No one has utilized so many tariffs — NOS4A2

When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were implemented, which were one of the causes for the Great Depression, all imports to the US was like 5% of GDP. Now it's over 13% of GDP. And then the World wasn't so interconnected. And during that time, there wasn't so much international trade globally. And tariffs between non-US states were higher too.

I'm not sure how you could avoid stagflation now. If the American consumer has been worried about rising egg prices, wait until you see what this will bring on... starting with your morning coffee. Prior to these tariffs, Trump already had a negative effect on the economy with things like travel to the US was declining. The dollar is weakening to the euro and investments are going away from the US. Not the usual thing when recession is coming.

Now presumably he will do deals. Deals in which he will extract something from other countries in return for a reduction in tariffs. — Punshhh

Or then double down if other countries put tariffs on the US. The US has a surplus on services trade, so likely that will be hit. And then when the economic growth goes negative, Trump will insist that it's just a time for "detoxing". As @Josh put it so well, tariffs here aren't just a way to bargain for a better deal for Trump, it really is the way he incorrectly thinks that manufacturing gets back to the US.

And this is the main ludicrous line here: if you just raise trade barriers and leave the US manufacturers to produce things for Americans, you're missing out on the Global market.

it really is the way he incorrectly thinks that manufacturing gets back to the US.

It takes minutes to impose tariffs, but 5 to 10 years to build a factory. Also why would a manufacturer build that factory when in 4 years Trump will be gone and the tariffs may well be reversed. Not to mention that the cost of building that factory and producing the goods will be very high. There might not be anyone left with enough money to buy the goods at the end of it all.
Investors will turn away and leave the U.S. to stagflation.

I agree.

And why invest in a country that severely damages it's own economy on purpose? China is already putting limits for Chinese companies to invest in the US. But this might be a totally voluntary thing to do: the US isn't a rapidly growing market, so why invest there?

Far more lucrative is for European corporations to turn for example to the growing European defense market, just like Volkswagen did. (See Volkswagen Ready to Enter Military Production Exploring Defense Equipment Supply)

Again something that Trump himself did. That US defense industry corporations are down and European defense industry like Rheinmetall is well up over +100% tells where we are heading.

The US is utterly untrustworthy and totally unpredictable in it's actions during the time Trump is in power, so the reasonable thing would be to stear clear away from this self-inflicted trainwreck. When the Trump price hikes hit the US consumer, they aren't going to be delighted.

Also what should be noted is the political impact of this. Now there's a clear reason why the economy will be hurt in many countries. It's because of Trump's actions. This means that people aren't going to be disappointed in their own governments, because the culprit is so evident.

The best thing for EU would be to actually not retaliate with tariffs and instead build new free trade routes. Like, towards Canada and like has been already reported on, towards India.

A big problem for the EU has always been to be a bit behind the US on certain innovations and technology, but with new trade agreements the EU could actually have the chance to surpass the US if done right.

That would be the most profound retaliation, far greater than any counter-tariffs as those would just make it more expensive to produce that which is in need of US supplies.

The important thing is that Trump chokes his own voters, that's the only way to get rid of him. Making his zealots turn on him.

It appears to me that the US establishment is seeing the writing on the wall, and is retreating to its island to regroup.

In today's geopolitical circumstance, it simply cannot compete with a united Russia-China-Iran bloc. And while the US would have to spend all its energy counteracting this bloc, other power blocs would start to pop up, creating more unsolvable headaches for the US.

The best thing there would be to do is to fall back on the Monroe-doctrine of US primacy in the western hemisphere - the bedrock of US foreign policy - which the Trump administration is already hinting at wanting to reinforce.

We can of course talk about how crazy all these moves supposedly are, but likely we are not fully aware of the economic realities that led to them - for example, how great the threat of a US default might actually be. For obvious reasons these things cannot always be made public.

In my opinion, everything points to full-blown panic within the US establishment. The jig is up.

It takes minutes to impose tariffs, but 5 to 10 years to build a factory. Also why would a manufacturer build that factory when in 4 years Trump will be gone and the tariffs may well be reversed. — Punshhh

It's also the same reason why Trump's attempts to woo Russia away from China are doomed to fail, which is that nobody expects his policies to actually remain in 4 years.

In today's geopolitical circumstance, it simply cannot compete with a united Russia-China-Iran bloc.

