I’m not American, and all of this is starting to be extremely annoying.
I know a lot of countries are in the beginning stages of decoupling their trade from the USA, but all of this tit for tat, response to the response, is annoying.
What’s stopping other countries from essentially saying, “We’re not playing this game. You gave us tariffs, we’re keeping ours. We don’t care what you say or do next, we’re moving on. Goodbye.”
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Money. The US is a major economic power. Losing trade with them hurts. And by and large other countries are hoping this … turmoil isn’t long term.
The US is the 2nd largest economy (edit: by manufacturing output) in the world and its hard to completely ignore it, especially for Canada that shares a massive undefended border. There’s also a prisoners dilemma happening where if all other countries walk away then the one who bows to Trump gets total access to the US market.
And then on top of that, the Panama Canal is one of the most critical trade chokepoints in the world. And Trump wants to seize it.
>What’s stopping other countries from essentially saying, “We’re not playing this game. You gave us tariffs, we’re keeping ours.
Billions of dollars a year lost in trade. Hundreds of billions.
It effects how every country does trade with the US. Some will lose out on a lot of money because they have no choice but to charge the US customer base more for the same product, even if Americans can’t get it anywhere else.
I wish it was that easy but it’s not especially when the country’s trade, security, or currency stability is tied to decisions made in Washington.
Some nations do. Like my country of birth Belarus, for example – it exports nothing to the US, so it doesn’t care much if there are tariffs or if the US would disappear overnight.
Those who export to the US will obviously suffer, proportional to the amount. It’s not possible to just decouple the trade, there might not be another market in existence.
Most countries arent isolationist so global ramifications will impact them
You can’t ignore a country that has military bases inside of yours
There are a lot of us and we’re rich. This is indeed what Trump has set in motion, but it’s hard to do because the U.S. is the most lucrative market in the world.
The main reason the USA is a major economic power is because many countries use US dollars as a reserve currency. On that grounds alone, decoupling from the US market is a very difficult prospect.
Creating a new global reserve currency to be used in place of the US dollars is not easy. The only reason America managed it is because they were the only functioning economic superpower after World War 2 that didn’t collapse under its own failures. That was a time when almost any country could be convinced to use take on board a reserve currency if it meant getting foreign aid which they desperately needed, and that was only really being offered by America.
cuz they know this is only gonna last about three years.
maybe only 2.
You don’t cut off your BFF just cuz she’s dating ‘that guy’, do you?
Losing trade with the US would be hell for a lot of industries in those countries.
The US has A. A lot of people. And B a lot of money. They have the highest mean wealth per adult in the world for countries over 10m adults. That’s a huge market that pays a lot of money to just walk away from.
For example, I’m from Canada. We sell a lot of things to the US, namely raw materials like crude oil, ores and even manufactured goods like cars.
If we just said “fuck it were done trading with the US”, entire companies would go under, foreign companies with offices and plants in Canada would pull out, there would be mass layoffs and thousands if not millions of people would lose their jobs.
Some might say “well why can’t you just sell to other countries?”. Other countries already have trade deals elsewhere to meet their needs. Breaking into new markets for all of your exports would be a massive undertaking and it wouldn’t work for everything. I’m not saying it would be impossible, just a very difficult and long road, not somthing that can be done at the flip of a switch.
USA is rich and quite a big country. So it’s not as easy. Even if country wanted to it will take a while.
But think of it as if you sell 100 lemonades a day for living. And you live paycheck to paycheck
And some person usually buys 10 out of the usual 100, if that person is being a dick, it’s not as easy saying I will sacrifice 10 percent of my income to ignore this person, you may not be able to pay bills if you do that. It will take a while to find new customers who will buy this remaining 10.
But in the long run, you’ll try to 1) make more money to not live paycheck to paycheck (difficult) 2. Find more clients so that if one client becomes a dick the sacrifice won’t be as big. (Also difficult)
I suppose you can abandon your “sugar daddy”, but you only have one.
Take it from a Canadian – the world’s economy is deeply intertwined with the United States and the US is a major trading partner for many countries around the world. As much as many countries would like to tell the United States to shove it up their hiney, the reality is that they just can’t afford to do it.
