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

Nothing.

Nobody has had or will have any wins in this shîtshow. Every country will lose; some will lose more than others. The US will lose more than most.

Without getting into the China battle, or piling in on the Trump bashing; am I correct in saying that as of last month, on average tariffs were less than 2%, Trump then reset the floor at 10%, which negotiations over the next three months can scale between 10%-20% thereafter.

More relevant to Ireland, he has been careful to exclude pharma from this generic listing (which I'd suggest is not coincidental). Moreover, our representative here is a man who, as health minister, thought Covid 19 implied that there were 18 previous Covids.

I think people need to pump the brakes on the parade, Trump seems to have tricked the world into feeling victorious with a minimum five-/seven-fold increase with barely a NET blip on indices

Translation:

Trump is great.

They need to introduce fines like the Finnish Speeding fines, they are proportionate to the speeders income.

I never said it was intentional, it's fairly evident that it wasn't. But care to dispute the field now compared to last week? Setting a floor for tariffs at 10% with minimal net market impact comes across as a steal. Throw in the view that the country that increased the tariffs is viewed as soft / backing down, I think many are losing sight of the bigger picture by focusing on one man

The only thing Trump accomplished is reveal his weak card hand

China, Europe, Japan etc now know what Trump fears the most and can use this to grab and squeeze the US by the …erm treasuries

Speaking of Americans being fooled, the stock ticker returned to Fox News main channel and website, it apparently was on vacation for last while

They've always known that. But it's a M.A.D. situation. The more they try to sell the Bonds, the more worthless their remaining in Bonds become. Not unlike the Banks in 2008 trying to offload their CDOs.

Nate

If you looked at it less emotively and more objectively, you'd see that they're still in a far better position than they were a week ago. Which is what I'm saying.

"Backing down" occurs in just about every bilateral negotiation. Set the bar higher than you expect.

If Americans could get past the obsession with fashion, especially fast fashion, and make well constructed, durable, long-term-appealing garments from ecologically sound fabrics - even though more expensive to purchase - they might be on to something. This is not going to happen in a country that worships fashion and consumerism, but it would be great for the planet. It would sink the fashion industry though.

What a complete and humiliating climb down by Trump. God knows what must have been about to happen with bonds, the market, the dollar, or whatever that Trump was forced into such an embarrassing climbdown.

And that is exactly what it is. This was never part of the plan. If Trump wanted to target China, he could have. Instead he tried to take on the entire world, made on arse of himself with his Liberation Day nonsense and within a few hours was already talking about negoatiations and trying to scare countries into not taking action.

But he seemingly forgot that Canada had already shown that he could be bullied back and the best form of defence was to stand strong. China did, the EU did, and it seems that apart from these, magic, 75 countries, everyone else did.

A poster is making the point that 10% tariffs will be a net win for the US, but that fails to take into account the massive damage Trump has done to the credibility of the US as a stable trading partner.

Secondly, Trump is now a completely lame duck POTUS. This was his signature 'policy' and he capitulated within a week, but not before causing massive damage to the US economy (and the world, but the US voter isn't concerned about that).

The US is now a laughing stock. Trump said he would make America strong again, and in several months, he has put it into the weakest it has probably ever been.

The president only has tariff powers to respond to an emergency.

Not really. For as long as congress permits it, the President can impose tariffs or other trade restrictions if the Department of Commerce finds that imports threaten national security - It doesn't have to be an immediate emergency. The president is also allowed to respond to "unfair" foreign trade practices like IP theft or subsidies with tariffs or other measures. These laws give the president flexibility to act without needing Congress to pass new legislation each time but congress can revoke this permission at any time - which this congress is not going to do, not least because Trump can and would veto it if it didn't have a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers! The Dems should have attempted to get this through on a simple majority last year to cover the case of a Trump win! Might have been tough to get it thru the house but at least they had the senate and the whitehouse then!

the reputation stopped circling when they elected a convict as president. Its just a non-stop meme now.

Today they have….. they could be 0% tomorrow or they could be 100%

" I've no real opinion on him."

You're fooling no one kid. This place is full of "neutral" people who just happen to be repeating the party line.

If you go from 25 to 10 what direction is that going ? It certainly isn't forwards.