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When President Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs on April 2, he had two main objectives:
- Reduce the trade deficits
- Bring jobs and manufacturing back to the United States
These were the stated goals but, as we soon found out, the real aim was to weaken China by preventing them from selling goods to US consumers. The Trump administration also used the tariffs to isolate China by providing incentives to the nations that agreed to reduce their trade with Beijing. In short, the tariffs were the main weapon in a trade war on a peer competitor who has overtaken the US in nearly every area of industrial and technological production.
Fortunately, Trump’s plan failed, and he was forced to ease the tariffs without achieving any of his main objectives. The reason we say “fortunately” is because the tariffs policy never served the interests of the American people. Quite the contrary, Americans are hurt by unilateral policies that ignore the rules of international trade and needlessly disrupt supply chains. All that does is push prices higher, reduce employment and slow growth. Besides, manipulating tariffs with the intention of destroying a rival violates a number of widely accepted WTO rules that protect the interests of everyone.
In contrast to the US, China acted in a way that was consistent with their broader social philosophy which is rooted in their unique interpretation of socialism. They took the moral high ground, acted on principle, and refused to give in to Trump’s coercion. They only initiated countermeasures in response to Trump’s tariffs blitz that completely ignored the rules articulated in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which stipulates that countries cannot arbitrarily exceed “bound rates” or selectively target one country with 145% tariffs. (which is the equivalent of an embargo.) By acting alone, Trump basically showed his contempt for the international system and for any legal constraints on his own power. This is from the Global Times:
The multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core is the cornerstone of international trade and plays an important role in global economic governance. All parties should resolve differences and disputes through equal-footed dialogue under the framework of the WTO, jointly uphold multilateralism and free trade, and promote the stability and smooth functioning of global industrial and supply chains. Global Times
In other words, Trump’s loss was a victory for the system of international trade. But it was also a victory for China because China ‘stuck to its guns’ and refused to bow to Washington’s bullying. Here’s more from Bloomberg:
Xi Jinping’s decision to stand his ground against Donald Trump could hardly have gone any better for the Chinese leader.
After two days of high-stakes talks in Switzerland, trade negotiators from the world’s biggest economies announced Monday a massive de-escalation in tariffs. In a carefully coordinated joint statement, the US slashed duties on Chinese products to 30% from 145% for a 90-day period, while Beijing dropped its levy on most goods to 10%.
The dramatic reduction exceeded expectations in China, and sent the dollar and stocks soaring — providing some much-needed market relief for Trump, who is facing pressure as inflation looks set to speed up at home. Chinese equities also surged. The deal ended up meeting nearly all of Beijing’s core demands. The elevated “reciprocal” tariff for China, which Trump set at 34% on April 2, has been suspended — leaving America’s top rival with the same 10% rate that applies to the UK, a longtime ally….
“This is arguably the best outcome that China could have hoped for — the US backed down,” said Trey McArver, co-founder of research firm Trivium China. “Going forward, this will make the Chinese side confident that they have leverage over the US in any negotiations.” , Swiss Info
Repeat: This is the best outcome that China could have hoped for — the US backed down”
US policy towards China is not only deeply immoral; it’s also counterproductive. Anyone who followed recent events in the foreign press, understands that the United States hurt itself very badly by its bullyboy tactics. What people outside the United States saw was an aging and enfeebled prize fighter enter the ring with a ferocious young contender who knocked him out in the first Round. In less than 6 weeks, Trump removed the bulk of the tariffs leaving just 30% in order to save face with his backers. In exchange, he got nothing from China at all. Beijing made no concessions other than allowing Trump to increase the tariff on Chinese imports from 20 to 30%, which means that the blue-collar men and women—who are Trump’s most ardent supporters—will pay an additional 10% at their favorite department store. So, while Trump promises massive new tax cuts for the uber-wealthy, working people just saw their taxes hiked by a whopping 10%. Here’s more from the Guardian:
Donald Trump will inevitably claim Monday’s temporary truce in the US-China trade war as a victory, but financial markets seem to have read it for what it is – a capitulation….
In other words, the president has caved. He may have been swayed by market wobbles but it seems more plausible that dire warnings from retailers about empty shelves – backed up by data showing shipments into US ports collapsing – may have strengthened the hands of trade moderates in the administration.
Confronted with warnings of a shortage of toys, Trump told reporters that children should be happy with “two dolls instead of 30 dolls”, and they might “cost a couple bucks more” than usual. But it is difficult to imagine even this most bullish of presidents withstanding the attacks that would come his way if he began to be seen as responsible for Covid-style shortages of key goods in the world’s largest economy.
Instead, the White House seems to have opted for tactical retreat. The China-US conflict was always the hottest theatre of confrontation in Trump’s trade war, with a longer history and deeper public support than his quixotic attacks on Mexico and Canada.
If Trump is indeed ready to give in even with Beijing, it sends a signal that some of the other aggressive aspects of his trade policy may be negotiable. Trump might claim China tariff victory – but this is Capitulation Day, Guardian
As far as Trump’s stated goals, (to reduce the trade deficits and bring jobs and manufacturing back to the US) the president failed on both counts. But in respect to his unstated goals, (weakening and isolating China) he also failed. And the reason he failed is due to three things:
- China was able to maintain global trade flows through diversification (They found other buyers for US-bound exports)
- China responded to the need for fiscal stimulus and government intervention quickly (which maintained their growth targets)
- China was able to inflict serious pain on the US by withholding its exports which left ports on the West Coast in deep distress.
What China achieved is as close to a complete victory as one could imagine. Even so, the equities markets skyrocketed shortly after a settlement was announced, which is why no one seems to care about Trump’s embarrassing miscue.
One of the oddities of the tariffs dust-up, was the fact that the Trump team never anticipated China’s retaliatory response. It’s actually amazing. The administration lives in such an information bubble that they thought China would cave in after their comical “Liberation Day” announcement. What were they thinking?
We know what Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent was thinking because he made a number of public statements that the US had an edge on China because ‘we were the deficit country.’ Here’s what he said in an interview on CNBC:
“We are the deficit country. They sell almost five times more goods to us than we sell to them. So, the onus will be on them to take off these tariffs. They’re unsustainable for them.” He cited estimates that China could lose 5-10 million jobs if tariffs persist, highlighting China’s economic vulnerability.
This is idiocy. This is like saying that the ragamuffin panhandler on the street-corner has the advantage over the flush businessman with millions in the bank. The US is $36 trillion in debt while China has a $3 trillion surplus! How does ‘being broke’ give us ‘the advantage’. We’re lucky that China still accepts our currency at all, and yet, our Treasury Secretary thinks that being destitute gives us the “upper hand”. A man like this should not be Treasury Secretary. He has shown repeatedly that he doesn’t have the foggiest idea of how the economy works or what policies will help to advance American interests. Here’s Grok on Bessent:
Bessent’s public statements reflect a strategic focus on the U.S.’s deficit position as a negotiating advantage, supported by China’s economic vulnerabilities and the eventual Geneva deal. However, China’s export shift to Southeast Asia, transshipment tactics, and domestic economic resilience suggest he underestimated Beijing’s ability to weather tariffs, limiting the U.S.’s edge. Both sides faced costs, but China’s adaptability meant the deficit advantage was less decisive than Bessent claimed. (Grok)
That is a rather long-winded way of saying the Bessent was wrong about everything.
We should all be grateful that Trump gave up on his ‘tariffs strategy’ before it inflicted even more damage on the US economy. We can only hope that he will reflect on what has transpired in the last few weeks and seriously reconsider Washington’s self-defeating relations with China. The consensus view among western elites, media and the entire political class is that China’s rise represents a grave threat to America’s privileged position in the world order. It is this misguided assumption that shapes US policy on China and puts us all on course for a military confrontation. We must eradicate this destructive idea at its root and look for constructive ways that we can work with China on projects that help to improve security, increase prosperity and end war.
