Summary
Global leaders criticized Trump’s new tariffs, which range from 10% to 49%, warning of trade wars and economic fallout.
The UK and Italy urged negotiation, while Brazil passed a reciprocity bill. China and South Korea vowed countermeasures.
Australia and New Zealand rejected Trump’s logic, citing existing trade deals and low tariffs. Norfolk Island was baffled by a 29% duty despite having no exports.
Financial markets dropped, oil and bitcoin sank, and leaders warned of inflation. Analysts say Trump risks fracturing global trade with little to gain economically.
There is simple logic in it. Punish everyone, and then let them come to you asking for exemptions. Then he can demand things in exchange. After that it’s “Pray I don’t alter the deal any further.”
UK already asked for an exemption and he said they should buy chlorinated chicken first. If every country responds in the same way and gives in he’s making bank. If they respond with a boycott on anything American, especially digital services, things get bad.
Well if hes following Project 2025, which it seems based on recent comments by Elon Musk, then hes expecting other countries to remove all tariffs first. As you say, chlorinated chicken, but if you dont then you dont get to sell your healthy chickens to America, and all that money you owe thats denominated in USD becomes very hard to acquire.
Maybe the better option is to allow it but to label it with its harmful chemicals, let the free market decide, in a kind of democratic process of people determining their own marginal utility versus budget constraints. You can still buy cigarettes in the UK and Europe as well, so whats a bit of American chicken versus a lifetime of smoking?
Then next Trump would just threaten with tariffs again until the labeling had been removed. Then he’ll threaten again for their oversized cars. There won’t be an end to this.
Chlorinated chicken…?
Is that as mouth-watering as it sounds?
For when your food grows up in so much squalor that you need to dip them in chlorine to fake the bacterial culture tests.
Oh no.
Have we forgotten that he has done this each month since he was Inaugurated?
Today the stock market will crash on this news. The wealthy will buy on this massive dip, and in a few days, HitlerPig will announce that the countries on his list have responded to his tariff threats, so he is postponing them for a month or so.
The stock market will recover a bit, and the wealthy will make a fortune. In a month, he’ll do it all over again.
It’s deliberate market manipulation.
I am stealing “HitlerPig”
I’ve been using it ever since i heard thats what the younger staffers in the Biden White House called him. I found it simultaneously hilarious, vicious, and accurate. I encourage you and others to use it often.
Agent Krasnov is an acceptsble alternative.
Other suggestions:
Kapo Stephen “PeeWee Himmler” Miller (my favorite)
Steve “Unwiped Asshole” Bannon
Empty G
Lauren Boobert
Big Boobie Bondi
Couchfucker Vance (not very original, but a good reminder)
Gold Digging Whore (the Propaganda Secretary, I can’t be bothered to learn her name)
Traitor also works for all of them. Nazi, too.
D-bag works well enough for my purposes
Sure, whatever works for you.
And we’ll all be destitute for it. Everyone loses when they do this, yes, even they do in the long run. Once nobody can buy a loaf of bread I’m sure we’ll collectively decide right at that moment that the rich actually do taste good and maybe they should pay more in taxes.
Trump’s government has made the US a village idiot - and if the idiot gets into a fight with the whole village, the idiot will have more bruises.
Why he does that - I don’t pretend to understand.
He’s preparing for an authoritarian takeover.
Almost every dictator in history enacted massive tariffs so they had a way to control the economy. Loyal businesses are given tariff exemptions while all the other ones are suppressed. That’s what Mussolini did, that’s what Putin did and now it’s what trump does.
I’ll wonder if that “we need guns to defend ourselves against an oppressive government” statement was true.
All the guns on the world won’t do any good against a missile. Gun nuts are just waiting for an excuse to shoot their neighbors. Jokes on them because no gun can save them from getting 🗡 In their sleep or getting their food ☠️.
And the United States won in Vietnam.
He’s trying to destroy the country. Amassing as many bruises as possible is the point.
The village idiot has more guns than the whole village together. So I’m not sure he will accept the bruises.
Until nukes start flying. I pray every day for the light of a thousand suns. We deserve it.
Vlad Vexler makes the point that the point of is not at all economics but that it does have a basis in logic: it is about asserting that he can do this, that his political power is above economic rationality. It is a political move, not an economic play.
It’s also chaos.
He’s making it so nobody can even trust their own country or economy.
You just have to listen and trust him and Trump will make it right …
Dead horse economics:
Wake up you lazy horse!