It must have slipped your mind that Russia and Iran are basket cases and China does not do this pariah state nonsense. She will likely do a deal with Trump, which will be hailed as the greatest deal of all time.

The US seems to have its hands full, trying to deal with these 'basket cases'.

The government was funded by tariffs before income tax. That was before social security, Medicare, and other programs. It would certainly be a bold move to attempt ending all these programs.

Figures. — NOS4A2

I thought you might want to show where no tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year is proposed. I couldn’t find it.

It takes minutes to impose tariffs, but 5 to 10 years to build a factory. — Punshhh

Trump will probably be followed by Vance, unless a Democratic superstar emerges. And even if a Democratic president follows, remember, Biden didn't rescind the tariffs from the first Trump administration, in fact he added to them. Completely exposing American labor to competition with China was a pretty brutal thing to do. The consent to do that again would have to be manufactured (to garble one of the chapter titles of David Harvey's book on neoliberalism).

The left died. This is what's taking its place.

Trump will probably be followed by Vance, unless a Democratic superstar emerges. And even if a Democratic president follows, remember, Biden didn't rescind the tariffs from the first Trump administration, in fact he added to them. Completely exposing American labor to competition with China was a pretty brutal thing to do. The consent to do that again would have to be manufactured (to garble one of the chapter titles of David Harvey's book on neoliberalism). — frank

The tariffs against China are warranted though. They basically hide slave labor and has the government involved in all companies, making security in other nations a nightmare while pressing prices down to dominate against nations with better working conditions for their citizens. Such nations SHOULD have tariffs against them instead of enriching them and giving them influence.

It's the tariffs against other nations who are allies and collaborators that's nuts. No one benefits from it. The only thing would be if the tariffs became the cash to pay off the extreme dept the US has. But I've yet to see the money being bookmarked as such.

The left died. This is what's taking its place. — frank

Agreed, but mostly because the ones in the Democratic party with most power are liberal centrists. Every time someone more to the left, like Sanders speaks up, the people actually listens. The people, the actual people who votes and not the pseudo-intellectuals online, love Sanders; but the Democratic party does not push him out there enough.

What the Democrats need is a young, charismatic, more-to-the-left candidate who are versed in constructing a narrative to communicate the policies through.

The solution is quite simple, even if they don't get a candidate like that, at least they need the narrative bit. The right and conservatives have been framing everything in narratives and easily understood slogans.

The people are stupid, uneducated and must be considered so when drafting what to communicate to them. Not in terms of talking to them like the 5-year old's they are, but rather in terms of producing a narrative for them to gather around.

Any policy can be communicated through an easily understood narrative, getting to the heart and emotion of it for people to rally behind.

This is what the democrats need to do and as long as they have the elderly home of centrists controlling the party, they will fail. Hopefully they all die off until the next election and we have some proper young candidate who can give the people a confident and warm smile, that's mostly what the dumb mob goes for anyway.

Trump will probably be followed by Vance, unless a Democratic superstar emerges. — frank

I see no world where Vance becomes president because either Trump succeeds in dismantling US democracy in which case he'll just stay in until he dies, or the democratic process continues as usual in which case given what we've been seeing from this administration means Vance gets annihilated electorally. The Democrats can run a corpse and they will win. They did the last time and hopefully they won't the next time.

I thought you might want to show where no tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year is proposed. I couldn’t find it.

I guess use your imagination then. How would that tax cut benefit the 1% in your view?

The left died. This is what's taking its place — frank

Not for long.
I completely agree with this assessment for Atlantic columnist Jonathan Chait:

Public-opinion polling on Trump’s economic management, which has always been the floor that has held him up in the face of widespread public dislike for his character, has tumbled. This has happened without Americans feeling the full effects of his trade war. Once they start experiencing widespread higher prices and slower growth, the bottom could fall out.
A Fox News host recently lectured the audience that it should accept sacrifice for Trump’s tariffs just as the country would sacrifice to win a war. Hard-core Trump fanatics may subscribe to this reasoning, but the crucial bloc of persuadable voters who approved of Trump because they saw him as a business genius are unlikely to follow along. They don’t see a trade war as necessary. Two decades ago, public opinion was roughly balanced between seeing foreign trade as a threat and an opportunity. Today, more than four-fifths of Americans see foreign trade as an opportunity, against a mere 14 percent who see it, like Trump does, as a threat.

