What has Trump done now?

[red750]

Trump Didn’t See This Coming

 

https://rb.colofandom.com/viet/trump-didnt-see-this-coming-canada-breaks-13-billion-deal-with-us-and-turns-to-eu/

[ClintonB]

That first one sounds like someone covering up for a dipsh?t who knows nothing rather than forward planning to prevent loophole abuse.

also, why would you let a shipment from Heard Island into your country since it is not a port operation, doesn’t that sound like smuggling or deliberate deception. These is customs guys must be gullible.

[onetrack]

What a total crock of sh*t. These imbeciles wouldn't know sh*t from clay. Trying to say items were shipped mislabelled, and shippers were using Heard and Macquarie Islands as the origin point - when they don't even have commercial port facilities!! A shipping label like that would be stopped at the border, it wouldn't even be in any computerised recording system - and all shipping and port handling is fully computerised today.

You have enough trouble trying to ship items when you're not a regular shipper - even using a shipping agent on a one-off basis brings about a host of questions.

[rgmwa]

That uninhabited island explanation is rubbish. They are saying the islands are countries which they’re not and even if they were, they are uninhabited so how do you tranship goods. They are just trying to spin an embarrassing blunder.  

Edited April 7 by rgmwa

[old man emu]

I think the decision flowchart was something like this:

 

1. Was the item imported into the USA? 

a. Yes - Go to Question 2

b. No - End

 

2. Slap a tariff on it.

 

 

 

[old man emu]

You've probably seen that chart Trump showed when he was announcing the tariffs to be applied to each country. How did the Trump administration come up with those various figures? 

 

Well, they are the result of a mathematical formula using some basic data and some assumptions. The formula was first published around the time of Trump's first administration and it was developed by both the USA Dept of Treasury and some university School of Economics. The published paper, being an academic not political creation seems to be unbiased.

 

Now, I know most of you are not mathematicians nor economists, so you might think that the equation is all Greek to you. But the presenter here is an Australian whose videos in the past have dealt with general maths subjects in a ways that are easy enough to follow. The video is about 18 minutes long, but I recommend that you watch it and in the end I think you will agree with me that what the Trump administration has come up with is economic claptrap. 

 

 

[facthunter]

USA Faces a Tariffying end to sanity. Where will the Damage stop? IF they stopped NOW He would say you didn't give it enough time. Trump has never been Wrong. Poor little Dear. Nev

[red750]

If you think you've seen some looney tunes stuff out ofAmerica, wait till you read this:

 

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/donald-trumps-maga-goes-after-masturbation-with-insane-new-us-sex-laws/news-story/cd237454ca9278dc1c0883ad3fc46329?utm_campaign=EditorialSB&utm_source=News.com.au&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=SocialBakers

 

 

 

 

[red750]

Trump has now imposed a tariff of 104% on China. Things will get interesting - two hard heads banging together tit for tat. Both want to be top dog. An interesting exposé on Xi Jin Ping last night on Four Corners. Should be availabke on iView.

[red750]

Not Trump, but...

 

[facthunter]

"Here we are at Camp Growing harder", by the day.   Never before in the course of History has so much been buggered up so fast by so FEW. (with apologies to W Churchill).    Nev.

[rgmwa]

The Chinese have just whacked another 50% tariff on the US, matching Trump’s escalation. Given that Trump is already at 104% which is probably enough to effectively stop imports from China it will be interesting to see what Trump does next.

[red750]

[onetrack]

Hold on! Doesn't the U.S. Constitution GUARANTEE the right to bear arms to EVERY adult person born in America!?

 

What are they doing, trampling on his GUN RIGHTS, by refusing him access to firearms?? 🙄

[rgmwa]

No it doesn't. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I don't think Mel Gibson is a member of a well regulated militia and I'm not so sure that the security of whatever State he currently lives in is under threat.

Edited April 9 by rgmwa

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

All the States were under threat, from International Socialism. Americans hate socialism, taxes are too high.

[rgmwa]

10 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

All the States were under threat, from International Socialism. Americans hate socialism, taxes are too high.

GON, this post was about the right to bear arms under the second amendment. Your post is about something else entirely, as usual.

[rgmwa]

This is a thoughtful article. It's from the Washington Post so probably behind a paywall, so posting the text here:

 

Eduardo Porter

Trump’s economic vision was discredited decades ago in Latin America

It’s bizarre to see the United States acting like a “Third World country” of yore.

