Trump​ ❤️ Tariffs

[Motorin']

Looks like China has started to cave, removed reciprocal tariffs from about 25% of US imports:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-02/china-s-stealth-exemptions-may-amount-to-a-quarter-of-us-imports

 

The lug head Americans rooting for "the rest of the world" to crush US are having a bad week. 

 

But they don't know it. And they will keep hoping for America's ruin. 

 

Hope those German bonds your financial advisors moved your money into work out in the long run. I mean, it's not like it's a country pledging to fund a forever war against a nation it depends on for its energy... 

Edited Friday at 09:07 PM by Motorin'

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

9 hours ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

Well I guess I'm just not the style aficionados that you well-to-do folks are here. In the case of designer clothes like Lauren, you're paying for the label, not the shirt. With the intent to project an image of sophistication and wealth. Its what us common folks call "snob appeal".  

I love my Lauren shirts, and have always felt the quality was very good.  I’ve had some for many years.   I guess I never thought it had much to do with projecting sophistication and wealth, I just like the way they wash/iron/hold form.   
 

Side note I seem to recall starting to like the way they wash/iron/hold form roughly around the time my then-gf told me they looked good on me and I would probably like how they wash/iron/fold form.  

[Joe Ferguson forever]

3 hours ago, Motorin' said:

Looks like China has started to cave, removed reciprocal tariffs from about 25% of US imports:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-02/china-s-stealth-exemptions-may-amount-to-a-quarter-of-us-imports

 

The lug head Americans rooting for "the rest of the world" to crush US are having a bad week. 

 

But they don't know it. And they will keep hoping for America's ruin. 

 

Hope those German bonds your financial advisors moved your money into work out in the long run. I mean, it's not like it's a country pledging to fund a forever war against a nation it depends on for its energy... 

I don’t believe Charles Koch is rooting against America but it seems he and I are rooting against trump’s chaos

https://time.com/7282130/charles-koch-speech-trump-tariffs/

[Trump_is_Mentally_fit]

Interesting article on the supply chains and how it will be small businesses that pay the biggest price. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/business/tariffs-china-ryan-petersen-small-business-35f99669

 

Petersen is explaining to anyone who will listen why hefty U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could be catastrophic for America’s small businesses. 

“If they don’t change the tariffs, it’s going to be an extinction-level, asteroid-wiping-out-the-dinosaurs kind of event,” he told me. “Only these aren’t dinosaurs. These are dynamic, healthy businesses.” 

He knows this because those businesses are his customers. 

They use Flexport to transport products from the factory to your front door. Petersen’s company handles everything from booking space on planes, trucks and enormous ocean carriers to managing all the tedious paperwork along the way. 

It’s a sleek tech platform that gives Petersen a window into the entire global economy, providing a real-time look at the situation on the ground and on the water. He can track exactly how much it costs to ship any item anywhere—and how much more it costs because of tariffs. His company has visibility into about 1% of U.S. trade, he said, which is more than enough data for him to connect dots. 

“We have a pretty good view of what’s happening,” he says. 

And what’s happening isn’t pretty.  

 

[The Frankish Reich]

3 hours ago, Trump_is_Mentally_fit said:

Interesting article on the supply chains and how it will be small businesses that pay the biggest price. 

 

https://www.wsj.com/business/tariffs-china-ryan-petersen-small-business-35f99669

 

Petersen is explaining to anyone who will listen why hefty U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports could be catastrophic for America’s small businesses. 

“If they don’t change the tariffs, it’s going to be an extinction-level, asteroid-wiping-out-the-dinosaurs kind of event,” he told me. “Only these aren’t dinosaurs. These are dynamic, healthy businesses.” 

He knows this because those businesses are his customers. 

They use Flexport to transport products from the factory to your front door. Petersen’s company handles everything from booking space on planes, trucks and enormous ocean carriers to managing all the tedious paperwork along the way. 

