Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

CoffeeImpala

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336371#Comment_123336371

But the US hasn't lost manufacturing output in the last 20 years. Your graph only shows their percentage share of global manufacturing dropping.

The dollar value of US manufacturing is at/near an all time high but is more efficient than in the past so numbers employed are falling.

REDBULL68

Now hear me out and don't give out ,could this be a way to drop the market so low that Russian shell companies could buy back in to the markets on the sly and I'm sure stocks will rocket next week, and this was part of an agreement about a peace deal with Ukraine.

REDBULL68

Don't believe it for a minute, all these leaders either had a meeting in the white House or a very long video call, it's all smoke and mirrors, The world is now in the hands of people with a ideology, that to me makes no sense.

eastie17

quiet possibly, this is either sheer incompetence or a look over there while we do something really sly over here approach.

take everything

https://youtu.be/5fJyNoDUUIk?si=jz2VtqpZ8TKmtGi-

Pelosi seemed to be saying essentially the same thing that Trump is saying today about tariffs and how screwed up the American-Chinese trade relationship was 30 years ago. How it was hurting American workers etc.

She seems quite passionate about what she is saying as well in that video.

Anyway, aren't these primarily just the start of a negotiation to get some of these countries to wake up a bit.

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336520#Comment_123336520

Wake up and do what? Start spending hundreds of dollars on KitchenAid appliances while Americans spend $20 on Amazon Choice appliances?

The world can't afford to buy American goods, especially the countries most affected by high tariffs. A person in Cambodia isn't going to spend a month's wages on a stand mixer.

PixelCrafter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336526#Comment_123336526

Considering many workers there earn about $150 / month a kitchen aid stand mixer at $500+ isn't even remotely on the agenda.

Their GDP per capita is only $2429.75 about 34 times less than the US!

Not that Trump gives a flying **** the guy didn't even seem to know what the word 'groceries' was all about yesterday. Sounded like he's never interacted with such things.

Basically all Trump's doing to somewhere like Cambodia is deeply impoverishing it and causing it to cut economic likes entirely with the US.

They just won't be able to trade on that kind of basis.

All it means in reality is lots of countries on that list will end up far more focused on China.

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336529#Comment_123336529

Even Americans can't afford to buy all-American. A KitchenAid mixer made in Greenville Ohio is either a wedding gift or a once-in-a-lifetime splurge by someone who absolutely loves baking. The rest of their kitchen will still be made in Vietnam or India. That's why this plan will ultimately fail. People don't want to go back to when a new appliance was a big financial decision.

And I don't understand the people who think that other countries can reduce their surplus with America by "waking up a bit". It's a meaningless soundbite. If Americans can't afford to do it, which they clearly can't since they are spending a trillion more dollars abroad than they make, why would someone in Lesotho or Vietnam be able to do it.

Peregrinus

Anyway, aren't these primarily just the start of a negotiation to get some of these countries to wake up a bit.

No, they're not.

Trump has — presumably deliberately — presented these tariffs in a way that makes it very difficult for other countries to do anything that could count as "waking up".

Take Vietnam. Trump claims that Vietnam subjects imports from the USA to tariffs of 90%. On that basis he imposes "reciprocal" tariffs of about half that, 46%. Logically, you'd think, if Vietnam wants to get the US tariff revoked it needs to reduce or eliminate the tariff it imposes on US goods.

The thing is, Vietnam can't do that. The 90% tariffs supposedly charged by Vietnam are completely fictional. Vietnam's trade-weighted average tariff rate is 5.1%. The reason the Vietnamese don't buy a lot of US goods is not because those goods are tariffed out; it's because they can't afford them.

Vietnam can't eliminate the 90% tariffs that it never imposed in the first place, obviously. What it can do — if the US is willing — is negotiate a trade deal under which it exempts US imports from the average 5.1% tariff rate that it does impose, in return for the US eliminating the 46% tariff rate that it has just imposed.

This would acheive precisely nothing for the US. Vietnam would not buy materially more US goods, because they still would find them unaffordable. At best, we'd be back to square one, with Vietnam and the US trading on more or less the terms that they were trading on before Stupid Thursday, and with a similar pattern of trade — the US buying skads of clothing, footwear and cheap manufactures from Vietnam, and Vietnam buying a small amount of agricultural produce and motor vehicles from the US.

Trump would, of course, try to spin this return to the status quo ante as a hugh victory for the US, a massive climbdown for Vietnam, so much winning, etc. And this is a Trump line the more slow-witted have been been willing to embrace in the past. But what he has just done to their savings, to their retirement accounts, to consumer prices and to the government programs from which they benefit has shocked a lot of his erstwhile supporters; they are going to be a bit more critical, and a bit less gullible, now than they were in the past.

The likes of Vietnam can't afford to buy more US manufactures unless the US starts manufacturing stuff they want to buy at prices they can afford. It's hard to see how the US could do that, and policies aimed at doing that — slashing wages, reducing labour and consumer standards — would be deeply unpopular, even with Trump voters.

halkar

Xi gives two fingers to Trump 🍿 🍿 🍿

halkar

Xi gives two fingers to Trump 🍿 🍿 🍿

everlast75

Is anyone who gave Biden sh1t over Israel/ Palestine prepared to read the following quote and accept that they now know, when given the binary choice that the American presidential election gives, that Biden was the far better option?

Trump: "You know how I feel about the Gaza Strip. I think it's an incredible piece of important real estate. And I think it's something that we would be involved in. Having a peace force like the US there controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing ... you call it the Freedom Zone."

Peregrinus

To be fair, "not as dreadful as Donald Trump" is a pretty low bar. A squashed apricot would have made a better president than Donald Trump.

