Trump advisers say 50-plus countries have reached out for tariff talks with White House
So what do we think Trump would consider an acceptable deal?
Quick zero tariff free trade deals? No, that goes against Trump how idea of high tariffs to achieve economic autarky.
Open acceptance of higher tariff rates for stuff coming into the U.S. than going out? How can a foreign leader agree to that?
Will Trump just completely refuse to deal? Maybe, but probably not.
I suspect because this was done after the fact to justify the simpler equations Trump wanted to use. I feel he should have also multiplied his equations by other things equaling one.
(Y-X)/Y
= (Y^2-X^2)/Y(Y+X)
= 
φ(Y^2-X^2)/φY(Y+X)
= sin²x + cos²x * [ -(e^iπ)] *
φ(Y^2-X^2)/φY(Y+X) *
( tan ξ ) / ξ (as ξ approaches 0)
From the Wikipedia article on the Trump campaign; all cites in the extract are to 2023 and 2024:
Maybe that’s just what happenned.
Here’s another hypothesis — not saying it is better than yours:.
First they did it the way that yields the corrected tariff column in the link zoobi previously posted. Trump looked at the results of the formula, and said that the percents were too low (maximum 13.2%). Then they came up with the idea of having the Greek letters cancel each other out. Trump saw the percents in the thirties and forties and loved it.
In fact, it is surprisingly enlightening to read the interview Trump gave Playboy magazine in 1990. His views are not new. One of Tru o’s views have changed much in forty years. People expected tariffs and a trade war with China. No one thought he wanted one with the EU, Switzerland, Vietnam, Canada or Antarctica.
Excerpt from 1990 Trump Interview
—————————————————————-
Playboy: How large a role does pure ego play in your deal making and enjoyment of publicity?
Trump: Every successful person has a very large ego.
Playboy: Every successful person? Mother Teresa? Jesus Christ?
Trump: Far greater egos than you will ever understand.
Playboy: And the Pope?
TRUMP: Absolutely. Nothing wrong with ego. People need ego, whole nations need ego. I think our country needs more ego, because it is being ripped off so badly by our so-called allies; i.e., Japan, West Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc.
They have literally outegotized this country, because they rule the greatest money machine ever assembled and it’s sitting on our backs. Their products arebetter because they have so much subsidy.
We Americans are laughed at around the world for losing a hundred and fifty billion dollars year after year, for defending wealthy nations for nothing, nations that would be wiped off the face of the earth in about fifteen minutes if it weren’t for us.
Our “allies” are making billions screwing us.
Playboy: How do you feel about Japan’s economic pre-eminence?
Trump: Japan gets almost seventy percent of its oil from the Persian Gulf, relies on ships led back home by our destroyers, battleships, helicopters, frog men.
Then the Japanese sail home, where they give the oil to fuel their factories so that they can knock the hell out of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. Their openly screwing us is a disgrace.
Why aren’t they paying us? The Japanese cajole us, they bow to us, they tell us how great we are and then they pick our pockets. We’re losing hundreds of billions of dollars a year while they laugh at our stupidity.
The Japanese have their great scientists making cars and VCRs and we have our great scientists making missiles so we can defend Japan.
Why aren’t we being reimbursed for our costs? The Japanese double-screw the U.S., a real trick: First they take all our money with their consumer goods, then they put it back in buying all of Manhattan. So either way, we lose.
Playboy: You’re opposed to Japanese buying real estate in the U.S.?
Trump: I have great respect for the Japanese people and list many of them as great friends. But, hey, if you want to open up a business in Japan, good luck. It’s virtually impossible.
But the Japanese can buy our buildings, our Wall Street firms, and there’s virtually nothing to stop them. In fact, bidding on a building in New York is an act of futility, because the Japanese will pay more than it’s worth just to screw us. They want to own Manhattan.
