Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

aei.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 205 posts

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#151

Post by herval »

raffael_de wrote: post #147
herval wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product. Trump’s ship of fools is tossing the US to the sidelines of the global trade, in particular due to his inability to work with anyone else. EU is rearming, they won’t need “america’s protection”. Latin America (with the only exception being Argenti…

> Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product. Okay, let's have a look ... well, this statistic doesn't back up your claim: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports/china > Trump’s ship of fools Which is actually part of his strategy. You need fools that commit outrageous claims, t…

Here u go: https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2024/02/the-united-states-... Plenty of data on the damage he’s done to the US exports. Plenty of data on how Brazil replaced it.

For someone who wants to sound smart citing “game theory”, you surely don’t sound very capable of seeing reality

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#152

Post by herval »

owebmaster wrote: post #150
raffael_de wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product. Okay, let's have a look ... well, this statistic doesn't back up your claim: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports/china > Trump’s ship of fools Which is actually part of his strategy. You need fools that commit outrageous claims, t…

Spouting "game theory" to everything does not mean he will win these bets, tho. > No, they won't and everybody knows that. That's delusional. 70% of the world has China as their main trading partner. The world definitely can thrive without Coke, Facebook, Nike and McDonalds.

Most of these companies can simply move their business to a different country too. The only reason they stay in the US is due to the dollar dominance, which created stability to run a business for decades. If that goes away, what’s the point?

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#153

Post by raffael_de »

owebmaster wrote: post #150
raffael_de wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product. Okay, let's have a look ... well, this statistic doesn't back up your claim: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports/china > Trump’s ship of fools Which is actually part of his strategy. You need fools that commit outrageous claims, t…

Spouting "game theory" to everything does not mean he will win these bets, tho. > No, they won't and everybody knows that. That's delusional. 70% of the world has China as their main trading partner. The world definitely can thrive without Coke, Facebook, Nike and McDonalds.

Since you were so kind to change "shouting" to "spouting" I'll compliment you a reply.

> That's delusional. 70% of the world has China as their main trading partner. The world definitely can thrive without Coke, Facebook, Nike and McDonalds.

How about Amazon, AWS, Microsoft, Azure, Google, Nvidia, 3M, Pfizer etc.?

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#154

Post by [deleted] »

raffael_de wrote: post #145
tyleo wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or people won’t want to deal with him, route around the US, and let us drive off the cliff alone.

Who is people and why wouldn't they want to deal with him when they'll at least short term benefit from it? All those supposed "people" are like your celebrities who promised to leave the country if Trump gets elected. Nobody left. This is also a good example of a bad strategy from a game theoretic perspective. They want X and threaten: if I don't get X then I'll do Y which is going to be bad for you and me. They don…

[deleted]

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#155

Post by ttyprintk »

raffael_de wrote: post #143

Most people's thinking here seems to be clouded by political ideologies and anger over their stocks being down. Game theoretically Trump has a long history of basically playing the perfect strategy of extreme unpredictability, willingness to take a loss for the purpose of making a point, but sufficient reliability if a deal is agreed upon that he benefits from the most. He's the one who'll brake the last in a game of…

This is thoroughly studied. He’s grim trigger but fairly good at choosing close to optimal moves when we believe Trump’s Razor.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#156

Post by raffael_de »

ttyprintk wrote: post #155
raffael_de wrote: post #143

Most people's thinking here seems to be clouded by political ideologies and anger over their stocks being down. Game theoretically Trump has a long history of basically playing the perfect strategy of extreme unpredictability, willingness to take a loss for the purpose of making a point, but sufficient reliability if a deal is agreed upon that he benefits from the most. He's the one who'll brake the last in a game of…

This is thoroughly studied. He’s grim trigger but fairly good at choosing close to optimal moves when we believe Trump’s Razor.

The trick is that he'll bring his competitors and even partners in a position where they are threatened with suffering at a level of X. Then he'll offer you a deal that makes you suffer Y with Y 0.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#157

Post by owebmaster »

raffael_de wrote: post #153
owebmaster wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spouting "game theory" to everything does not mean he will win these bets, tho. > No, they won't and everybody knows that. That's delusional. 70% of the world has China as their main trading partner. The world definitely can thrive without Coke, Facebook, Nike and McDonalds.

Since you were so kind to change "shouting" to "spouting" I'll compliment you a reply. > That's delusional. 70% of the world has China as their main trading partner. The world definitely can thrive without Coke, Facebook, Nike and McDonalds. How about Amazon, AWS, Microsoft, Azure, Google, Nvidia, 3M, Pfizer etc.?

> How about Amazon, AWS, Microsoft, Azure, Google, Nvidia, 3M, Pfizer etc.?

If all of them leave to be replaced by the alternatives, local or european/chinese, that would definitely be net positive.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#158

Post by ttyprintk »

raffael_de wrote: post #147
herval wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product. Trump’s ship of fools is tossing the US to the sidelines of the global trade, in particular due to his inability to work with anyone else. EU is rearming, they won’t need “america’s protection”. Latin America (with the only exception being Argenti…

> Look up what happened when he tried to strongarm China in 2018. China simply switched their supplier to Brazil, and never fully returned as a buyer of the American product. Okay, let's have a look ... well, this statistic doesn't back up your claim: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports/china > Trump’s ship of fools Which is actually part of his strategy. You need fools that commit outrageous claims, t…

> Which is actually part of his strategy. You need fools that commit outrageous claims, threats and actions. Then he can play the good cop when it makes sense and just fire the fool. That is basically applied game theory on a meta- and psychological level.

Firings that support this: Flynn, McCabe, Esper, Bolton

Firings that support Trump’s Razor: Comey, Sessions, Tillerson, Nielsen, Krebs

“The dumbest explanation is often the correct one.” tells us that the increase in information from those moves is uselessly low for both him and us. Nevertheless, if Trump is able to influence the rules, the accumulation of side effects of high strategic value gives his advisers something to work with.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#159

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

greaber wrote: post #63

Doesn't this formula also punish circular trade patterns in a strange way, like if the US imports $X of good from country B and country B imports $X of goods from country C and country C imports $X of goods from the US, and there are no flows in the opposite direction, then the US would impose an infinite tariff on country B since US imports from B are zero?

Yes. It also only looks at physical goods and not account for services.

It's utter incompetence and laziness. But when you vote in lazy incompetence, then that's what you get.

Re: Trump's Tariff Formula Makes No Economic Sense. It's Also Based on an Error

#160

Post by ttyprintk »

raffael_de wrote: post #156
ttyprintk wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is thoroughly studied. He’s grim trigger but fairly good at choosing close to optimal moves when we believe Trump’s Razor.

The trick is that he'll bring his competitors and even partners in a position where they are threatened with suffering at a level of X. Then he'll offer you a deal that makes you suffer Y with Y 0.

Yet playing a mixed strategy means that—-to maintain unpredictability—-these deals to avoid venal retribution are not always offered. I predict less than 30% of the time; almost all his Pareto-optimal deals are very obscure. The biggest example is USMCA, which he wrote and negotiated. Yet, today he says it was signed by a fool. “The dumbest explanation is usually the correct one.”
Post reply on HN