China is not our enemy, and they do not seek a confrontation with the United States. What China wants is what most ordinary Americans want; peace, security and “a human community with a shared future in an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world.” Those are the words of China’s Premier Xi Jinping. His sentiments may seem familiar to older readers who may recall the equally powerful words of President John F. Kennedy who said:
“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
You Tube—John F. Kennedy’s Commencement Address at American University, ‘A Strategy for Peace’
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Tariffs WILL NOT reduce the USA trade deficit. And bringing manufacturing back to the USA (à la 1960) is impossible with today’s high labor costs. Any products we produced would be too expensive to sell anywhere else in the world. And second, even if new factories were built in the USA, they would be mostly “dark” factories that used robots to do all the work, thus not creating new factory jobs for average to low IQ blue-collar workers. And NO, the robots won’t need much in the way of maintenance, so there won’t be many jobs on offer in that area either.
Trump is dumber than a rock (but I’m happy that he is on the side of Israel).
Here’s an interesting article on the travails of attempting to bring manufacturing back to our shores:
If Trump wanted to push the value of the American dollar down he is succeeding, with Moody’s downgrading America’s credit rating then the cost of borrowing will go up for the U.S, this will tighten purse stings.
This downgrading makes Trump’s 1.1 trillion military budget look reckless, its time to reign in the military budget Donald or are you going to keep wrecking countries and stealing their wealth like in Syria? Has America become a pirate nation is that what all the previous generations efforts have come to?
it’s hard to understand trump’s attempts at drunken boxing, or zui quan. trump is not holding a gun to chinas head, he’s holding a gun to our heads and threatening to kill the hostages. he is showing china, that he could easily kill our economy, anytime he so decides and destroy the value of the dollar and all the t-bills and i.o.u.’s the chinese hold. as well as exploding all the business relationships, that have been built, since nixon and reagan, decided to ratfuck the russians, by sending our industrial base there, in the 70’s and 80’s, (that’ll teach those ruskie swine).
well the chinese are not impressed and they have been slowly dumping their u.s. treasuries, as to not shock the market and upset the apple cart. they are now #3, on the list behind the japanese and b’rithish. this is exactly what the russians did in preparation for the predictable illegal santions and seizures of russian assets, readying themselves for the s.m.o.
this is a one two punch with the russians providing the gut punch to zato, exposing them as the paper tigers they are, while the chinese provide the economic jujitsu, to send drunken trump, wobbling back home like a drunk with two black eyes, saying you ought to see the other guy, let that be a lesson to you all.
Too soon.
Trump’s going overboard with the theatrics; but reciprocating Tariffs are reasonable.
Team_Trump haven’t shared with us the basic calculations these rates are based on, so we’ll have to wait for Bessent and the Trade Reps to explain to the BodyPolitic.
We do need to re-shore/build_nextgen plants here for this mkt as automation+robotics increase in sophistication.
Ae still do have the MICs, Boeing, and Automakers Domestic+Foreign, so the basic skillsets are available.
Of course, this is beyond the subject matter expertise of whiner-writers and economists(who mostly observe rather than implement).
Do or die, Ladies and Gentlemen.
I see you do not understand – the Empire is now so far underwater it has entered
the Septimius Severus stage (“Pay the soldiers – the rest don´t matter”);
a long time ago the E pluribus unum on the Grand seal should have been replaced
by Caligula´s Oderint dum metuant (“Let them hate me as long as they fear me”).
There will be no rehabilitating because there cannot be.
“Mostly deflecting” an attack is not “winning” – the Chinese better realize that;
the Jew will not let up as long as there is one stinking breath in it.
Everybody needs $s and this was supplied by the US Federal Reserve via Trade Deficit. Trump wants a Trade Surplus. This will jeopardize the status of $ as a Reserve Currency as Nations with less $s will meet their import obligations via other means. Refer Trifin’s Dilemma/Paradox
And the Infrastructure needed in the USA,as of now,is NOT that of First World Nation.
The overall strategy of the Trump team—deeply intertwined with that of the Zio-globalist cabal—is to use a combination of tools to break apart the emerging Eurasian world order envisioned by the Russia-Iran-China alliance. If, through these means, the Trump team succeeds in the ongoing tariff war against China, the Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire negotiations, and the Iranian nuclear talks, they could drive a multipronged wedge into the Russia-Iran-China alliance. In doing so, they would reap huge benefits, potentially prolonging the Western-led “Rules-Based Order,” which relies on the dollar’s hegemony in global trade.
Yup That’s what I heard in April at different maker/industry biz show, folks are talking about the possibility of a year long ‘tit for tat’ trade war, EVERY Chinese maker is making plan to reset their logistic routes, relocate factory, setting office abroad
They were also predicting China keep shrinking their treasury portfolio, and further reduce of trading in dollars,
That was hella’lot panic there, nobody expected Trump folded so early : D
“is impossible with today’s high labor costs”
Except that I’m in manufacturing and that’s not true by a long shot. I know 50 year old machinists making $30-something per hour.
In 1985, the average hourly wage for an auto worker (specifically, an automotive technician) in the United States was approximately $31.81 according to Indeed.
The average hourly wage for an auto worker in the United States is around $23.60 as of May 11, 2025. In California, the average is slightly higher at $23.29. However, the range varies widely, with some workers earning as little as $11.86 per hour and others earning as much as $31.73
It’s not “just” labor costs, it’s regulation, workers comp insurance, liability insurance, AND everyone trying to sue employers for everything and anything.
Thank You! That was a great way of describing this chaos.
Business closures are still rampant – prices keep going up every week and Joe Biden has cancer. Enjoy the trip down the toilet.
Moody’s downgrade is due to the huge US Debt.
Nobody wants à la 1960 anyway.
A serious industrial policy for the USA would start by taking a hard look at Interstate Commerce, and maybe even the Union itself, and make changes on that level.
Local content laws will be required if we want to live in a country again and not a cybernetic free-for-all. We had a deal with Canada years ago that was splendid for both us and them. We just have to implement things we have already done that we know work.
And we have to fire anyone in public life who says industrial planning is bad and futile. That’s crap. China, Germany, and even the USA planned, built and subsidized industry in the past and it worked out well. We need to do it again.
So, to be clear, you relish an ally who is dumber than a rock? Hmmmm.
In church last Sunday, an elderly lady was saying a prayer.
“Dear Lord – The last few years have been very tough.
You have taken my favorite actor – Paul Newman;
My favorite actress – Elizabeth Taylor;
My favorite singer – Andy Williams;
My favorite author – Tom Clancy,
and my favorite comedian – Robin Williams.
Just wanted you to know that my favorite politician is Donald Trump
Interest cost of federal debt as percentage of federal revenues:
Actual
~2% 2019
~9% 2021
~18% 2024
Projected
~24% 2025
~xx% 2026
~xx% 2027
My back of the envelope shows 30% in 2026 and 34% in 2027. If that’s true, then the Federal Gov‘t will face an insolvency crisis in 2027.
Watch 10 year treasury interest rate: if stays above 4% then bond market agrees with my prediction of insolvency crisis; if 10 year drops below 3% then I am wrong. TBD
Maybe thats the meaning from the supposed savoir of the death Cult; I can easily kill the dollar ! And all sheep shot “Oh No ! Dont kill the dollar !” And so the sheep continue to be sheep, and the parasites continue to be parasites, ruling by The One Ring, the zero. Kill it !
There’s a clear pattern in all of Trump’s moves:
1. Trump agrees in principle to peace with Russia, and yet continues sending weapons and intelligence to Ukraine.
2. Trump agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon, and lets Israel break the agreement.
3. Trump agrees to ceasefire with Gaza, and lets Israel break the agreement. Worse, Witkoff promised Hamas that if they let Aden Alexander go, Trump will bring in food into gaza. Bam! Aden is released and no food went in.Witkoff is Israel first (like Trump), let no BS blind you!
4. Trump agrees in principle to peace with Iran on nuclear issue, but will soon greenlight an Israeli strike on Iran.
5. Trump pretends there’s a rift with Netanyahu, and then there really wasn’t.
6. Trump imposes tariffs, which create inflation that will destroy the economy, and promises the elimination of income taxes to “balance things out” but in reality it is a bluff to hoodwink Americans.
