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

Her and Noem will be hit by tariffs if they apply it to Mayo's Botox supply.

Oil prices are down, interest rates are down (the slow moving Fed should cut rates!), food prices are down, there is NO INFLATION, and the long time abused USA is bringing in Billions of Dollars a week from the abusing countries on Tariffs that are already in place.

I really don't think he understands tariffs. How could the tariffs be bringing in billions from the abusing countries? Does he think foreign companies are paying the tariff to the US government?

"It's the economy stupid" has never seemed so prescient. Hopefully republican voter anger will kick in fully before too long.

It can't really 'work' in his term as president. It takes too long for factories to be built and supply chains upended. I think this is more an obsession for Trump. He's be talking about tariffs since the 80's and seems to have a deep belief that the US has been ripped off in an underhanded way by other countries for decades.

He's partially right but it's a lot more complicated than that and tariffs are not the solution.

Vietnam offered 0% tarrifs and of course Trump admin are saying “that’s not enough”

There is no negotiating with these imbeciles, not that Trumps signature is worth anything just ask Canada and Mexico who signed a deal with Trump before

I think the new approach will be that the U.S. is basically Netflix and each country will have to pay a yearly subscription fee to get access to U.S. markets.

I've just stepped away from the TV after watching Navarro still trying to sell the story that VAT is on a par with tariffs where it comes to US goods being sold abroad and that if the EU stopped applying VAT on US goods, it would be a start in negotiations over tariffs. He was talking to the people who cover the financial and market affairs for the TV stations FFS! Good thing is I had a HR4U "frustration-relief" rubber computer mouse to throw at the screen.

Presumably he is still trying to tell the US public that VAT is part of the tariffs system and is being used to keep the unequal trade deficits Trump is talking about. He was asked about the differences of opinion on tariffs between him and Musk and sidestepped it by returning to his tariffs waffle and ignoring the questions asked of him.

We need to educate the US public that VAT is the same as the retail sales tax applied in the US and that VAT applies to most sales and services across and within the EU. One difference is that the different STATES in the US APPLY AND RECEIVE the sales tax revenue and not the Federal Govt.

Unless you are Russia, they get free access due to peepee tape

Did Ron Vara tell him that I wonder.

what was American doing what it was being ‘ripped off ‘ by everyone else - I assume that it had its eyes WIDE OPEN while this was going on and decided that it was to their advantage at the time.

So four points on the above :-

(1) Americans were enjoying cheap food - and quality food from Ireland - cheap clothes, etc. and mainly products that were cheaper than they could be produced in America. The country knowingly choose to go down this path

(2) since WW2 the US pumped billions of dollars into building up its army whereas Europe, et al choose to spend its annual budget in other ways ie building up infrastructure, social services m and suchlike.

(3) So, is Trump kicking himself that the US did not go down , for example, the European path and have a more balanced approach to developing the country?

(4) what were the Americans doing that could have been making all the nations requirement for clothes, food, cars, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, but did not. Were they all unemployed or making loads of dollars or what? They must have been doing very little as Trump sees a very poor situation in front of him and is going to make America Great/Rich again

So, in summary, the US has something that most other countries have not got ie an adequate army to defend itself

I fundamentally disagree with this. This would be the worst possible thing for the EU to do.

The EU already has a huge trade imbalance with China. We have a high dependence on critical raw materials and components from China, with huge vulnerability in our supply chains. The Chinese have been dumping products in the EU for years, decimating our industries. They've been strategically subsidising particular innovative products to destroy our high-tech industries. They've all but destroyed the fledgling solar manufacturing industry and they're in the process of doing the same to the automotive industry. The Chinese have been buying up strategic assets in the EU, such as ports and airports. And that's before we even start to discuss the human rights issues in Tibet, Hong Kong, the threats to Taiwan, the security concerns relating to their domination of 5G technologies, etc, etc.

We can just add a 20% minimum tip instead - they should understand that. If they get on time delivery and they want to appear successful to their neighboring (sic) countries they can always up their tip to 30%.

$2.1 trillion wiped out as soon as US markets opened

Tesla is crashing faster than erm a Tesla on “autopilot”

It's a bizarre system in America when the president can unilaterally levy tariffs on the entire world but can't change the interest rate.

That's crazy. That would put EU companies subject to VAT at a disadvantage to US companies. There is no way the EU could agree to that with a view to keeping it long term.