The world reacts to Trump's sweeping tariffs: 'No basis in logic'

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 ..

In a just world, Trump would still be sitting here, wondering where his daughter is.

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.

Oh no.

For when your food grows up in so much squalor that you need to dip them in chlorine to fake the bacterial culture tests.

Chlorinated chicken..?

Is that as mouth-watering as it sounds?

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?

Until nukes start flying. I pray every day for the light of a thousand suns. We deserve it.

And the United States won in Vietnam.

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 ☠️.

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.

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.

Try grok and you'll get an exact match.

Definitely not. Nor is he a small, pixie like creature

Trump is not buff.

buffoon

That's why they installed a Russian asset as president and why he has been destroying the US's global influence and economy for the last 3 months.

I hate the fact that you are correct.

no. the US is still the boot

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.

It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?

https://youtu.be/Nl_Qyk9DSUw

They should tariff Israel a lot more

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.

Americans are trained from birth to value ignorance as the greatest virtue. Donald Trump represents everything that American culture venerates.

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.

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.

So, the tariffs make things more expensive for US citizens?

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.

Companies will raise prices to account for what they're losing on the tariffs.

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?

Heather Cox Richardson, historian of the republican (Lincoln) party said that in her daily newsletter. She cites all her sources.

The conversation would be different if people stopped attributing authorship to him

Is there a lemmy channel for those conversations?

40 years ago knowledge workers were in high demand, and IT was booming. Now, IT is enshittifying, so what do the workers do next? Where do they go?

I mean we did like 40 years ago...

tell that to the workers

because one specific kid was unruly

>

Edit: There wasn’t even an unruly kid.

Well, outsourcing labor was a mass phenomenon in the last 50 years.

I agree that a plan is needed. Still, what would be the other parts of the plan? Tariffs are the only really impactful measure, it seems to me. Tariffs on import and subsidies on export.

Also, maybe Trump is so "on-off" with the tariffs to give companies a warning to bring back manufacturing to the US, and them lifting them again to not cause a recession, giving them a few years to set up the infrastructure, and then re-install the tariffs. One needs to look for the "good outcome", sothat one steers in that way.

well yeah i agree that giving companies time to move back would have been better.

You can't just flip a switch to have manufacturing moved to the United States overnight or even five years. Not to mention that even raw goods needed to even start the process that are being tarriffed like aluminum just doesn't come out of nowhere. This is a dumb sledgehammer approach that's going break more things than it fixes

I think you're kind of being unfairly downvoted because it's definitely underappreciated how much tariffs are used in modern trade deals.

Putting selective import tariffs on certain goods (like say car manufacturing) might be a wise move if you want to encourage the US to develop a manufacturing base. It's worth noting that the US, and most other countries have been doing this selectively for years.

This is reeeaally far from the tariffs that have actually been anounced though, which are the highest rate the US has had in around 100 years, and applied pretty indescriminately. There are some goods that the US just can't produce itself (like certain rare earth minerals that aren't in the USA) but even worse, because of the insane logic of applying them to countries as they have been done, it opens up this type of event:

• A comany like Apple might assemble laptops in the US, but import parts like chips from, say, China.

• They now have around a 40% tariff on all chips, which is really going to drive up cost, and leaves them with two options.

• Option one, they bring all manufacturing into the US, which would take a long time to build up the infrastructure, and still really ramp up the price because wages in the US are so much higher than they are in China

• Option two, they outsource *everything* to say Mexico or Canada who don't pay the tariffs on Chinese chips, and just pay the wholesale import tariffs are needed to bring things from Mexico/Canada to the US. They also get to skip out all the reciprocal tariffs that other countries are placing on the US in retaliation for the recently announces ones when they import out to, say, Europe.

Even option one is bad, because Apple might sell laptops internally, but the newly increased price makes them super uncompetitive with rival firms overseas, so it might still lead to a loss in overall jobs for US workers.

I'm not pretending this doesn't suck - but US based international companies like Apple have a clear incentive to just forgoe the US as much as possible now. This kind of risk is why countries have traditionally been very conservative with changing tariffs.

I think you're probably right that there might be an argument for countries to be less conservative than they have been, but the US government just cranked up the dial from 0 to 11 and we're all about to find out what that might look like in real time.

You need to have a plan in place before doing this to even think about bringing manufacturing back here. And tariffs need to be like the last part of the plan

U.S. factories in most cases cannot produce goods that are competitive in a global market. Our labor costs are too high.