That being said, I’m happy to see my country stick up for itself. But that’s only because it can afford to – kinda.
American here. Nothing is stopping them and at this point they should ignore America and move on. Develop your own alliances, trade agreements and relationships. Honestly, that would be the best thing for everyone.
Stop buying US made crap. Stop visiting the US. Stop investing in the US.
This sends the right message to the current administration and is likely the only thing that will get American voters back on track.
I can tell you that there are MILLIONS of Americans that are shocked and dismayed at how much irreparable damage has been done to our credibility and standing. There is no taking back what has been done or unsay what has been said. It’s shameful. I think at this point even Trump supports are wondering what the fuck we’ve gotten ourselves into.
Money. Services and technologies unique to US.
A shitload of trade, and military protection.
What many people here in Europe dont realize is how deeply dependent we are on the US digitally: Our whole public sector is powered by American tech, my own country would literally break down in 1 minute without it.
But the train left the station, and the US is on fasttrack to becoming a regional power, much like Turkey is today. What is going to be really dangerous, I think, is when MAGA realizes this. It will take atleast a decade to replace American tech. Are they going to try to extort Europe in desperation?
Alot of people dont understand how much we consume. America consumes something like 90% of the worlds illegal drugs. We trade in our 2 year old car for a new car. We throw away. We waste. We are the most sold to people in the world. Consumption IS our culture. We are the richest country in the world. We are the fattest. We are also the most powerful military. Turning your country’s back on us is essentially starving your own people from our wasteful dollars. Its all around gluttonous grandiose and unfortunate.
US GDP is 26% of the global GDP. This is followed by China at 19%. It drops off really fast after that with Germany at 3rd with 4.25%. When it comes to global markets, the US and China are the two power houses. So, who do you want to do business with?
Trade isn’t done by “countries”, they’re done by individuals and companies.
Pretend you run a German car company and had this conversation:
Is not a conversation that would happen. Maybe a company would be able to turn down business from a minor market. Look at all those companies that pulled out of Russia, which was really a small, bit player in terms of most businesses
But the US market is one of the largest consumer markets in the world. And with China being such a restrictive market, its often the largest market most western companies have access to.
Nothing. But it’s quite inconvenient given that America in is the most militarily and economically powerful country in the world.
Add to that as a Canadian they are our only relevant land border. It would be a great deal of economic hardship for us to divest ourselves from America.
Usd is the reserve currency all over the world.
Money. The US is the biggest net importer in the world by a huge margin. Many countries would be economically devastated by a lack of trade with the US. That being said, other countries are currently working on reducing their dependence on the US. It takes time to do without causing widespread economic hardship, and other countries, unlike our current leadership here in the US, actually care enough to try and make the transition smooth.
The US market.
Uh… I think they are
A few VERY big reasons…
The US Dollar is the global reserve currency – replacing it would take many years, if not decades.
The US Military serves as the de facto protector for many nations around the globe – the US spends nearly a trillion dollars annual on defense… Germany is the largest European military spender, and they spend less than 1/10th what the US does.
Many/most countries are dependent on the purchasing power of US consumers to buy their goods. Regardless of what metric you use (GDP, PPP, etc.) the US is a massive purchaser of goods all over the world.
Well, the US remains a large market for anyone looking to trade. But it does have limits.
A lot of people are ignoring the fact that the trades are company to company not government to government. The government can put regulations and taxes on things to guide trade but it would be political suicide to say you can’t do any business with companies because of where they are.
They have to adjust to finding other trade partners and stuff. Things have literally changed so much in under 2 months.
a massive, massive amount of the technology and infrastructure you use is in some part controlled or made by America.
America is every other nation’s best customer
I wish they would!
People think we’re joking when we say that we’re the world’s police…
We aren’t joking.
Without the U.S protecting GLOBAL trade rather than just regional trade, everyone relies on us one way or another. Our money is also the most traded in the world, AND we’re the most consumption based economy on the planet. Everyone NEEDS the U.S now because they chose to rely on us forty years ago and did NOTHING to make it possible to operate independently from us without an astounding amount of economic distress.