It’s a sleek tech platform that gives Petersen a window into the entire global economy, providing a real-time look at the situation on the ground and on the water. He can track exactly how much it costs to ship any item anywhere—and how much more it costs because of tariffs. His company has visibility into about 1% of U.S. trade, he said, which is more than enough data for him to connect dots. 

“We have a pretty good view of what’s happening,” he says. 

And what’s happening isn’t pretty.  

 

Really an excellent article from the pure business side. The ripple effects of the ridiculous tariffs (which the markets do believe will be undone before fully enacted) will continue for some time.

[Motorin']

59 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Really an excellent article from the pure business side. The ripple effects of the ridiculous tariffs (which the markets do believe will be undone before fully enacted) will continue for some time.

 

Sure, when you start with the presupposition that everything about the Trump administration is incompetent and corrupt, then the analysis that the market will force them to stop with the incompetence before it does too much damage makes sense. 

 

But if you take a moment to look at the 30,000 ft view and avoid missing the forrest for the trees, there is a potential to A. Remove unfair protectionism that has been in place against US interests and in so doing creat MORE free and fair global trade. And B. (Which is more important) Recalibrate our manufacturing and supply chain in partnership with India in order to end our dependency on China. 

 

Both scenarios are a win. But I understand that it is impossible for many people to even consider that anything the Trump admin does could create a net positive. Everything must be interpreted in the most damning possible way in order to hopefully win the mid-terms. 

 

[The Frankish Reich]

4 minutes ago, Motorin' said:

 

Sure, when you start with the presupposition that everything about the Trump administration is incompetent and corrupt, then the analysis that the market will force them to stop with the incompetence before it does too much damage makes sense. 

 

But if you take a moment to look at the 30,000 ft view and avoid missing the forrest for the trees, there is a potential to A. Remove unfair protectionism that has been in place against US interests and in so doing creat MORE free and fair global trade. And B. (Which is more important) Recalibrate our manufacturing and supply chain in partnership with India in order to end our dependency on China. 

 

Both scenarios are a win. But I understand that it is impossible for many people to even consider that anything the Trump admin does could create a net positive. Everything must be interpreted in the most damning possible way in order to hopefully win the mid-terms. 

 

I understand the point. I am even willing to concede that there is value in nudging the world economy away from overdependence on China.

But the strategy could work without the chaos. Again, take a look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was a really good agreement that would have increased U.S. influence in the non-China far east, but it was shot down by people (both sides, including Trump and Hillary) for narrow/U.S. politics reasons.

Could I (and the markets) accept something like an escalating tariff rate where tariffs go up for each quarter in which no progress is made in negotiations? Yeah, I suppose, even though I'm a free trade advocate by political and economic philosophy.

But again: chaos. And that's what the WSJ logistics expert interviewed in the article focuses on. A lot of small businesses will be extremely stressed and many will go bankrupt if it continues.

[Motorin']

1 minute ago, The Frankish Reich said:

I understand the point. I am even willing to concede that there is value in nudging the world economy away from overdependence on China.

But the strategy could work without the chaos. Again, take a look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was a really good agreement that would have increased U.S. influence in the non-China far east, but it was shot down by people (both sides, including Trump and Hillary) for narrow/U.S. politics reasons.

Could I (and the markets) accept something like an escalating tariff rate where tariffs go up for each quarter in which no progress is made in negotiations? Yeah, I suppose, even though I'm a free trade advocate by political and economic philosophy.

But again: chaos. And that's what the WSJ logistics expert interviewed in the article focuses on. A lot of small businesses will be extremely stressed and many will go bankrupt if it continues.

 

That's a fair point for sure. The last thing I want to see happen is for small business to get wiped out. Like mine did during the Covid lock downs. 

 

The market seems to have responded by coming back to levels just before the post-election bump. 

 

I'd like to see the roadmap to the India partnership and trade deals with non-Chinese partners in the Pacific hashed out over the next few months. 