This idea that we can revive American traditional manufacturing of basic goods is a complete fantasy. The factories in Vietnam aren't going anywhere, *because they will still be selling to the other 95% of the globe outside the U.S.* Even if factories are stood up in the U.S., they will be constrained to producing higher-priced goods exclusively for the domestic market, with all the attendant inflationary impacts from start-up costs and higher labor costs.

Meanwhile, retaliatory tariffs from other countries will cause the collapse of U.S. exports. We'll lose markets for the sectors where the U.S. is still competitive, like agriculture, advanced manufacturing, and even services.

Trump's approach is similar to the failed development strategy of import substitution industrialization, except in this case he thinks it will cause the U.S. to reindustrialize. In any case, it will fail for the same reasons ISI failed in Latin America.

>But tariffs are the only thing that actually forces companies to put the factories back to the USA. Or do you have a better idea?

I mean no... And, how about accepting that the US is no longer a manufacturer, and that's just fine in a global economy

Maybe calculated tariffs on commodities where companies are contemplating outsourcing, but that's a step you take in advance in order to dissuade their action. This is like making the whole school sit with their heads down through recess because one specific kid was unruly.

Edit: There wasn't even an unruly kid. The Principal is just vindictive, has a hangover, and hates children.

Who is going to invest many millions in setting up a business to make something when they have no idea what fuck-nugget will do next week that might fuck them over? Where are they going to source the raw materials when no one will want to trade those materials to a market that wants to fuck them over? How are Americans going to pay for these goods that will be more expensive than they are under the previous set up? This is abject stupidity that makes America poorer. There is no Eden at the end of this and Joe Public will bear the brunt of it.

Yeah. That's rhetoric people like you have been fed to justify your consumerism.

Exactly

Yes, boomers are responsible for what there generation did. We're responsible for what our generation is doing.

Don't misconstrue my criticism of the current youth as exoneration for the previous generations.

Like it or not, it's a lot easier to manipulate young people into spending their money than it is older people. This is directly related to the concept of consumerism and how the powers that b have convinced yet *another* generation to follow in their parent's footsteps of "those who have more deserve more, and those who have less deserve less."

Your point of view sounds a whole lot like the 2500 year-old history of blaming young people.

In reality, however, it's the Boomers who are largely responsible for the world we find ourselves in, not the 20 year-olds. Electing Reagan twice, by itself, was more harmful to American society and beneficial to consumerism than anything Gen Z has done.

lol you sound like such a boomer

Calling young people consumerist is just blaming them for circumstances of which they had no real control.

What? Have you heard the music they listen to? Gucci this, versace that. Have you seen the celebrities they look up to? Gold chains this, expensive tattoos that. Don't even get me started on the cars that cost more than my house.

Just try suggesting to them that delivery apps are scams or that they can be getting most of their digital entertainment for free and see what reactions you get.

No, they are proud consumers doing their part to keep the disparity in wealth growing.

Textbook Stockholm Syndrome.

You're so dependent on what your abusers provide, it distracts you from what they take away.

>So again: Fall in line or die. Those are our options. If you don’t like it that’s really too bad. Such is life.

Life is only this way because there are more people like you than people like me. Good job being a part of the problem instead of the solution.

Those "Abusers" protected and regains a ton of my rights, especially with laws regarding my spouse and sexuality. I've seen them do this for *twenty years*.

Those "Abusers" have a tried and tested track record of voting in my interests. To the point where I actually get annoyed that I *cannot* find a good reason to primary them. I can see blue dogs in other districts, but they aren't the people I can vote on. Only campaign against.

Those "Abusers" have weathered crazy amounts of absolutely batshit insane abuse, much of it very personal, from our mutual enemies. More than a few of those "Abusers" have had people literally try and assassinate them.

I'm going with people who have solved problems; and when, not if but when, your candidate is up for the block I'll be supporting *them* too. because *we are allies* and our *political enemies want us dead.*

So again: Fall in line or die. Those are our options. If you don't like it *that's really too bad.* Such is life.

See, it's that kind of panic that causes people like you to flock to your abusers again and again.

I'm done supporting my abusers. You should be, too. Then we can actually start solving problems instead of just *losing slower.*

Our options on the left are to unite yesterday or die.

There isn't really another option anymore. People are dying, now, because we can't rally.

Clearly smarter than you at the very least

Lol. You must be very smart.

Insanely stupid logic and thought process

Yeah. That's how it works. If you don't get involved you effectively support the party that wins. Lol

By that logic they would’ve supported Kamala by not voting had she won. Dumb

Realistically, it's the fault of people voting for shitty candidates. That's not a matter of opinion, but of fact.

