The only thing that matters is to get elected so he can quash the criminal cases against him. I suspect he doesn’t actually care about governing.
Except he’s already done that. His first go-round, he started multiple trade wars by slapping tariffs on lots of things when other countries didn’t just capitulate to his demands, and those trade wars are still negatively impacting the US economy. I’m not predicting the future, I’m extrapolating from his past.
On that we agree. But that he doesn’t care about governing makes tariffs more likely, because he also sees them as a way to bully other countries. From the link I posted above:
However, on May 30, Trump unilaterally announced his intention to impose a five percent tariff on all imports from Mexico beginning on June 10, with tariffs increasing to ten percent on July 1, and by another five percent each month for three months, “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP”
Stupid or not, he doesn’t understand economics – he already imposed ill-advised tariffs when he was last in office. It wasn’t just a selling point for the rubes, he really thinks that foreigners pay them.
Like the solar panel tariffs that President Biden renewed for another four years (with a notable two year waiver)?
~Max
I’d also note that Trump’s doing all of this with an eye towards increasing manufacturing in the USA.
The monthly wage of labor, in China, seems to be around RMB 2000 per month (about $280). A US worker is probably making about $2800 per month.
To tariff products to the level that the US becomes competitive, you’ve got to raise taxes on them large enough to multiply the cost by 10x. Anything else and you’re just not covering the wage difference that underlies all of the mining, refining, and manufacturing that underlies the price you’re given.
A tax of 100% still only doubles the price of stuff, so you’re looking at creating import taxes of 900% plus. And that’s assuming that the US can simply take over all of the manufacturing that we’re relying on the rest of the world for, that there’s just people sitting around twiddling their thumbs, waiting for manufacturing jobs to come back before they’ll enter the labor market. More likely, you will need 5-20 years to build all the factories and you’ll need to try and draw people out of air conditioned data entry jobs, convincing them to come back to working on a loud, dangerous, hot factory floor. And after that, you have to contend with the issue that we simply don’t have the same population head count to match all the people who were available to work, abroad. Prices will need to be higher to lower demand enough, to allow the US head count to be able to make everything. 900%+ import taxes are just the start for getting the ball rolling.
To the extent that Trump’s tariffs haven’t been the leading cause of inflation in the US, it’s because they’re way far away from what they need to be to do a danged thing about offshoring.
From a Republican standpoint, there was value in trying to diversify our manufacturing partners, trying to staunch the flow of money into an authoritarian state that’s eyeing invasion into Taiwan and the South China Sea, etc. But that was all better handled with the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Trying to restore low-level manufacturing back to the US is like trying to convince everyone that we need to become subsistence farmers again. Like, yeah, we could become self-reliant - farm our own food, sow our own clothing, mill our own wheat, build our own homes with our bare hands, etc. I suppose that would be cool and manly, but how about you (Donald Trump) show me how to do that first and, if you actually make it and survive the winter in Minnesota, then maybe the rest of us can look at all the fun you’re having to we can hold a vote on whether the rest of us really want to follow suit.
I think the plan includes bringing back slavery, so you don’t actually have to pay any wages.
From what I can tell, Trump is a natural at reading a room and quickly responding to it.
When he’s in front of a group of workers, he’ll sense that they like hearing about tariffs and he’ll talk them up. When he’s in a meeting with his economists, he’ll read that they’re telling him that horrible things would happen, and he understands that he needs to let them lead the way on doing things that are basically just “feel good” initiatives.
That is all, in essence, just the core of being a politician. It’s not for nothing that Trump has been hanging out with politicians - the Clintons, Blagochevic, Giuliani, etc. - and their influencers - Epstein, Broidy, etc. - for decades. He’s has a natural inclination to the ways of a politician. Lie, make headlines, raise money, etc.
The issue with Trump, that we don’t have with most politicians, is that he’s so dumb and so recklessly criminal. While he was a businessman he worked as an FBI informant and that probably got him a few get-out-of-jail-free points for various fraudulent activities over the years. We have to assume that he was an informant because he did his petty crimes in an obvious and easy to prove way, and was offered a deal. That’s not a hallmark of intelligence. As President, he lost that implicit immunity and staying President is sort of his only safety maneuver. He’s obligated to try and stay President for life, to stay out of jail.
