Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#541

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:57 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #163

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #42

So we're all in for another ride like this in 3 months? How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment? As nice as this surge is, I'm more focused on upping my cash reserves and bracing myself for a recession.

> How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment? Who cares? Business leaders & the politicians they helped elect are stripping the copper from the country. Whatever's left when they're done is someone else's problem.

Sadly, trickle down economics does work for headwinds. Us private citizens feel the full windfall when the stocks and businesses are down.

We don't necessarily feel it when it's up though. As seen from 2024.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#542

Post by matt-p » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

gsanderson wrote: post #524

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

Donald is weak. He was always going to fold. Once China and the EU called his bluff and retaliated, he was done. Lasted less than 24 hours.

Sir, the tariff on china has just increased to 125%.

I don't know why he held off on the other countries, but choose to go to "war" with China.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#543

Post by jdc0589 » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

im not an economist, I have no valid opinion on if this is right or not.

BUT, I actually started looking at moving more of the stable bond/treasury holding bit of my portfolio to foreign funds recently (in addition to moving more of the stock/mutual fund balance to international stuff).

If I'm thinking about that as an individual private citizen of the US, I can't imagine what actual professionals are thinking about.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#544

Post by matwood » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC

gsanderson wrote: post #524

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

Donald is weak. He was always going to fold. Once China and the EU called his bluff and retaliated, he was done. Lasted less than 24 hours.

The EU actually executed some strategy. First they said they would love 0/0 tariffs, which sounds fair to pretty much anyone. And when that didn't fly they put on selective reciprocal 25% tariffs. What Trump did looks even more like a clown show.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#545

Post by jauntywundrkind » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

freetanga wrote: post #336

somanyphotons wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link or article title for reading about the dropping of tbills

The scary part is that it has been scrubbed in many sites https://www.ft.com/content/0005e091-930d-46ff-9e81-8591704a9...

Incredible write up. I don't understand a lot of it, but:

> "Hedge funds have trillions tied up in this kind of strategy,” he said. "As things spiral, they’re being forced to sell anything they can — even good assets — just to stay afloat . . . if the Federal Reserve doesn't step in soon, this could turn into a full-blown crisis. It’s that serious."

> One hedge fund manager said: "Those huge hedge funds with trillions of dollars of Treasuries relative value trades will blow up today if the Fed doesn’t bail them out."

https://archive.ph/ArGLp

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#546

Post by magicloop » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #476

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

>From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury You're making it seem that there's a plan ... but what if this is just regular incompetence coupled with capricious behavior from a chaos agent? I'm watching various officials give interviews and all of them are non-committal as it pertains to expectations. Why? Because none of them actually know!!!…

I'd like to expand out why I hold this belief.

The political cohort behind the president is roughly in two halves. The first half are the original MAGA crowd (looking out for the working class, pro-liberty, anti-woke, etc.). The second half are the billionaire crowd.

The second group are active on pod casts, on Twitter/X, and are partly represented in government (directly or as advisors). An easy way to follow up on these people is to watch the All In Podcast or their related social media connections.

What these folks have said for a long time is that if USA stay on the same path, the USA goes broke after 10 years. So if you have long term investment in the USA, you lose your fortune in 10+ years.

This is the key motivation for their involvement in the current executive branch of government. This is why the DOGE program is so well supported by them.

If you lose the battle to reduce the 10-year Treasury yield, you lose the billionaires because they stand to make meaningful losses on a 10 year horizon.

I recognize the plight of the common citizen here; they are the plurality. But the big political levers come from these billionaires (absent a grass roots supported leader in the wings).

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#547

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #479

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The administration has signaled that they expect to negotiate acceptable balance-of-trade deals with the US's Asian allies over the next few weeks. If that happens, I can see businesses being certain enough to make investments. Until then I'm bracing for a recession too.

I don’t get this take. We already negotiated trade agreements. That’s what got ripped up with all this tariff nonsense. Why would anyone expect the US to respect the next negotiation? The damage here was reputational. That can only be repaired with time. It can’t be negotiated.

It's easy for us on the Internet to talk about how untrustworthy the US is and how little a negotiation means. It's a lot harder for trade authorities in a country to tell all their US exporters "hey, the Americans are being obnoxious, so your business is probably going to fail and we're not gonna do much about it". If you asked me to negotiate with the US in this situation, I absolutely would refuse, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening in practice.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#548

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

[deleted]

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#549

Post by outer_web » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #491

SoyAnto wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress does have the power (article I, section 8), however it delegated this power to the president for "extraordinary" situations with certain laws.

> The nondelegation doctrine is rooted in certain separation of powers principles.1 In limiting Congress’s power to delegate, the *nondelegation doctrine exists primarily to prevent Congress from ceding its legislative power to other entities* not vested with legislative authority under the Constitution. As interpreted by the Court, the doctrine seeks to ensure that legislative decisions are made through a bicameral…

Agreed however this court has shown it can dance between originalism, textualism, and tossing both of those to the wind (Trump v Anderson) when it aligns with policy goals.

Also it probably wouldn't even fly with anyone since so many other emergency powers are generally accepted as necessary (i.e. defense). The immunity decision is full of rhetoric about the legislature being too slow for crises.

Their best bet is to invent a time machine, go back to Obama, have Obama pass emergency tariffs, then lobby to repeal that act.

Re: Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

#550

Post by matt-p » Wed, Apr 09, 2025, 8:00 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #485

magicloop wrote: post #397

"It’s the T-bills wot dun it." That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%. From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for every…

This makes some sense... but they didn't pause the tariffs. There's still a 10% tariff on everybody (including on top of Mexico and Canada, who were previously exempted from the tariffs announced last week) and the tariff on China continues to rise to preposterous proportions.

Would it have been too inflationary/recessionary to impose these crazy tarrifs on 'rest of world' AND increase china to 125% at the same time so he simply had to sacrifice one to do the other?