As the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way point out, “Authoritarian leaders do the most damage when they enjoy broad public support.” Dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chávez have shown that power grabs are easier to pull off when the public is behind your agenda. Trump’s support, however, is already teetering. The more unpopular he becomes, the less his allies and his targets believe he will keep his boot on the opposition’s neck forever, and the less likely they will be to comply with his demands.The Republican Party’s descent into an authoritarian personality cult poses a mortal threat to American democracy. But it is also the thing that might save it.

↪praxis

I thought you might want to show where no tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year is proposed. I couldn’t find it.

I guess use your imagination then. How would that tax cut benefit the 1% in your view — NOS4A2

Heres an interesting take on that alleged no taxes for anyone making less than $150,000 a year’, from New Republic’s Timothy Noah:

In a meeting with Republican congressional leaders in June 2024 Trump said he favored an “all tariff policy” that would allow the United States to abandon the income tax. He said it again in October 2024, first to a bunch of guys in a Bronx barbershop (“When we were a smart country, in the 1890s…. [we] had all tariffs. We didn’t have an income tax”), and then to Joe Rogan. (Rogan: “Were you serious about that?” Trump: “Yeah, sure, why not?”) Trump said it yet again in his inauguration speech (“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens”). One month later, Trump’s tariff-crazed Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, discussed the idea in some detail:

“His goal is to have external revenue. You know, the way I think about it, we all are so used to paying taxes, we’re so used to it, we have like Stockholm syndrome. You know, “Don’t stop the Internal Revenue Service, God forbid!” … Let [other nations] pay a membership fee. We all understand that model. Let them pay…. I know his goal is: No tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year. That’s his goal. That’s what I’m working for.”

This drew a little more attention than Trump’s remarks. Maybe that was because Lutnick’s scheme was one-quarter less insane. In Lutnick’s formulation, the IRS would still tax people whose income exceeded $150,000. Still, exempting everybody else would cut loose at least three-quarters of all current taxpayers, at a cost to the Treasury of about $1 trillion per year. (The under-$150,000 cohort would still have to pay payroll tax, which for most in this group exceeds what they pay in income tax. But I digress.)

A $1 trillion hole in tax receipts is smaller than the nearly $3 trillion hole left by eliminating the income tax entirely. But $1 trillion is still an insane amount to have to raise in tariffs on $3.3 trillion of imports. Lutnick said later that none of this would happen until the budget was balanced, at which time everybody heaved a sigh of relief, because there’s no chance in hell Trump will ever balance the budget. Trump’s immediate reason to hunt tariff revenue is to try to cover the cost of his tax proposals: extend the 2017 tax cut, restore the deduction for state and local taxes, eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits, et cetera. The cost of these approaches a whole ‘nuther $1 trillion per year.

Have you noticed that Trump never gets a number right? He will never acknowledge arithmetic. I don’t feel certain Trump’s even signed on to Lutnick’s compromise idea of eliminating the income tax only on incomes below $150,000. But to pursue any version of this scheme, Trump needs to slap tariffs on everything that moves, while leaving his underlings to supply a rationale. Just about any justificaiton will do.

FYI, a short correspondence regarding how individual US tariffs are determined, between James Surowiecki (journalist) and Kush Desai (The White House) (both social media accounts below are verified, I wanted to link original sources):

Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.

So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is. — James Surowiecki · Apr 2, 2025

No we literally calculated tariff and non tariff barriers.

https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations — Kush Desai · Apr 2, 2025

This is truly amazing. The Deputy White House Press Secretary is claiming that I'm wrong, and that the "tariff rates" on Trump's chart were calculated by "literally" measuring every country's tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers.

To prove it, he screenshots the formula the USTR says was used to calculate the reciprocal tariffs we imposed on other countries. And when you back out the Greek symbols, what is that formula? Trade deficit/imports - exactly what I said it was.

I don't know if the Deputy Press Secretary was misinformed, or is just being misleading. Either way, the Trump administration did not "literally calculate tariff and non tariff barriers" to determine the tariff rates it's imposing on other countries. As I said, it divided our trade deficit with a country by our imports with that country, and then multiplied by 0.5 (because Trump was being "lenient").