No basis in logic if he were actually trying to do what he says he is. He’s not. They make perfect sense if the goal is to destabilize the country. We elected a fucking Manchurian candidate twice, and the in-between term was spent on a bunch of business as usual and not setting up protections in case it happened again. This country is fucking done.
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Someone asked chatGPT how to apply tariffs to give America an equal playing field and it spit it a formula that looks shockingly similar to how trump calculated the tariffs
Try grok and you’ll get an exact match.
None of Trump’s policies have any basis in reality
I’ve been saying this for years - why does anyone listen to him? He has no credibility - his whole life bio shows this clear as day.
Americans are trained from birth to value ignorance as the greatest virtue. Donald Trump represents everything that American culture venerates.
Failing upward. Trump Steaks, Trump University, hell, he couldn’t make money running a CASINO: Trump Castle Hotel and Casino, bankrupt. Trump Plaza Casino, bankrupt. Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, and Trump Entertainment Resorts… all bankrupt.
Now he can add the US economy to his trophy case of participation ribbons.
Norfolk Island was baffled by a 29% duty despite having no exports.
Ahahaha. For a day, I want to be inside his head and see the world through his eyes. It would be the most valuable insight for humanity… If only to learn exactly what not to do.
No thoughts. Only anger at being confused.
More then racism, Trump’s appeal is being a simple answer to a complex question. Which happens to mean racism when applied to race relations, but also harebrained economic policies or injecting bleach into yourself. This is the same man who used a sharpy to change the path of a hurricane on a map rather then admit he misspoke.
It would be like that scene in Braveheart, where the Prince is having servants walk in front of him holding a full length mirror, so he can constantly admire himself.
You know what’s fun? Cancelling stuff and citing the reason as ‘tariff-related inflation’. It’s too new and there is no response script yet, so customer service doesn’t really argue.
So, now $1 per banana is now real, wow. A complete bunch on my country costs that… We are banana exporters we are the banana republic…
It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?
I saw someone say it seems that the tariffs were calculated by dividing our trade deficit by their exports to us and cutting that number in half. Another person analyzed his charts and concluded they look a lot like they were generated by AI.
So, there is, literally no basis in logic. Either one of Trump’s minions calculated what it would take to recoup the difference in the trade deficit and just wrote it down and he announced that as the new basis for international trade, which has never, ever been done, for the reason that it is fucking idiotic, or he asked Gemini how to execute his already objectively stupid policy and wrote an Executive Order making it the law.
And the fact that we are forced to accept people on the Internet’s guesses about how he calculated these numbers may actually be worse than the fact that just about every product on the market more complex than a stapler just jumped about 30% in price.
They published their “methodology” today, and it’s as dumb as you’d imagine: https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations
AI would make a lot of sense, considering that there are uninhabited islands on the list.
I’m dumb but that just means that every product will be 30% more expensive for Americans, right? And the 30% is just… Going to the state or something? So it’s just taxing your ppl?
Effectively, yes. Tariffs are basically just a sales tax. It’s a little more complicated than that but the end result for consumers isn’t really any different.
So, the tariffs make things more expensive for US citizens?
Yes. Its like sales taxes are going up. Unless something is assembled in the US from parts produced in the US there is now a big increase in taxes that must be paid. Most things people buy in the US will now be taxed significantly and thus cost significantly more.
Companies will raise prices to account for what they’re losing on the tariffs.
Heather Cox Richardson, historian of the republican (Lincoln) party said that in her daily newsletter. She cites all her sources.
I don’t buy that Trump has anything to do with the logic behind this world-destabalizing shock and awe spectacle.
The conversation would be different if people stopped attributing authorship to him and acknowledged the massive decades-old machine using him as a mouthpiece.
But it sure makes people feel smart though. Gives them something to meme about while the people who planned this get the real dirt done. Maybe he’ll misspell a country name next… Do another ad for Leon’s dinkeys, Israeli beans or something. Stoopid Donald got poopy pance. lol.
The conversation would be different if people stopped attributing authorship to him
Is there a lemmy channel for those conversations?
UK and Italy are playing Trump’s game. He doesn’t negotiate. He demands tribute and only honours agreements if they are a win for him and he feels like honouring it at the time. Canada has a Trump negotiated trade agreement - the best agreement ever, in his parlance. It is apparently not worth the paper it is written on.
Countries must negotiate trade agreements - with everyone except the USA. And citizens must support their countries by not purchasing any thing from the USA. As for the few Americans that didn’t vote for Trump, so sorry but your fellow Americans still fully support him. So it isn’t “just Trump”, it is America that is the problem. Trump is simply reflecting who the majority of Americans really are.
