Thread: tariffs - is the plan cunning or stupid

A cunning plan that you started a thread

Forget six months, dozens of NGO and US agencies throughout Africa have already had funding frozen or been given marching orders. CDC not allowed to work with WHO anymore, real time sharing of data and pandemics will be hampered, country data sets no longer accessible, millions of anti retro viral AIDS drugs no longer allowed to be supplied.

American schools that have embassy kids might lose numbers as parents lose jobs. A local realtor told me that they’ve had dozens of requests from US embassy and agency staff looking to downsize since the government won’t be paying their rent anymore but they still want to stay there.

401Ks will take a beating when Wall Street gets bashed up by Trump’s shenanigans.

I despair.

Like Dirk Gently, I believe in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, so the Orange Baby's actions will ripple out to us all, in one way or another.
I was hoping Colombia would be first on the list, then we could see them dumping their coffee on world markets at a lower price. Of course the Thai importers wouldn't pass along those savings, so in the end I'd be no better off.

The plan is very stupid because the US will suffer greatly as in loss of jobs and inflation. Trump promised to bring jobs to the US, but didn't warn the people that this would cause inflation and prices to rise.

It will probably cause a recession in Canada and we will retaliate by cutting off our oil/gas and possibly electricity to the US. Things could get ugly real fast.
Canada will also lose thousands of jobs due to 25% tariffs. Trade war incoming.

Originally Posted by misskit

401Ks will take a beating when Wall Street gets bashed up by Trump’s shenanigans.

I despair.

Yes, this is the bit I fear. The foreign equivalents of 401Ks will also be hit hard. One upside is the GOP will be hammered in the mid-terms.

as has been pointed out previously , american manufacturers just raised their prices to match the cost of their competitors imported products

this idiocy is going to be a systemic shock to the world - as america descends into chaos - I would expect an increase in civil disobedience

the wall street journal has published an editorial calling the tariffs dumb

Wall Street Journal editorial calls Trump tariffs ‘dumbest trade war in history’ | Trump administration | The Guardian

“reminds us of the old Bernard Lewis joke that it’s risky to be America’s enemy but it can be fatal to be its friend”, adding that with the exception of China “Mr Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense.”

It added: “Drugs may be an excuse since Mr Trump has made clear he likes tariffs for their own sake, pointing to Trump’s comments on Thursday that the US doesn’t need oil or lumber from its neighbors.

“Mr Trump sometimes sounds as if the US shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home,” the editorial continued. “This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr Trump may soon find out.”

^Great article.. true that Trumps tariffs makes no sense, it is all about power and money for Trump imo.

Canadian LCBO's have already taken American alcohol off their shelves, and people are buying locally made products as much as possible.

This is Canada's plan against U.S Tariffs.

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-...s-tariffs.html


Our CAD dollar hits a 22 year low today. Drops in the EU and Mexican peso as well.

Canadian dollar hits 22-year low, US dollar surges after Donald Trump imposes tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico | Stock Market News

I'm concerned 47 has only just started and that there's way more to come. Other countries will be in Trump's sights and Trump will want to smack Canada again for its outrageously piss poor spending on defense.

Trump’s trade war isn’t as mad as it seems

The Donald is right to challenge the prevailing anti-tariff orthodoxy


02 February 2025 2:45pm GMT
Tim Stanley


After Trump slapped tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, economists of Left and Right called him a lunatic: protectionism surely means higher prices, disrupted supply chains, trade war. Super triple bad!

Yet philosophically it makes sense, and the inability of journalists to see the President’s point of view betrays how far free trade has become a religion – a faith, like any other, that’s prone to myth and hypocrisy.

The myth is that free trade built America and is an axiom of conservative thought. In reality, throughout the 19th century, taxes on imported goods provided over half the government’s revenues, and Republican presidents saw them as essential to expand industry and protect US workers from cheap products and labour. To quote President William McKinley, Trump’s mountainous hero: “Free trade results in our giving our money… our manufactures and our markets to other nations... It will bring widespread discontent. It will revolutionize our values.”

That consensus ended with the Depression, which appeared to discredit economic nationalism, and the Cold War, which transformed America into the referee of a new international system. Free trade graduated to orthodoxy. Yet even Ronnie Reagan used tariffs – against Japan – and Joe Biden imposed a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric cars, also tripling taxes on some steel and aluminium products. “If the pandemic taught us anything,” said Biden, “we need to have a secure supply of essentials here at home.”

The EU remains a cartel, charging the US around 8-10 per cent to sell cars in its market. In short, economic protection is a fact of life, and comes in multiple forms – from subsidies to currency manipulation to environmental or labour standards –indicating that it is natural for human beings to tip the scales in their favour.

From the White House it looks as if America is currently carrying the weight of the world on its shoulders. The country pays about $820 billion to defend the West while operating a trade deficit worth $773 billion. Its border is overrun by illegal migrants and drugs. In 2023, around 81,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses; a key source of illegal fentanyl is China, coincidentally America’s #1 competitor, routed through Mexico via drug gangs.

You might argue that addiction is a problem of demand, not supply, but to the reactionary mind, migrants, foreign cars and drugs amount to an invasion by other means. Brits agonise over the fact that Americans make more money than us, yet that advantage is being whittled away by crippling medical bills and early deaths – signs that an apparently strong nation is, like the late Roman empire, overwhelmed and crumbling from within.