Conclusion: America is cursed with a curse, which its government always expresses in lies, bloodshed, and destruction because the country has moved away from its Christian roots to a Satanic/Jewish worldview.
http://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/is-america-cursed/
From your vantage point your read of the apparent situation is reasonable and logical. However, and I say this respectfully, you and many refuse to take into account the shadow banking cartel as a reality and drag on Humanity. This is Evil Central.
The Shadow Banking Vector working to dedtroy the Human Spirit is real and was established by its main tool Usury in Europe by the Dutch, Italian and German Banking Families as eventually represented by the City of London and its outposts forming the secretive banking network reffered to as Shadow Banking. A system leveraged to the hilt by I.O.U.s never intented to be honored. Bankers have no honor.
The Shadow Banking is estimated to have revenues of 2.5 Trillion per year mostly from Money Laundering, Drug and Human trafficking. When you look at one of their destructive tools Drug Trafficking look at the US Fentanyl crisis. They say Fentanyl is comming from China. However, Pallets of Drug Dealer cash must be deposited into bank accounts to be laundered so drug dealers can buy all their high tech weaponery they report to have.
So here is presented the best example of what I am driving at. China might be the provider of ingredients that are processed into Fentanyl, however, it is this part of the British commonwealth to our north called the Canadian Banking system that is laundering the drug dealer pallets of cash.
Enters Mark Carney, the current Prime Minister of Canada, a Shadow Banking servant. Let’s focus on Carney.
1998, he was involved in Goldman’s work with the Russian financial crisis.
2008 to 2013, Governor of the Bank of Canada, esponsible for Canadian monetary policy during the global financial crisis.
2013 to 2020, appointed as the 120th Governor of the Bank of England.
(He took care of the branch and is back to HQ) to manage the British central bank’s response to Brexit and the early phase of the COVID attack.
He held chair of Bloomberg L.P. (Bloomberg News is part of Shadow Banking’s propaganda. You see how connections work.)
Carney is managing the last colony of the City of London with resources to be used as collateral and to launder through US drug trade close $2.7 Trillion. This is nothing more than a trade deficit. Now Trump’s tariffs on Canada don’t seem so unjustified.
It is important to bring this banking system into the light. It is a system of exploitation and misery that has oppressed Humanity for at least 400 years.
One must go to the high table to truly understand the game completely. It is never in real term for us mortals but we can predict based on history and goals of the high table. Trump, US Sec of Treasury, Fed Res Chairman, Jamie Diamond and their transparent Commercial Banking System are in the fight of our lives against the Shadow Banking and the City of London and their executive arm the 5 eyes. Yes, the five eyes are working for the City of London. We leave this subject for another time.
Thank you. It could be stealing their wealth like in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
You yts sold our manufacturing soul to the slants now you want to bitch and moan about it???
Why america Failed by Morris Berman
You are wrong, factually. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are simply made up, and have no basis in other country’s import/tax schedules. No one has ever explained how they are ‘reciprocal’. At best they were somewhat based upon trade (im)balances.
But the real reason was simply an attack on the Chinese economy. This was Bessant (and Stephen Miran’s ) angle. The idea that if the US could just get the world to stop trading with China, America would eventually benefit, and China as a country would fail. From that standpoint, their idea was idiotic, having no basis in reason. It was simply an extension of ‘Russian Sanctions’, albeit without the hot war in Ukraine–hoping Russia was going to capitulate.
These people have run out of workable ideas. When tariff talk first began, Walmart went to their Chinese suppliers, and asked them to cut their margins. China’s state economic council summoned Walmart execs and asked them why China should cut its already agreed upon margins, over a unilateral (i.e. unnegotiated) American import tax? Sending the message that China wasn’t going to go along with it. Now, just this week, backed into a corner, Trump suggested that Walmart ‘eat’ (his words) the tariff, so consumers won’t be affected.
It’s clear that Trump has no idea of consequences, and is an economic illiterate, being spoon fed by neocons like Miran. Making it up as he goes along. At least Biden had an excuse for his incompetency, showing clear signs of dementia. What’s Orange Man’s excuse?
YOU STATE
Trump is dumber than a rock (but I’m happy that he is on the side of Israel).
So you love GENOCIDE as long as it is done by Trump’s mate SATANYAHOU?
I’m an American, but American’s just don’t get it. $30 IS a high labor cost, relative to a Chinese worker who will do the job just as well, and probably better, for under $1 an hour. The “as little” wage you mention would be an astronomical wage in China, and if my estimate is off by a factor of 10, of Chinese wage, you still don’t get it. We have to sell products made by someone earning $30 an hour globally, when other people will do the same quality work for at least a one-third the wage, and maybe one-thirtieth or one-sixtieth. The American conceptualization of the problem is hopelessly warped. It IS in point of fact impossible with today’s labor costs, LOL, and it is not funny, because America is doomed. It IS just labor costs, before you add in all the other absurdities you are correct about. Don’t forget health insurance that increase that $30 by another 20% minimum, from the employer POV.
“China is not our enemy, and they do not seek a confrontation with the United States.”
Too late. A total confrontation is now inevitable. Coexistence is not possible.
More TDS on UNZ-so tiresome
LOL-a confirmed Dem Activist and Leftist did the “downgrading”–same clowning as we see from the Dem Activists on the DC Federal Court and elsewhere yet the Leftist Loons on UNZ want to pimp it as meaningful ofc–after Biden and the Left’s Agenda we saw destroying the USA for 4 years –Leftists/Liberals are loathed by normal people which is why Trump was elected-nothing but liars and hate filled Communists
Even if those were the true goals they were idiotic at best. Trade deficits are reduced by increasing exports and decreasing imports. Tariffs dont do anything but punish the consumer ie the American Taxpayer.
From what I understand Da Don only took into account the trade deficits in hard goods and excluded exports of services. Then he applied a cockamamie elementary school calculation to determine the “trade deficit”.
As for bringing manufacturing back to the US this is a pipe dream. As the retired VP of Finance for an international company I can state this categorically. The wage disparity between 3rd world labour and US wages more than justify overseas factories and negate tariffs (once known as Import Taxes). No American is going to work for 3rd World wages.
I can also state that relocating a factory is more than just constructing a new facility in the US. Site selection, permits,construction, logistics, labour and skills availability, taxes and supply/ delivery chains have all to be considered carefully. Then the cost of relocating machinery from overseas, then ironing out the wrinkles in operations. Five years plus at least to get this up and running. More or less the same time to update the Presidential Jet. LOL.
Then of course we have the CEOs of the multinationals. Powerful men ! They care only about profits NOT tariffs, trade deficits or the manifesto of the MAGA cult. Start fucking with their money and you attract undesirable pushback. More slick methods are to promise a $2 trillion investment, give Trump a “WIN” and then do nothing knowing that he will be gone in 4 years if not sooner.
DJ and his real estate skills, supposedly legendary in his own mind, cannot be applied to international production and trade. Worse yet to turn up and after a few days in office grandly sign an Executive Order (known in banana republics as a Presidential Decree) is delusional at best. Tampering with a complex international system ???
Hence, the tariff house of straw, cuntstructed by the man of straw collapsed as a matter of course.
Donny Boy uses too much hair spray and dye to hold his orange salad on that bald head. All those chemicals may be invading his brainbox and causing all this foolishness.
The Maga crowd elected a loud mouth fool and they got what they paid for.
just more unhinged trump bashing. when they overdo the ridicule – they cant help themselves – they shoot themselves in both feet. trumps tariffs were/are interesting. he has done things that most people unthinkingly accepted could never be done or even contemplated. most of us constrain and limit our thinking based on our self conditioning, l give trump credit for freeing us from self imposed intellectual prison. he doesnt have to be right or correct in every policy area – just thinking outside the box is refreshing
For most of US history tariffs were the sole source of federal funding, increasing from an average of 20% to as much as 50% just before the Civil War (a contributing cause) under the Tariff President Abraham Lincoln. In 1913 the Income Tax was launched leading to a parasitic federal bureaucracy whose expansion knows no bounds, neutering the Constitutional sovereignty of the States (the Tenth Amendment) by controlling the bulk of their funding with Congress playing their political games.