They’re already working with each other on trade deals, leaving the U.S. behind. Be prepared for regular things to get expensive. Thank God my mom taught me how to be frugal.
It’s the biggest consumer market in the planet period. You want someone to buy your product chances are Americas can do so at scale.
Theyre literally actively working towards that
On the grassroots level, that’s exactly what’s happening. And American businesses should be terrified by that, because this economic damage won’t be undone in 4 years. It will last for generations.
Without the US as a trading partner, most of the world with get seriously hurt. The US is both the largest importer and largest exporter and it’s that flow of goods that makes economies thrive. What tariffs do is tinker with incidence of Demand. If a tariff raises the price of a good too much, demand will stop and there may not be a sufficient country to absorb that loss for the manufacturing country.
Time. Right now most of them are willing, but it takes time to form new alliances and trade agreements. But there is honestly a very real chance, that everybody will get better deals overall, once the US is out of the picture.
Biggest reason is the U.S. is the dominant global economy and many of those countries have a critical dependency on income from trade with the U.S.
The U.S. has significant leverage over many countries because of this.
There are a bunch of reasons why nations can’t do that but there’s no reason why you can’t. You don’t need to pay attention at all, just stop watching the news.
Yoooo start caring homie, this is global shit and we all one. US economy fall, we all fall. We need to to get these PoS fascists out of power stat and make being billionaire/trillionaires illegal. If you can’t be happy on 999 million, there’s prob a few psych drugs and safe house to treat your mental illness. We’ll set up that safety net for ya dude, don’t worry. Fuck allllll this shit going down
their economies would get absolutely fucked
>You gave us tariffs, we’re keeping ours.
Keeping their level of tariffs on the US without responding to the US increasing tariffs on them might put them at a trade disadvantage.
Other than that, they would prefer to continue trading with the US because losing the US as a trading partner would result in a big economic shift. But they might end up going that route anyway. The Prime Minister of Canada has explicitly suggested it.
People like money is whats stopping them.
I’m Irish- we have a lot of American multinationals here and they are kinda key to the Good Friday Agreement.
Our absolutely insatiable need to buy crap.
Consider the Canadian economy. We exported nearly $450 billion to the US annually which is about 20% of our economy.
If we just lost access to that market or had it lowered in any significant way, we’d be fucked.
What that means in our communities is lost jobs, reduced wealth and reduced disposable income.
Sure, in time we can probably make it back but it could be a decade or so to get back to where we are today. Again, in communities that means lower wages, lost jobs, reduced family wealth, etc.
I’d love to see us diversify our economy but we can’t just say smell ya later or we’d be fucked
lol sounds like cope
Money: the US is a major economic power. If the US goes into another depression then everyone else will follow minus a few hold outs.
Military: everyone hates the US for being the world police but no one wants to admit that the US is the only military force that can act on a moments notice.
Trade: the US controls major trade routes and actively protects against pirates.
Sentimentality.
Kinda hard to ignore the richest country in the world, with the largest consumer market in the world (nearly doubling the EU in nominal terms)
Just because the rest of the world can move on from the US, and it screwing the world is not apocalyptic, doesn’t mean ether is anything but slow and painful. You bet people will diversify a lot more now but if they can just stop the madness, all the better. Cheaper
The United States is by far the largest importer and spends the most amount of money on non-domestic products. Almost twice as much as the next country, China, and more than spots 5-10 combined. While I do believe it would be in everyones best interests globally for them to push back and not accept the current US administrations bluster and saber rattling I dont think enough will do it to be able to make a loud enough point.
They need the US market more than the US needs their markets. Follow the money
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God, but maybe if they’d all band together or something.
I’m an American, but I’d rather watch this motherfucker burn to the ground than let these pieces of shit turn us into a quasi-religious state built on greed, corruption, and hate.
Less and less everyday.
Process has started, but its going to take a while. Trump is doing wonders to speed it up though!
Nothing really. They are not as strong as they think. The one thing they have the most of the world is debt.
China will go around the world, touting the uncertainty and lack of trustworthiness of the US and will be signing development contracts around the world. Other countries will source more products in other markets.
That’s a difficult thing to do when the USA is the most powerful country in the world.