 

Yes to more structure and calibrated moves, less chaos.

 

My personal thoughts about the chaos is that Trump uses it as a negotiation tool. I completely understand why many oppose it. And I'm not saying it's the right approach.

 

But I do think the jury is out as to whether or not the resulting trade deals over the next year, and the subsequent effect on the economy over the next five years will be a net-positive or negative. 

 

It could be great. There could be a disastrous recession.

 

But the fact remains that we have been kicking the can down the road on the debt bubble for a very long time. 

 

And we've gotten to the point where the national debt doubles every 8 years.  It's almost 37 Trillion now. It will be 74 Trillion in 8 years... 150 Trillion in 16 years... 300 Trillion in 24 years... 600 Trillion in 32 years and 1.2... what comes after Trillion? In 40 years???

 

The Obama/Bidenomics of the Democrat party is- debt doesn't matter. 

 

I don't know if comprehensive tariffs are the solution. But it's at least an attempt to solve the debt crisis rather than pretending like it doesn't exist. 

 

 

 

[The Frankish Reich]

1 minute ago, Motorin' said:

My personal thoughts about the chaos is that Trump uses it as a negotiation tool

No doubt that's part of it. But I think he overplays our hand. What worked in real estate deals - the old "I'll just walk away if you don't take my offer" or "this price is only good for one day; tomorrow it will be higher" - doesn't work so well in international economic or security deals. 

Add to that the mixed messaging on tariffs. Are they also intended to shift our tax base from income taxes to tariffs? That implies tariffs are a permanent fixture. But how does that fit with the bargaining chip theory?

It's still a mess.

[Doc Brown]

21 hours ago, Motorin' said:

Looks like China has started to cave, removed reciprocal tariffs from about 25% of US imports:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-02/china-s-stealth-exemptions-may-amount-to-a-quarter-of-us-imports

 

The lug head Americans rooting for "the rest of the world" to crush US are having a bad week. 

 

But they don't know it. And they will keep hoping for America's ruin. 

 

Hope those German bonds your financial advisors moved your money into work out in the long run. I mean, it's not like it's a country pledging to fund a forever war against a nation it depends on for its energy... 

Weird.  They actually realize that the importer (themselves) would pay their own tariffs so they simply exempt the tariffs from imports that they need most.  It's almost as weird as the US exempting smart phone and computer imports made in China from tariffs because it would hurt the importer (us) the most. I like how we're seeing in real time how dumb starting a tariff war is.

Edited 9 hours ago by Doc Brown

[Motorin']

20 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

Weird.  They actually realize that the importer (themselves) would pay their own tariffs so they simply exempt the tariffs from imports that they need most.  It's almost as weird as the US exempting smart phone and computer imports made in China from tariffs because it would hurt the importer (us) the most. I like how we're seeing in real time how dumb starting a tariff war is.

 

Other than the whole part of shifting our dependency on China for manufacturing to a partnership with India.

 

[Doc Brown]

Just now, Motorin' said:

 

Other than the whole part of shifting our dependency on China for manufacturing to a partnership with India.

 

Why exempt tariffs on smart phones and computer imports from China then?

[Motorin']

7 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

Why exempt tariffs on smart phones and computer imports from China then?

 

Apple's moving iphone production to India. Google already moved pixel out of China.

 

The exemptions were to ease the market and will be on the last few years of products made in China.  

 

The ball's in motion. It will be a three to five year transition before India mostly replaces China in our supply chain and manufacturing partner. 

 

 

 

 

[Doc Brown]

2 minutes ago, Motorin' said:

 

Apple's moving iphone production to India. Google already moved pixel out of China.

 

The exemptions were to ease the market and will be on the last few years of products made in China.  

 

The ball's in motion. It will be a three to five year transition before India mostly replaces China in our supply chain and manufacturing partner. 

India has significantly lower labor costs (70%) than China.  It's a logical place to move your manufacturing production if I was a CEO.