It is always someone else who is at fault for Trump except Trump himself, the Republicans, and people like you who didn't vote.

Nut had me when he blamed democrats for Trump. Not the actual Russians propping him up and the NRA who was funneled money from Russia to give to Republicans.

Why?

Democrats and Republicans have spent the last eight years convincing the poor and middle class that voting doesn't matter. Hell, Democrats even subverted their own primary rules twice to strike that point home, and then argued in court that it was their right to do so when they were sued for it.

I vote, but I can't pretend it matters much when I watch most people in this country across the last eight years working gig jobs for 100 hours a week and all their labor can buy for them is a roach-infested studio regardless of where they live, and our president always has money and time for genocide.

Because that means you supported Trump, regardless of what you say, your actions helped put him in power.

If you're mad at me for not voting, blame the people who keep nominating establishment candidates.

Every ounce of effort you spend trying to convince me to vote for the lesser-evil would be better spent convincing people not to nominate the lesser-evil.

You had me right up to "I didn't vote".

I don't think this is a generational thing, personally, unless we're talking about the Boomers.

The Boomers took a vibrant, beautiful world and spent two generations driving it into this McDonaldized hellhole we live in, after reaping the benefits of the most prosperous economic period for workers in our history in the 1960's. They're still profiting now thanks to the lopsided tax policies that favor people with wealth.

The vast majority of the country only has one or two choices when shopping for necessities now, so I can't really blame them for the world that they were born into. Calling young people consumerist is just blaming them for circumstances of which they had no real control.

Sure, whatever works for you.

D-bag works well enough for my purposes

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 *removed* (the Propaganda

Secretary, I can't be bothered to learn her name)

Traitor also works for all of them. Nazi, too.

I am stealing "HitlerPig"

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.

This is unironically a great deal for him and his cronies and an awful deal for the working class.

I swear, it's just distraction after distraction, obstacle after obstacle that keeps us from toppling the ruling class. Anytime we get anywhere close to doing something significant, it's like the useful idiots come out in droves to make sure "NOPE NOPE NOPE, gotta keep history repeating itself!"

I wish I took my teachers and intelligent peers more seriously as a kid. I didn't realize how lucky I was to be surrounded by such great, smart people. I took them for granted, and now that I'm out in the real world I see exactly how stupid the average idiot is.

It's scary. Terrifying, even. There's so many of them and they all use that as justification for why they're right.

It's possibly the most stupid basis for tariffs. The penalty is directly proportional to U.S. reliance on a country's imports. The countries that are the most important suppliers to the U.S. are penalized the most. It's a policy designed to cause maximum reshuffling of production, which maximizes the start-up costs of developing new factories and so on. And those factories are not going to be in the U.S. Import substitution industrialization is a failed policy and it won't work for reindustrialization either.

The depth of stupidity of this Administration will be studied by mathematicians for centuries as a new form of fractal.

they have it hard enough already without tarrifs. wasn't it last year or the year before where an entire colony of emperor penguins had every single chick die that breeding season? that's extremely sad. but sure, hit 'em with tarrifs too, why not

McDonald's fucked up his order recently which is why their island received tariffs.

He's going to get free hamberders for life when they cave.

True. Those freeloading penguins.

Maybe this is some 5D chess move against the rise of penguins

These penguins managed to put USA into trade deficit with the island somehow?

Give him some credit (not a lot). What if China were to give these penguins cars to resale? Middle men penguins is what they are. They should call the island Midway island, a term invented by his assholness.


There are penguins! 🐧

He's imposing tariffs on uninhabited islands... what a fucking moron...

They're mostly [Trade deficit]/[Exports to US]

Which is a fucking stupid basis for tariffs.

Don't worry, they are working on removing those as well.

Oh no. Anyway...

Yeah, fools think everyone is worth arguing with.

Gonna block you, too.

it's not really arguing if you're not making a point though, is it? it's just insulting people and refusing to explain why. that's not the same thing as arguing.

"I'm too smart to deal with the likes of you."

Riding that dunning-krueger curve like a pro fucking surfer.

Arguing with you people is a waste of time.

I'm going to ignore you now.

Still it was too difficult for you to express your own opinions. Too scary?

I would tend to agree with the process part of accelerationism, but I don't think there is a goal.

The "crazy like a fox" theory is contradicted by several pretty dumb tells that suggest the administration is headed and staffed by actual idiots.

I got around to reading the article. Damn that is what seems to be happening!

This is not the end goal.

