Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[gondrin]

I don't know if they're just colossally stupid and incompetent or just evil fucks who'll lie shamelessly for their agenda.

How about all 3?

[DarkTZeratul]

Except once again, the tariffs he was against where nothing like the ones Drump put in.

Are you saying Ronald Reagan would have approved of these tariffs? Because if not, it seems like a pointless, pedantic thing to get angry about.

Terrible comparison and one only someone trying to sane wash Reagan conservatism which led to this bullshit in the first place.

You're seeing only what you want to see. Nothing in here is a defense of Reagan.

Drump is just burning the economy because of his obsession with trade deficits, Reagan was against tariffs that would protect actual jobs that existed in the US at the time. Massive fucking difference.

And the entire point is still solely in using Conservative Patron Saint Ronald Reagan's own words against Trump's actions, and the Republicans aiding and abetting them, not making an earnest scholarly comparison between the two.

[Nymrohd]

"What non-tariff cheating is used in Trump's formula?"

Literally nothing. It's been shown dozens of times by now it's purely a trade gap calculation.

Trade gaps are caused as much by tariffs as they are by excessive subsidies and non-tariff barriers. While you are meant to approximate the effect of those via a coefficient that Trump's team conveniently just set to "1" because they could never fathom the math behind those approximations, those effects are indirectly part of the formula already in the denominator.
Of course you cannot call it IP theft when the law was clear about surrendering access to your processes when you agreed to work with those countries. You could always just say no.

And I still want one of the US trade partners to start talking about the US' excessive surplus in services and the uncompromising barriers to entry in the US market for foreign services that make the EU NTBs for food that everyone keeps prattling about seem like a revolving door.

[s_bushido]

Part of me thinks he is doing it just to be petty towards Biden and/or Hispanics.

It may be that, but there's a long history of evangelicals pretending that Catholics aren't Christian...except when they need to include them in demographics numbers. So the situation works equally well for Trump's pettiness and his evangelical cultists' delusions.

[Draco-Onis]

"What non-tariff cheating is used in Trump's formula?"

Literally nothing. It's been shown dozens of times by now it's purely a trade gap calculation.

That's it every country can offer 0% tariffs and it won't matter. Those countries knew this but they were probably hoping that they could offer 0% which is meaningless to them and Trump can have a pony show about winning and things would go back to somewhat normal. Let's also state the obvious these people couldn't do basic research on the places they tariff, there's zero chance they can negotiate every trade deal with the world from scrap.

It takes years even decades to write the trade deals Trump just took a giant dump on.

[DarkTZeratul]

It takes years even decades to write the trade deals Trump just took a giant dump on.

And that includes the trade deal that Donald Trump himself wrote in his first term.

[zorkuus]

And that includes the trade deal that Donald Trump himself wrote in his first term.

Yeah, I was about to say that. This idiot has no idea what he did yesterday, or simply doesn't care. So why would anyone trust to make any deals with the US? They're about as reliable as ruZZia and NK at this point.

[Draco-Onis]

Yeah, I was about to say that. This idiot has no idea what he did yesterday, or simply doesn't care. So why would anyone trust to make any deals with the US? They're about as reliable as ruZZia and NK at this point.

Well the new new deals will involve "special donations" to the president's new crypto coins, hotels, campaign etc.

[PACOX]

Don't know if anyone linked it but:

US defends tariffs on remote island of penguins and seals

The US Commerce Secretary has defended the country's decision to impose tariffs on a group of uninhabited islands, which are populated only by penguins and seals.

This people have no idea what they are doing.

[Edge-]

Don't know if anyone linked it but:

US defends tariffs on remote island of penguins and seals



This people have no idea what they are doing.

The imposition of tariffs on the Heard and McDonald islands was meant to close "ridiculous loopholes" and would prevent other countries from shipping through the islands to reach the US, Howard Lutnick told the BBC's US partner CBS.