So, Trump wants to use tariffs to force foreigners to show some respect. When the US recently tried to repatriate migrants to Colombia, the Colombian government refused to play ball. Trump threatened tariffs and visa sanctions; the Colombians folded an hour later and offered to send their presidential plane to collect their people.

Trump tried similar tricks in his first term and even free market Republicans made their peace with what they hoped was a temporary tool of foreign policy coercion. The interesting question, the one that really matters, is this: does Trump Mark II, emboldened by a new majority, now want to make these tariffs permanent in order to rebalance the domestic economy away from taxes on income and towards taxes on imports? To quote that gold standard of US journalism, USA Today: is this about “revenge” or “revenue”?

For there really is a moral case for tariffs. In a protectionist state, goes the argument, there is less need for welfare because jobs are plentiful; less incidence of social unrest because wages are high.

Prices might go up – though they barely did in Trump’s first term – but that’s the whole point. While income taxes penalise effort, tariffs, by hitting consumption, encourage frugality and saving. Citizens grow their own food, make their own products and defer pleasure, all critical ingredients of the Protestant-capitalist ethic. The rhetorical link between addiction and free trade/open borders is apt. Trump wishes to make his country not just great but sober and independent, weaned off the opium of cheap Chinese imports.

To those who say, “this is a variety of social engineering”, one might reply: “so is net-zero”. Few of us practice economics objectively; it’s a means to build the society you want.

Trump has thus dragged a latent culture war into the open. On one side are liberals who believe the world must pool resources and sovereignty to save the planet. On the other, nationalists argue that however well-intentioned this is – even if anthropogenic climate change is real or the global south has a legitimate claim for reparations – what it means in practice is powerful democracies losing their edge.

The world is a jungle. Nation states, like individuals, should put their own people first. We can carry on down the path of signing treaties and lowering barriers and, for a while, it will make Americans feel like the strongest consumers in history, driving off to see their oxycodone dealers in their cheap little electric cars. Till the day comes that China says it wants Taiwan, and Beijing is too strong for anyone to stop it.


© Telegraph Media Group Holdings Limited 2025

Originally Posted by taxexile

To quote that gold standard of US journalism, USA Today

Take that, Trump!

Epic!

Originally Posted by taxexile

Yet philosophically it makes sense, and the inability of journalists to see the President’s point of view betrays how far free trade has become a religion – a faith, like any other, that’s prone to myth and hypocrisy.

tariffs should only be imposed to level the playing field for workers rights and safety , environmental protections and government subsidies

the human windsocks last attempt at subsidies caused an increase in farmer suicides

A Golden Stream for the olden ream

Earlier today, tariffs on Mexico were “paused”. The White House just announced they’ve done the same with Canada.

^


Stock futures jump after Trump pauses Canada tariffs

Stock futures rose Monday night after U.S. President Donald Trump paused planned tariffs on goods from Canada, just hours after a reprieve was also announced on planned tariffs against Mexico.


Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 180 points, or 0.4%, higher. S&P 500 futures added 0.6%, while Nasdaq 100 futures
gained 0.8%.


Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in a post on social media site X shortly after 4:30 p.m. ET on Monday that Trump agreed to halt the implementation of tariffs against Canada for at least 30 days, bringing bullish sentiment back into the market.


A flurry of recent announcements around Trump’s long-awaited tariff plans have put investors on edge.


Stocks are coming off of a volatile trading session, in which the major averages made a striking turnaround after an initial global sell-off. At its session low on Monday, the 30-stock Dow fell more than 600 points, or nearly 1.5%, after Trump signed an order over the weekend to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, plus a 10% levy on China. Investor sentiment turned around on Monday afternoon, however, after Trump said his duty on Mexican goods would be would be paused for one month.


Ultimately, the major averages ended Monday well off their lows of the day, but they still booked losses. The Dow slipped 0.28%, while the S&P 500
fell 0.76%. The Nasdaq Composite
dropped 1.2%.


“We are in a bull market fueled by a strong U.S. consumer and rising corporate profitability. Until something cracks with this narrative, I believe dips are buyable,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird. “Investors should prepare for more market volatility related to trade uncertainty, but we think the overall backdrop for investors remains quite solid.”


Mayfield said he thinks that China tariffs will likely remain in place as they did during the first Trump administration, but this time around, the White House views “trade as a means to exert non-trade concessions.”


Elsewhere, a huge earnings week awaits investors. Alphabet, Merck and PepsiCo are on the docket for Tuesday. Amazon and Eli Lilly are among the names that will report later this week.


On the economic front, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for December is due on Tuesday, as well as durable orders. The main event this week will be Friday’s January nonfarm payrolls report, which will add further clarity to the employment picture.

Stock market today: Live updates

Originally Posted by beachbound

Earlier today, tariffs on Mexico were “paused”. The White House just announced they’ve done the same with Canada.

What a circus. It's going to be a really long four years.

It's as if they want uncertainty for short selling scams

Originally Posted by 39TG

What a circus. It's going to be a really long four years.

Word.

What an absolute farce.

What a total [at][at][at][at].

well, canada mexico and the eu will just have to negotiate with him. china will be next. he is perfectly in order to threaten tariffs. the eu have been doing it since day 1.

mexico is giving trump what they had already promised biden
canada is giving trump what they had already promised biden

trumps acolytes are praising his negotiating skills - eh tax

do you remember back when obama negotiated with the iranins to get access to their nuclear program if america released 450 billion of frozen assets ? and the trump came in and withdrew from the " iran deal " , and let them keep the 450 billion ?

the turd is a stable genius and it shows with his business acumen