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

The disciples on social media keep referencing the '75 countries' supposedly begging Trump for a deal but he hasn't name checked even one of them bar South Korea.

Has also backed down on the huge fees for docking non US ships.

I mean he might. America and Russia in bed again at the cost of China could very well be a plan that suits both America and Russia. A plan doesn't have to have morals for it to be a plan.

The fact that Simon was in DC yesterday is enough for him to stick Ireland on his beggars list

Just like Boris, he wants to be 'World King'

Every country is paying the 10% base tariffs (except China, Mexico and Canada, they have different rates) and of course Russia still at 0%.

The reciprocal (made up figures) have been dropped to the lower 10% base rate, that's the 90 day pause.

Ah I initially thought there was a 90 day pause with no tariffs then it would be 10% after that . My bad .

So if you are in UK and you were announced as 10% last week, what is their win since yesterday?

If someone thinking only having a 10% tariff (when your big exports are at 25% - motors and steel) is a win, it's best ignoring them. Nobody wins in a trade war.

I wonder will Trump spend the 90 day pause to actually figure out individual industries and countries that should have higher tariffs rather than the blanket rates.

I'd say we'll have an increase in tariffs well before the 90 day pause expires.

Interesting that even with the Dow rebound the USD is still on a weakening trend with the Euro, GBP and Yen.

A market can set new records even with fewer buyers. I'd imagine there's a lot of exporters to the US digesting this last weeks turmoil and concluding that aside from the 10% tariff on the buyers end the exposure to that trade needs to be reduced.

Sellers will have more reason to demand payment before shipping in their own currency rather than accepting USD.

They need enough pain that they start to view their country through a different lens altogether, even the non maga ones are convinced of their exceptionalism and 'greatest country in the world' mindset,. A good dose of pain may shake them out of their assumptions and start to demand real change in their institutions and politics. Only 15 years after their financial institutions caused a massive worldwide recession the political institution is causing the same.

Penguins don't kiss @$$ they kick @$$

Victory celebrations

At a fundamental level, is the entire idea of moving industry back to the US kind of gone? I simply cannot imagine big companies making the switch now. Trump has been banging on about it for decades, shot his load, and had to backtrack. I struggle to see how he can continue with this and make it happen when he backs down repeatedly.

And I wonder if there is going to be some wake up call at the fact that with their insane levels of debt give so much power to the rest of the world to just dump it and completely mess up the bond market and force change. It would appear to me that the US is the vulnerable party in all of this going forward and that is the true cost of the national debt, not the repayments.

This exact type of thing quickly undid Truss and quickly undid Trump's entire plan. And it wasn't even massively coordinated in either case. Inflicting tariffs on other countries slowly harms their economies while these bond selloffs are so immediately potentially catastrophic. In a rational world, it means economies have to act reasonably with those who hold their debt.

But you mention insider trading to MAGA and they'll just tell you Nancy Pelosi has been getting away with it for 38 years!

In relation to the earlier discussion where the supreme court ruled effectively that Trump is allowed to break the law. Just to be clear. The ruling applies only where he demonstrably did so for the good of the country. A higher and tricker bar when it comes to justifying insider trading. With the SEC effectively gone, it may look Impossible.....but if it's happening, dozens of people have to know about it and can say what they know. It only takes 2 of those people to kick off and drag down public opinion of Trump enough for Republican Congress members to feel empowered to start taking him down.

given Trump said “it’s a great time to get rich” as he stepped towards an aircraft (was a clip on rte news) and thought that was a perfectly fine comment to make, I do think this was an insider trading ploy. He is playing with the US economy the way he done his business deals for his companies. As long as he gets richer, consequences don’t matter.

And they'd probably be right. How any member of government or administrative staff are even allowed to trade on the stock market is beyond me. The capacity for insider trading by anyone connected to government is so blatantly obvious the only argument for allowing it is to allow corruption.

We've come a long, long way from Jimmy Carter selling his farm.