Are We Feeling Liberated Yet? - Trump thread #141

[Spandauer]

King Donald has bigly new tariffs, First Lady Elmo turns out to be ballot box poison and 'Pick Me Girl' Vance is a meanie to the EU.

(But at least the penguins on the Heard and McDonald Islands are wearing suits)

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5297058-trumpmusk-the-doge-and-pony-show-continues-trump-thread-140

Do you have a board? Or is this just empty threats? A board makes it real.

What Trump has done is completely loopy but tariffs themselves aren't. If you want to a) raise revenue from things that have to be imported or b) want business to have a competitive advantage in your own country, they are very useful. The EU has long been the bigliest bunch regarding tariffs, import quotas, and generally running a trade policy that borders on hostile to some other countries.

A big, developed country like the US could be entirely self-sufficient behind a tariff wall, but doing so makes it harder to project soft power.

Larry Summers, MN people

It’s now clear that the @realDonaldTrump Administration computed reciprocal tariffs without using tariff data. This is to economics what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK thought is to vaccine science. The Trump tariff policy makes little sense EVEN if you believe in protectionist mercantilist economics.

https://x.com/LHSummers/status/1907841817740997040

PMK

CANZACEUK

CAN ANZAC EU UK

Pronounced CanzakUK

And any commonwealth and majority world countries that want in. Especially Mexico!

EU? Nah - we value our fisheries. Also they move too slowly.

I lived there for many years. And they are 100% bad asses.

When they sing, ‘stand on guard for thee’ they mean it. And they have a lot of arms.

Fisheries vs existential threat to global peace and democracy? I’m taking option 2. We can firm up and let them join later if they’re slow!

The EU has long been the bigliest bunch regarding tariffs, import quotas, and generally running a trade policy that borders on hostile to some other countries.

Um no.
The EU does not use financial tariffs.
It uses quality rules, petty standards and checks to restrict the trade it does not want.

See also the UK shellfish industry (RIP)

The thing is that tariffs make sense if they're on imports of things you can produce domestically in large quantities. They make no sense on imports of things that you can't. They particularly make no sense on things you need to import in order to produce things domestically.

So everything I have read has suggested to me that these tariffs are going to be bad for the world economy and bad for the US consumer.

So what is the idea behind them? Who do they benefit? Does anyone have any idea?

Thanks, @Wallaw, for the first time ever I’m getting an inkling of how tariffs are intended to work in the real world.

in for the ride

The orange one's big lobster coloured ego.

It's like a crash course in economics, isn't it? If only Trump had decided to attend one...

I think I've recommended this before, it's from Feb, which seems like years ago by now, but it's a fantastic explainer on tariffs, and from a Cato Institute economist, so hardly a raging liberal

https://www.cato.org/multimedia/media-highlights-tv/scott-lincicome-discusses-trump-administrations-tariffs-bulwark

I see ‘the markets were too hot/artificially high they needed cooling down’ has made a return among MAGAs on Twitter.

Well indeed. There's huge tariffs on Lesotho and Madagasca due to the way these tariffs were calculated. I didn't realise you could produce diamonds (Lesotho) or vanilla (Madagasca) in the US? I guess Americans will just have to get used to these being even more expensive or just unavailable.

Just commenting so I can find the thread!

Maybe he isn’t wrong to be keeping the penguins in their place after all.

The benefit is to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US

You don’t genuinely believe that do you?

Won't that just make the cost of goods made in the US for people in the US more expensive - as it costs more to make things in the US than in some other countries?

It uses tariffs (among other things).

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/eu-tariffs-explained/

To be clear, I am not attempting opaque support for Brexit (which I know is contentious) or saying whether I think the EU is 'bad'. My view on the EU is that it has been very good for its members but in terms of international trade and politics it very much looks out for its members first and isn't interested in alliances elsewhere. I think that will have to change if it is to be part of a global effort to stymie the Trump regime. Tbh I see some of its member states rather than the EU fulfilling that role.

Won't happen. Not unless US manufacturing stars paying China wages - and the MAGAts won't accept that.

But even to me, with zero economic knowledge, that seems like a long shot. Markets don’t like uncertainty. We are living in a time of globalisation and the impact of the tariffs will also be felt in the US. Also how long does it take for companies and manufacturers to set up facilities in the US - years? Maybe even a decade or more? Surely targeted tariffs would make more sense. Like here in Ireland we want people to buy Irish beef and Irish dairy so through a combination of advertising, PR and tariffs we encourage people to buy Irish for these items.

i can’t see how this makes sense if you can’t actually produce enough of the “thing” that you have to import.

But I could very well be missing something.