one outcome. Another is that our trading partners decide they don’t need us and build their own new trade networks, cutting us out of the picture.
I hope that our trade partners don’t do anything that validates this infantile, incredibly-stupid, capricious ego trip.
There are a bunch of ways this could stop. We can probably rule out Congress, though. Republicans voted for this, and they have the House. Even if a lot of them did care about the economy and American prosperity, are there enough to override a veto?
Probably the most viable way is for Trump to continue tricking himself into thinking that everyone said that he’s a big, strong man and a born dealmaker who we’re all so proud of and impressed by. And then Fox News can praise him for rescinding his tariffs to save everyone from the Marxist Democrats! Yay! Maybe that will trick him into thinking he already decided to do that, and it was his idea, and then he’ll do it.
What concessions? What the hell is he asking for? The tariff calculation is just the trade deficit divided by 2. Ok, Madagascar has a trade deficit with the US, because we import a lot of vanilla, whereas their GDP per capita is $500 and nobody there can afford US made goods. What are they supposed to do about that, how are they supposed to close that trade deficit? Why does it need to be closed at all? They don’t have any tariffs on the US to cut either, the big cardboard Excel sheet is entirely lies.
Trump is an idiot. We’re seeing his longstanding thoughts on tariffs play out. If he wanted to make deals do to things like build more factories, who is going to work in them? We already have a shortage of manufacturing workers even with programs to recruit and train more. And Trump wants to dismantle the department responsible for helping people pay for that training. What is he going to do, enact the white replacement conspiracy to get the workers?
The real purpose it to set up a NEW New World Order based on protectionism. Bretton Woods ended as the Neoliberal New World Order came into being. Trump is trying to end that and set up a new more protectionist system.