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Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

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

#841

"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…

> But then something flipped.

All those long 8 weeks that people spent complaining about soft power, and the US government spent trying to gaslight people saying that they don't even use the power... The people complaining were talking about something real.

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

#842
post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They said they were going to war with China over the Panama Canal too, yesterday. Using the "most lethal fighting force", apparently.

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

#843

"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…

What about the insider trading that this facilitated? A few parties made HUGE profits with last-minute option trades today.

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

#844
I voted for Trump and I would again in a heartbeat if faced with the same options but this has been dumb. Whole of the Right is running around screaming the "Art of the deal" when literally nothing has been accomplished. Market is still down, bond rates are still high. We trashed relationships with other countries and not a single trade deal has been signed. And he clearly backed down. We still have no idea what the end goal is. Its just dumb. We are objectively worse off than we were a week ago.

He is still delivering for me on the reasons I voted for him but this chapter has been a debacle. Fun part is with Trump as president every week is a chapter, for most presidents a chapter is 2 years. So excited to see what's next.

If he delivers on China and effectively resets the world financial and trade picture in our favor then well done but so far not impressed.

Whole world celebrating the guy who started the fire putting it out.

"Lisan Al Gaib" JFC

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

#845

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incompetence is way more dangerous than people realize. These tariffs are China's Four Pests campaign. Mao, a very trump like figure, decided to protect Chinese crops by destroying sparrows that were picking at them. Killing sparrows killed a predator of insects which did more damage to crops. This coupled with reality denying policies and ignoring experts led to one of the most devastating famines the world has ever…

Both you and OP are not looking at this from the right angle. The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping. US wants nothing to do with China. As the biggest consumer economy in the world, the ha…

"The goal here is to decouple US from China. In the meantime, tariffs are raised on every country to gauge which side they are on. Once US knows who the allies are, they will negotiate to have those allies put up massive tariffs on China as well to prevent transshipping." You literally made this up. There has been no announcement about this from the admin. Its all just speculation.

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

#846

I am beginning to wonder if there is an actual plan behind these moves beyond creating uncertainty in trading partner's minds. The stated goal of the administration is to 'reindustrialize' the US by manufacturing more of the goods consumed within the US itself. To get to that goal, tariff barriers are just one part of the story. For tariffs to be effective towards getting to the strategic goal, they need to be couple…

How about facilitating a monster load of insider trading?

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

#847

"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…

>something flipped. China dumped 500B in treasuries and the basis trade blew up is what happened Tariff deals were still going to happen regardless. The pause is a stop gap for the basis trade (20+x levered), of which an uncontrolled unwinding threatens the entire financial system. Fed already had a bailout facility ready as a plan B. Too big to fail and all that

It's okay, the Fed has been insolvent at least two years now https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3955889-the-fed-is-bankr...

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

#848

i wonder why the rest of the world doesn't just come together for a while and stop trading / providing raw materials to the u.s. for let's say a year or so. isn't this all just a huge pile of bluff poker?

Because their economies would suffer heavily? That's why they are upset about the tariffs in the first place.

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

#849

"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.

Most foreign mutual funds and ETFs are classified as Passive Foreign Investment Companies (PFICs). PFIC investments face complex and often punitive tax treatment. Gains may be taxed at the highest marginal ordinary income tax rate (not the lower capital gains rate). Additional interest charges may apply. Annual filing requirements via Form 8621 for each PFIC

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

#850
What's quite impressive, is that people are so relieved now. The base scenario must have been really bad.

As it is, we get:

- 10% of tarrifs on everybody, 25% on several big sectors, 125% on China. Which is absolutely massive

- any confidence in the sanity of the government absolutely destroyed - 90 days ? He can change his mind tomorrow, or in 90 days. Entirely possible that he forgets this whole thing during the 90 days. How is the tough negotiation with Russia going btw ?

- China that showed it's not afraid of Trump. Trump fired all the bullets he had on China, he can increase the tarrifs to 1000%, it doesn't change a thing. Other than convincing other countries to openly joint US trade war on China, or use of military force, he cannot do anything more I believe.

China on the other hand can wreck havock in many, many different ways. Just look at the bond markets yesterday - nobody knows if it was China or not. But everybody knows China could make it much worse. Same goes for US businesses. Safety inspection in Tesla or Apple suppliers factory ? Why not.

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