Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 06/06/25

8-10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339841#Comment_123339841

He's also about to turn 79 years old

I'd imagine he's well above average for his age

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339770#Comment_123339770

There are often a couple of different drugs that can be used to treat the same condition. If one of them secures a price advantage by relocating production to the US and so avoiding the tariffs, they can expect health insurers to encourage/pressure doctors to prescribe that drug in preference to the more expensive alternatives that are still produced abroad and imported. Hence there's the prospect of a competitive advantage for the pharma company that onshores production of at least some drugs.

But it's an unstable advantage, since at any time another pharma company might onshore the production of its drug. So it would be risky to invest a lot in onshoring production in the expectation of being the only company to do so. And relocating pharma production facilities is very expensive; pharma companies won't do it unless they are convinced that the Trump tariffs are a permanent feature. Since virtually nothing Trump does is permanent, they'll be slow to come to that conclusion.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339891#Comment_123339891

Also the time it takes to move production is 5+ years so well beyond his term in office and at the moment it doesnt look like the tariffs will last until the summer let alone his entire term

breezy1985

For all his talk of job creation I assume all this is going to have a hugely detrimental effect on the very working class jobs in the docks and shipping.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339778#Comment_123339778

It's always crazy watching US television (eg. during sports or news broadcasts), and the ads they have for different medicines.

"If you have an itchy arm, ask your doctor if Flimoxitocin is right for you!

Side effects may include nausea, headaches, migraines, irritations, more itchiness, diarrhea and/or constipation, external bleeding, internal bleeding, dandruff on your kidneys, excess hair growth, ear detachment, smelling like salmon, paralysis, fungal infection, liking pineapple on pizza, ear cataracts, heart palpatations, acid reflux or just instant death.

Talk to your doctor today!"

aidanodr

As night follows day .. pharma stocks getting hammered it seems

https://twitter.com/notreload_ai/status/1909876268679516380

Aurelian

If a factory sells 50% of it's product to the US and 50% globally, it would need a serious incentive to make the capital investment and reshore to the US with higher corporation tax and wage costs. Especially in the context of such unstable government policy where tariffs could be raised, lowered, cancelled etc overnight.

kyote00

if he ever decides to ‘tariff’ services and EU reciprocate then it is truly chaos…

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339946#Comment_123339946

This.

Im fact only 30-35% of Irish pharma exports to to the US (though that proportion may of course be higher for some pharma companies and lower for others), which makes the cost/benefit analysis of moving production to the US even more iffy.

Kermit.de.frog

Dow futures are positive but we'll see when China retaliates

yagan

Drugs may be very expensive in the US for end users but that's partly because of the multiple private healthcare companies taking their cut. National drug procurement schemes on behalf of whole nations reduce the cost for their end users significantly, yet for the pharma selling the drug the gate price will be about the same.

So for many big multinationals a whole bunch of national procurement schemes from all around the world are a lot more stable an income than the US market that's currently heading for a major self induced recession.

Sierra Oscar

The US bond charts are truly ugly this morning, serious trouble is on the horizon. Yesterday's auctions of three year notes had little interest and there is a further auction of ten year notes today and a thirty year note auction tomorrow.

When there aren't enough external investors buying bonds during auctions the US banks are obliged to step in and support the market. It's completely unsustainable if bond yields surge way beyond historic rates and will result in a banking crisis. I wouldn't be surprised if the bond auctions are deferred.

It's also looking increasingly likely that investors are having to liquidate their treasury holdings to cover their losses elsewhere. Danger here!

Will_I_Amnt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339762#Comment_123339762

Ive been saying this since January.

There isn't a shadow of a doubt about it.

Trumps own assets arent even in a blind trust as they ethically should be. They're in his revocable trust, managed by his sons

tarvis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339877#Comment_123339877

Had congress been silenced or is it playing dead?