The offshoring of American industrial jobs starting massively under Reagan (switching America to a Service Economy) may huge profits for our Global Elites by saving on Labor costs; additionally these big companies lobbied successfully for much lower corporate taxes globally. This windfall became bigger under Clinton due to the quid pro quo of Chinagate (where only Chinese nationals in the US went to jail, no Americans; in return China received most favored trade nation status and much of our high-tech technologies and jobs (previously protected) were off shored to China. The collapse of America had started in a big way. Those jobs will never come back nor is there any chance of major innovations which has now moved to Asia.
America’s major trading partners ALL have higher tariffs on US goods: reuters.com/graphics/USA-TRUMP/TARIFFS/jnpwjmqklvw/
This is referred to as “Reciprocal Tariffs” by our Global Elites.
Trump’s failed gambit was only a first step in negotiations, so typical of Trump. Of course, the policies of Reagan and Clinton cannot be undone. Exploiting labor and avoiding expensive environmental regulations are the rule in international business, the lower corporate tax rates (no doubt brought about by bribes) mean that the US is largely finishes as an industrial powerhouse. Next we will see less consumption (most Americans are already in debt) and global businesses will need to develop such un-needed consumption globally. Luxury goods and weapons will be largely unaffected since the major American population has no need; the Global Elite are a niche market to pander to.
MemeJewJoo is a fugitive from the Cuckoo’s Nest, never short of something retarded to say. The more Unz commenters respond to her hogwash the more she gets her rocks off. She probably jerks off or services her Grand Mother’s pet billy goat everytime she gets a reply.
This Village Idiot considers 100 responses to a dumb comment as a validation of intellect. One or no reply to an intelligent thought is a rejection in her mind.
For all we know she may be just an AI ChatBot Troll stirring the latrine to gin up comments.
If every one in UR just refused to respond to her this bubble head would go away. See the reference below. You are dealing with a nutball !
The Jojo reference meme is more about other Manga or Anime referencing Jojo. The Manga is very old and the Jojo Poses or famous lines are part of Japanese pop culture and sometimes referenced in other Manga or Anime.
When USA forced China and Russia together, everybody thought that was a really stupid move.
When USA tariffed the world at once, everybody knew the USA was not stupid. It had gone into full dementia mode.
I no longer wonder if the USA had a cunning plan by pretending to be stupid whilst they actually played 5d chess. I know they have totally lost their minds.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
You are absolutely right. It is a mistake to compare wages directly in USD terms.
Here is an Ozzie girl who lives in China. Here she brings her visiting family around. Her dad is amazed that a bowl of noodles costs AUD $1……or $0.69 in USD
Video Link
Having read a good article on it, the initial ‘liberation day’ tariffs were entirely based on balances of trade.
Quite stupid. Also very aggressively against vassal states like Japan and Republic of Korea.
I don’t know in detail about Korea, but would guess it is the same as Japan: our taxes pay for the occupation. A bad joke.
Meanwhile, JewS.A. interests constantly try to control shares in profitable companies, best example parts of Sony, but they try the same moves in South Korea, too.
Sure looks like “choose up sides and fight” – human nature, it seems.
Donald Trump does not have a reputation for thinking small. I have to wonder if the plan is to achieve an arrangement with Russia – and hopefully, China – where the rest of the world simply has to fall into line. And, by “the rest of the world”, especially Europe and the City of London. Rather than concentrate on the fires burning – and smoldering – why not go after the causes of the fires?
Tell me – how is this unlike the old mafia families getting together and agreeing that they need to stop killing each other and concentrate on everyone making money?
Is it even possible to bring back the production of goods that are essential to our country? I don’t know. We are in the decay phase of the cycle. One thing is obvious – if we are to survive as a successful country, we need to make more of what we consume. How long can we pay other countries to send us everything – and pay people here to do nothing?
So, I would ask – it seems that Donald Trump is trying to change our trajectory. To all of the “experts” who claim he already has lost – WHAT ARE YOUR ALTERNATIVES?
Mike ” White Monkey” Whitney.
To Ron Unz;
WHERE IS THE COUNTERPOINT TO ALL THE CHINESE PROPAGANDA ON YOUR SITE?
This was the us empire: (notice the obesity of these USian “nurses”……..)
Video Link
This article sums it up nicely:
In the Future, China Will Be Dominant. The U.S. Will Be Irrelevant.
By Kyle Chan
Mr. Chan is a researcher at Princeton University who focuses on Chinese industrial policy.
For years, theorists have posited the onset of a “Chinese century”: a world in which China finally harnesses its vast economic and technological potential to surpass the United States and reorient global power around a pole that runs through Beijing.
That century may already have dawned, and when historians look back they may very well pinpoint the early months of President Trump’s second term as the watershed moment when China pulled away and left the United States behind.
It doesn’t matter that Washington and Beijing have reached an inconclusive and temporary truce in Mr. Trump’s trade war. The U.S. president immediately claimed it as a win, but that only underlines the fundamental problem for the Trump administration and America: a shortsighted focus on inconsequential skirmishes as the larger war with China is being decisively lost.
Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the pillars of American power and innovation. His tariffs are endangering U.S. companies’ access to global markets and supply chains. He is slashing public research funding and gutting our universities, pushing talented researchers to consider leaving for other countries. He wants to roll back programs for technologies like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing and is wiping out American soft power in large swaths of the globe.
China’s trajectory couldn’t be more different.
It already leads global production in multiple industries — steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, batteries, solar power, electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, 5G equipment, consumer electronics, active pharmaceutical ingredients and bullet trains. It is projected to account for 45 percent — nearly half — of global manufacturing by 2030. Beijing is also laser-focused on winning the future: In March it announced a $138 billion national venture capital fund that will make long-term investments in cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing and robotics, and increased its budget for public research and development.
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The results of China’s approach have been stunning.
When the Chinese start-up DeepSeek launched its artificial intelligence chatbot in January, many Americans suddenly realized that China could compete in A.I. But there have been a series of Sputnik moments like that.
The Chinese electric carmaker BYD, which Mr. Trump’s political ally Elon Musk once laughed off as a joke, overtook Tesla last year in global sales, is building new factories around the world and in March reached a market value greater than that of Ford, GM and Volkswagen combined. China is charging ahead in drug discoveries, especially cancer treatments, and installed more industrial robots in 2023 than the rest of the world combined. In semiconductors, the vital commodity of this century and a longtime weak point for China, it is building a self-reliant supply chain led by recent breakthroughs by Huawei. Critically, Chinese strength across these and other overlapping technologies is creating a virtuous cycle in which advances in multiple interlocking sectors reinforce and elevate one another.
Yet Mr. Trump remains fixated on tariffs. He doesn’t even seem to grasp the scale of the threat posed by China. Before the two countries’ announcement last Monday that they had agreed to slash trade tariffs, Mr. Trump dismissed concerns that his previous sky-high tariffs on Chinese goods would leave shelves empty in American stores. He said Americans could just get by with buying fewer dolls for their children — a characterization of China as a factory for toys and other cheap junk that is wildly out of date.
The United States needs to realize that neither tariffs nor other trade pressure will get China to abandon the state-driven economic playbook that has worked so well for it and suddenly adopt industrial and trade policies that Americans consider fair. If anything, Beijing is doubling down on its state-led approach, bringing a Manhattan Project-style focus to achieving dominance in high-tech industries.
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China faces its own serious challenges. A prolonged real estate slump continues to drag on economic growth, though there are signs that the sector may be finally recovering. Longer-term challenges also loom, such as a shrinking work force and an aging population. But skeptics have been predicting China’s peak and inevitable fall for years, only to be proved wrong each time. The enduring strength of a state-dominated Chinese system that can pivot, change policy and redirect resources at will in service of long-term national strength is now undeniable, regardless of whether free-market advocates like it.
