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 🤯

I have a question, and it's a genuine one. I only follow US politics loosely with peaks and troughs in my interest, so I may well have missed something significant.

If we accept that Trump is simply trying to re-industrialise the US and to reduce the trade deficit by encouraging the US to spend money on items made domestically, what else has been tried to achieve this before?

The tariffs feel like an incredibly blunt and inaccurate stick to achieve this aim, at least in the way that they've been used by Trump. I understand that he doesn't care about the global impact but it's hitting hard in the US too. Companies need money to build new plants, employ new staff etc, so even if his plan was logical, he's destroying any potential for success by wielding such a imprecise weapon that hurts the businesses at home that he needs to grow.

What incentive schemes have been tried? Because surely that's the way to go first before you burn down your trade relationships with other countries?

Countries wishing to export to America have to pay increased tariff charges. How do you suppose they will do that, given that they make very little from the goods themselves?

Wages are low in Asian countries, and working conditions very bad in many. In order to pay the tariff charges, they will either have to pay the tariffs or reduce their prices to make the tariffs less.

Why would you suggest that I think that a good thing? There is nothing in my post to suggest that.

Trump wants those goods to be manufactured in America, so they do not have to import them. He doesn't have the factories set up yet, and American workers - unless he intends to make slaves of them - will not work for such low wages.

Trump has all the hallmarks of paranoia: only he is right and the whole world is wrong, and he has been sent to put everything right again.

He thinks the whole world is against America, that America is the only good guy and every other country has been 'ripping America off', and he has been sent to make sure they do not continue to do that.

Something should be done to stop this stupidity. He thinks that if it is a tariff war, people will not be killed, only wounded, and take the medicine and be made better.

He said when he won the election, that his life had been saved by God so that he could save America. He said he could ''make peace in three days''. Did he, having announced God saved his life, then liken that to the 3 days Christ said he would rebuild the temple? (the Temple was his resurrection on the 3rd day).

Please don't waste your time plucking that out of context, it isn't worth it. It remains to be seen.

How can American voters believe all that? Is he hearing voices as well: ''Go out and save the world'?

Beside that, he has made friendly overtures to Putin and now Ayatollah thingy from Iran.

He is dangerous if paranoid, and someone should be tackling his obvious sickness before the world crumbles.

No one can rule the world. Eventually, there will be mutiny, and aggression from frustration, and an inability to find a solution.

Well, that just isn't true. It is the importer who pays the tariff charges. Countries exporting to America may well find sales falling because their goods will be more expensive for the American consumer to buy, but they won't be required to pay anything. The tariff is paid by the importer who invariably recoups it by increasing retail prices.

He's mistaken, everyone can see it, and he can't admit it. His purported aim, to re-establish USA as a manufacturing and industrial powerhouse, and his means of attempting to do so, are over 100 years out of date. We cannot function in Bigly's dreams of his golden childhood days. Can't believe USA has handed so much power to one man. A man who is tottering into second childhood and dragging the world with him. Insanity writ large.

So many things to say…but .

At least 40% of Americans have no pension, possibly more

10% of the country owns 90% of the stock market

50% are invested at 1%

Trump is about working people, whether you like it or not

So other than tariffs other policies that could encourage re industrialisation and reduce the trade deficit include:

1. Government subsidies on exporting companies- this is kind of the flip side to tariffs. Rather than raise money from tariffs the Government spends money on subsidies to make their own products cheaper than competitors. The problem here is that a) it costs taxpayers money and b) companies become dependent on the subsidies.
2. Deliberately devalue the exchange rates in order to make exports cheaper and imports more expensive- however this can lead to higher inflation because imports such as oil and gas become more expensive.
3. Non tariff barriers such as complex and burdensome import rules. This has the same effect as tariffs except it doesn't raise any money.
4. a buy British or American or whatever campaign to boost home manufacture. It has a limited impact- people buy what they want to buy not what they are told to buy plus it only works for certain products - eg for the UK it doesn't work for bananas because the UK doesn't make them.

The US and the UK do have trade surpluses in services but nowhere near enough to offset the trade deficit in goods. And also it's not easy to retrain an ex steelworker to be a multi media design consultant. Instead these people and their families are just left to rot on the fringes of society often with drug, alcohol and health problems.

I agree that the tariff policy is a risky gamble but I have seen no other proposed solution on this thread to fix a $1.2 trillion per year trade deficit which is completely unsustainable.

Hamsters, read your own post. Then read it again and again until you realise that you are praising the man who will/is bringing unnecessary grief to the people you mention.