During his first term, he was dumb enough to do things like sabotaging himself by not ensuring that he appointed Supreme Court Justices who would give hope to Pro-Life initiatives while, in the end, preserving precedent; appointing people that would arrest all of his friends; trying to block immigration without staffing up for it; etc. The only “smart” thing I can think of that I ever noted during his Presidency was that he appointed Kushner to handle a few things, and those things got done. But that’s also explainable through nepotism.
Your average politician understands that the status quo is what it is because that’s the most politically powerful. Once you give the people what they want, you lose that power and now you live in a country that’s done that dumb thing that the people were glad to have never known the downsides of. Trump isn’t smart enough to understand that it’s dumb to shit in your own bed. He lives here, too.
Ohh! Those are the “Black jobs” he was referring to at the Black reporters conference the other week. NOW it all makes sense!
Why on earth would we go back to subsistence farming? We are already self-sufficient on food - one of the top agricultural producers in the world - and have been for a long, long time.
~Max
I don’t know if the solar panel tariffs are especially stupid, if the US thinks that China is dumping solar panels and hurting the domestic suppliers. But, I think that Biden may have left on the rest of the ill-advised Chinese tariffs, which was certainly bad on his part. Maybe there are political implications – removing the Chinese tariffs will make him look soft on China or something.
It’s probably harder to remove tariffs on a global competitor once they’re imposed. Imposing them in the first place certainly hurt US consumers, and keeping (most of) them in place is still hurting us.
Yes, and likewise, why would we say that we need to manufacture all our own toasters and fast fashion?
As best I can tell, the “we don’t make stuff anymore” movement is purely down to a romantic image of self-reliance. It’s no different than people who dream of moving into the countryside and becoming self-sufficient.
The image might, if you don’t think about it, seem cool and laudable. The reality is that we gave up on all of that for a reason. The number of people who really enjoy that sort of lifestyle is actually tiny. Likewise, the number of people who would want to pay 10x for their clothes, just so that it’s all “Made in America” is also tiny. Most people just haven’t been aware that, that’s the offer that is actually on the table.
See the post above about some of the issues with tariffs. This solar panel tariff is the sort of thing that might work, as it’s directed at a single industry, that is relatively high-tech in nature, and so is a good option to both be of critical importance to the nation, and to be easily affected by a reasonable tariff. The people building these things probably aren’t entry-level workers, and so the pay disparity between countries would be less. So, yay! Someone in Trump’s orbit snuck in a good idea when he was ranting about CHY-na.
But that’s not all that Trump did, or wants to do in the future. There’s no way he has the intelligence or discipline needed to weave together a comprehensive tariff policy that will do more good than harm. He won’t use a scalpel, he’ll use a sledgehammer. And any egghead libtard nerd who tries to explain that to him will get fired.
The US could remove them any time they wanted. The problem is, China, and other nations, retaliated with their own tariffs. So those would stay, unless you negotiated a stand-down.
If Biden unilaterally removed sanctions, that would place the US at a competitive disadvantage, which he would or course be blamed for. If he tried to talk to China about it, the GOP would say he’s “Begging China to rescue him!” or “Betraying the US because China owns him!” or some such twaddle. As usual, it’s easier to break things.
Add to this, even if we removed all sanctions, that still wouldn’t put everything back the way it was, because buyers have had years now to find alternative suppliers. Would anyone start buying US goods again, knowing that there’s a decent chance Trump will win again, and throw it all out again?
As a matter of fact, Trump’s tariffs were legally predicated on national security.
~Max
Yeah, some were against that internation menace Canada.
Darn Canadian steel and aluminum. “Mr. President, we cannot allow a mineshaft gap!”
~Max
Yeah, exactly. If he wanted to slap tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, he should have come up with a better reason than national security.
Is there a retrospective of the USMCA (a.k.a. NAFTA 2.0), ostensibly the actual fruit of Trump’s trade policies during his term?
~Max
If he had a reason other than national security, it would require an act of Congress.
~Max