Oh, and if our trade deficit/imports with a country is less than 10%, or we have a trade surplus with a country, Trump slapped a flat 10% tariff on that country. — James Surowiecki · Apr 3, 2025

(the correspondence has additional comments/details if anyone cares)

I suppose the Trump team is free to determine/calculate whatever. Doesn't inspire much confidence. More importantly, what do you make of it?

The JOLTS jobs numbers were up. Powell is talking rate cuts. The sky hasn't fallen yet. But I did start looking at local printing costs (I make a lot of custom t-shirts). The locals are around 10x the cost of the same printing from China. It's higher quality here, but still. Damn.

With regard to the country turning on Trump, if they have an alternative, maybe. If the Democrats run AOC next time, Vance will be the president. He'll definitely keep some of Trumps policies.

I see no world where Vance becomes president because either Trump succeeds in dismantling US democracy in which case he'll just stay in until he dies, or the democratic process continues as usual in which case given what we've been seeing from this administration means Vance gets annihilated electorally. The Democrats can run a corpse and they will win. They did the last time and hopefully they won't the next time. — Mr Bee

You may be right. I doubt it though.

Oh, you're talking about his tax cuts from 2018, due to be extended. And now we're talking about benefits to the top 20%. Do you think the tax policies he campaigned on in this term on might benefit the lower 80%?

I initially wrote:

“Isn't the "bold move" about tax cuts (strongly favoring the 1%) and not the debt?”

Or it’s a dumpster fire. I don’t know enough about US politics to comment on the left right issue. I can read the runes though and to introduce an economic shock that up ends the last 100yrs of globalisation overnight does sound like throwing a torch into a dumpster truck.

But also it doesn’t make economic sense, but rather, it only makes sense if you agree with Trump’s novel views on trade. Views which he’s held unchanged for 40years and are naive and show a poor understanding of what’s involved and a deep prejudice.

Oh, you're talking about his tax cuts from 2018, due to be extended. And now we're talking about benefits to the top 20%. Do you think the tax policies he campaigned on in this term on might benefit the lower 80%? — NOS4A2

Not enough to offset the tax from his tariffs and the gutting of government programs from DOGE. But hey no taxes on tips... if we're lucky.

More importantly, what do you make of it? — jorndoe

That having made a great start on wrecking the Government, he’s now turned his attention to wrecking the economy.

Meanwhile, Trump has just summarily dismissed the Head and Deputy Head of the National Security Authority and US Cyber Command, Timothy Waugh and Wendy Noble, following an Oval Office meeting with notorious crank and conspiracy theory peddler, Laura Loomer (who thinks 911 was staged by the US Government.)

No reason was given.

The locals are around 10x the cost of the same printing from China. It's higher quality here, but still. Damn.

I think you’ve hit the nub of the issue here. All the woes (well most of them) of the U.S. economy, along with the EU and most Western countries are as a result of this. The undercutting of consumables, product and tech by China and some other Far Eastern producers. Over a period of about 30years.

Along with Western producers outsourcing production to these countries.

This is the imbalance that needs correcting. And yet Trump is going after other Western countries and small countries, for a problem caused by and in cahoots with China. As a result he will cause an unnecessary global recession and the collapse, or re-ordering of global trade.

I could give countless examples of what has gone wrong here. But I’ll give one to illustrate. In the U.K. we have an entrepreneur inventor guy, who until recently was hailed as an example of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, Sir James Dyson. Now he is hated and despised by many because of what he did when he had made his money and became very successful. At the first sign of production cost increases at home, probably caused by China undercutting us on production cost. He closed his U.K. production lines down and manufactured his vacuum cleaners in the Far East. Then he became a campaigner and cheerleader for Brexit from his home in Singapore. Apparently he recently bought the most expensive penthouse apartment in Singapore. More recently he has started buying up farmland in the U.K., which has tax breaks for inheritance and capital transfer taxes. Contributing to the unsustainable increases in the cost of farmland, which is pushing many small farmers out of business.

If only innovators like this used their brain power and worked out what the problems are and how to fix them. But no, it was class driven exceptionalism all the way.

This is the imbalance that needs correcting. — Punshhh

Is it?



Wouldn't you expect half of the world's population to produce half of the stuff and get half of the profits?

What's the probability of:

a) The World economy tanking, but especially the US economy going down
b) US prices going up (with "a" above that's stagflation)
c) Democrats winning the midterms, but Trump totally disregarding then the Congress
d) People protesting in large numbers against Trump
e) Trump using force against these protesters and MAGA-supporters clashing with demonstators
f) The US ending up with political instability like a country in Latin America.

