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

Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

871–880 of 1001 posts

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

#871

Post by bilbo0s »

ajross wrote: post #868
milesvp wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky There's also a more basic answer to why US debt got more expensive. There is no such thing as a "trade deficit". You cannot import something without exporting something else. That something else, in almost 100% of the situations, is dollars. What do you do with dollars, if there's nothing you want to buy? You buy debt. So, every trade def…

This is all correct, but it's a first principles explanation that doesn't explain why US bonds, and in particular the 10-year note, spiked today . Yes, eventually excessive tariffs would have that result. They literally hadn't even taken effect yet. So this doesn't explain the bond motion today. Someone was dumping, we don't know who or why. But the answer to that question is a lot (a lot ) more important than people…

Hmm.

The problem is that China holds only 2.6% of US Debt as of February 2025. Can they leverage that small a percentage to make a market move like that? Especially assuming they didn't dedicate all of their holdings to that action?

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

#872

Post by marcosdumay »

pavlov wrote: post #244
me2too wrote: post #169

This man's absurdity never ceases to amaze me. How can his supporters appreciate all this - constant - chaos? Moreover, from the outside (European here), it looks like the US president can literally do whatever he wants without being subject to regulations or facing any consequences - pretty much like a dictatorship. No discussion, no parliament, no opposition taken into account. Crazy.

It now feels quaint that, not long ago, people used to speculate what Gödel's loophole was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel%27s_Loophole We're witnessing that there doesn't need to be any single clever actively exploited loophole. A two-party presidential system can become a dictatorship if one party holds just enough power across all branches of government to not resist what their leader wants.

Turns out you only need majority in 4 different contests that are all constantly fluctuating around 50%.

Even if they weren't strongly correlated, you would still be able to do a coup every 200 years or so.

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

#873

Post by [deleted] »

spacemadness wrote: post #650
hayst4ck wrote: post #606

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…

People are so desperate for this to be rational. Which itself is entirely irrational given the information at hand.

[deleted]

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

#874

Post by kalleboo »

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.

He didn't even know that the EU had put in tariffs until a journalist asked him at the press conference after he announced the pause.

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

#875

Post by arandomusername »

mtremsal wrote: post #131
loevborg wrote: post #26

The Chinese are warning their citizens about travel to the U.S. > China issued an alert warning its citizens and students of the potential risk of traveling in the U.S. and attending schools there. > > “Recently, due to the deterioration of China-US economic and trade relations and the domestic security situation in the United States, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reminds Chinese tourists to fully assess the ri…

Many EU countries have done the same in recent weeks. This is less about putting diplomatic pressure, and more about warning people to avoid traveling to the US due to real danger.

Nope, all those warnings were basically "make sure your paperwork/visa is in order" and "gender on passport has to be the one assigned on birth"

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

#876

Post by jeswin »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #694
jeswin wrote: post #671

Contrarian opinion. Irrespective of what you think of Trump, decentralization of production capacity is a good thing — maybe even essential. If this continued for, say, another twenty years, the West and the rest of the world would be completely stripped of all ability to defend themselves. Literally everything from picket fences to rolling stock to tableware is coming from one country.

This is not a contrarian opinion. This is a problem that was recognized long ago and production capacity for strategically important industries has been in the buildup both in Europe and the US. Trump's actions will probably boost European, Canadian and Australian industries a bit more now. Investment in the US will be a hard sell for companies that care about the stability and level-headedness of governments where t…

Well, the contrarian opinion is that this (whatever he did) is a good thing - whether decentralisation happens into the US, Europe or wherever. It's one thing to recognise the problem, and another to attempt to change an uncomfortable status quo.

Every other approach attempted to date has been milder, and hasn't worked. But we'll see if he sticks to it.

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

#877

Post by arandomusername »

sebtron wrote: post #143
loevborg wrote: post #26

The Chinese are warning their citizens about travel to the U.S. > China issued an alert warning its citizens and students of the potential risk of traveling in the U.S. and attending schools there. > > “Recently, due to the deterioration of China-US economic and trade relations and the domestic security situation in the United States, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism reminds Chinese tourists to fully assess the ri…

Multiple European countries have issued travel warnings for the US too.

Travel warnings like "make sure your paperwork is in order" yeah?

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

#878

Post by kalleboo »

jopsen wrote: post #680
shaky-carrousel wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully EU will still go ahead with the tariffs. We should not be dancing at the tune of the mad king.

Yes, but what's the rush here? The EU should do what does best: make things boring. If retaliatory tariffs is the way to go, maybe do it the boring way: considered bit by bit, no flashy announcement. Or just make a 10 year deal on LNG so Trump can say we're paying the US money every year.

> The EU should do what does best: make things boring

Exactly, the absolute best thing the EU could do right now is project stability

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

#879

Post by matheusmoreira »

lawlessone wrote: post #636
milesvp wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky There's also a more basic answer to why US debt got more expensive. There is no such thing as a "trade deficit". You cannot import something without exporting something else. That something else, in almost 100% of the situations, is dollars. What do you do with dollars, if there's nothing you want to buy? You buy debt. So, every trade def…

isn't this also kinda opposed to having the dollar as the dominant world currency? Lots of countries settle trades between each other using dollars. Making it harder to get those dollars will leave them seeking to use something else to trade.

BRICs were making plans to introduce their own reserve currency as an alternative to the USD. Trump once threatened 100% tariffs if they did.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/aggressive-tariffs-f...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-threatens-100-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-02/south-afr...

These developments are going to be interesting.

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

#880

Post by arandomusername »

sleepyguy wrote: post #161
fancyfredbot wrote: post #107

Too late for everyone who spent massively on flying in stock ahead of the tariff deadline. Too late for those forced to sell financial assets in order to pay margin calls. Too late for those working on projects involving foreign manufacturers which have now been cancelled due to tariff uncertainty. Too late for those who lost sales while they figured out pricing. Too early for the people fundraising to build US manuf…

Markets are celebrating. How long before they realize that the China tariffs will destroy the profits of companies like Walmart, Apple, Dollar Store, Harbor Freight, etc, and a 10% tax hike on consumers across the board on all other imports? We are still headed for a recession, and the destruction from the greatest deal maker who ever lived will be lasting. Let's not forget everything else he's doing because there is…

Oh no, not my Apple!

The hike will not be 10% on consumers. In most cases the seller will eat a good chunk of the cost otherwise it won't sell.

Post reply on HN