That’s completely false
That’s probably the best course of action. No tarrif contest. When your opponent has flipped the gameboard and shoved the bishop down his diaper, you can just leave the room. If the EU (and everyone else) ceased their economic interactions with the US, they could probably buy the whole place in 10-15 years. Just give us measles-blankets, and shiny beads. It’s obviously way more complex than that, but if they turn the screws, maybe this farce collapses faster. Maybe that’s good.
That’s like asking a cocaine addict to stop doing cocaine and move on…
Because the United States has extreme economic and military power. I’m not suggesting that the US is going to start threatening military operations, but they are more than capable of it, and Trump seems willing to use economic leverage in order to achieve some “objective”.
Whether you think any of this will actually work, the objective is worth fighting for, etc. is another conversation entirely. But the reason is simply: economic might.
Not much, anymore. He’s driven China, Japan, and Korea into each other’s arms where they’ve traditionally hated each other.
What Trump and Navarro don’t realize is if you’re going to go after your competitors you’re stronger if you do it with allies!
The vast majority of the Earth’s science and technology comes from America.
America pays the bills.
America is the biggest consumer in the world
Service, like Amazon Cloud Services, because we don’t have our own European cloud yet.
An $820.3 BILLION dollar defense budget. That’s what.
The largest military in the world by a factor of 10 backing up the world’s reserve currency.
Many many companies have their main market as the US. Entire companies will simply close down or have to significantly downsize if they lose this huge market. My company makes about 70 percent of their money from the US market. Also everything is very strongly interconnected. Just a tiny example, if China can’t ship to the US, Temu close all of their advertising campaigns in the US and all of the companies that were running those ads in apps, websites etc are hit hard. As the ad goes through a lot of middle men in the way to your phone, a lot of companies are affected when it dries up. Same with airlines, if much less people are traveling to the US many carriers will have to cut many of their US flights. Now they have to fire staff, they bought planes that they don’t need, etc. Financial havoc across the air travel industry. It’s a mess and it will touch many many industries.
Nothing.
Tariffs against the US will remain as long as the political will is there for them to remain. Realistically, once other countries see that the price they’re paying for everything is going up, there will be political pressure to lower or drop the tariffs. Probably not as long as Trump is in power, but eventually. Same thing as within the US. The tariff shit is probably the best thing that could ever happen to the Democratic Party.
We are the largest economy in the world and have one of the highest gdps per capital. We invented and largely control the internet, social media, and the motion picture industry. We police commercial sea lanes globally. We are the largest producer of oil and gas globally.
I suspect that some will to at least some degree. As a (currently very unhappy) American I can’t blame them. Why bother with the chaos?
This
All the nations want to do trade around the world but few have the power to SECURE trade around the world. A hostilities in the Panama and Suez Canal’s, the Straits of Malacca and Gibraltar, Gulfs of Aiden and Guinea, and the Black and South China Seas make a difficult and expensive area to safely ship goods. The costs of security make most tariffs a bargain.
By all means move on, but bring your own means to project power around the world.
Money.
Several countries are trying to do that, but it’s a bit more complicated then just sticking your tongue out, picking up your ball and saying we don’t want to play with them anymore.
This is going to sound very Ugly American, but you asked, so: We are 26% of world gdp and at an individual level richer than you, for any you. Tough market to write off.
Also, only about a quarter of our GDP is foreign trade. If the idea is punishing us, then everyone in the world cutting us off completely makes us very poor, but probably not as poor as you already are if you live somewhere other than Canada, Europe, or Australia.
This whole tariff thing is gonna suck Great Depression hard, but even in the worst case we won’t eat each other. Not so sure about Canada or (combined with all their other problems) China.
Other countries are trying but it will take time to replace America
We are a huge humanitarian contributor to the world. The current powers that be are eliminating the help to Third World countries. We also were one of the largest money contributors to NATO, the UN and a lot of other world treaties because we cared and had the money. This is not the case with this new administration.
There is a saying in our country that Democrats think the glass is half full and the Republicans think the glass is theirs.
The same thing that keep Europe importing Russian oil. There are no morals, there is only money.
I live in America and I want to ignore this and move on but I’m stuck in the land of stupidity right now.
the same reason countries dont ignore other countries to begin with.
resources and potential violence
Financial and military threats. Those things can not be ignored.
