131–140 of 205 posts
I believe the idea was "Very High Tarrifs" and the formula was some kid in MS Excel . They are definitely not reciprocal. They don't need to be, since the plan was to use the high tarrifs as negotiating tool to somehow reduce the US national debt
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> I debated doing that. I wish I had, I would have made a bit of money in the last few days. The details weren't public. You can stop feeling being bad about yourself.
Well, he announced when “liberation day” was going to happen. I debated buying one that expired on Friday.
I wonder if he and his friends opened a bunch of options the morning of and are now collecting their winnings... he does have a bunch of crypto pump and dumpers as advisors.
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for countries that pay a worker $10 a day, put a tariff on the goods produced by that worker to total $10 for countries that pay a worker $15 dollars a day put a tariff on the goods produced by that work to total $4 therefore someone importing goods produced by one worker in one day from the lower wage country would spend $20 for the goods from the lower wage country but only $19 for the goods for the higher wage cou…
That’s a nice idea, but I’m skeptical—where is the new wealth coming from that will allow Lesotho to pay its workers more? It’s not an issue of strong-arming some bad guys in Lesotho to pay their workers more using tariffs as a negotiation tool. I feel that conflating tariffs with some sort of negotiation tool to bring about positive global change is disingenuous, because the real aim is clearly protectionism.
Funny he put like Martinique which is a territory governed by France
More 'funny': Diego Garcia (officially British Indian Ocean Territory).
An island in the Indian Ocean whose only inhabitants are UK and US military personnel.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia
* https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/5-bizarre-locations-hit-by-t...
It might actually be ha-ha funny if this wasn't creating havoc on international commerce and people's lives.
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It is even worse than that as Martinique is a “territory governed by France” in much the same way that Hawai’i is a territory governed by the USA. Martinique is a region and department of France—and administrative subdivision of the same type as those in the French mainland, differing only in that the the top two levels of subdivision (region and department) are coextensive rather than nested in Martinique and the ot…
Potentially France could have all imports from US pass by Martinique and they’d save a lot of money
The EU shares a border with the UK (island of Ireland) and the UK also has lower rates: just drive a truck over the border.
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This makes sense. I think even MAGA might agree if you pitch it as "we use tarrifs to prevent American labor from being undercut. But it is clear that the reasoning here is "I want tarrifs, how do I easily get them". And then they found the easiest possible way to say something about 'countries putting a tarrif on the US'. The stupid theory behind this is effectively: not having a minimum wage is equivalent to puttin…
Pressure to improve trade imbalances is a good idea! Particularly with China and some of these extremely low wage countries. Democrats being silent on the topic or not wanting to do anything about it is one of the bigger deciding issues for the kind of moderates who would actually change their vote between parties. The current administration is like... if you're being charitable you can imagine at some point someone…
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Making people rich and powerful wins their hearts and minds pretty fast. Look up the military leaders of the USA. Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Service Chiefs (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force) ... all appointed by Trump.
You've gotten inaccurate information. Only the Secretary of Defense and Navy chief were appointed by Trump, the rest were appointed by Biden. (The incoming chairman will also be a Trump appointee, of course.)
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Well you've got to get those diamond manufacturing jobs back to the US somehow
Unfortunately, now that some people appear to think that annexations are something to be considered, this joke has a very unexpected element of not funny.
Also, would MAGA want a new US state from Africa?
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I don’t see how tariffs magically create wealth for foreign exporters that translates into higher wages. Let’s say I can buy a $10 shirt from Lesotho with zero tariff. Now a 50% tariff gets imposed. I can either eat the tariff and pay $15, in which case Lesotho still gets their $10, or Lesotho can eat the tariff to keep their exports competitive, in which case Lesotho now makes $5. The part about giving a competitive…
for countries that pay a worker $10 a day, put a tariff on the goods produced by that worker to total $10 for countries that pay a worker $15 dollars a day put a tariff on the goods produced by that work to total $4 therefore someone importing goods produced by one worker in one day from the lower wage country would spend $20 for the goods from the lower wage country but only $19 for the goods for the higher wage cou…
How do you expect them to magic higher salaries?