April 9, 2025 at 8:00 a.m. EDTToday at 8:00 a.m. EDT

 

Searching for a rationale to President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs is a fool’s errand. The arguments offered to justify his attack on global trade — to boost factory jobs, raise money, provide leverage and cut deals with other countries — don’t just lack sense, they contradict each other. His tariffs will impoverish the world and push other countries into the arms of America’s strategic rival: China. They will not change the behavior of penguins.

 

But let’s not kid ourselves: Trump’s trade tantrum fits the zeitgeist. It might be insane. It might be inspired by the ideations of a fictional character. But his revulsion against the process of globalization that shaped the world economy over the past half-century is shared across the electorate. Democrats might be less wantonly destructive, but President Joe Biden was just as eager to replace the “neoliberal” economic order with something more protectionist and inward-looking.

As I read Trump complain in his executive order about an era that “led to the hollowing out of our manufacturing base; resulted in a lack of incentive to increase advanced domestic manufacturing capacity; undermined critical supply chains; and rendered our defense-industrial base dependent on foreign adversaries,” I could easily imagine Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan nodding along.

From my perspective — the one of someone who grew up in what was once called the “Third World,” who came of age in the early years of what came to be known as the “lost decade” — this is super weird. From where I sit, the United States looks like the most affluent and powerful nation on Earth; the big winner of capitalism’s expansion around the globe. Moreover, the United States built this system. It set the rules and erected the institutions that shaped the postwar economic order.

 

It was, after all, the U.S. Treasury that pushed the core ideas that shaped the era of globalization. Indeed, the canonical proposition that development required embracing markets, trimming the role of the state in the economy, opening to international trade and financial flows, and imposing macroeconomic discipline, came to be known as the “Washington Consensus.”

So it’s bizarre to see the United States acting like a “Third World country” of yore, rummaging among mid-20th century Marxist structuralist theories, looking for an alternative economic model that might allow it to overcome underdevelopment.

Over the past couple of administrations, the United States has embraced the combination of state-led industrial policy and protectionism that flourished in Latin America up until the 1970s. Appealing though Raúl Prebisch’s dependency theory might seem — tempting though it could appear for the government to nurture and protect a domestic industrial base to replace imported goods in order restore a bygone golden age of manufacturing — I’m here to tell you, America, it will end badly.

Assuming that the world avoids a massive trade war and that the gargantuan tariffs announced over the past few days don’t tank the global economy, import substitution in a market enclosed behind high tariff walls will not turn the United States into a competitive, vibrant manufacturing hub. It will most likely lead to economic isolation.

Latin America had a decent excuse to embrace an “import substitution” strategy in the 1930s and 1940s — when the Great Depression and World War II cut its access to the manufactures it used to buy from the industrial world. Sluggish commodity exports and poor terms of trade underpinned Prebisch’s thesis — that development required evolving beyond providing raw materials for export and building an industrial base. And the strategy seemed to work well at first, producing fast economic growth and a growing manufacturing sector.

But the project ultimately failed, bequeathing Latin America with economies that produced low-quality stuff for domestic consumption, unable to compete on world markets — and so it remained dependent on exports of raw materials. The model bred clientelism and corruption, as businesses sought government protection. It squelched competition and stymied innovation. By the late 1970s, Latin America’s industrial footprint was retreating. Burdened by debts incurred to finance imports of capital goods and other manufactures, most countries in the region fell into default and entered a decade of stagnation.

To be sure, the United States today has a much richer, more innovative and productive economy than 1970s Mexico or Brazil. And there are a few historical examples of import substitution strategies that worked. Taiwan and South Korea patiently nurtured high-tech industries behind protectionist walls and are now among the wealthiest economies in the world.

Still, there is nothing in the historical precedent to justify what America is doing to itself. Trump’s full out attack not only against trade, but against immigration, higher education, scientific research and the like, will decimate the institutions and processes that made the United States into the world’s dominant economy. Not to repeat myself, but the United States was winning under the open markets system that it advocated before falling for protectionism.

If there is anything to glean from the political revolution that gave Trump the presidency, it is not that the international order harmed the United States. It is that the United States failed to translate its victory in the race toward global supremacy into broadly shared prosperity at home.

A theory that posits the United States at the mercy of other countries with big manufacturing industries is not the theory that America needs. Even if you agree with the proposition that America must build manufacturing capacity in critical industries and if you buy that China must be contained, it is wrong to embed this thought in an argument against the globalized economic order.

Where America failed was not in its relations with other countries, it was in not sharing the fruits of its victory broadly among its people. Becoming a Latin American country from the 1970s will not fix that.

[old man emu]

Now he's put a 90-day pause on the second tier tariffs. It's hard to tell if his playing with tariffs is a political or economic strategy.