Yes, it's as dumb as imagined.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/g-s1-...nd-el-salvador

The Trump administration has defended its deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia — a Maryland man mistakenly sent to a prison in El Salvador — saying "due process does look different" for people they say are members of gangs the White House has designated as terrorist organizations.

1. Due process is not different. Due process is due process.

2. This man is not a member of a gang designated as a terrorist organization, as this administration has already affirmed in confirming his deportation was in error.

This is just more overt white supremacist cruelty. Simple as.

[Xath]

They have rejected zero for zero with EU as well. People need to realize the entire point of this is to create a powderkeg light a match and use it as an excuse to declare martial law.

[Elder Millennial]

That's because he doesn't want fair trade he wants trade parity, he wants the EU to buy just as much as the US buys from them which is impossible and not how trade works.

The fundamental problem is that the EU doesn't actually even have a trade deficit with the US. The Trump administration simply excluded services and investment from the way it calculates trade deficits.

If you calculate trade deficits and you traditionally would, namely by including both services and investments, it's actually the EU that has a trade deficit with the US.

That's why the EU's tariff relief proposal SPECIFICALLY mentions only industrial materials.

The EU is currently sitting on a giant fucking sledgehammer it could deploy against the US, but frankly they are trying to avoid using it because...TARIFFS ARE A SELF TAX and the EU doesn't want to tariff your Mastercard and Visa transactions, your Uber fees, your AirBnB fees, your Amazon and Netflix subscription, Apple Pay, Google Pay etc etc etc etc etc.

If they will impose tariffs on services it will start mostly with tariffs on corporate and business services, certain very specific financial services etc.

Tho the biggest quick middle finger the EU could deploy is to encourage European banks to jointly create a European alternative to Visa and Mastercard, then start incrementally imposing small tariff fees on transactions not done with the European alternative. Something like a 0.1% tariff on each transaction would very very very quickly push Visa and Mastercard out of the EU and larger European Free Trade Area.

Visa and MScard would see a hit to their stocks the moment the EU would announce the creation of alternative.

[Tech614]

Are you saying Ronald Reagan would have approved of these tariffs? Because if not, it seems like a pointless, pedantic thing to get angry about.

Brother you are completely not understanding why Reagan was anti tariff to begin with and it wasn't to protect the common american. Just because Trump is a moron that is sabotaging both the common american AND the elite does not change Reagan's evil it just shows how stupid Trump is.

If the argument you're presenting is that Reagan was smarter than Trump, well yea that gets 10 no shits out of 10. It doesn't change the fact he was evil and his anti tariff stance destroyed the working class american to make corporate america rich.

The reason this is completely asinine to bring up is because protective tariffs are actually a GOOD thing and painting Reagan as being against them and acting like all tariffs are bad because Trump is poisoning the word isn't helping out your fellow american one bit. You are basically spouting corpo propaganda by bringing it up.

[DarkTZeratul]

If the argument you're presenting is that Reagan was smarter than Trump, well yea that gets 10 no shits out of 10. It doesn't change the fact he was evil and his anti tariff stance destroyed the working class american to make corporate america rich.

The sole argument is "Hey Republicans, even the guy you think was the greatest president ever thought this was fucking awful." That's literally it. Stop reading anything further into it than that.

[Zaydin]

I don't know if they're just colossally stupid and incompetent or just evil fucks who'll lie shamelessly for their agenda.

Yes. /10char

[Tech614]

The sole argument is "Hey Republicans, even the guy you think was the greatest president ever thought this was fucking awful." That's literally it. Stop reading anything further into it than that.

He thought protective tariffs where awful because he wanted free trade to get corporate america richer and screw over the working class american which he succesfully did. It had nothing to do with the type of tariffs Trump is currently using. The left at the time was not trying to blanket tariff countries like Trump was, they only wanted to tariff countries trying to undercut production that at the time still existed in america.

Protective tariffs are once again... a good thing. Canada and the EU use them and Reagan would of been against that. Still think he's the right one in this scenario? Using one evil fuck doing an evil agenda and claiming hes better than the other evil fuck doing an evil agenda is weird as shit.