Mr. Trump’s blinkered obsession with short-term Band-Aids like tariffs, while actively undermining what makes America strong, will only hasten the onset of a Chinese-dominated world.
If each nation’s current trajectory holds, China will likely end up completely dominating high-end manufacturing, from cars and chips to M.R.I. machines and commercial jets. The battle for A.I. supremacy will be fought not between the United States and China but between high-tech Chinese cities like Shenzhen and Hangzhou. Chinese factories around the world will reconfigure supply chains with China at the center, as the world’s pre-eminent technological and economic superpower.
America, by contrast, may end up as a profoundly diminished nation. Sheltered behind tariff walls, its companies will sell almost exclusively to domestic consumers. The loss of international sales will degrade corporate earnings, leaving companies with less money to invest in their businesses. American consumers will be stuck with U.S.-made goods that are of middling quality but more expensive than global products, owing to higher U.S. manufacturing costs. Working families will face rising inflation and stagnant incomes. Traditional high-value industries such as car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals are already being lost to China; the important industries of the future will follow. Imagine Detroit or Cleveland on a national scale.
Avoiding that grim scenario means making policy choices — today — that should be obvious and already have bipartisan support: investing in research and development; supporting academic, scientific and corporate innovation; forging economic ties with countries around the world; and creating a welcoming and attractive climate for international talent and capital. Yet the Trump administration is doing the opposite in each of those areas.
Whether this century will be Chinese or American is up to us. But the time to change course is quickly running out.
Sorry friend, we don’t need ‘refreshing’.
We need smart.
So-called ‘thinking outside the box’ by an orange, con-artist imbecile doesn’t deserve a nickel’s worth of credit.
In order for ‘outside the box’ thinking to be constructive, one needs to understand the ‘box’ in the first place. This comes from disciplined study, thoughtful reflection, intellectual curiosity, attention to detail, and perhaps more than anything, the wisdom to be able to consider numerous wildly-divergent viewpoints and drill down to the crux of the issue.
Our dipshit leader possesses none of these capacities.
Yes, we need outsid-the-box thinking. But not from a moron who doesn’t understand the ‘box’.
Trump’s main mandate is to make Israel the sole hegemon in West Asia, bringing Arabs fully under US tutelage, and managing Turkey’s neo Ottoman ambitions, which requires pulling Iran’s teeth primarily, since all other actors are already in the Istaeli camp, thanks to Erdoğan finishing off both Syria and Lebanon as non-Israeli actors, resulting itself in Iraq firmly and openly declaring itself in the Israeli camp and denying any links to Iran and other now defunct axis of sheep 🐑 headed 😉 for the slaughterhouse.
China is not Trump’s main mandate, at least not until he can pull all of Iran’s teeth first 😜 or place Iran permanently in a wheelchair.
Once Iran capitulates, Yemen will too. Amd the Arab will for resistance against Israel permanently disappear for 👍 good as well all around.
Once he does the job on Iran Russia will have no choice but to join our camp, and China will be finally ripe for a real shakedown.
China has to wait in the wings until we finish Iran off and bring our 💩 in the Kremlin on-board.
The warning is out there to get out of
China as fast as possible to prepare for the final assault.
Choke the chinks but only after cooking the eye Rainians and forcing Russia to behave like the docile Lubavitcher brother we know its 💩 leader to be.
Trump the peace maker with ongoing Genocide in Gaza. You understand what chizophrenia are now ?
May 11, 2025 Tariffs Are Collapsing China’s Entire Economy, the World’s Factory Is Doomed
On May 10th, in a foreign trade factory workshop in China, a worker was seen dozing off, saying he had spent the entire day sitting without any work to do. If this situation continues, he fears he’ll have to go home early for the New Year!
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May 17, 2025 China’s Most Fragile Manufacturing Link Blocked by US, Japan, Germany; Satellites, Jets Depend on It
The Trump administration is currently considering adding a category of “high-risk industrial materials” to the export control list. It’s not chips, nor photolithography machines, but a type of industrial adhesive tape that you may not even recognize: UV-sensitive adhesives, electromagnetic shielding films, anti-radiation coatings…
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By any other name, International Jewish led and dominated Private Equity is buying everything in sight, large and small. They are unstoppable, unless large scale, coordinated FORCE is applied, as in Generalissimo Franco or Augusto Pinochet.
Perhaps when the West is exhausted, full of low IQ slugs, does not produce anything of enhancement of human life, then China and Russia and Iran, can clean them out and put them on the chain gang.
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That happen a long, long time ago. It only take almost as long time for the World to wake up, and find it have a rabies infected dog running around everywhere. Its interesting from what humans thoughts are controlled 🙂 “Nine Eleven” are so ridiculous for a technician. I suppose many here are not that…
Bingo….and thanks for mentioning the Mark Carney horror….it is all money laundering…
As for transparent banking, where is Trump’s push for Glass-Steagall and a National Infrastructure Bank?
Exactly.
All I hear is how it is impossible to do this or that. Sooooooo boring.
We cannot survive as a country without producing; it is just that simple. Funny how all those who say it is impossible to bring back manufacturing don’t recall how easy it was for businesses to migrate their manufacturing to China. It wasn’t impossible to migrate manufacturing to China; why would it be any different to migrate manufacturing to some other countries, like the US?
Even more idiocy is demonstrated by the people like Whitney who don’t seem to have any concept of how critical it is for the US (or any country, for that matter) to manufacture its own critical goods instead of relying on some foreign supply chain.
And it is beyond idiocy to claim that China has no bad intentions. China wants to dominate the world just as the joos want to, just like the muslims want to, just like the US did/does, and on and on. They aren’t in African countries to do these countries a favor – they will re-enslave the blacks eventually. And the US population, too.
Thank you for pointing this out. I had never heard of the Trifin Paradox. I understand now that a trade surplus and a reserve currency cannot co-exist. It is one or the other.
LOL! I think given the opportunity, I too, would’ve bankrupted casinos.
Again, thanks.
A ‘retired VP of Finance for an international company’ has spoken, I guess everything is settled then.
>The wage disparity …
I’m no genius, but actually I think tariffs are supposed to help equalize labor costs, among other disparities, you fucking moron.
In the corporate world, non-technical administration and management is full of dumb, useless pieces of shit like you — but there is good news: thanks to technical people like me, AI is beginning to replace personell in finance and accounting.
Note to the other idiots who typically post in these comment threads: this does not mean I think Trump’s efforts, which I previously described as ‘dumb and ham-handed’, will achieve whatever goals he had in mind — but tariffs have always been, and can still be, a useful and appropriate part of national trade policy.
I disagree with the article when it talks about WTO, GATT and free trade in general. Classical trade theory sees comparative advantage and economies of scale as the benefits of free trade. Those theorists never considered huge discrepancies in production costs, such as labor being paid 1/20th in countries that production was offshored to compared to the domestic economies. This was free money for companies who offshored production, while it caused economic growth to slow, wages to stagnate and government debts to balloon in the countries that deindustrialized. If the trade organizations actually cared about working people in both the industrializing countries and the deindustrializing countries it would have developed and enforced mechanisms that brought wages into parity. Instead what we saw was corrupt governments in the developed world weakening unions, deregulating business and signing free trade deals; while corrupt governments in the industrializing world were suppressing labour and harming their environments. A lose-lose for the people and a win-win for the wealthy. It is not going to be easy to unwind this mess that is 50 years in the making.
Bullshit.
I would change that to “Donald Trump does not have a reputation for thinking.”
Like in the meeting in Franco Spain, where they shouted “VIVA LA MORTE !” ? Are there only idiots and fascists on this site ? Its maybe “Americans”, a combination of both. I agree with Paul Craig Roberts, he seems not so happy for “Americans” either.
