Tariffs: What will Trump do next?

[Politruk]

He backed off to please panicked business interests, but he's so committed to the idea of tariffs -- will he raise them again?

 

[LilKitKat]

sounds vaguely familiar...

 

[Politruk]

sounds vaguely familiar...

The similarity has been pointed out.

 

[Wylie3]

He will toss his two headed coin and call tails and once more America will bounce thru turmoil and you lot voted for him.

 

[Bray123]

He'll punish El Salvador for taking so many American exports without paying for them.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I'm honestly shocked it got as far as it did. I genuinely expected that somewhere along the line someone in his inner circle would have told him not to tariff. Then he'd find some creative reason why he couldn't move without Congress or he was bound by UN code LV-462 also known as the Xenomorph Economic Agreement where you cannot raise taxes unless you have tried to bring back wild life from the Antarctic. It doesn't matter if its real or not. It would be enough if Judge Jeniene and Greg Guttfield could talk about how the reason no man's milkshake brings the boys to the yard is because men don't drink milkshakes through straws. OR something like that. This was supposed to quietly go away is my point.

 

[domroger]

Nobody knows,not even the fat,flatulent,fraudulent felon.

 

[Hel_Books]

President Trump says he hasn't the power to retrieve an innocent man from prison in El Salvador, even though he's paying the government of El Salvador millions for the use of that prison!

But somehow President Trump thinks he has the power to rearrange the multi-trillion-dollar (soon to be measured in euros or yuan instead, if this mess continues!) world economy by declaring (and then quickly rescinding) a few "emergency" tariffs?

 

[Politruk]

He'll punish El Salvador for taking so many American exports without paying for them.

Exports in the form of prisoners, of course.

 

[Politruk]

So what happens now?

 

[LilKitKat]

I'm honestly shocked it got as far as it did. I genuinely expected that somewhere along the line someone in his inner circle would have told him not to tariff. Then he'd find some creative reason why he couldn't move without Congress or he was bound by UN code LV-462 also known as the Xenomorph Economic Agreement where you cannot raise taxes unless you have tried to bring back wild life from the Antarctic. It doesn't matter if its real or not. It would be enough if Judge Jeniene and Greg Guttfield could talk about how the reason no man's milkshake brings the boys to the yard is because men don't drink milkshakes through straws. OR something like that. This was supposed to quietly go away is my point.

Yer not a full nerd like me, its LV-426...

 

[Politruk]

There are no Xenomorphs in the Antarctic, but there are Shoggoths. Also huge weird scary penguins.

 

[Wonderer67]

My wife just bought two Hitachi magic wands. She was afraid they might be tarrifed.

Granted, this is a woman who had two magic wands in her whole life, and she’s 67 now. She was always very prepared.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-had-test-case-trade-105010697.html

Been saying watch Japan. They hold a lot of US treasuries and pissing them off is a special kind of stupid. The dropping hints comment just makes you laugh, cry and shudder when balanced back against the Japanese comments. A country holding $1.1 trillion+, maybe less now with the some of the sell-off, should be treated a bit better, well much better. Guess there is not even a "concept of a deal".

The article kind of follows what I know about the stratagem. But that's minimal, and until our election nothing can be quoted as truth. If Carney wins, I suspect Japan and Canada and others will follow a plan to wait Trump out. Those costs are much lower than expanding the trade war.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

i feel for the canadians and mexicans. what has worked so well in the past has been upended by illogical discussion.

From my perspective, this should be a fucking 5 alarm wake up bell for our Government and the Provinces. We have worse trade barriers between the Provinces than we do with say, the USA or even China.

Trump has really gotten the powers that be to start looking at the more painful way to diversify from the US. You can't really blame them,it's just cheaper and easier to be the USA's resource source.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

the path of least resistance is sometimes the easiest short term but costly long term. i'm hoping sanity does come back and we can get back to normal whatever that may be.

It will never be the same I'm sad to say. Trump's spin at the "way back machine" has changed the course of the future.

 

[Politruk]

Trump’s trade war will hit US prosperity hard, IMF warns

 

[Sean Renaud]

Yer not a full nerd like me, its LV-426...

What's that? Did someone just volunteer to go check on global warming in the Antarctic?! I'm pretty sure there re still some openings.

 

[Politruk]

From my perspective, this should be a fucking 5 alarm wake up bell for our Government and the Provinces. We have worse trade barriers between the Provinces than we do with say, the USA or even China.

How can your federation not be a tariff union or free-trade zone? The EU is not a full-blown federation, but it is a tariff union, it started out as one and nothing else. In the U.S. there can be no barriers to interstate commerce but those Congress creates, and it never does.

 

[Justplainjeff]

He backed off to please panicked business interests, but he's so committed to the idea of tariffs -- will he raise them again?

I have a hypothetical question to ask, if I may. How many people reading this think that it is fair for Americans to pay a 110% tariff on German cars, when Germany pays a 10% tariff on American cars? If you do think its fair, tell us why. Just asking.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I have a hypothetical question to ask, if I may. How many people reading this think that it is fair for Americans to pay a 110% tariff on German cars, when Germany pays a 10% tariff on American cars? If you do think its fair, tell us why. Just asking.

Without more information starting with exactly where did you get that data its impossible to say. Its probably "fair" not that fair is what anybody is aiming for.

 

[Politruk]

I have a hypothetical question to ask, if I may. How many people reading this think that it is fair for Americans to pay a 110% tariff on German cars, when Germany pays a 10% tariff on American cars? If you do think its fair, tell us why. Just asking.

What has fairness got to do with it? Every government sets tariff rates according to how it perceives its country's economic interests. In the 19th Century the Whigs and the Republicans both favored a high protective tariff, and not out of any sense that such was "fair" -- the only point, other than raising revenue, was to protect America's infant industrial sector from competition from imports from Britain and Germany, where the industrial revolution was further along and things could be made more cheaply than in the U.S.

Which has not made any sense since the U.S. has become a fully industrialized economy. Now post-industrial. Trump's idea seems to be that high tariffs will re-industrialize America and bring back the old high-wage low-skill manufacturing jobs, but that clearly is not working.

 

[Justplainjeff]

What has fairness got to do with it? Every government sets tariff rates according to how it perceives its country's economic interests. In the 19th Century the Whigs and the Republicans both favored a high protective tariff, and not out of any sense that such was "fair" -- the only point, other than raising revenue, was to protect America's infant industrial sector from competition from imports from Britain and Germany, where the industrial revolution was further along and things could be made more cheaply than in the U.S.

Which has not made any sense since the U.S. has become a fully industrialized economy. Now post-industrial. Trump's idea seems to be that high tariffs will re-industrialize America and bring back the old high-wage low-skill manufacturing jobs, but that clearly is not working.

I realize what Trump wants and facts are two very different things. Even if we wanted, it will take years to start making more items in this country. Even then, they will be just as expensive as the products being imported with the tarriffs. So, where does that leave us? I'm not sure I have the answer.

 

[Politruk]

I realize what Trump wants and facts are two very different things. Even if we wanted, it will take years to start making more items in this country. Even then, they will be just as expensive as the products being imported with the tarriffs. So, where does that leave us? I'm not sure I have the answer.

The idea is that it will leave us with better employment for the working class. But no economist takes that seriously.

 

[Justplainjeff]

The idea is that it will leave us with better employment for the working class. But no economist takes that seriously.

In this instance, I fully agree with you. What Trump doesn't seem to grasp is the question, what will the working class do while the retooling of the American industrial complex takes years to complete? I know I don't have the answer to this question.