Anyone who believes this without critique is incapable of autonomous thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism

End goal.

Seems to be what a lot of the far right want. It's essentially what Brexit has done to us in the UK

they’re already crying about it.

Fuck zionists. I hate them all.

17% and they're already crying about it.

Ironically it's the closest the US has gotten to a BDS policy in its history with Israel.

or something ultra specific that is super easy to source from any other country, to exclusively hurt the american businesses

That was part of what went into how Canada chose the targets of our first rounds of counter-tariffs.

Product categories that we also make here, or can easily get elsewhere or can comfortably do without for an extended period of time.

That combined with a consumer led boycott of anything "made in the USA " and even staunch Republicans like Mitch McConnell are *starting* to push back against Trump.

Nice mention of AdNauseam, here is a link:

https://adnauseam.io/

It's based on uBlock Origin, so still state of the art in ad-blocking.

Someone needs to create plugins not to block data being sent, but to send inordinate amounts of trash data.

Make the whole system pointless.

MY wording?

You were the one claiming marvel movies weren't.

Sure, but that wording becomes detrimental when you only expect high-quality things because that's what you associate with art, forgetting that there is also entertainment that doesn't need to be high quality necessarily.

Everything done with skill is art. From Citizen Kane to the design of a candy wrapper.

They can do so currently by making a couple of minor changes and settling for a pittance because your lawsuit would bankrupt you.

"Chaos" is a better system than one benefitting corporations only.

Your dilemma essentially translates to "wahh, he stole my idea!"

You're also missing the forest for the trees, again. How is hollywood going to make an egregious amount of money off of 'your' idea without copyright and patent laws? Without them, piracy isn't piracy. It's just a normal and legal way of sharing media.

Sad watching how hard you people go to bat for your oppressors, but it really puts into perspective why things are the way they are.

The average person just can't see past their conditioning or how hard they've been indoctrinated to support a system that works against them. In the words of Mark Twain, "it's easier to fool a man than to convince him he'd been fooled."

The entities with the established distribution networks will make the money, not the little guy who makes their own little story.

If I write a little seld published novel, under your system, Hollywood can just take that story and make a movie of it without my permission. How is that better? You think more people pirating will take down these mega corps? Your system is chaos that's even worse than the current model.

Not really.

Corporations aren't going to be making billions of dollars off of, say Photoshop, if copyright and patents laws didn't exist.

Same goes for hollywood movies.

You're peddling rhetoric that was put here by your oppressors so you will work against your own interests. Congratulations.

That's a great plan for letting those mega corps steal from the little guy EVEN more than they already do

Your mistake is thinking that Marvel is art.

Exactly. Especially when you figure in the longer scale up time with an invention. You can't just flip a switch and start making money.

If it's good enough for inventors, it's good enough for musicians, writters and software developers.

Thats still too long imo. Patents are 20 years, so should every IP protection.

Yeah, but think about the grandchildren of the CEO who bought that IP from the artist‽

Do you want them to ~~starve~~ have to work for a living?

Copyright and patent laws should just go away entirely.

The amount of resources we spend enforcing them, just so we can spend more resources on the products themselves, could all be spent improving the lives of people who need it.

Most great art doesn't make much money anyways, barely more than a service job if you're lucky. It's the trashy-shit for low-standards morons that makes an egregious amount of money, like the marvel crap we keep seeing every year.

I'd be fine with less marvel-crap in the world. It'll make what we do get more impactful, and we can dedicate more resources to fewer, higher-quality products.

You don't even have to go that far. Just adopt sane copyright laws, like copyright only lasting the life of the artist.

I think a lot of that kind of stuff is going to happen. I don't think other countries are insulted, as much as they find it ridiculous, and to be ridiculed, I think they're going to do some inventive chaos. I think we need to be building some world bingo cards, and I'll bet we won't guess all the (hopefully hilarious) petty revenges about to snowball.

Official EU website hosting American-made media for a nominal fee. Can't tariff data!

Would also save the EU an enormous amount in monitoring and enforcement

Of that I am not convinced. This *will* work with a lot of smaller countries that don't have much of a copyright portfolio, but not with Europe.

Why not both?

Having Non-US platforms would be nice, yes, But leaving the US-based ones without ad revenue and a shit-ton of users would be nice, too.

I recently read an article that suggested the best retaliation would be to stop enforcing US intellectual property in the EU. One of the biggest exports they have is media, if we would stop enforcing their copyright it would cost them a lot of money.