Just asking... of course it might not happen, but one scenario.

Really hope not, but it’s disheartening that so many people can’t seem to grasp the danger of what is happening. Shouldn’t be forgotten that the only reason Trump was able to unilaterally declare these tarriffs is because he deemed trade deficits an emergency - which has no basis in economic theory. This allows him to bypass Congress, who in any case is mostly neutered by him. He’s dictating changes to the global economic order on the basis of his ‘gut’. One man. No training.

a) The World economy tanking, but especially the US economy going down
b) US prices going up (with "a" above that's stagflation)
c) Democrats winning the midterms, but Trump totally disregarding then the Congress
d) People protesting in large numbers against Trump
e) Trump using force against these protesters and MAGA-supporters clashing with demonstators
f) The US ending up with political instability like a country in Latin America. — ssu

A) I don't think the world economy tanks other than in the short term. But if the world retaliate tariffs against the US, then it doesn't look good for most citizens of the US.

B) Definitely.

C) They will win the midterms if this chaos continues. Just look at the recent win for the democrats in Wisconsin, it was technically a landslide compared to before in the region. Trump will continue do what he does, so things boil down to if people have the balls enough to stand up against it for real or just make public speeches against him for the sake of gaining points and saving their own asses (not so much actually do something for real against him)

D) If prices skyrocket for regular citizens, yes, and in massive scale. Protests so far have been ideological, but when people can't afford living they could become furious.

E) MAGA supporters clashing with them could happen, but since many MAGA supporters are the ones actually getting the worst of the economical fallout, they might just change side through cognitive dissonance. Trump using force against protestors might happen, but I don't think it would be worse than regular such happenings. If he goes too far that would be the end of him, literally.

F) Not likely. A nation's stability is also proportional to its size. A nation as large as the US takes longer to "fall" than smaller nations. As I see it, this is a conservative cult that has infected gullible republicans. And since most republicans seem to be just botox Karens and disgusting uncles, they are essentially doomed if you remove the cult factor of Trump. With Trump gone and if the nation finally stands up to ban conspiracy nutjobs from political power, it will return to "normalcy". Democrats have a problem at the moment, but they're still operating as a "normal" party. What will happen with republicans in the future I don't know; but I think that the self-radicalization of the internet is pretty damaging to the limited conservative mindset of that party. Essentially, the internet works better for progressive views to move fast, which is against what conservative ideals stand for and that incompatibility required essentially a cult to form stability. Without the cult, it's impossible for republicans to keep up with societal movements.

An explanation of how the tariff rates were calculated can be found at Wondering how Trump's new tariffs were calculated? It will shock you

According to him, since the US exported only US$143.5 billion (A$229.5 billion) worth of goods to China in 2024, but it imported US$438.9 billion in goods from China, China is obviously imposing a 67 per cent tariff on US goods.

Further, for Australia, which enjoyed a goods trade surplus with the US (cars and delivery trucks, apparently), he simply set an arbitrary rate of 10%.

Yes, even thought we have a trade surplus, we get a minimum 10% tariff.

The net effect of course is that the US is simply removing itself from the global market. Twits.

This is the imbalance that needs correcting.
— Punshhh
Is it?

Wouldn't you expect half of the world's population to produce half of the stuff and get half of the profits? — Banno

This ignores labour conditions, EH&S regulations, environmental regulations, etc. that are at the basis of the absence of a level playing field. On the other hand, colonialism and economic neoliberal policy has screwed over most other countries now in a position to produce cheaply but mostly through exploitation of people or the environment. If they make half the stuff in accordance with the regulations that apply to local firms they absolutely deserve half of the profits.

Personally, I'm in favour of a principled based tariff system:

1. Not a full democracy? 10%
2. Authoritarion? 25%
3. Work week not limited to 40 hours? 10%
4. No unions allowed? 10%
5. No EH&S rules at EU level? 25%
6. No environmental standards at EU level? 25%

Then we allow companies to voluntarily meet EU obligations to the extent they can, to make their products exempt from most tariffs through an accreditation process and ban any company to sell to the EU for 10 years if they falsely obtain such accreditation.

But this has fuck all to do with Trump so let's stop the discussion here.