SaoPaulo41

World leaders lining up to ‘kiss my ass’, Donald Trump boasts

President Donald Trump has boasted that world leaders panicked by his gargantuan global tariffs are “kissing my ass-” in desperate bids to reduce the levies.

“These countries are calling us up, kissing my ass**” to negotiate deals on his tariffs, which he called “legendary,” Trump said during a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner in Washington, D.C. “They are,” he emphasised.

“They are dying to make a deal.”

He mocked the tariff-deal supplicants, pretending to be them as he pitifully pleaded in a simpering voice: “Please, Sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, Sir.”

Mr Trump also bragged that he had the “most successful 100 days in the history of this country,” apparently forgetting the rattling plunges in global stock markets after he announced his tariffs, angry Republican town hall meetings, and a major national protest against his administration just days earlier.

For many leaders, the White House hasn’t bothered to respond to their phone calls to even schedule talks, Politico reported Tuesday. In addition, Trump officials haven’t yet even indicated what specific concessions they’re seeking.

None of Mr Trump’s top officials “have a mandate to negotiate,” one foreign diplomat who requested anonymity told Politico.

“I’m not sure … how receptive” the administration is to “ meet with counterparts. Many of us have already written to them asking for meetings,” said an official from the Philippines. “We are all waiting for the reply,” he added, referring to representatives of several Southeast Asian countries.

It’s unclear where the Trump administration stands on the tariffs, whose cost will be largely paid by American consumers in the form of higher prices for foreign goods. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CBS News Tuesday that the tariffs are “negotiable but not a negotiating tactic.”

Mr Trump said that there could be both “permanent tariffs and there could also be negotiations.”

The tariffs went into effect at 12:01 a.m.today. They included a monstrous 104pc levy on goods from China, which has vowed to fight America “to the end” in a trade war.

They have shaken a global trading order that has persisted for decades, raised fears of recession and wiped trillions of dollars off the market value of major firms.

European and U.S. stock futures pointed to more pain ahead, following a grim session for most of Asia. Chinese stocks bucked the trend, however, as state support propped up the ailing market.

Mr Trump has shrugged off the market rout and offered investors mixed signals about whether the tariffs will remain in the long term, describing them as "permanent" but also boasting that they are pressuring other leaders to ask for negotiations.

Mary Papenfuss, UK Independent

Vicxas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339992#Comment_123339992

They're terrified to go against the Supreme leader and to a lesser extent their voter base back home

tarvis

Who will tell the USA its meat is substandard ? Why don’t they get the message when their products are refused in any country it is because they are not up to the standards of 2025?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339992#Comment_123339992

Partly gutless, partly terrified. There's a Republican majority in both houses, but Republican congressmen are terrified of being primaried if they fail to display proper unquestioning subservient sycophancy to His Orangeness. The entire House of Representatives is up for election every two years so they are in more or less permanent campaign mode.

The position may change, as I say, if Trump voters become increasing disenchanted with the outcome of the policies they voted for, and look to their congressmen to do something about it. There are straws in the wind, but this hasn't really happened yet.

Will_I_Amnt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123340010#Comment_123340010

That won't continue to be the case if the voter base back home are pissed off if a recession, depression or banking crisis occurs

So they just wait for it to happen, hoping they don't lose support personally when it does as they'll all go rogue on Trump

briany

Should no deal be struck regarding tariffs, especially on China, then it would create one almighty black market for everything made in that country, which is an awful lot of stuff. Lot of money in it, potentially, for the Mexican cartels and Canadian outfits to buy in-demand stuff at wholesale prices (or just steal it, whatever) and then smuggle it into the US at a healthy markup.

Trump did a lot of scaremongering about the bad things coming across both borders in his election campaign, but he didn't say anything about half-price iPhones.

tinytobe

One thing I find strange is that the matter of the US trade deficit hasn't been addressed and handled as an objection:

I don't even think that the US does have a real trade deficit.

For instance, foreign investors find the US bond market as well as the US stock market attractive. If they are buying either of these, they are essentially buing a US-american product.