So that leaves two options:

1. The US has the same low levels of pay as the poor exporting countries along with low safety and environmental standards and low dirty power prices so that it can compete with these countries or:
2. It uses tariffs

Trump has definitely proved he is willing to upset the apple cart. I don't know if these tariffs will work or not but enough people were pissed off about the direction the US has been heading in over the last few decades to be prepared to roll the dice on Trump.

Do you genuinely believe this nonsense that he cares for the working class?

I personally think on this and have done for a while that the next big thing is AI.

In 10-15 years AI is going to be as intelligent as humans (this is fact).

So all that Trump has done is put, unwittingly, an accelerator on the AI economy transition.

How? Because the only thing in this nonsense that companies can control are payroll costs. There's no way an American company that imports components to make things is going to invest millions into factories, when Trump only has 3 or so more years to serve. A new president will reverse these tariffs. Instead they will lay off staff and reduce payroll to survive, and the big tech companies will continue to invest heavily in AI automation, so there will be less human jobs. A while back Heads of major companies asked for a pause on releasing the next version of chat GPT because it's moving faster than humans can keep up with.

Well we are now moving even faster towards that.

Wow the MAGA supporters were out in force through the night.

Listening to DSR this morning seems Trump has indeed been benefitting financially. He offloaded a fair amount of Truth Social stock right before tanking the markets. Feels a lot like insider trading to me but what do I know, I’m just a lefty conspiracy nut.

Also seems Lutnick and Ackerman have been buying stocks in various companies nice and cheap. Of course they’ll then hold onto those until the markets recover.

I can’t honestly believe that anyone with half a brain cell can think Trump is for the working class man or indeed for anyone other than himself.

Trump wants to reduce Americas trade deficit by bullying other countries into accepting deals that will be highly detrimental to them and hugely damage their economies, their own health and welfare for the foreseeable, and thinks he can just force them into doing it. I hope he isn't right. I would rather Americans suffered the consequences of their actions than us, and that we, and other countries hold fast. He wants us to reduce our animal welfare and food hygiene standards ( the UK and EU) so that we can be flooded with low quality, minimally nutritious US food because their intensive food production produces so much low quality produce they need to be able to get rid of it and palm it off on the rest of the world. Its the only sticking point on the UK/US trade deal and why he hates the EU. He also wants the US tech industry to be able to do as much harm as they like and again, pay no tax in other countries ( even 2% digital services tax is too high for him and his tech bro buddies). We need to hold fast, make deals with other countries and leave the US to it, not give into the bullying.

He doesn't care about this. He knows its catnip to him MAGA base. He's all about the easy options, with no thought, and he thinks he can use tariffs to bully people (apart from his puppetmaster Putin). He will not invest in the US economy, or suddenly find loads of workers to manufacture cars at scale in the US.

So following on from your classic tanker ship collision conspiracy theory we now have the "Trump offloaded shares in Truth Social" before the stock market tanked conspiracy theory.

Still if you are happy bringing out the hard left conspiracy theories then I'm happy to keep debunking them with truth and reality.

The reality is that Trump did not actually sell any shares in Truth Social before the tariff announcement. What he did do is make it possible for the shares to be sold at some future point. Yes the timing doesn't look great but no shares were actually sold and no financial gain was made.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/interesting-truth-social-moved-sell-184740434.html

Anyway whilst we are on the topic of conspiracy theories do you have any views on the lunar landings, Princess Diana's death or 9/11 that you would like me to comment on? As I'm happy to help.

Hard left conspiracy theories, is that really the best you can come up with?

I think it’s best we agree to disagree and don’t engage any further for the sake of my blood pressure to be honest. You’re speaking bullshit and you know damned well.

They’re a one trick pony who can only regurgitate what their dear leader says. Anything that undermines the narrative is clearly a hard left conspiracy…

So the statement that Trump offloaded shares in Truth Social before tariff announcement sending the stock market crashing and therefore committed illegal insider trading was factually incorrect, which I was happy to correct.

Admittedly as conspiracy theories go it wasnt as batshit ridiculous that the Russians deliberately organised the collision of the two ships off the Humber Estuary but it was still factually incorrect and a false allegation.

For clarity I am no fan of Trump but I will always seek to correct factually incorrect statements and false conspiracy theories.

You see the truth and facts actually do matter and the statement that Trump sold shares in Truth Social ahead of the tariff policies release was simply not true (bit like the tanker collision theory).

Not every incorrect fact is a conspiracy theory though…
Sometimes it’s just an incorrect fact.

Truth and facts do indeed matter, has anyone told Trump that?

True - but falsely stating that Trump sold shares in Truth Social ahead of the tariff announcement committing a criminal offence and profiting from the sale is not an incorrect fact it is a conspiracy theory.