So, the point of the tariffs* is to promote re-shoring of manufacturing, but obviously you wouldn’t want to attract production of advanced electronics specifically.
*I know, I know.
This will help until it doesn’t. A few exemptions does not remedy a terrible policy. And the Chinese government still has enormous power to make things difficult, from export taxes to bogus investigations.
Huh. I thought that the laid-off Federal employees were going to get jobs in the new Apple factories building iPhones.
That was last month two weeks ago last week yesterday eight hours ago. Do keep up.
I suppose those who live near a port of entry could get jobs collecting the tariffs, since nobody seems to know who’s responsible or what the process is this picosecond.
The best comment I’ve read yet
During Trump 1.0, Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn would’ve spent all night calling Trump using different accents, “making deals” and getting the tariffs walked back.
I think what I’ve figured out about Trump is that he’s basically a coward. He doesn’t want tariffs so much as he wants the THREAT of tariffs. If he threatens, he can seem mighty and menacing (maybe not to China), but once he actually uses them, he loses his power to intimidate. Look at how he’s handled this so far: in Feb, tariffs against Can and Mex, followed by a one month delay. In March, tariffs imposed on these countries for a couple days, then paused until April 2, at which time tariffs EVERYWHERE have been threatened. April tariffs are enacted, but not for long before a 90 DAY pause is implemented after the stock market tanks. You almost get the feeling he doesn’t REALLY want to do this, but retains the right to make the threat. It’s like he’s afraid of actual conflict, Private Bone-Spurs. Reminds me of the boy who cried wolf. At some point people will just stop caring what he says. He doesn’t have the meanness to be Hitler, because he’s too obsessed with being liked, with being “everyone’s favorite president.”
ETA: tariffs against China are still in force (raise that to a million percent!) and steel and aluminum in Can and Mex, but otherwise, he’s backed down on pretty much everything. Look how quickly he capitulated on iPhones and China-made electronics.
Another side to square the theme of that Axios article on " Trump’s magical manufacturing thinking"
- The private sector needs to commit truckloads of capital to a re-industrialisation phase.
- American labour must be willing to take lower-wage construction jobs, or restore immigration access to those who might
- Needs to happen, nationally and in real time, without runaway inflation.
add
4. The USD needs to fall substantially, without losing reserve currency status.
All of which would be a near impossible needle to thread for an economically literate administration even if they hadn’t pissed away generations of soft power inn this imposed age of grift and transactional corruption.
Yeah. He’s a paper tiger.
More of a pooper taker?
I thought of paper tigers as people who make a lot of noise but are harmless. Trump is not that, although he backs down from fights if his bluster does not succeed. Has he ever apologized for anything?
However, Wiki suggests I might be wrong. But there is no denying Trump is powerful - scarily so.
“Paper tiger” is a calque of the Chinese phrase zhǐlǎohǔ. The term refers to something or someone that claims or appears to be powerful or threatening but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge.
TIL what a “calque” was. That Trump is such a zhǐlǎohǔ!
I think what I’ve figured out (suspected all along) is that Trump has no fucking clue how markets actually work. His team probably presents him with a menu of options, and one that omits some of the saner options with the awareness that he’s likely to immediately dismiss anything that doesn’t have shock value. Trump was probably given a range of options that might have actually at least partially resembled something looking like macro-strategy, but he probably opted for the most disruptive option on the list of menu items.
I think Trump is dead serious about wanting to reformulate US/global trade. It’s one of the few things he’s ideological about, as evidenced by his many comments on the matter going back to the 1980s. He really does believe that the U.S. is a loser when it comes to foreign trade. Furthermore, he is hardly alone in viewing China is a rising challenger to US supremacy. Okay, then. Fine. If we wanted to do something about trade imbalances and other egregious trade practices, then maybe implement tariffs selectively over a period of time, to give businesses and trading partners (presumably still allies) time to adjust.
What we have instead is evidence that this administration doesn’t even understand the basics of modern trade. If we wanted a united front against China, threatening to take over Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada, and threatening to leave NATO and EU security for dead seems likely the worst way to achieve that outcome. Imposing onerous tariffs on Global South nations, whom we’re increasingly leaning on for raw materials, seems similarly, catastrophically dumb as well.
That they are having to carve out all of these exemptions after they’ve already pulled the trigger on tariffs is pretty telling. Trump has no idea how markets work, and the people around him are either equally stupid, or they simply lack the courage to correct him and are just glorified grifters and clout chasers.
