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

Chief Johnson has put a temporary hold on the lower court order instructing the Govt to bring the deportee back from.. edit: El Salvador.

I was responding to a post that said goods AND services. And services such as Heath, Education etc are ridiculously expensive. But you're only addressing goods.

Also your link shows there are only 2 EU countries with more expensive goods than the US

this is real. At first I didn't believe it and had to look on twitter.

again I am lost for words to describe the extent how much of a clown show this administration is.

I thought this one was even worse

Not necessarily.

The wage gap has grown significantly in America, and particularly the gap between CEO's and the average worker wage in the company they manage.

And we know how housing, education, healthcare costs have increased over the last 40 years. I saw someone describe recently how their father provided for a wife, and 4 children on a salary of 35K back in the day which would equate to 120K now and then there's no way you'll provide a house and living items for 6 people on that sort of money today. The Federal minimum wage hasn't increased since 2009 and if it kept track with inflation from where it was in the 1970,s would be over $25/hour now. Instead it is still at $7.25

And also, the American unemployment figure is very good, but it is also hiding the stark reality for a lot of people. The amount of people using food stamps or having to work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet is much higher than what it was in the past. There's many stories of Walmart workers or the likes having to access food stamps to supplement their incomes. When I lived there, I worked with a guy who was earning between 150K and 200K per year as an electrician who worked 50-60 hrs/week and he could not afford to take a days sick leave because of how tight his finances were.

The irony about how globalisation has harmed American society is that it was pushed massively by stringent capitalists. The same people who identify mostly as Republican. And no matter their claims, the Republican party hasn't seen the American workforce as anything more than a vote providing commodity for decades. Even now, Lutnick is talking about manufacturing coming back in the form of robot staffed factories. The capitalist behemoth will continue to look to prioritize it's profit at the expense of masses. That's one of the only things we can be sure of.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Xi gives two fingers to Trump 🍿 🍿 🍿

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?