Of course, I shouldn’t even be complaining about it, because I’m one of the big beneficiaries of it. If I ever wanted to sell any of my properties, I’d have a field day. But it’s an embarrassment, I give great credit to the Japanese and their leaders, because they have made our leaders look totally second rate.
Playboy: A group of Japanese visitors to New York was recently asked if there were anything in the U.S. they would like to buy. The answer: towels.
Trump: That’s fair trade: They’ll take the towels and we’ll buy their cars. It doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. They have totally outsmarted the American politician; they have no respect for us, because they’re getting a free ride.
Of course, it’s not just the Japanese or the Europeans—the Saudis, the Kuwaitis walk all over us.
…
Playboy: Sometimes you sound like a Presidential candidate stirring up the voters.
Trump: I don’t want the Presidency. I’m going to help a lot of people with my foundation—and for me, the grass isn’t always greener.
Playboy: But if the grass ever did look greener, which political party do you think you’d be more comfortable with?
Trump: Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows.
Playboy: Another game: What’s the first thing President Trump would do upon entering the Oval Office?
Trump: Many things. A toughness of attitude would prevail. I’d throw a tax on every Mercedes-Benz rolling into this country and on all Japanese products, and we’d have wonderful allies again.
…
Playboy: And how would President Trump handle it?
Trump: He would believe very strongly in extreme military strength. He wouldn’t trust anyone. He wouldn’t trust the Russians; he wouldn’t trust our allies; he’d have a huge military arsenal, perfect it, understand it.
Part of the problem is that we’re defending some of the wealthiest countries in the world for nothing…. We’re being laughed at around the world, defending Japan—
Playboy: Wait. If you believe that the public shares these views, and that you could do the job, why not consider running for President?
Trump: I’d do the job as well as or better than anyone else. It’s my hope that George Bush can do a great job.
Playboy: You categorically don’t want to be President?
Trump: I don’t want to be President. I’m one hundred percent sure. I’d change my mind only if I saw this country continue to go down the tubes.
They won’t know any such thing, because they have been hard-wired no to accept blame. They will be told that it is the fault of Democrats and they will believe it.
Of course that should be “none of Trump’s views have changed much in forty years.”
I think the core problem with any “deals” that Trump might cut is that they are deals made with Trump, not the US. It isn’t like these are tariffs done right, approved by Congress and modified only by Congress.
Any deal is subject to Trump’s whims, and these countries have to realize that a trade deal with Trump isn’t a one time agreement leading to a beneficial partnership, it’s an agreement to have a sword held to your neck, liable to be pulled across your throat at any time for any reason.
Maybe if there’s ever an athlete from your country that social media thinks is transgender, Trump will put your tariffs back until you ban them from competition. Maybe Laura Loomer will decide she doesn’t like your country. Maybe he’ll require you to defund organizations that help indigenous people in your own country. The possibilities are endless.
And don’t forget that Trump is a really bad dealmaker whose biggest strategy is lying about what was agreed to and hoping he won’t get called out.
He’s truly horrible at negotiation, the reason he will only negotiate with countries one on one is he lacks the skill set for multi-party negotiations.
He’s pretty bad at single party ones, too. I’m pretty sure at the Trump Organization all the real dealmaking, the ironing out of details, was done by underlings.
Negotiation is about information, and the best way to get a good deal is to create an information asymmetry……..if you have access to data and analysis that the other guy doesn’t, you can find ways to benefit yourself at their expense. That’s why US Presidents have access to people in organizations like the National Secuity Council and The Brookings Institue.
Trump has an absolute disdain for data and analysis and experts. Should any country decide to negotiate with him they can probably get a pretty good deal.
But I don’t think there will be any deals made, although Trump will tease it out reality show style, which will really piss people off when their life savings are at risk.
Happy Black Monday everyone
Here’s my prediction (based in PART on Trump’s past performance, though with a good dose of my wishful thinking.)