This is some corpo bootlicking shit to be like "ackshually I'm a free trade enthusiast" because Trump is taking the complete opposite stance which is just as bad.

You think Muskrat is calling for free trade because it benefits the common worker? lol.

[Draco-Onis]

The fundamental problem is that the EU doesn't actually even have a trade deficit with the US. The Trump administration simply excluded services and investment from the way it calculates trade deficits.

If you calculate trade deficits and you traditionally would, namely by including both services and investments, it's actually the EU that has a trade deficit with the US.

That's why the EU's tariff relief proposal SPECIFICALLY mentions only industrial materials.

The EU is currently sitting on a giant fucking sledgehammer it could deploy against the US, but frankly they are trying to avoid using it because...TARIFFS ARE A SELF TAX and the EU doesn't want to tariff your Mastercard and Visa transactions, your Uber fees, your AirBnB fees, your Amazon and Netflix subscription, Apple Pay, Google Pay etc etc etc etc etc.

If they will impose tariffs on services it will start mostly with tariffs on corporate and business services, certain very specific financial services etc.

Tho the biggest quick middle finger the EU could deploy is to encourage European banks to jointly create a European alternative to Visa and Mastercard, then start incrementally imposing small tariff fees on transactions not done with the European alternative. Something like a 0.1% tariff on each transaction would very very very quickly push Visa and Mastercard out of the EU and larger European Free Trade Area.

Visa and MScard would see a hit to their stocks the moment the EU would announce the creation of alternative.

According to what I am reading in the foreign press since I speak multiple languages

1) Pull all investments from the US.

2) Pull all every assets they have the fed (Gold, bonds, etc) and liquidate US debt (which was already happening).

3) Destroy US social media companies in the EU, Twitter is facing at least 1 billion dollars in fines for violations and more censorship and control laws would be applied to google, meta and others. The EU would then promote its own internal social media companies.

Some people are saying they will do all of the above and then some, the EU is looking to form its own bubble. They are suspending purchases of military equipment form the US unless they have no choice which is why their armed stocks are skyrocketing. We are looking at a complete decoupling of the EU with the US, the only country looking to see where the wind blows is the UK but they haven't mattered since Brexit.

[gondrin]

According to what I am reading in the foreign press since I speak multiple languages

1) Pull all investments from the US.

2) Pull all every assets they have the fed (Gold, bonds, etc) and liquidate US debt (which was already happening).

3) Destroy US social media companies in the EU, Twitter is facing at least 1 billion dollars in fines for violations and more censorship and control laws would be applied to google, meta and others. The EU would then promote its own internal social media companies.

Some people are saying they will do all of the above and then some, the EU is looking to form its own bubble. They are suspending purchases of military equipment form the US unless they have no choice which is why their armed stocks are skyrocketing. We are looking at a complete decoupling of the EU with the US, the only country looking to see where the wind blows is the UK but they haven't mattered since Brexit.

Be careful with that Brexit talk. You'll summon dribbles and he'll talk how this is great for the UK and how them being tariffed at least 10% is a good thing.

[DarkTZeratul]

He thought protective tariffs where awful because he wanted free trade to get corporate america richer and screw over the working class american which he succesfully did. It had nothing to do with the type of tariffs Trump is currently using. The left at the time was not trying to blanket tariff countries like Trump was, they only wanted to tariff countries trying to undercut production that at the time still existed in america.

Again, you're reading way more into this and doing far more analysis of it than literally anyone else. It has been explained to you multiple times the entire, extremely simple, point of comparison, and you're still going on about why Reagan sucked, even though nobody was contesting that fact.

Still think he's the right one in this scenario? Using one evil fuck doing an evil agenda and claiming hes better than the other evil fuck doing an evil agenda is weird as shit.

Using the words of the guy they practically worship against them isn't weird at all.

This is some corpo bootlicking shit to be like "ackshually I'm a free trade enthusiast" because Trump is taking the complete opposite stance which is just as bad.