Yes that would be amazing and a great stimulant for EU companies to start developing a competing platform of it's own (we have BeReal, Dailymotion, Medal and Dumpert, but they aren't very big AFAIK)

Advertising should just be illegal.

It gives an unfair advantage to those who already have an unfair advantage.

I recommend installing an addon called AdNauseam to block ads in addition to sending data that you've clicked them.

Please everyone. Try to understand that being a useful idiot *is the norm* these days. It's what's cool.

or something ultra specific that is super easy to source from any other country, to exclusively hurt the american businesses

We can only hope.

This is the only person I have seen say this so I can only guess no one is repeating it but it appears to be correct when I checked a few countries.

Its fucking insane to think Cambodia has a 97% tariff, and he thinks they are getting rich off of it.

So sad and so true. You made me giggle and frown at the same time. Have some 🥇.

Or your neighbour does all the work instead of you, so you decide to buy soap from them. They're next door, while Walmart is across the county line, so you decide you won't charge yourself the extra self-tax with your neighbour.

Walmart"s soap, which used to be $2, is now $3, while your neighbour's soap is $2.50.

A week later your neighbour sees that demand for their soap is huge because everyone is self-taxing. So they raise their price to $2.95 to make extra profit.

-----

In case you think this is just a contrived fiction, this is exactly what happened to many goods, like solar panels, with Trump's first-term tarrifs. Americans paid over double the average world price for solar panels.

Worse still, Trump knows this happened, yet somehow this time will be completely different. <sigh>

And they’ll just fill in the gaps with China, or other non USA alternatives.

Which they're not going to do as that takes time and meanwhile he keeps moving the goalposts.

Which they're not going to do as that takes time and meanwhile he keeps moving the goalposts.

He’s hoping the foreign companies are going to open up shop in USA to avoid the tariffs.

Meh, I think it's fine and good for countries to specialize and be dependent on each other. Keeps the peace through mutually assured economic destruction. Global upticks in isolationism preceded the World Wars. Also, it just makes sense, because different countries have different resources, and their populations are differently skilled.

We'll have to see if that holds true after people watch their retirements get obliterated by a drastic drop in stock values across the board. Biden didn't do enough to show the people that the economy was doing well, and recovering better than other countries around the world, under his watch. Trump won't be able to pin this downward economic trend on Biden cause it happened too fast and multiple sources have cited the import tax, or fear of them, at the reason for the stock market tanking.

If owning the libs is so important that tRump voters will **still** vote for the ones actively hurting them, then those people are truly beyond help.

I am really afraid that this is what America is coming to. The problem is that we have a third of the country that supports the Mango Mussolini.

One can only dream.

Joking there is no Resistenza in the USA.

and see how well that turned out?

Just like Mussolini.

Well, artificially increasing the price of all the raw naturals we use to make those things will certainly help with that goal...

I'm actually pretty down with that that. We _should_ be able and ready to produce whatever we need in case another country does what trump is doing or something happens that would prevent trade. If China attacks Taiwan, we should be able to produce our own chips. We should be able to function with as little dependence on other countries as possible.

In no way do tariffs fix that. You invest in yourself, slapping your friends because they're better than you at something is really fucking stupid.

I think Trump doesn’t want to trade at all. He wants us to produce everything we need.

the "logic" is pretty much as you described it. Only, after charging yourself with the extra tax on Walmart purchases, you obviously can't afford Walmart any longer, so you learn to make your own soap with ash and the fats of animals that you have started breeding in your own flat.

That's actually a pretty good and understandable explanation of what's going on.

Sounds like you had better open a diaper factory in your house. Then you wouldn't have to pay the tariff that you are charging yourself.

ok, then...

i have a huge trade deficit with walmart.

i buy way more from them than they do from me ($1200-1500 a year vs $0); just like the u.s. buys more from many countries than those countries buy from the u.s.

like the leaky diaper's new ~~tariffs~~import tax, i should charge myself a ridiculously high extra tax on purchases from walmart until they buy $1200-1500 a year of some mythical product from me to even out the 'unfair' imbalance?

yea. that'll work.

Thank you! Neither the BBC nor the Flemish public tv seem to say this yet (they just repeat the statement Trump gave)

Just unfathomably stupid.

Well see there is just the problem, TERF island needs more toxic masculinity so the men can be tough!

/s

It's heartbreaking, really.

The UK is like a kid who just got his face covered in mud by bullies, and goes "aren't my friends wonderful for playing with me?".

