61–68 of 68 posts
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They don’t really want to collect tariff $. They want to force production in the US, which the article says is what they are going to do. That’s not a window being jumped through, that’s the intent. Or am I missing something here?
But Trump is also saying that he wants to get rid of income taxes and replace them with tariffs. That suggests that they do want to actually collect tariff dollars long term.
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The US is the world's largest domestic economy. Trade with all nations around the world is 24% of the USA's GDP. You could shut it all down and the country would probably enter a mild recession while the rest of the world would face complete economic collapse. For example, 67% of Canada's GDP is reliant on the United States in some way. The US has an insane amount of leverage. Leaders in Canada, Europe, etc talk a bi…
GDP fell 29% during the Great Depression. 80% of the way to the Great Depression is not a "mild" recession! I agree that it would be less severe for the US than for other countries. It's essentially saying, economically, "Do what I want or I'll kill you." It's a mafia-style negotiation. I despise it when others do it, and I despise that the US is doing it.
Now what has kept Europe stable was the US having a bigger economy, good intentions (as in the intention was to increase ALL trade, not just US' immediate advantage), an unbeatable army and a nuclear armed threat to fight. Perhaps ironically, this approach made the US the most powerful country in the world, when countries that directly pursued their own interests faded, or outright failed (most famously USSR).
This appears to be ending. And every country has politicians just salivating to do what Trump is (or appears to be) doing: getting themselves what they want at any cost to their own country's citizens. Sooner or later they'll come to power and ...
So how do you negotiate as a country, really? If the country you're negotiating isn't a psychotic aggressor at the moment ... the time will come when they are. Doesn't this make war the inevitable outcome?
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Also, they shouldn't be part of 4-front trade war against the country's biggest partners comprising >50% of all trade. "Do something or we'll trade with somebody else" is not a credible threat if they know you've already pissed off everybody else.
The US is the world's largest domestic economy. Trade with all nations around the world is 24% of the USA's GDP. You could shut it all down and the country would probably enter a mild recession while the rest of the world would face complete economic collapse. For example, 67% of Canada's GDP is reliant on the United States in some way. The US has an insane amount of leverage. Leaders in Canada, Europe, etc talk a bi…
Everyone hates tariffs because everyone hates taxes. If a government uses protectionism for a specific policy goal, like developing a domestic auto industry, that can be very effective and we've seen that work lots of times in lots of countries. The US may have recently managed to achieve this with microchip production. But when tariffs are applied broadly we all pay more in taxes. And it's worse than a more familiar…
Everyone hates tariffs because everyone hates taxes. If a government uses protectionism for a specific policy goal, like developing a domestic auto industry, that can be very effective and we've seen that work lots of times in lots of countries. The US may have recently managed to achieve this with microchip production. But when tariffs are applied broadly we all pay more in taxes. And it's worse than a more familiar…
If tariffs work at all (which is doubtful), they're supposed to be part of an overarching plan with a long-term strategy in coordination with industry so that they can actually invest in creating new manufacturing. It certainly isn't going to work when tariffs are going on-off-on-off-25%-200%-10%-off-on-sometimes-off-on again. How in the world is _anyone_, American or otherwise, supposed to plan around this?
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Exactly. The US has revealed itself to be prone to wild swings of policy, which will not be a lesson soon forgotten by prior trade allies. Even if sanity and democracy are brought back by a future adminstration, the US public have proven they can't be trusted not to vote in another clone of their current dictator. DJT Jnr and Barron will probably have a shot at the title in the not too distant future to maintain some…
The US doesn't need to prove to the world that a bad president will never be elected again, which as you say is probably impossible and definitely false. What the US can do to rejoin the world in something akin to its former capacity is to walk back the extreme levels of authority granted to an individual who changes every four years (why is the executive able to change tariff levels every day?) in a way that relativ…
Everyone hates tariffs because everyone hates taxes. If a government uses protectionism for a specific policy goal, like developing a domestic auto industry, that can be very effective and we've seen that work lots of times in lots of countries. The US may have recently managed to achieve this with microchip production. But when tariffs are applied broadly we all pay more in taxes. And it's worse than a more familiar…
Everyone hates tariffs because they are now created by the executive branch of the government at a whim of one person. Undermining democracy and creating economic uncertainty globally.
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I'm hoping that the Democrats (and sympathetic Republicans) started working on a plan for this a few weeks ago. It needs to be comprehensive, and it needs to deal with both houses being majority single party, and deal with the ability for a president to select appointees to the powerful roles that are now filled with Trump catspaws. They also need to fix their voting rules and gerrymandering. I hope.
One thing that might help is if we stop thinking of them as, "they," as if they were some kind of occupying force.