No. of Recommendations: 12
Trump’s tariffs are essentially sanctions on the rest of the world. There is an implied suggestian that, one by one, our formor trading partneers will be forced to cut us better deals. It's one thing to be the 300 pound bully in the school yard who can beat up anyone at will and another if he callenges all 200 students, including his closest friends, to combined combat. Sure, they could line up to fight him one at a time, but more likely, they will form new mutual relationships which exclude the bully.
The economic theory backing his actions are complete BS and few outside of his circle expect there to be higher employment and/or lower inflation on a nearterm basis. So, like I said before the Brexit vote, "There is little chance that things will improve andd a significant risk that they will get worse". It was obvious this would cause the stock market to crash (a point W. Buffit seemed to have recognized months ago when he started raising cash), as well as increased unemployment and inflation causing ill will which would have to be overcome in time for the next election cycle (unless a "national emergency" interfers with that).
Heather Cox Richardson:
Trump’s tariffs are not an economic policy. Tariffs are generally imposed on products, not on nations. By placing them on countries, the White House was able to arrive at its numbers with a nonsensical formula that appears to have been reached by asking AI how to impose tariffs—a suggestion so outlandish that I dismissed.
CNBC’s Steve Liesman said: “Nobody ever heard of this formula. Nobody has ever used this formula. So I’m sorry, but the conclusion seems to be the president kind of made this up as he went along....”
Today, former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers posted: “It’s now clear that the [Trump] Administration computed reciprocal tariffs without using tariff data. This is to economics what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK thought is to vaccine science. The Trump tariff policy makes little sense EVEN if you believe in protectionist mercantilist economics.”
Editor of The American Prospect David Dayen notes that there is no apparent policy behind the tariffs, no thought, for example, as to whether it is even possible for the U.S. to ramp up the kind of domestic manufacturing Trump claims to want. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out that building and establishing a new plant in the U.S. will take a minimum of three to five years even if investors are inclined to support one.
So, what's the point to this stupidity - unless there are unexplained ulterior motives.
Jeff