Nothing is stopping them and they already are moving on.
Money and it’s a 330 million consumer base that has been spenders for decades. That’s hard for corporations to move on from.
Trump is also, a destabilizing threat because he seems itching to be a wartime president. The US’s problems are unlikely to remain in its borders.
The US also currently has talent in quite a few fields, like pharmaceuticals, space science, weather…. the list goes on. This was a source of information that was extremely collaborative internationally until January. Even Trump’s 1st administration didn’t do this. That’s a huge loss to pivot from for a few fields
Human rights is probably the last reason. Something very bad is likely happening in the El Salvador prison. It was deliberately pucked to be away from US eyes to keep people quiet. That they won’t release the man after the supreme court ruling is a very bad sign. They’re either afraid of what he’ll say or he really is not alive. Right now, the targets are pretty much every immigrant in the US, which is something of huge concern internationally
they probably will in the long term, trust is destroyed, but despite the delusions of an orange man that takes years.
Try ignoring an elephant in your bed if you’re a mouse.
it’s politicians jobs to communicate and permanently discuss and maintain treaties and tariffs. other countries keeping (or trying to) maintain communication open with usa are doing precisely what politicians are expected to do and what they are paid to do. that doesn’t mean that anyone is down on their knees begging or that the rest of the world can’t live without usa. as a business, i am always open to taking old customers back and selling them my stuff again, (many businesses have people hired to try and reconnect with old clients.) … doesn’t matter if i like them or not. and then on the other hand it’s also politicians jobs to make it hurt back when others try to hurt their country. so perfectly normal for others to retaliate with tariffs back at the usa. if you slap me, i will slap you back.
Because you want to do business with the United States.
It’s a necessity not a luxury or a choice.
Largest economy in the world mean anything to you?
Ukraine: hey man we fighting for our lives here
My country is boycotting the US most won’t travel or buy anything from them and our Prime Minister even said we are no longer allies and he won’t speak to Trump until he stops being an idiot
The entire global economic system is entirely reliant on America. Until the rest of the world calls in the debt.
If the markets switch to yen or euro, they’re finished.
That’s exactly what’s happening.
China and other Middle Eastern and Asian countries where already discussing moving away from the US dollar as their currency reserve before this fiasco.
I just watched a video earlier with a Chinese representative essentially saying the US is only a portion of the global economy and if the US chooses to not sell their products in China that is fine by them.
Canada immediately started they would be looking for new trading partners for their goods when the first round of tariffs came thru.
Anyone who thinks that these kind of actions aren’t going to create not only long lasting damage to the American economy and trading but also shift the global market away from the US has their head stuck in the sand.
The US represents around 26% of the global GDP. We’ve just alienated pretty much the other 74%. They will trade amongst themselves, their percentage of GDP will go up and the US’s portion will go down.
We sell stuff they want, and they sell stuff to us that we either want, or that we use to make other stuff with. It’s all about stuff (money.).
They have “American” debts and in dollar, unless you want to be sanctioned like Russia bcs you don’t want to bow down to the Empire wishes. Most nation doesn’t have contingency plan like China does, so you could think the rest of possibilities
Because the only thing worse than losing your biggest supplier is losing your biggest customer. The US imports roughly four trillion dollars worth of stuff per year. Imagine that for a moment if the world market just suddenly lost access to that. A four trillion dollar hole with no one to fill it because no one has the check book or demand like the USA. The absolute closest you’ll get is China but on an average basis Chinese families are far more conservative with their spending than American ones are.
You literally can’t ignore it. Look at the economic shockwaves from a limit of exports from Russia and Ukraine. Combine those two countries GDP together and they’re still lesser than just the amount the USA buys from foreign countries every year.
Just a hot take here but I’m pretty certain this entire situation was coordinated with our allies to attempt to back China in a corner and start to get them to play fair with trade rules
China really doesn’t have made in US products. U.S. has tons of products made in China. Real simple…… China can’t win a trade war with the U.S.
You’re asking why can’t other countries ignore America when you’re annoyed at America. Try ignoring it, and you will answer your own question!