 

Think about this. Over the past week stocks have been sold at fire sale prices. There are two parties to a sale: the seller and the buyer. Who was doing the buying? It had to be people with ready money. Think Warren Buffet. Now Trump has paused the tariff start and the market has shot up, making those who bought low now much richer. Politics or profiteering?

[onetrack]

That's a good article, but in my personal opinion, there are at least three things that have led to America's problems. The problems, as Trump sees them (and he's largely correct there), are that;

 

1. America is carrying a huge level of debt.

2. American manufacturing has been in decline for many years.

3. China is becoming the worlds most threatening power economically, and posing a real threat to American global dominance.

 

Problem No 1, can initially be sheeted home to Ronnie Reagan. He promised Americans he'd make them rich (same as Trump is doing). What Ronnie Reagan did was make an exclusive cabal of already wealthy Americans a lot richer, at the expense of ordinary Americans.

He reduced taxes on the rich, and tore down barriers that stopped the wealthy from becoming unbelievably rich. He spent Govt money like water and trebled the size of the American economy - and all on borrowed money.

Those borrowings have never been effectively repaid, the standard U.S. economic theory is, it's O.K. to just keep paying interest on debts, without paying down the capital, has ruled for decades in the U.S. The debt continues to keep climbing, and no-one is addressing it.

 

Problem No 2, is American businesses flocked to purchase goods from low-cost countries, and even set up manufacturing facilities in those countries. It was much more profitable to do that, than set up manufacturing in America or to buy American-made goods. The countrys laws and economic incentives made it easy to do that.

The rich got richer, once again, because the greatest way to acquire huge amounts of wealth is to buy low and sell high. The rich "shared" their wealth by offering cheaper products to consumers. It was a pretty poor deal, as most of the imported goods were lower quality.

Trade deficits soared as a result of this policy. Trade deficits have to be funded by borrowings, thus American indebtness increased.

 

Problem No 3 is simply due to the American rush to buy cheap goods, or make lots of money selling goods at good prices, that were bought for very low prices. It's a global problem, and one that is not going to go away with increased tariffs.

 

Then there's the problem that over several years in the late "twenty-teens", America Govt printed vast amounts of paper money with no asset backing - the so-called "quantative easing".

It is a fallacy that you can do this without eventually seriously devaluing your currency. The chickens have yet to come home to roost, but I can see them coming.

 

Trump is effectively trying to make people from other countries pay down the U.S. Govt debt with his tariffs scheme. It won't work, because the people who will be paying the bulk of the tariffs, are the ordinary American people, but it will take quite some time for ordinary Americans to realise that.

[facthunter]

POTUS is way above Trump's paygrade. He should NEVER be in Charge of anything significant. HE behaves like the Spoiled BRAT that HE  always has been. Nev

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

We have a 10% GST, even on imported second hand goods. I've had to pay it on my purchases of old cameras for my collection. Jerry Harvey is to blame, and I've boycotted Harvey Norman since that impost on used goods came in. Our government is no better than Trump.

[Marty_d]

Most governments are better than Trump's.  He's put the US on a downward slope and eventually even the sycophantic idiots who love him are going to realise it.

 

@old man emu you're right there - who profits?  From every action Trump takes you can see his aim is to take away money from those who need it most and give it to those who need it least.  Your average hillbilly Trumpist isn't out there working the share market.

[facthunter]

White supremacist redneck rather than hillbilly.?   Nev

[old man emu]

8 hours ago, onetrack said:

Trump is effectively trying to make people from other countries pay down the U.S. Govt debt with his tariffs scheme

It's crystal clear that Trump has absolutely no idea what a tariff is, or more importantly what their function is.

 

Tariffs are a good thing for a country that is trying to establish the production of the tariffed item within its own borders/economy. Tariffs on imports are designed to raise the price of imported goods to discourage consumption within the country which imported them. The intention is for citizens to buy local products instead, thereby stimulating their country's economy. When a country has developed production to the extent that there is a production surplus, then prices within the country can lower according to the old Supply/Demand pricing seesaw. For years we have marveled at how cheap consumer goods and food were in the USA compared to our own prices for the same things.

 

Onetrack has pointed out that American business has chased the bottom line by relocating manufacturing to low wage countries. In most businesses, wages and ancillary labour costs contribute a high percentage to total costs. The costs of building manufacturing sites and installing plant can be amortised over a long period, and at the end of that period, the sites and plant might well continue to be used for production. By seeking the bottom line by minimising labour costs, US business has moved jobs out of the country, leading to unemployment of US citizens. If the citizens are unemployed, they don't have the money to by consumer items, no matter where they have been made.