Foreign investment in US stocks and US bonds add fuel to the US consumer, making in the end the US consumer buying more than the country can produce.

So, in order to stop that, Trump would need to make the purchase of US stocks and US bonds for foreign investors as unattractive as possible. I also think that Europeans will never find the Chevrolet Silverado or the Ford F150 as an attractive car to buy, simply too big, simply too much fuel consumption, but they will find US stocks and bonds attractive. Ireland is also the biggest customer of Boeing aircraft outside of the US, mainly due to Ryanair and CapAir.

Tariffs don't do anything here, they only add to inflation and possible economic issues for the US first and foremost.

So if one adds US stocks and bonds, the US probably has no trade deficit with Europe at all.

yagan

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-04-06/china-has-already-trade-war-proofed-its-economy

Good overview of how China is prepared and well positioned to weather Trumps Tariffs.

Good to see it mention the RCEP which will now doubt accelerate in reducing tariffs in Asia.

eightieschewbaccy

Just glancing at my pension and is down about 9k since the start of April. So half of its growth in 5 years has disappeared. If I was nearing retirement age and in a US citizen, I'd be very angry.

RickBlaine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123340089#Comment_123340089

I've seen some posts on social media about Americans who were due to retire this year being told by their financial advisor that they have to postpone their retirement.

8-10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123340075#Comment_123340075

US and EU trade is balanced when you consider services

And that's what US should care about - they have a knowledge economy that exports high value services with high margins and use the high wages they get as a result to import goods that take menial human effort to produce that they don't want to do themselves either because of how taxing or dangerous it is (or scarce: coffee, diamonds etc)

US has seen a huge net gain from global trade - it's just that the current administration willfully or mistakenly misunderstand that. No prizes for guessing which.

The big winner from all of this to me seems to be Russia for some reason

Iecrawfc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123339769#Comment_123339769

Does the bond market conditions indicate that interest rates will generally rise or fall? If the bonds are being sold off does that mean there are more available so less interest needed to attract buyers, or more interest to do the same?

johnny_ultimate

Trump's 'saying the quiet part out loud'* overnight comment about countries lining up to 'kiss ass' is the simple, straightforward essence of his trade 'policy'. This is pure power play - an idiot bully punishing anyone who doesn't line up to kiss the ring. All he wants is submission, regardless of the consequences - whether that's tanking the economy, burning alliances or making the US a pariah state. Obviously there's more - not least a desperate attempt to recreate an economy and society that never existed in the version fantasised by its adherents - but I think with Trump the basest, stupidest motivation is often the overriding one.

*though let's be honest: much of Trump's rise can be attributed to 'saying the quiet part out loud'

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123340117#Comment_123340117

Russia funds its war on oil sales which are currently falling and Russia was already having to sell oil at a discount so I'm curious as to why you think they're benefiting.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123340075#Comment_123340075

There will be many in-depth analyses of the precarious economic situation that wide-ranging tariffs put the USA in, but economics are really about people at the end of the day and people aren't always rational, reasonable or do what's in their best interests.

Like, we can be reasonably sure that MAGA will blame Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Barack Obama for any heavy economic fallout that might occur and that fire will be fanned by all the right-wing 'news' networks, plus Facebook and Twitter. The centre people might show up for a big one day protest and then go home. The more left wing people will be doing the 'I told you so' thing and not much more.

If bad tariff policies were to be the end of Trump, it'd require some kind of fight to get rid of him because he wouldn't go without one. More specifically, the people behind him wouldn't go without one. They know it's their one great opportunity to make the USA into the dictatorship they want.

RickBlaine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123340031#Comment_123340031

MSNBC put together clips of some prominent MAGA Youtubers and podcasters expressing annoyance and dismay at Trump's policies. Their listeners are quite gullible and responsive to their opinions. I wonder has Trump finally bitten off more than he can chew with regards to GOP voters. Hitting Americans in their bank account is usually fatal for those in power.