Either today or tomorrow, Trump is going to announce SOMETHING - or NOTHING that happened, and proclaim it a stupendous victory. Maybe Lesotho agrees to buy another sack of rice, or the penguins offer him a sweet guano deal. Trump declares his own brilliance, eliminates or greatly scales back the proposed tariffs, the markets rebound. And - oh yeah - all his buddies who moved their finances before the tariffs were announced buy back in and profit tremendously. America is great again!
Tariffs are like a poker game. If you always fold when your opponent bets big on a trash hand, then they will easily clean you out, repeatedly. And you’ll never even know if they actually had a strong hand.
Of course, this is trade diplomacy. You don’t need to have a suspense-filled high-stakes poker bet, you can have rounds of negotiation to discover what works for either sides. But “win/win” isn’t a phrase in Trump’s vocabulary.
Trump is also too stupid to do basic diligence in the game he’s playing. He could’ve known that Myanmar has no cards at all, that they are net exporters because they can’t afford to buy anything the US makes. But he’s not trying to discover the optimal tariff rates for the US, he’s trying to create a spectacle where he acts tough and causes someone else to back down.
Bottom line, the only safe way to deal with a bully is to punch them in the nose the first time they shove you. It’s possible the bully is strong enough to win, but if you don’t fight back, they’ll definitely keep abusing you. So you have to throw a punch if you’re able.
On Russia being tariff-free…
Since (one of) the excuses for this was that negotiations on ending the conflict were still in progress, I naively assumed that Ukraine also had no tariff applied.
Nope! Ukraine has a 10% tariff.
So the Axis of Free Trade is just the US, Russia, Belarus, Cuba and North Korea.
There will be deals made, but every country making the deals will understand that the deal is at best temporary, and can disappear in an instant for all the reasons you cite.
But at the same time, they know they have to deal with Trump, because the US has given them no other options.
So every country will also be seeking alternatives to US trade to replace what’s been screwed up by Trump. They’ll see these temporary deals as stop-gap measures, to limit the damage as much as they can as they build new trade systems to replace the current mess. No one wants to be the president or prime minister who tells their citizens “We just have to drop US trade altogether”, because they know how many problems that will create. So these deals will be a part of that - finding ways to drop the US without (all of) the pain that would otherwise cause.
Non-countries, like uninhabited islands, were included in the tariffs to ensure that there was no loophole, to avoid sanctions. Trump has, previously, seen people use third countries as a way to avoid tariffs.
Which seems to say that this is an economic agenda to push more trade towards Russia and its allies.
If Trump is the Manchurian Candidate, this would appear to be Putin’s middle finger to everyone that thought the average voter isn’t dumb and easily mislead.
I watch Univision and the way the Mexico tariffs are being explained by thier President is that because she has a good relationship with the POTUS (blessed be thy name) she is grateful that the tariffs are not even higher and confident they resolve this as friends.
They know how to suck up and play with bullies down there. Right up until the time they can turn the tables on them.
Is this an actual reason, or an ex post facto justification for a stupid mistake?
No one was suddenly going to ship from Heard Island.
See my post here for one analysis of that question:
It’s rare to hear a coherent and reasonable argument as the first explanation for something out of a Trump administration.
Minus evidence to the contrary, I’m willing to give it to them. Team Trump just isn’t good enough with on the spot rationalizations to achieve the idea unless it really was the idea.
Though, as said, it does seem to point strongly to the Manchurian Candidate theory.
I think that Trump showed his hand on the first day of the tariff war, stating that only the weak would lose and that the strong would do well.
To him the average small investor is the weak in that they can not absorb the shock of losing 25% of thier relativily small investment. If you have $400K in your 401K and lose $100K you are not going to be able to bounce back like someone with $4M in investment income that loses $1M. Its going to take a long time for the weak to just get back to where they started, while the stong investor is going to buy up stocks cheap and make another fortune.
This tariff ploy is just another move at stock market manipulation intended to transfer money from the regular people to the ultra rich.
And thereby, we need to create a tax evasion loophole through Russia?