Trump’s push for Glass-Steagall and a National Infrastructure Bank have been sunseted by the SOFR Secured Overnight Federal Rate. Every bank’s balance sheet is available for review.
The Best outcome for America is the establishment of State Banks financed by their citizens savings and pensions. This reduces their borrowing costs for state projects from going to Wall Street.
Then maybe we can have a Banking Board that keeps States solvent, for example after a natural disaster.
This said, contrary to Popular demand, this is not the time to change horses in mid stream, when the Shadow Banking is attacking us in everyway.
A good example is the attack by the EU on our bonds a few weeks back ahead of the latest US bond auctions. The Fed came through with flying colors with all auctions sold out.
The Shadow Banking failed and they await the Tit to follow the Tat. They must be shrunk into Europe as a regional banking cartel. Their assets and inflences are being curtailed as we speak.
Hold the line with me and others A.A. Evil is being pushed back.
Let’s take each of those on a case by case basis. Let’s start with the U.S.
Prior to 1929, other than during the disastrous tenure of Woodrow Wilson (who involved America in WWI and squandered blood and treasure needlessly), the U.S Gubmint stayed out of the way of the private sector for the most part and let it do what it does best.
ie: generate wealth and prosperity for the nation.
Then along came the RINO Herbert Hoover in the late 1920’s, who was Keynesian before the term had even been invented.
He massively increased Gubmint spending and meddling in the operations of the market, creating all manner of distortions that exacerbated the decline in the economy.
Then we have FDR and his cataclysmic New Deal – which was just a repeat of what Hoover did (only on steroids).
FDR turned what would’ve been a short/sharp recession (absent Gubmint intervention/expansion), and turned it into the prolonged Great Depression.
As for Germany during the 1930’s, the decisive factor for Germany was its escape from the orbit of the ZOG controlled financial system.
Not subject to usurious exploitation, Germany was firing on all cylinders in no time.
To the extent that Gubmint in Germany was involved in Industrial Planning, this endangered the economy and created inflationary pressures – which would’ve ended badly had Germany not confiscated the gold holdings in 1938 of Austria (after the Anschluss), and soon thereafter Czechoslovakia.
In 1940, after invading the Low countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark), the Third Reich absorbed their gold holdings as well – followed by some of France’s when it too fell in the summer of 1940.
As for China, it was doing most of the right things in the period from 1978-2008.
But, in the wake of the 2008 GFC, and faced with the prospect of widespread unemployment (and perceived societal unrest that might eventuate), as its then leading customer (the U.S) was flat broke and unable to buy as many Chinese products as before, the CPC embarked on a massive ‘Make Work Programme’. It built:
1) Thousands of kilometres of highways and bridges to nowhere
2) Countless thousands of high rise apartment buidling eyesores (many of which are still ghost cities and unoccupied up to the present day)
3) Similar thousands of kilometres of High Speed Rail
4) Massive over capacity in International Airports (it has about 7-10 more mega-airport complexes than it needs (entailing that they’re underutilsed or virtually in mothballs and thus losing money).
In the case of the High Speed Rail between the major population centres, they are profitable and paying for themselves.
But a hell of a lot of High Speed Rail routes are HAEMORRHAGING RED INK and have been shut down or severely tapered off.
The fact of the matter is that China’s economy is still humming along at a reasonable rate (although growth rates are well down from the halcyon era of 1978-2008 before Gubmint started meddling). China’s growth rate is still reasonable DESPITE the ‘Industrial Planning’ (like the hundreds of billions in subsidies to prop up the EV industry), in which they squandered trillions.
Simply put, absent the Gubmint intervention and ‘Industrial Planning’, China’s growth rate would be MUCH BETTER still. This ‘planning’ actually retarded growth.
China is still doing OK because its private sector is so dynamic and profitable.
It more than makes up for the huge sums that have been flushed down a rat hole by Gubmint.
But for every ‘winner’ Gubmint picks, there are a minimum of HUNDREDS of losers it also chooses.
Gubmint has NO ROLE to play as far as meddling in the economy.
Its SOLE purpose is to maintain order, minimise its burden on the private sector (by extracting the bare minimum in taxes needed to sustain a Limited Gubmint).
Its purpose is to provide a functioning judiciary and ensure that a level playing field exists.
Gubmint’s role is to remove needless regulatory impediments that prevent the private sector from creating wealth for the nation.
That way no established player can monopolise an industry or threaten/imtimidate new entrants in the market that are poised to take away market share from the big boys.
Simply put, Gubmint is there to ensure that Fierce Competition is allowed in all sectors of the economy. Because this entails that consumers get the lowest prices and best quality products and services (seeing as producers will be operating on wafer thin margins in a competitive environment).
Kermit… your intuition is correct about Trump, China Russia getting together like the mafia families to implement a new order based on multi polar or regional powers that coexist through Cooperationnl, trade and dare we say friendship with sports meets and exchange students.
However, the Shadow Banking Mafia (please read my post responding to Notsofast, the 3rd post) to see what I am referring to.
The good news is, the attack on this mafia is real. They have been blocked from the Mediteranian. Italy, Greece, Spain and Porugal are making deals with the US, and Turkey is making deals with Russia to keep Europeans bottled up when the time comes. Their access to southern Sea Lanes is narrowing. Soon Israel must be put down or reeled in to open up the Arab market of half a billion willing and able consumers.
As for the Western sea Lanes, we have the purchace or joint development of Greenland. The Balkanization of Ukraine will insure the absence of any City of London foothold to launch its fuckery into Russia. Alberta is about to vote on splitting off from Eastern Canada. This union with the US would give the US closer access to Alaska.
All of these moves are to establish a new world order based on Resources as colateral with trade and cooperation as a means to raise the standard of all people on the planet to continue to build new markets and prosperous consumer; as opposdd to a system built for the control of the few through usery, drugs and wars leadind to the death and misery of the many.
PS. I have been brief in my explanations but if you go to some of my posts they are expanded.
I think tariffs are supposed to help equalize labor costs,
Then why lower tariffs from 145% to 30% just for 90 days? I have a feeling that this 90-day window will keep getting extended for a long time. Like the famous TikTok ban, legislated and upheld by courts.
The core of the thing are that zeros are worthless 😂 so if you agree to use the worthless as a measure of value, you of course get worthless people in power, which mass murder you in the hospitals, and such. I have learn this from Nils Ferlin and Dan Andersson, Oh, so wise people.
Uh, maybe I missed your point. Was there one? I cannot opine on your comment because I don’t know what you said or meant.
J.D. … Trump is performing perfectly what I call Plausible Procrastination.
He is acting like he is moving into war with Russia and China to pacify the Deep State or the City of London Shadow Banking, while building alliances with China and Russia to defeat this five hundred year old system based on exploiting Humanity and causing it untold misery.
Take your game up a couple of notches and become positive in your search for logic. After thinking, when something doesn’t make sense to you, it is safe to assume, you do not possess all the information towards a logical assessment. If Trump looks dumb, he is a billionaire, what are you or I? Not dumb; and neither is he.
So assume you don’t have all the facts and start digging instead of wasting your time criticizing incorrectly without enough information.
PS. If I am correct about Plausible Procrastination, wouldn’t Trump’s as a daily flipper of direction be the ultimate cover to buy time and not to do anything until he is ready?
Peace.
That is a ridiculous thing to say.
A quick search on the internet reveals the following:
Got that Mr/Ms rgl? For almost a century (not coincidentally the period when America was rising and then usurped Great Britain as the wealthiest nation on Earth), the U.S ran trade surpluses YEAR after YEAR.
The fact of the matter is that the USD obtained world reserve currency status because of ‘The Golden Rule’.
ie: He who has the gold, makes the rules.
And by the end of WWII, the U.S had accumulated around three-quarters of the entire world’s central bank gold holdings.
And it did so because it was the manufacturing colossus that produced the stuff that the world wanted, and thus exported more to the world than it imported.
FACT: That country with the world’s largest trade surplus is the MOST LIKELY to have its currency rewarded with world reserve currency status.