Before the election, I kept hearing/reading from various sources (some I agree with, some I don’t) that there was grand strategy coming. I was willing to wait and see. But we’re seeing now what we saw the firs time around. Trump is impatient. He wants to set things on fire. He wants to put firecrackers in toy cars to see them blow up. He has the mind of a teenager. Impatient. Impulsive. Fatally, catastrophically ignorant, and we elected him to the highest office and gave him these powers.
I think the United States is on a rapid downward trajectory as a global power. Yes, a lot of other countries are going to be hurt by our actions, too, but we’re a maiden ship that has just struck an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic. We’re not recovering from this.
Right. The reality of course is that the rules and mechanisms of global trade were largely written by the US and have benefitted the US immeasurably. The US is tremendously wealthy thanks to international trade, not in spite of it.
It’s true that in the US there has been wage stagnation and other social issues but these are because of an (increasingly) unequal society, with low welfare or other support for those on the lower rungs, and not much investment in retraining “rust belt” workers who have been left behind.
None of that is the fault of developing countries.
Agree with this.
I will say though, broadly on China rising as a challenger; I think we are heading towards a more multi-polar world. And trying to attack whoever is considered the second-biggest fish is the wrong approach.
The US should be investing in education and R&D to maintain its position as the source of entrepreneurial ideas and innovation; these are the jobs other countries want, they are quite happy to give manufacturing back to the US.
I read elsewhere that the French government is actively recruiting American University professors who have, or fear they might, lose their jobs.
Of course not. An apology would be an admission that he did something wrong. In his mind, Trump never does anything wrong.
And this administration is doing its best to destroy all scientific research. Not just about vaccines and climate change, but pretty much everything. But this topic is probably worth its own thread, so maybe don’t derail this one.
As in literally removing any and all references to climate science from government websites.
It is an anti-science, anti-fact regime. There is absolutely, positively no way we can compete deep into the future with this hostility to research.
Maybe the biggest net gain we have had from our global system is the ability to import scientific talent, which is badly needed given the state of our education system. It’s difficult to keep track of all the many ways this administration is screwing us for the future, but this pops up near the top of my list.
Sociopaths find facts inconvenient. But no worries. Donald Trump is a Man of the
People™. He loves the poorly educated.
These university presidents and legal partners who don’t want to stick together forget what the Khmer Rouge thought about people who wore glasses. (Atlantic limited gift link.)
I’ve read a few books on that brutal era in Cambodia and thought about the Khmer Rouge attacks on people with eye glasses.
Canada has recently already admitted university professors, researchers, doctors, and other valuable immigrants wanting to get the hell out of the US. How about that – immigration-wise, we really do have a trade surplus with the US. Thank you, Trumpie!
Such a pity that this article is not only in German, but probably paywalled as well:
She is Timothy Snyder’s wife, and both are emigrating from Yale (a university in the USA) to the Munk School for Global Affairs in Toronto, Canada. Some quotes from the interview:
-- Could you go back to Yale?
-- Right now I don’t know.
-- The chair of our department told me in a very very humane way that she regrets very much that we are leaving Yale, but she also clearly understands what is happening with us, she has no illusions. I want my children to be somewhere else in these years. I do not believe that Yale or other American universities could or would protect their students and staff. In January, J. D. Vance wrote on X that Timothy Snyder, my husband, was a disgrace to Yale.
-- What happened next?
-- The university remained silent. Neither the administration nor our colleagues at the law school, who I believe have a special responsibility given the role that Yale Law School in general and “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua in particular played in J. D. Vance’s fabrication - she was his professor - publicly defended Tim.
-- You know Ukraine and Eastern Europe very well. Do you think Trump has a plan, or does he just want Ukraine off the table?
-- I tell all my Ukrainian friends and colleagues: Don’t trust us! The people in power here have no basic principles, no real idea. Trump is a moral nihilist. For him, truth and lies, good and evil do not exist, there is only what is advantageous or disadvantageous for him at a given moment. Other people around him - for example Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham or Tucker Carlson - have sold their souls to the devil.
-- What does this mean for Europe?
-- Europeans need to understand: This is the end of the affair. America is going under. Don’t let us drag you into the abyss with us. You must mobilize. The fate of the world - quite literally - depends on it.
I guess this interview will be tranlated back and published in some US medium, but until then that gives you a taste of the general thrust of her analysis. Bleak and sad, and probably close to the truth.