Is anyone watching this Trump car crash?

[soundsys]

WTF is happening? It’s like some bizarre performance art piece.

He’s holding up signs and shouting and throwing out hats it’s just 🤯

Nepal and Bhutan (Nipple and Button)

Watch what he does, not what he says. He could be hiring Americans but goes for the cheapest option.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/16/politics/trump-more-foreign-workers-invs/index.html

Europe should have its own version of the Boston Tea Party and chuck all the Coke and Pepsi into the Med. Drink Fentimans or something home grown🍷

Yep, so we just got the blanket 10% rate instead.

What 39% tariffs? Or are you getting that from Trump’s little chart? The one that purported to show tariffs but actually showed the ratio of deficit to imports for each country?

I’ve spent my afternoon (day off) reading the international online newspapers (with the help of Google translate). It helps get a sense of what people are thinking.
This comment, from the Washington Post comments section, really sums it up…

‘Let’s see now. The USA has been and still is the most prosperous and dominant country in the world in the last one hundred years and also possesses the strongest military power in the world as of right now. And now Trump is complaining that we are being ripped off and robbed by everyone? And that by isolating ourselves, treating our friends and allies as dirt and as inconsequential and causing them economic distress and suffering, that this will make us great, that this will make us revered and admired? Really? Countries will begin to stay away from us because we cannot be trusted. Less people will travel to the USA and less countries will buy from us or invest in our country. Other countries will form other alliances and trade agreements. Other countries will stop buying our products, especially military equipment. What an idiotic policy.’

What goes around.

Somewhere in the house I have an old vintage plastic toy consisting of two hollow 'sticks' with elastic strung between the two sticks. On the elastic is threaded a plastic monkey.

You push up the base and the monkey does summersaults. I haven't seen that in a long time, or even thought about it, but for some reason that came into my mind.

The only way he can put America first is to put everyone else down, because America just cannot make it on it's own.

Very few countries have been ''bleeding America dry''. Even when they have sent aid to parts of the world, it has been countered by the experience their aid workers gain.

American military has gained too, by the experience of the men and women and the practice of their weapons of war. I suspect that for every dollar they have bought priceless experiences.

Look at the fees Universities charge students to study for their degrees and get good jobs. The payment for courses is accepted, hard as it sometimes is to repay.

Every country has to pay for knowledge too, and I bet America has learned a lot from the little they send out in aid.

If they survive.
The US part of my DH company will probably be liquidated because the products they make are manufactured in China. You can’t magic up factories & trained staff overnight. The cost of manufacturing in the US is higher.

It's bonkers but if as I suspect Starmer caves then the bully wins....
Starmer cuts money to vulnerable UK residents
Starmer doesn't tax Uber rich
Starmer offers less tax to US tech rich
So does Starmer actually have a backbone or is he only keen to punch down on the people who can't defend themselves.
That's the question.... I fear the answer.

So having things like minimum wages, safety standards, environmental controls, green energy requirements without tariffs simply results in the export of jobs to those places that do pay sweat shop rates, don't care about workers safety or welfare, don't care about environmental controls (just chuck it in the local river) and have cheap coal fired polluting power.

For all those who want a world without tariffs and for each country to operate on its own competitive advantages then would you be happy if the UK got rid of minimum wages, got rid of safety standards, environmental controls and brought back cheap polluting coal fired power?

America didn't start this , for years countries have imposed tariffs on US goods, now America wants to level the playing field and the world is losing its mind because he called their bluff on the protectionist racket that has put the US at a disadvantage for years .. There is an easy solution, drop all tariffs and let's have real "free trade"

Trump is so entertaining in his sheer craziness that his entertainment value is beyond measure. $$$$$

None of the numbers in those charts are tariffs. They are just a (crude) measure of the countries' balance of trade surplus with the US. Trump is lying by calling them tariffs, and you have bought into it. The weighted mean tariff imposed by the EU on incoming US goods is 2.7%.

This is why Trump got in power.

He stands in front of crowds and tells absolute bullshit.

His supporters just swallow the lies and never fact-check his claims, no matter how wild - as this post aptly demonstrates. They really will believe anything he says.

Agreed and these people SHOULD be ashamed of their ignorance but instead they just keep chanting 'USA! MAGA!' like a mantra of the damned.

well he has crashed the US stock market (as well as everyone else's) so doubt the US population will be very happy with him

Thank you for the explanation. I still can’t quite get my head around why selling USA debt would be bad for them?

Because it would reduce the price and value of the rest of the US debt that they hold. And even if you were to try to sell all of it at once at today's price, you wouldn't be able to, because that price is based on people selling a couple of billion, not 700 billion in one go. So you would lose money relative to your current evaluation of that debt on your balance sheet, and your fiscal rules would likely require you to take that loss into account. It could be done, with a political decision, but it's a bit of a nucular™ option.

I’m amazed none of the gun toting loving Americans not have shot him,
oh, I forgot they are the ones that voted for him.
insane narcissist , only hope is the sane Americans will keep protesting until it’s impossible for the crazy orange one

I managed to get into this article without having to pay - just click on continue without subscription.

It’s excellent and well worth a read. It was particularly good at explaining why blanket tariffs or reciprocal tariffs show an outstanding lack of comprehension in their purpose.

Basically, the new tariffs show that the orange one doesn’t understand basic economics, or trade. And yet MAGAs continue to applaud him, because they don’t understand it either….

Thank you for this @Dolphinnoises - really informative.

OK if you disagree with the tariffs and would like to see free trade are you willing for the UK to have the same levels of CO2 per capita as China, are you willing to do away with green power and revert back to cheap coal fired power like China, are you willing to get rid of safety regulations like Bangladesh, are you willing to get rid of minimum wages, are you willing to get rid of pollution controls?

Because if you aren't then without tariffs all you will do is simply export jobs to those countries that don't have the same standards as the west.

It intrigues me that many in the UK are willing to see UK industry handicapped by tight CO2 restrictions so that they go bust but are then happy to import the replacement products from China which has a higher per capita CO2 emissions.

As my son used to say: "Don't let the pigeon drive the bus"
The American electorate should've paid heed

Somebody has drunk the Kool-Aid...

There is nothing funny about him. He’s a horrific thing, people are being detained, women are losing their rights, families are struggling to buy food, workers are being laid off. This rambling fuckwit has the nuclear codes. How can you laugh at any of it?

Reverting to zero tariffs wouldn't solve anything.

Countries would simply compete on who has the lowest wages, lowest safety standards, lowest pollution controls, lowest workers rights and lowest power prices.

It interesting that so many posters who are arguing against tariffs are silent on these points.