China’s yuan should be the world reserve currency today. China is estimated by some to have as much as 50,000 tonnes of central bank gold (which totally dwarfs the 8100 tonnes of gold the U.S claims it still possesses).
At a time of its choosing China may decide to allow its currency to take over as the world reserve currency. For the time being it chooses not to.
I take MeanJew’s comments as an opportunity to trash zionism’s BS with facts regardless of if human or bot.
I am not interested in some statistic on the net, if one person, just one person reads my response to MeanJew’s fake narrative, then I have done my part for myself and others to free ourselves from evil.
I’ll get back to you on this.
Well, there are increasing numbers of Western couples, most with children, who want to start a small family farm, and live decent, productive, and predictive lives. And they are smart people who were successful in the home countries. These are interesting stories.
Informative:
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PLUS an equal amount in various benefits from medical insurance to pension or 401K contributions that are invisible to many people, such as yourself.
Yes, there are too many regulations and government intrusion into private industry BUT even fixing these, the total cost of labor will still be far too high to make the USA a competitive manufacturing nexus.
There is one exception to the above sentence and that is if these new factories were to be 95%+ staffed robots with no humans involved. But doing that will not bring back the blue collar jobs that Trump wants these new factories to provide.
Last, we should not forget that factories typically bring with them many pollution and environment destruction problems with them. Do we really want to deal with these issues?
[ROTFLOL} Pay attention worm:
Similarly, if just one person on TUR reads my posts, then I would like to believe that my special insight will help them move forward in life and avoid the evil BS that posters like yourself regularly espouse here. .
Ron Unz is basically the leader of the Sinophile right (is Mike Whitney even on the right?), all of whom are in complete denial of the fact that the tariff gamble worked, China needs us more than vice versa, this is why they have to steal everything, their powerhouse economy is a house of cards, their massive espionage operation throughout the corporate world and universities is being exposed, there’s a major movement underway to remove Chinese nationals from the country, they’ve lied about their population figures, their panic over Covid dealt their economy and society a major blow, the CCP is in the grip of what amounts to a civil war, their leader has had more attempts on his life in the last few years than our current president, jobs are already being brought onshore, they agreed to most of Trump’s demands, all of Europe have restrictive Tariffs on China and their attempt to seek out alternative markets to the US has been a non starter. So many people are invested in the mythology of the rise of Asia that they fail to see all of these things.
“the total cost of labor will still be far too high”
Because I didn’t list everything you think it’s invisible to me?
AND it’s not my fault a “fixer upper” is $910K in an area where median household income is $80K a year. Something has got to give because nobody can afford to live here. I don’t know a single person that can afford to buy the home they live in on their current incomes. Not one.
We are not in recession and still have a $2,000,000,000,000 deficit.
>Then why lower tariffs from 145% to 30% just for 90 days?
Look, I covered this in my comment: Trump is ‘dumb’, and his handling of this whole tariff business has been ‘ham-handed.’
I’m not vouching for anything specific that Trump is currently doing — what Trump does or does not do during his time in office changes nothing about the basic concept that tariffs, when levied responsibly, can be a useful part of national trade policy.
On the contrary, it seems the fat orange bastard doesn’t actually give much of a damn about how his policies – be they arming Ukraine, exiting the INF treaty, assassinating General Soleimani, imposing tariffs, etc. – may affect “our trajectory.” What it is apparently trying to do by imposing more tariffs on Chinese products is to continue the stupid, ill-conceived, utterly hopeless and ultimately self-destructive efforts to damage/contain China that it began in its first term.
Nobody has to be an “expert” in anything to see that the fat orange bastard was, is and always will be a total failure at everything (except destruction). The “alternative” is to entrust important policy decisions (e.g. those involving international trade) to reasonable people who have the constitutional authority to make those decisions in the first place.
Is Bessent perchance Victoria [sic] Nuland’s retarded offspring?
This seems to be yet another “Fool’s Mate” on the Eurasian chessboard, to quote Ron Unz.
What’s really scary is that this shows that they really are working very hard to destroy China. Inarticulately so, but very persistently.
Adding Ron’s theory of the covid biowarfare attack on China this is beginn to expose an unremitting pattern of dogged perseveran .
And it’s confirmed in the articles and papers of A. Wess Mitchell, as quoted by Larry Johnson, that starting with the war on Ukraine, the goal was always China. Taking Ukraine down, then Russia, and ultimately China.
It’s frighteningly consistent with the theory that if a certain tribe is not able to get control of a country or region, they’ll doggedly work, by hook or by crook, to destroy it.
Demographics alone have doomed the US to becoming a developing world-tier backwater at best within a few decades, no matter what else happens.
It’s over. It was (sort of) nice while it lasted.
That is funny ! Thanks for sharing
This is like the hyena assuming that the giraffe and gazelle like to eat meat too.
[This is not an imageboard for stupid, off-topic memes. Keep doing this and your commenting will be severely restricted. Perhaps you’d be happier on a different website.]
Bessent is a trader. Traders develop their economic knowledge by gaming artificial systems. The problem with this is that they often believe that their knowledge of these specific systems can be generalized, but that isn’t the case. More often than not, they fail to even recognize that they are operating within an artificial system and believe their system to be some kind of base economic reality. I’ve said before that trying to learn economics from trading is like trying to learn physics by playing video games. All you learn are the specific rules of that specific artificial system, like the physics engine of the video game, which may or may not hold outside of that system. When the rules of the system change or the system breaks down, the trader’s mental models for how economies function break down as well. That is when they lose their shirts.
This also explains a lot of the trouble westerners have had understanding China. China succeeds in ways that aren’t supposed to be possible according to the models they have developed by playing in the American/western economic sandbox. It doesn’t help that the west has spent decades scrubbing out any economic theory that does not fit with their neoliberal presumptions.
MeanJew … you do read my posts asking you to thank your boss for hiring you. I hope you thank him. Laughing out very loud.
“Well, there are increasing numbers of Western couples, most with children, who want to start a small family farm, and live decent, productive, and predictive lives. And they are smart people who were successful in the home countries. These are interesting stories.”
Well, that’s nice for them.
Buying everything in sight could be trading fiat money about to be devalued for real physical colateral. Oldest trick in the Global Bankesters books.
Someone said: no steal no deal. Nother said: buy only when blood is in the streets.
Oh well Let them have their last hoorah. White people are going to be stomped into the earth in America! We won’t have to put up with them much longer.
That’s rich…The latter exemplifies the former.
Shaun Rein has some interaction with Bessant. This is what he had to say about the guy:
It just hit me. I advised Scott Bessent, now Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury who is leading the tariff war, in 2013 when he was still with Soros. An investment bank engaged me to advise Bessent on China’s economy and consumer trends and go over my book The End of Cheap China
I took an instant disliking – Bessent was one of the most arrogant and ignorant on China people I had ever met. He was uber bearish on China and was largely ideologically driven in his analysis. Communist countries couldn’t succeed was basically the jist of his views
Data and rational analysis did not reign supreme
I just looked up my correspondence with Scott after the meeting where I underscored that China’s economy wasn’t as weak as he thought
He thinks America has the upper hand with China right now. I worry for America. We have one of the most ignorant on China yet arrogant people I’ve ever met running a trade war against China
Scott underestimated China in 2013 and is underestimating it now
https://twitter.com/shaunrein/status/1909992240413356456
98% are getting poorer, 2% getting richer, and buying bankruptcies.
YouTube: middle class getting poorer.
AA’s beautiful tiger and elephant analogy:
How do you know the plan failed? I mean he just stated that after his trip to the Middle East, he now has TEN FREAKING TRILLION in new investments lined up … and “the plan” has only been going for a few months.
Granted quite a few of these will end up as empty promises, but quite a few will take place.
As for me, the main disappointment was first sticking Chinkland with 145% tariffs and then dropping the percentage.
The American hand that feeds Chinkland has been bitten WAY too often.
I want a total BAN on ANY sort of trade with Chinkland … and so do quite a few other Americans. That includes kicking their student spies back to Chinkland.
