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Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries

cnbc.com

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

#961

Post by nemo44x »

bloqs wrote: post #925
nemo44x wrote: post #681

Genius move. Set the trap (massive global tariffs that seem irrational) and wait for target (china) to retaliate. Once the bait is taken, alienate china and take the pressure off everyone else. New reality still departure from previous order but feels better and gives everyone 90 days to figure it out. Meanwhile china is trapped and isolated.

Why not just skip everyone else to start with

1) USA looks far weaker when everyone is included initially. Emboldens china. Then it’s flipped once they commit.

2) Still have a smaller tariff in place but it doesn’t feel as shocking.

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

#962

Post by lotsofpulp »

misantroop wrote: post #611
karim79 wrote: post #559

Is anyone sure this is not stock manipulation? Honest question.

This is pure manipulation. It was engineered to just that from the start. Since it's America, no investigation will be done to look into who profited here - possibly billions off regular people who had margin calls. 3rd world country.

> possibly billions off regular people who had margin calls.

Regular people have no business gambling with levered bets on publicly traded equities. Those losses are their own fault, and they should sell gambling treatment.

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

#963

Post by satellite2 »

motorest wrote: post #897
thfuran wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't pass muster. If they had much interest in balancing the books, they wouldn't be ripping huge holes in revenue collection.

> That doesn't pass muster. If they had much interest in balancing the books, they wouldn't be ripping huge holes in revenue collection. It's not about balancing the books. It's about not making a problem far worse. You remember the global financial crisis of 2008? The reason most of the bailed out countries requested bailouts was their bonds spiraling out of control when they had to refinance their debt. That was th…

While I agree on the direction I don't think the specific argument completely holds.

The countries in this situation in 2008 where European countries that forfeited their central banks. Having relatively recently switched to the Euro made this situation relatively novel and those governments not used to not have access to this last resort tool. There was also a lack of legislation at the European level to give the central bank authority to intervene. And culturally some countries where much more scared by their recent history by the inflation risk. Which led to push backs and delays in the face or urgency. It's now probably roughly sorted at the EU level.

The USA don't have and never had this issue. The position of the FED is very clear: it will never let the US govt default. So the only risk for US bond holders is inflation (and price if they want to exit early).

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

#964

Post by lotsofpulp »

ghaff wrote: post #391
guelo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why cash when inflation is coming?

Cash often refers to Money Market funds and the interest they pay tends to track inflation. There are also ibonds but you can invest a fairly limited amount in them.

Money market funds haven’t tracked inflation for people living in higher prices areas for a long time.

Maybe if you already owned your final house and didn’t need healthcare or education.

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

#965

Post by seanhunter »

magicloop wrote: post #458
thfuran wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't pass muster. If they had much interest in balancing the books, they wouldn't be ripping huge holes in revenue collection.

That's fair but I suggest that they are actually deficit hawks for the long term . In the short term, they've got financing troubles hence they care about the yield.

Everyone’s a deficit hawk in the long term. It’s easy to talk tough on reducing dept at some non-specific time in the distant future probably after you leave office.

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

#966

Post by natebc »

delecti wrote: post #627
matt-p wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also china has 125% tarriff but the reason that they couldn't originally give 10% to Vietnam was trans-shipment of Chinese goods. If it wasn't happening before, it certainly will be now. What's actually wrong with them.

> What's actually wrong with them. Market manipulation. 1. Sell. 2. Threaten tariffs. 3. Buy. 4. Walk back tariffs threats. 5. Repeat. With the secret step 0: Pay enough of an Indulgence to get in the loop of when those are going to happen, and to stay in their good graces so the DoJ doesn't hit you for insider trading.

I wonder how many executive branch staffers and their kin and kind bought the dip?

It's a pretty gross thing to think about.

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

#967

Post by lazide »

casey2 wrote: post #936
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…

Or this is like the long history of American tariffs which gave it world class industry. We are in the midst of a 4th industrial revolution and all this insane manufacturing tech being developed just gets shipped over to china because nobody in the US wants to touch it for fear of failing. For every four pests Mao had 100 successful projects that nobody talks about. Harm reduction is not an optimal strategy for any g…

Name a couple of those ‘100 successful projects’ eh?

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

#968

Post by ashoeafoot »

intended wrote: post #908
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…

You are exporting services. Vast amounts of highly profitable services.

They really did and then they didn't

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

#969

Post by gehwartzen »

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…

I think it’s largely irrelevant now. The cats out of the bag and any country holding large amounts of t-notes and facing hostility from the US will dump them to get Trump to back off.

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

#970

Post by Tepix »

yibg wrote: post #751

With the whiplash of tariffs, upping tariffs, pausing tariffs, I don't know how companies can do any planning. A lot of earnings are coming out next couple of weeks. Take Apple for example, how would they forecast Q2 numbers? They have 125% tariffs on all imports from China. Maybe it'll go up more as China increases their own. Or maybe it gets paused. I feel for the FP&A team there.

No, apple only has 125% tariffs on imports from China to the US. They can send them elsewhere (or parts) and send India-made devices to the US instead for example.
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