You really are damning Biden with faint praise, arent' you?

jj880

https://x.com/GeneralMCNews/status/1909264836719976761?t=17qDZBZd2PdThC4G-mEI5g&s=19

BREAKING: President Trump has issued a 48-hour ultimatum to China to remove its retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., warning that failure to comply will result in an additional 50% tariff on Chinese goods.

Bizarre stuff.

everlast75

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336566#Comment_123336566

You really are damning Biden with faint praise, arent' you?

You are really avoiding the question, aren't you?

sock.rocker*

There are new rules apparently coming in about shipping in the US. Like millions in fees if the ship was made in China, and additional fees if they shipping company has any Chinese ships on order. There is talk of this choking ports as ships are forced to skip them.

I wouldn't be surprised if this focuses the attentions of countries like China and Japan. Precisely zero of the biggest shipping companies in the world are American. It's all Europe, Japan, and China. These countries have insane leverage over America if they chose to limit routes to the US.

McFly85

Outside of the tariffs, the pushback from the administration on correcting their error of sending a man to an El Salvador prison should terrify US citizens.

A Federal Judge has ordered the return of the man, with the Supreme Court issuing a stay on the matter. AG Pam Bondi has said she “fully intends to protect the executive from judicial overreach”, so basically do what Trump tells her to do.

If the Supreme Court find a way to determine that this man does not need to be returned, there is a template for the administration to disappear anyone they don’t like into a foreign prison, never to be seen or heard from again.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336572#Comment_123336572

Musks bots killing it.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336577#Comment_123336577

To be honest, I'm wondering why the question was even asked. (Why did you ask it, as a matter of interest?)

Was Biden a better President than Trump? Yes, obviously. Specifically, in relation to Israel/Palestine? Yes, obviously.

Does this in any way vindicate Biden, or provde any defence or mitigation in relation to the sh1t Biden was given over his actions or inactions on Israel/Palestine? No, not in the least. Why would it? Like I say, it's reasonable to hold presidents to a higher standard than "not as bad as Trump" and to criticise them when they fail to meet that standard. A healthy republic should have higher expectations of its presidents than that.

(Plus, of course, there is a view that if the Democrats had not alienated progressive voters by their position on Israel/Palestine, they might actually have won the election, and we'd all have been spared Trump 2.0. I'm not convinced myself, but it's not an unarguable view.)

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336578#Comment_123336578

From what you say, it is the US that would be limiting routes to the US. US ports would be closed to a huge chunk of world shipping.

(The measure would, of course, make the tariffs largely unnecessary. If you can't ship goods to the US, the question of what taxes to apply to goods imported into the US doesn't really arise.)

Akrasia

China know this is a once in a generation opportunity to defeat America without having to fire a single bullet (america is busy shooting themselves in both feet).

Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake. By the end of Trumps term, the USD will no longer be the reserve currency and a Chinese tech and manufacturing industries will dominate with Chinese owned brands, instead of simply supplying the raw materials and manufacturing every for america to extract profits from.

The US is facing a bleak decade, declining political influence, declining international military power, declining economic control, environmental concerns (widespread drought and heat waves caused by the climate change they did the most in the world to cause (and sabotage any attempts to address it).

Internal division and political chaos as the institutions of the state have been corrupted by decades of regulatory capture and corruption, while income and racial inequality eat away at the foundations of civil society.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336572#Comment_123336572

Fools cheering as they fall into their own bear trap

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336600#Comment_123336600

The measures seem to be supported by the steel industry and even Democrats, but not American shipping companies and ports.

What I meant though was that these countries could actually do immense damage to US trade with a more direct approach.

Akrasia

There goes his 'External Revenue Service'

He can't even stick to his own incoherent plan.

Unless he is stopped, Trump will continue his other plan to cut trillions in income taxes from the rich, the US budget deficit will skyrocket even further.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336611#Comment_123336611

Why bother? The US is doing the job for you. Why position yourselves as the bad guys by mounting things like blockades (definitely illegal, by the way) when you can acheive the same result, at a lower cost, and preserving your reputation, by just letting the Americans shoot their own feet off?

In a post above Akrasia predicts that Chine will overtake the US as the leading global economic (and, probably, political) power. I agree with her. (With him? With them?) This was happening anyway but Trump has accelerated it.

beggars_bush

It's bonkers stuff

Who are the people advising him? Or are there none?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336621#Comment_123336621

The only people allowed to advise him are those who will give him the advice that he wants to hear.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336621#Comment_123336621

Its The project 2025 people, and they are completely off the rails. Or Russia. Donnie can barely string 2 sentences together, hes just doing what hes told.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336157#Comment_123336157

Those numbers are based on averages, which is iffy in the US - states matter. It's cheaper to live in Mississippi with its poverty and bad child and maternal health outcomes (bottom 100 worldwide) than in Hawaii. Cars are cheaper in Michigan. Things like that. You need to include the state ranking, which paints a different picture:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state#the-cost-of-living-in-the-united-states

20 states above the US average.

The only thing that's super cheap in my opinion is energy compared to the rest of the world. Take that out of the expenses (which I haven't found unfortunately) I'd guess the picture would be much worse for the US.

Health care is nearly as important as food prices, especially availability, and far and above the most expensive in the West.

Anecdotally as a US citizen, food prices are insane, Housing isn't far behind. THe US might've been cheap once, now places like Ireland are far cheaper.

everlast75

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123336598#Comment_123336598

The question and the reason for it are quite simple.

The question is ... Where are the people who gave Biden sh1t over Israel in the lead up to the election and why aren't they slamming Trump for being an utter disaster.

The reason why it was asked is because for years on this forum, repeatedly, both closet and outright trump supporters constantly criticise his opponents for their stance on issues yet when Trump has one monumental f*ck up after another, they go AWOL.

I am wondering if any of them will admit to having buyer's remorse at this stage