The UK already shot themselves in the foot turning their back on the EU... they have no one left, they are done for

Heads up, UK, the US will use you as a toilet every chance you give it, and we've just dropped all pretense, however thin it may have previously been, about caring about our "allies". Speaking as a US citizen, I would strongly advise against considering yourself a close friend to the US until we get our shit sorted.

The price of speculative speculation dropped

Exactly.... Yesterday Trump's "liberation day" clearly proved this

You have to remember the people doing this are fucking idiots who have convinced themselves they're smarter than everyone else.

I recently read an article that suggested the best retaliation would be to stop enforcing US intellectual property in the EU. One of the biggest exports they have is media, if we would stop enforcing their copyright it would cost them a lot of money.

Depression.

It's a depression.

That whole story assumes the population of the USA will continue to have the capacity to buy stuff... this assumption is ever less likely as the USA is heading into the worst recession they have ever experienced

for everyone everywhere

This is all so the American companies don't actually have to compete with anyone else. Instead of lowering their prices to be competitive to give better deals to customers, they game the system and force everyone else to raise prices to match theirs.

There are people who are benefiting from this. People like elon musk who don't need to worry about, say, affordable electric vehicles from China.

I'd like to call Republicans the Party of Useful Idiots, but I genuinely believe they're working in tandem with the Establishment Democrats at this point. It's a two-pronged strategy to ensure the disparity in wealth never decreases.

The rich get richer while the working class squabbles over bullshit.

Woah, and biden waited until the very end of his term to do something as benign as removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Man, whoever is voting for establishment democrats in primaries is really just helping Republicans at this point.

*shocked_pika*

thanks for the honest lol

Those slovenly penguins dont wear suits, either.

I’ve never once heard a penguin say thank you.

penguins like cheetos. i remember that uh.. 'documentary'. we should send 'em a big giant fat one. no charge. just to say 'sorry' for imposing the unfair tariffs on their trade.

That’s a hilariously apt analogy. Drill baby drill! 🫠

I look forward to building my retirement in a handful of years in the recovery phase of this exercise in abject idiocy (assuming there is, in fact, anything to recover)

The Sociopathic Oligarchs want to assign as much responsibility to AI as possible. Smart people are expensive, AI is cheap. That makes AI the better choice to run the world.

From the article you’re probably referring to:

>DCInvestor’s observation came in response to crypto trader Jordan Fish, also known as Cobie, who also [asked](https://x.com/cobie/status/1907608124766433337 "null") ChatGPT using the prompt: “What would be an easy way to calculate the tariffs that should be imposed on other countries so that the US is on even playing fields when it comes to trade deficit. Set a minimum of 10%.”

>

>> A straightforward (if naïve) method is to set the tariff rate for each trading partner equal to the percentage share of the trade deficit relative to that country's total imports-always no less than 10%.

>>

>>In formula form:

>>

>>Tariff Rate (%) = max(10, (Trade Deficit ÷ Total Imports) x 100)

>>

>>For example, if the US runs a $20 billion deficit on $100 billion worth of imports from a country, the calculated rate is (20/100)×100 = 20%. If the deficit were only 5%, you'd still

impose a 10% floor. This method ignores the intricate dynamics of international trade-such as elasticities, retaliatory measures, and supply chain nuances-but it provides a blunt, proportional rule to "level the playing field." One might implement it in Python like so:

def calculate_tariff(trade_deficit, total_imports):

# Calculate the deficit ratio as a percentage

ratio =(trade_deficit / total_imports) * 100

# Enforce a minimum tariff of 10%

return max(10, ratio)

# Example usage:

tariff = calculate_tariff(20e9, 100e9)

# $20B deficit on $100B imports yields a 20% tariff

print(f"The tariff rate should be {tariff}%")

We are defining trade policy with predictive text. What a time to be alive. Jesus tapdancing christ.

no, “Sean” is not a country in ASEAN. That is incorrect.

from Mastodon: “tariffs by ChatGPT”

well, they can't even name a single country in ASEAN.

I saw someone here explain it well... That when you try to understand the depths of the idiocy, you get the same feeling you do when you try to comprehend the size of the universe

Every time I think they're hiring rock bottom they bring out stronger drills.

I've heard that if you type in the right prompt into ChatGPT, this list is the result. They couldn't even be bothered to have an expert figure this out, or even souble check it before releasing it. So they end up putting tariffs on penguins.

Lmao wat.

I’d ask if you’re serious, but I’m also sure you are.