No, and again you're reading way more into this than is here and ascribing motives and attitudes that don't exist, because you somehow refuse to accept that this really is as simple as I've repeatedly explained to you. This is absolutely in no way shape or form an endorsement or even commentary on Reagan's actions or motives or the specifics of his tariff policy. There is no nuance or subtext in this argument. "Your favorite president explicitly said that this specific thing you're doing is bad." That's it. There's nothing more to it than that, no matter how much you may want there to be.

You think Muskrat is calling for free trade because it benefits the common worker? lol.

Fuck no, and absolutely nothing in what I wrote should have given you that idea.

[Elder Millennial]

According to what I am reading in the foreign press since I speak multiple languages

1) Pull all investments from the US.

2) Pull all every assets they have the fed (Gold, bonds, etc) and liquidate US debt (which was already happening).

3) Destroy US social media companies in the EU, Twitter is facing at least 1 billion dollars in fines for violations and more censorship and control laws would be applied to google, meta and others. The EU would then promote its own internal social media companies.

Some people are saying they will do all of the above and then some, the EU is looking to form its own bubble. They are suspending purchases of military equipment form the US unless they have no choice which is why their armed stocks are skyrocketing. We are looking at a complete decoupling of the EU with the US, the only country looking to see where the wind blows is the UK but they haven't mattered since Brexit.

A lot of that is kinda grandstanding. For various reasons.

It's not that they CANNOT BE DONE or that it CANNOT HAPPEN, but it's more that those things are like round 4 or 5 of trade war escalation.

Pulling investments is very hard and financially very damaging. Pulling investments from a market like Russia is hard and costly, but doable both because the Russian economy is relatively small, and because the Russians never were a huge consumer market.

The problem of pulling investments from the US is that historically these investments were meant to service the US consumer market.

So you aren't just losing investment, but you are also losing consumers.

What we will see tho is a tapering off of future investments. Gradually. And the thing is, this doesn't even require state intervention, this is just going to happen naturally due to lack certainty.

Like you aren't building a BMW factory in North Carolina or a solar energy plant in Texas if you can't fucking cost it for the next 10 years because the Orange Man might wake up on the wrong side of the bed tomorrow.

You also ain't fucking buying a Boeing airliner if you don't know how much it will cost to service it for the next fucking 20 years.

Investment will disappear because of market volatility.

Can the EU accelerate the process? Yeah sure. Would it want to? Doubtful. It might if things get ugly enough.

Pulling assets, that's more likely to happen, tho honestly, the effect of that would be limited. The threat of pulling assets is more significant than the act of doing it. It's one of those "you can only do it once" kinda measures that they'd probably hold off until about round 2 or 3 of escalation.

Fucking with services falls into two broad categories.

1. Consumer services
2. Corporate services.

Corporate services would likely get hit first. It would be stuff like requirements for further onshoring of physical infrastructure, higher taxes or fees on stuff like advertising, further limitations on data collection etc. Then would come banking fees and yeah fines and anti-thrust stuff.

This would be round 1 to 2 of retaliation basically, because it's very easy to scale and to narrowly target the pain. It's also all behind the scene shit that consumers would largely be unaffected by. Like all your stuff is still working, you aren't being inconvenienced.

Suddenly Twitter not working or Apple Pay being restricted would be stuff that would inconvenience your own populace and businesses and that can cause a backlash.

The measures you'll likely see would be aimed towards reducing the profitability of your markets, not ones that limit access, especially not overnight

Can it escalate there? Yeah. But don't expect it to happen for quite a while. At first the goal would be to reduce the quarterly earnings of American companies, not to eliminate them from the market.

Expect this process to be gradual.

The first thing that's likely going to get hit is niche red state exports, financial services and the tech services sector.

And yeah, anything associated with Elon Musk, just because he made himself into such an easy target.

Sorry about any typos, typed this out while taking a late night walk, trying to get in my 25k steps.