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

Calling people fascist for saying Biden wasn’t compus mentus a few years ago is really working out now isn’t it.

Trump is simply a symptom of a corrupt political system that favours the usual suspects. He is just looking to favour his own types and doesn’t care about social policy at all.

Telling poor people they are racist because they bought what Trump was selling has only emboldened him and his cult.

The same is already happening in Ireland . I hope we handle this with a little more maturity than the yanks but I’ll hold my breath on that one

regarding tariffs, can someone explain the following to me:

say you have market A with 10 people, and market B with 100 people.

if market A has access to market B it will increase their revenue 10x (assuming same market share)

if market B wants to access market A it will increase their revenue by .1x.

fundamentally, is there anything wrong with charging someone some sort of fee to access a market that will massively increase their revenue?

i thought a tariff was essentially an import charge - you pay a charge to access a (bigger) market.

i think thats grand. at its most basic level is a tariff a charge to access to bigger market?

It's not paid by supplier.

It's paid by importer, who passes cost on to consumer.

The early signs are that this tariff thing has already gone totally pear shaped. You wouldn't see the stock markets falling to this degree if there were just some slightly anxious jitters around the announcements.

To show how the US/UK trading relationship stands of today following the tariff introduction by Trump, Waterstones, the UK bookshop Co has paused shipping books to Barnes and Noble [part of the Waterstones conglomerate] bookstores in the US.

Delivery Options | Waterstones.com Help | Waterstones

3rd April 2025: We regret that we are currently unable to accept or ship orders to the US, while we establish options to be compliant with the new tariffs. Please consult the latest information …

Delivery Options | Waterstones.com Help | Waterstones

3rd April 2025: We regret that we are currently unable to accept or ship orders to the US, while we establish options to be compliant with the new tariffs. Please consult the latest information.

Edit:

Delivery Options | Waterstones.com Help | Waterstones

3rd April 2025: We regret that we are currently unable to accept or ship orders to the US, while we establish options to be compliant with the new tariffs. Please consult the latest information …

I clicked on the link reference above but was unable to find the latest information mentioned by Waterstones.

I looked at the Nancy Pelosi speech you referenced. It was all about trade with China, and China's unacceptable practices. It was a million miles removed from a blanket policy of universal tariffs on friends and foes alike. It was driven by real economic concerns, not by ideology or plain nonsense (e.g. "they are ripping us off").

Be careful of what your reference.

Thought I may have been losing my marbles by remembering 'the chart' from somewhere… but no, all is fine

No. Tariffs are an extra tax on companies who want to sell foreign made products.

For example, if an American store wants to sell Irish butter, the American store now has to pay the American government an extra 20% tax or Tariff.

The idea of tarrifs is that you make foreign products so expensive that people won't buy them and switch to using local products. But it's a pre WW2 idea as no country can remotely make everything they need anymore.

Just like carbon taxes, and the likes?

Well said, the customer being the last in the line is always the one to be screwed.

When you are the customer it doesn't matter who is doing the screwing - whether it's the Green New Deal crowd, the Build Back Better crowd or the MAGA crowd.

At least with the MAGA crowd their intentions are morally a bit better. And for us outside the USA the following chart should offer some comfort: