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

What on earth? Who will live in it?

They can't do infrastructure in the US, what's the point in building a city in a country that is mostly frozen. Is he talking about a frontier oil-mining place? You don't need a fancy city for that. What is the sub-text?

And given the amounts of money thrown about for most things, $525 million isn't going to build much of a city.

Thiel is big into odd sci-fi style projects, was an investor in Seasteading a few years back. A lot of this seems to be an attempt to have his own fiefdom.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seasteading_Institute

It’s the ultimate form of the Techno/Crypto Bro vaporware project that will likely go nowhere and is planned upon an entirely fictional need.

Over the years we’ve seen proposals for New City Mega-Projects (often in Saudi Arabia, but also other places), where futuristic enclosed cities would be built. They would usually run exclusively on Crypto-money (because of course) and public transport would be built upon some nonsense «pod» concept car, or on non-viable modes like Musk’s now defunct HyperLoop.

The common demoninators of these projects are that they are built somewhere no-one wants to or needs to live (Like for example a fundamentalist absolute monarchy in the desert, the middle of the ocean, or the frozen Arctic wilderness.) and that the entire business case of the settlement is built around something that can barely justify its existence in established civilisation (though minting Cryto & NFTs for example).

Some of these insane projects do occasionally break ground. But very often they never finish.

It’s even more stupid than that

How will these libertarians defend such a city/territory from attack

You're giving Donnie far too much credit there. I stongly doubt he's put anywhere near that much thought into what he's doing. He want's to sound "Presidental" and "Tough", so he throws out blockheaded Tariffs because that's his current favorite word, but no thought at all is going into the targeting of those Tariffs.

FFS, he's even managed to potentially get China & Japan to join forces on thier side of a Trade War. That was increadibly stupid and reckless of him, and it happened because I suspect there is no real plan to what he's doing.

I don't get it. I don't know why the Americans voted for him but a lot of what he was sprouting and a lot of his policies that likely got him elected are small minded crap. Does is not have 4 years in office? Why has he rushed so much within weeks of gaining office? Surely he could ah e entered some sort of negotiations stage for a lot of what he's doing but he's very rushed with his small minded bullcrap.

No.They won't be definitely in even tomorrow. He was putting on tariffs on Canada, then he wasn't, then he was but they were delayed.

Ironic, for someone with a God complex, but the Gospel according to Donald as of 1.30 on April 1st, might be the mirror opposite of the Gospel of Donald at 2.45 tomorrow.

To my knowledge those tariffs with Canada haven't started yet. Not sure, it's hard to keep up and I get bored of the flapping. And the Senate are voting on whether to block/reverse those Canada tariffs. Today I believe.

republicans might lose their majorities in house and senate in midterm elections so that's putting some pressure on

If he imposes 20% tariffs on all EU imports to the States , plus potentially Ireland specific tariffs with Pharma. When do you reckon we will begin to see real/significant job losses in 1) Pharma Jobs in Ireland and 2) wider job losses in Ire? Will it initially be no new jobs created first? Then job losses in 1 year or so? Or will it be immediate?

This is so worrying.

Havent really been tuning into Irish News, RTE etc re Trumps Tarrifs & Ireland

Ireland is one of what he calls THE DIRTY 15:

Interesting times for the US Pharma industry and US FDI in general here.

This is where the gov here gets most of its money from .. the FDI corp tax take. And add to that this "leprechaun economics" our gov has/had going on.

Possible rough times for Eire PLC coming up?

I wonder would a seperate TARRIFs and Ireland thread be potentially useful? Call it LIBERATION DAY ( as trump is calling April 2 2025 )

Just thought I'd add some stuff on the Pharma front.

Generally speaking, it takes 10 years to get a drug tested, approved, licenced and manufactured. (there are exceptions - covid)
The pharma companies have invested billions here in implementing that process.
All drugs sold in the EU must be manufactured in the EU.

Big pharma is playing a long game, they're not gonna go anywhere. This will all be gone in 3.75 years, they're not about to throw away years of work, and billions in investment over some tarriffs.

The insurance companies in the US will bare the brunt and hence will have higher premiums. This in turn will make it even more difficult to do business in the US.

and isn't bought out by the billionaires. 

If only you knew who Trump has surrounded himself with and has given unfettered access to all levels of government information….

If the tariffs last more than a few months then they are here to stay, Trump or no Trump.

While the pharma companies won't shutter plants tomorrow, they will divert their future investment back to the States. There is always going to be less political risk with domestic manufacturing so the FDI investment tap will be turned off.

The only hope is that these policies bind up the US economy and force a reversal before they bed in. Once established it will take years to a decade to undo

The problem about these Tariffs is- applying “logic” doesn’t necessarily help matters - I think we’re mostly agreed that a lot of what MAGA is doing right now isn’t logical anyway - is it spite? Is it movement to a new world order? Is it a realisation of just how much technology or AI can and will change what humans do that they’re getting the jump on the western world and pivoting toward that?
something else?

I haven’t seen an insightful article yet that attempts to take a medium to long term view of the Trump administration in terms of the direction they’re taking and what success might look like to them.
whilst most of what they do isn’t appearing logical - it is consistent - so it’s heading in a certain direction for a certain purpose. If we can identify that, it might help us all a bit more