Honestly, I was expecting this administration to be mind-numbingly stupid, but somehow they keep finding ways to surpass my expectations on that front on a daily basis. I’d be impressed if it wasn’t so catastrophic.

also a 10% tariff on the joint US military base at Diego Garcia …

Those penguins are trying to rip off America! It's about time they pay their fair share

Yo this motherfucker put tariffs on Antarctica?!!~~Heard Island.jpg~~

Oops, wrong one. Still close.

!Heard and McDonald Islands world heritage area


You're absolutely right, I can easily hear that comment in his voice too

Your reply has a lot of Yamcha energy.

Says the guy with the broken scouter

Spoiler

Power levels are bullshit.

You're hired

ISO PTSD trigger warning! Hide that shit the next time.

Naa, 9001% is too high. It's impossible. Better stick with 9000%.

PEOPLE OF THE UK!

I NEED YOUR ENERGY TO CHARGE THESE TARIFFS!

AHHHHHHH

\o/

Wouldn't it have to be 9001%?

Call a press conference, build up to announcing the 9000% tariff but then end the conference promising to come back next week and make the announcement.


I hope the EU reacts with something non-tariffy. Like forbidding US online platforms to serve ads and collect personal data, with severe punishments if they still do.

>Shortly after Trump’s announcement, the British government said the United States remains the U.K.’s “closest ally.”

I'm sorry TERF island, that's not gonna keep Trump from stabbing you in the back too.

If I was Prime Minister, I'd impose a retaliatory tariff of 9000% just because it's all just this stupid.

Call it the Goku tariffs, but drag it out over an hour or two with a lot of screaming.

1. Order tariffs

2. Make everything more expensive for everyone everywhere

3. Piss off the entire world and invite countermeasures

4. ??????????????

5. MAGA

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.

Putting tariffs on Norfolk Island and Heard and McDonald Islands are particularly funny considering Heard and McDonald Islands only has penguins living there lol.

"No basis in logic"

No shit, this whole administration has no basis in logic. Just look at Project 2025 and the progress they've made on it in a little over 2 months.

>and the price of bitcoin dropped 4.4%.

I cannot express how much I hate that this appears in a serious economic article.

They’re AI generated tariffs. He asked Grok and these are the numbers it spat out.


All the goods that Trump excempts from tarrifs is tipping his hand. If I were one of these countries like Taiwan where semiconductors are exempted, I would apply an export duty equal to the tarrif on other goods. If you want to tarrif me fine but you're going to have to commit.

no tariffs on russia, only sanctions?

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.

What about Israel? Aren't they sucking you dry? Perhaps add some tariffs there?

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.

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.

Dead horse economics:


Wake up you lazy horse!

Oh, do you guys think he might be a stupid maniac gosh

None of Trump's policies have any basis in reality

No basis in logic is a nice summary of the Trump administration in general.

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.

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

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...

Of course there is logic, but not the logic most politicians want to admit. This is simply:

"Nice global economy. It would be a shame if something happened to it. Maybe we can come to an understanding, and this whole tariff thing goes away. You do want free trade, don't you?"

Is the plan to isolate us?

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.

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.

He's got that dementia infused vindictiveness against the people who want him dead

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.

Art of the deal, folks

It's illogical to expect an illogical man to act logically.

Someone like trump needs hit first to avoid a confrontation.

Dumb man does dumb thing he considers a race and insists he won.

The point is to make China the new boot on the throat of the human race instead of the US

The "Empires last 250 years" thing is bad history and not really supported by fact...but...

"No basis in logic" will be both the title of Trump's time in office and the reason why the USA collapses

So 100% on brand for Trump and America in general

What the fuck did they expect?

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.

Can we stop winning already? I'm tired of winning so much.

Trump basically ran his mouth, realized he had to drop something, whipped some crap together, took a dump in the living room and left for the golf field... exactly what MAGAtards wanted, hope you are enjoying it

what an absolute bafoon. so devoid of thoughts

translated some analytics written for Russian audience.

from here: https://t.me/s/artjockey

About the Tariffs

Today marked the “great day for the USA” previously announced by Trump, as the U.S. has now imposed import tariffs against the entire world. I won't make predictions about how this will affect the global economy, how much the S&P has dropped, and so on. Instead, I want to draw attention to something that might not be immediately obvious.

The newly introduced tariffs can be divided into three parts: economic, political, and protective.

At the core of these tariffs is a baseline 10% duty on all imports. I'm not sure why there’s so much noise around this—basically, Zoomers invented the reusable shopping bag, and Trump has invented VAT. The U.S. has never had a national-level VAT before, only state-level sales taxes. Now, there will be a federal VAT, but only on imports and only at 10%.