Dumber than a rock on on Israel’s side are two ways of saying the same thing
… Trump was able to expose the vulnerabilities of the Chinese which is deeply dependent on external comnusmption from the USA and the other countries in the wolrd. BUT Tariffs are only temporary bandaid to the USA Trade Deficits..I would contend that trade deficits er bound to comeback because China can manipulate LABOR costs, capital investments, internal consumption and currency exchanges. The Chinese have the best answer for USA econoic decline whch is TAXATION/Fiscal policies/ that canabalized the Working Poor and the Middle Class. The chineses rebuff the USA by simply stating that China doesnt make Tax laws/Fiscal policies in the USA…only and only the American Congress (states) can decide that..China doesnt make foreign policy for the USA regarding WAR spending. While China has used its fiscal surpluses to invest interbnally in R&D, education, sciences, patents, infraestrcucture, The USA had spent trillions in finanicng WARS..while dumping teh costs of Trade/Fiscal Deficits on the working middle Class. Unfurtunately the author of this article doesn’t adress the Authoritarian fascists nature of the Chinese state : NO UNIONS, no labor rights, no civil rights :worship, assembly, speech, etc. China is NOT a Constitutional Liberal democratic regime. In China tehre is no minimum wage lawss, OT, women’s rights, robotized Capitalism which is Intricsicallly, inbherently Historically INFERIOR to Western Liebral Capitalism….etc. The rapid unfetterd grow of the Chinese nation is unsutainable it will certainly lead to a explosive expansion of their multidiverse balkanized populations that will demand Higher socio/economic/political (ethnic religious) rights like Ughurs, Tibet, Muslims inside China which can only lead to Civil wars… Maybe History has given America a second chance to rectify its desastrous Neocon/Neoliberalis policies to corrcet its deep entrenched TAXATION FISCAL estructures that impoverish the WORKERS and creates upper elite parasitic oligarchy.
That is idiocy because it is a GROSS underestimation of the number of jobs lost. One estimate puts the number of Chinese jobs supported by exports at 180 million.
15% of that is around 25 million. Toss in another 5 million for jobs covered by “country of origin washing” and the job loss number can go to 30 million … and that is before companies start moving manufacturing out of Chinkland, which depending on the scale of the move can go to another 25-75 million jobs lost.
China is already in a depression from the real estate crash and a trade war will bring that depression to another level. Another LOWER level.
https://www.asiafinancial.com/chinas-factory-activity-falls-as-us-tariffs-kill-export-orders
Former Premier Li Keqiang said in 2020 the country’s foreign trade sector, directly or indirectly, supported 180 million people’s jobs.
Thank you. It is indeed a beautiful explanation of the concept. AA is very kind to describe them as tigers though.
They way they have been behaving is more akin to hyenas, jackals or crocodiles.
But maybe that is also still being too kind to them. Perhaps feral/invasive dingoes is more apt.
Yankee hubris outdoes ANY Greek tragedy. China is Nemesis, and the US is arrogant enough to delude themselves that they can ‘…bring China down’, a usage employed by deranged Yankee Doodles for years. As ever the Yanks are the RABID aggressors, but accuse their intended victims of ‘aggression’, where none exists.
It’s like Croesus of Lydia asking the Oracle of Delphi if it would be wise to attack the Persians. The Oracle replied that, if Croesus attacked Persia, ‘…a great kingdom would fall’. It did-that of Croesus. Ditto the Americans.They fall if they attack China, and Russia, and possibly Iran. I can hardly wait.
A REALLY stupid, pig ignorant, VICIOUS, brainwashed, racist LOSER. The USA is full of em, as a corpse is of maggots.
Turd, my dear friend-in 1880 there really no global ‘reserve currency’. The dominant currency was the pound sterling, NOT the US dollar.
Deficits don’t matter to countries in the same way they matter to businesses or consumers.
As to nobody being able to afford to live or buy a house where you live, it appears you live in the wrong area.
My area in the SF Bay Area is doing very well. In the county I live in, the median house price is $2 million. There are so many damn Tesla’s riding around, I am sick of looking at them.
So sorry…
Why are you retarded? I’m so fking tired of your bullshit argument. The point is, take from the profit side. Take companies private. Wall street killed America. And you are stupid.
MAGAts are retarded. No matter what Trump does, they love it, including his constant flip flops. Americans being unable to afford what they once could is a win in MAGALand. Why? Because Rump said so.
Don’t get angry at me for calling you that, MAGAts: it’s just what the God Emperor’s Chosen Son, Elon Musk, already called you. You lapped it up then, so stay on your knees now.
You gotta stop getting your news from people who think their leader levitates. If the tariff “gamble” worked (wild flailing is a better term), then Trump must have wanted Americans to face 100% inflation over one year. Big win, let’s see how that works out for him.
Incorrect. We know how he calculated those tariffs and it was, as usual, utter BS. All Trump’s tariffs have done is made the US less competitive in the global market. Keep spinning, MAGAt.
[This is not an imageboard for off-topic memes. This is your final warning.]
Thanks. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one thinking this way.
A structure based on a three-way partnership would be something to see.
Again, I think about the old mafia families getting together – agreeing that if they could only stop killing each other, they could all make money.
An interesting aspect is Kroisos got so filthy rich because he invented
elektron desilvering (without losing the silver, that is); it was not quite
the petrodollar but a monetary revolution nonetheless;
some things never change 🙄
Oh – so beautifully said.
I’m sure you are referring to the people who have “managed” our country ever since the 90s?
Referencing the period leading up to WWI, thank you for stating what is well known to all.
If you paid attention, you would’ve noticed that I said: ‘the period when America was rising’.
In other words, in the century or so beginning in 1880 when the U.S started its consistent run of trade surpluses, this latter part of the 19th century was when America was in the ascent.
And soon thereafter the U.S eclipsed Gross Britain in GDP.
Certainly, in the immediate aftermath of WWI, after Britain went a long way towards bankrupting herself, it was clear at this point that the USD had usurped the GBP as the dominant currency on the planet.
However, the GBP still traded alongside the USD between the wars, and together they were recognised as the two dominant currencies in the world.
So whether or not either the GBP or USD were technically meeting the definition of ‘reserve currencies of the world’ prior to Bretton Woods in 1944, that is neither here nor there.
Because in practical terms they were.
The fact of the matter is that, as much as Britain’s wealth was drained as a consequence of WWI, she still had significant gold holdings right up until the commencement of WWII in 1939.
But the ZOG sock puppet and traitor Winston Spendthrift Churchill saw to it that those remaining gold holdings soon disappeared through his prosecution of a war that Britain should not have been involved in, he made certain that Britain was thoroughly bankrupted by war’s end.
And, with Britain’s cupboard stripped bare of gold, the GBP could not possibly hold even the slightest pretensions of being considered a reserve currency.
It was immediately relegated to the dustbin of monetary history.
Thank you for sharing the article with us, the man has a balanced view on the topic, he is neither a Trump hater nor a globalist, but is simply trying to assess the United States’ strengths and weaknesses.
If my comment could be faulted it would be for my failure to enclose the phrase reasonable people in quotation marks (denoting a relative sense). As bad as they are (which is generally very bad), many of the scumbags in congress are nevertheless paragons of virtue and reason compared to the fat orange bastard in the white house; or at least, they would be more likely to show some restraint if for no other reason than a sense of political self-preservation.
I have to say I am surprised you can make a comment like this and not get flamed by Tooth Dilettante and Rurik.
Give it time?
That’s up for debate. The US Federal Reserve loaned the British 1,000 tons of gold before the Great Depression hit the US. The British DEFAULTING on that loan played a large part on the Federal Reserve no longer being able to back their paper dollar with gold, and the subsequent default by the Federal Reserve on the gold backing of the Federal Reserve dollar … and the further subsequent legalization as legal tender of that paper dollar (which many still consider illegal including myself) by the US Congress.
So in part you can thank the British for the current Federal Reserve System. LOL!!!!