There are also clear protective tariffs, intended to give advantages to domestic manufacturers and to motivate foreign companies that want to sell in the U.S. to move production inside the country, so they can stay competitive against local producers. These are 25% tariffs on all imported cars and computers. It’s all fairly straightforward and not worth overanalyzing. Russia has all of this too: VAT, protection for domestic car makers (e.g., AvtoVAZ), and maybe in the future Trump will even “invent” vehicle recycling fees.

In short, Trump could have quietly pushed a 10% import VAT through Congress without much publicity, and you wouldn’t have even seen the news in any headlines. But in that case, he wouldn’t have been able to kick off a series of trade wars.

The most interesting part of the tariffs is their political nature. I think everyone understands that the 54% tariff on all imports from China (a combination of a previous 20% and today’s 34%) is by no means a reciprocal move—it’s a global trade war that could even precede a real war. This was expected; Trump launched a trade war with China during his first term, and the motivations are clear.

What’s far more intriguing are the tariffs against some of America’s allied countries, which, in my opinion, make up a rather unexpected list:

India: 26%

Japan: 24%

EU: 20%

Taiwan: 32%

South Korea: 25%

Israel: 17%

Philippines: 17% (a country hosting U.S. military bases aimed at China)

Meanwhile, countries that didn’t receive tariff increases and stayed at the base 10%, from a global perspective, include:

South American nations: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay — 10%. Panama also 10%.

Oil-rich Middle Eastern countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, plus Turkey.

AUKUS members: UK and Australia — even though Trump criticized Australia in a speech, no extra tariffs were added.

Africa: Though likely of little strategic interest to Trump for now.

From this differentiation of tariffs, you can infer how Trump views the U.S.’s global strategic direction—a vision that will likely be pursued further.

Notice the low tariffs for South America. Remember how Rubio, right after taking office, made a diplomatic tour across Latin America—something that hadn’t happened in a century? It seems Trump is aiming to “pull Latin America out of China’s hands” and form a U.S.–Latin American alliance in the Western Hemisphere.

At the same time, clear preferences are being given to those joining new U.S. military alliances, as alternatives to the increasingly hard-to-control NATO.

On the other hand, traditional U.S. allies are out of luck. The economies of the EU, Japan, and South Korea—countries that have money but are not considered crucial allies by Trump—are being treated as revenue sources.

This is especially evident in the EU’s case. According to the “Trump Doctrine”, the main rival to the U.S. is China, and the EU is useless in the fight against China. They won’t go to war over Taiwan, nor will they support a likely sanctions regime against the PRC. So, in Trump’s view, they should simply start paying America in hard currency now, with the long-term plan being further deindustrialization and relocating manufacturing to the U.S..

The tariffs will go into effect between April 5 and 9. Based on past experience, I wouldn’t be surprised if they never actually take effect—maybe they’ll be repealed, suspended, or something else. But if nothing changes and the 20% tariffs on the EU, Japan, and others remain in place long-term, then the so-called “golden age of universal prosperity” will likely become a thing of the past for those nations.

Good god he is so freaking stupid I can't even...

Ooh boy, does my retirement account feel liberated.

Because Trump is getting demented. This is all his idea

This thumbnail looks like the shittiest 'Soulsborne' Boss. Ever. Like, worse than Patches. Limping; anaemic.

Rip my year-old IRA

Gold has held up well with new all time highs. You really can't challenge the classic.

Well just to be fair - and i know people like shitting on Trump but hear me out - the complaints from workers against out-shoring labor to other countries has been very loud for many years.

Everytime the newspaper reports "Company X has moved its factory to China" you can be sure that lots of people are gonna complain about it. But tariffs are the only thing that actually forces companies to put the factories back to the USA. Or do you have a better idea?

I mean, it's pretty logical.

He wants to enrich his American buddies, and this is how we do it.

Instead of competing fairly with foreign businesses, Americans artificially increase the prices of the competition so customers don't have a cheaper option to choose.

I want to say this country sucks, I really do. But in all honesty, this generation sucks. The greed and consumerism *on both sides* is what led us to this.

It's a two-pronged approach where we have the 'lesser-evil' morons working in tandem with the 'greater-evil' scumbags to ensure good never prevails.

Fuck everyone who voted for hillary clinton and joe biden in their primaries. I put the blame squarely on them for why we have 2 trump presidencies.

Big reason why I didn't vote this election. Tired of supporting the "lesser-evil" crowd that never supports me for some reason. Loyalty is a one-way street with them.