Trump tariff thread

[Starkiller]

11 minutes ago, OILERMAN said:

 

I know, we'll put an idiot in charge who can't keep a casino solvent, squandered 100s of millions in inheritance and sells gold shoes and crypto meme coins! 

But he said he was going to make America great again!!!

[ctm]

Congressman Ro Khanna is raising the alarm over mass layoffs in the U.S. economy resulting from the failed economic policies of President Donald Trump, including over 4,000 factory workers who lost their jobs this week due to firings or plant closures.

 

"This week," Khann wrote, "19 factories had mass layoffs, 15 closed, and 4,134 factory workers across America lost their jobs. Cleveland-Cliffs laid off 1,200 workers in Michigan and Minnesota as they deal with the impact of Trump's tariffs on steel and auto imports."

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/alarm-sounded-as-4-100-factory-workers-laid-off-amid-trump-policy-chaos/ar-AA1ConWd?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=70e5b109d094496cbe85ede3b78360f7&ei=29

 

The numbers and locations are in the link.

 

 

 

[ctm]

If there was one consistent message from Trump administration economic officials Sunday morning, it was this: We're not worried about the stock market plunging, and the cavalry isn't coming to save you from tariffs, either.

 

 Trump's economic team made clear no one should count on any last-minute relief from the reciprocal tariffs that are set to be imposed Wednesday.

 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sounded the same note on NBC's "Meet the Press," when asked if Trump was open to negotiating tariffs.

"No. No, no, no. I think that we are going to have to see the path forward. Because, you know, after 20, 30, 40, 50 years of bad behavior, you can't just wipe the slate clean," Bessent said.

 

But Lutnick, for one, looked past those impacts and framed the tariffs as the only way to restore American manufacturing as a matter of national security.

"There is no postponing," he said. "The president needs to reset global trade."

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-administration-to-markets-don-t-expect-a-rescue/ar-AA1CoD2b?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=70e5b109d094496cbe85ede3b78360f7&ei=54

 

The message and policy at least for now is that this is a long term strategy, not a short term negotiating position for Trump to redo individual country deals.

[nine]

3 hours ago, Starkiller said:

China’s GDP passed ours years ago by some measures. They are the young, rising superpower and we have doomed ourselves to falling behind permanently. 

 

I won't pretend to know anything about China.....but geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan is a very sharp, highly-informed guy who knows a LOT about China....and has a lot of very interesting views on China's status as a nation and economic prospects in the not-so-distant future.

 

As Zeihan explains it.... China has had a massive explosion of industrialization over the past 50+ years.    They're the world's largest producer of goods and have an absolutely massive manufacturing infrastructure.

 

But that massive infrastructure also requires a massive workforce....which is about to become a serious problem.

 

Thanks to artificially suppressing their population growth with a "one child per family" policy over multiple decades,  China now has extremely unnatural and unsustainable population demographics:  half of the country's  population is age 50 or older....which means roughly half of China's workforce will be reaching retirement age in the next 5-15 years.     And thanks to the "one child per family" policy,  China literally doesn't have enough young people entering the workforce to replace all the people who are leaving.   

 

China literally doesn't have enough bodies to support the manufacturing infrastructure and keep it running as it has in the past.  And because China  deliberately suppressed their national birthrate for decades,  their workforce situation will only continue to get worse for the next 3-4 decades before it gets better.

 

Zeihan also digs deep into a lot of China's questionable infrastructure investments, highly dubious banking and financial practices, and the Chinese government's penchant for lying and deliberately inflating numbers and statistics....or simply choosing not to report or even collect statistics the government might find unflattering or unfavorable.   

 

I don't know that I fully buy into Zeihan's conclusions....because they're so extreme.   Ziehan is firmly convinced that not only will the Chinese economy completely collapse in the next 5-10 years, he  predicts that China will actually collapse as a society and sovereign nation.    He makes no predictions as to how it will turn out or what a world without China might look like....but he's firmly convinced that within a few years, the nation of China as the world has known it will no longer exist.     And he has a whoooole lot of information to back it up.

[Starkiller]

2 minutes ago, nine said:

 

I won't pretend to know anything about China.....but geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan is a very sharp, highly-informed guy who knows a LOT about China....and has a lot of very interesting views on China's status as a nation and economic prospects in the not-so-distant future.

 

As Zeihan explains it.... China has had a massive explosion of industrialization over the past 50+ years.    They're the world's largest producer of goods and have an absolutely massive manufacturing infrastructure.

 

But that massive infrastructure also requires a massive workforce....which is about to become a serious problem.

 

Thanks to artificially suppressing their population growth with a "one child per family" policy over multiple decades,  China now has extremely unnatural and unsustainable population demographics:  half of the country's  population is age 50 or older....which means roughly half of China's workforce will be reaching retirement age in the next 5-15 years.     And thanks to the "one child per family" policy,  China literally doesn't have enough young people entering the workforce to replace all the people who are leaving.   

 

China literally doesn't have enough bodies to support the manufacturing infrastructure and keep it running as it has in the past.  And because China  deliberately suppressed their national birthrate for decades,  their workforce situation will only continue to get worse for the next 3-4 decades before it gets better.

 

Zeihan also digs deep into a lot of China's questionable infrastructure investments, highly dubious banking and financial practices, and the Chinese government's penchant for lying and deliberately inflating numbers and statistics....or simply choosing not to report or even collect statistics the government might find unflattering or unfavorable.   

 

I don't know that I fully buy into Zeihan's conclusions....because they're so extreme.   Ziehan is firmly convinced that not only will the Chinese economy completely collapse in the next 5-10 years, he  predicts that China will actually collapse as a society and sovereign nation.    He makes no predictions as to how it will turn out or what a world without China might look like....but he's firmly convinced that within a few years, the nation of China as the world has known it will no longer exist.     And he has a whoooole lot of information to back it up.

I’d agree that they will have some big problems related to their age (and gender) distributions being out of whack, but I can’t see them totally collapsing

[pat]

9 minutes ago, nine said:

 

I won't pretend to know anything about China.....but geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan is a very sharp, highly-informed guy who knows a LOT about China....and has a lot of very interesting views on China's status as a nation and economic prospects in the not-so-distant future.

 

As Zeihan explains it.... China has had a massive explosion of industrialization over the past 50+ years.    They're the world's largest producer of goods and have an absolutely massive manufacturing infrastructure.

 

But that massive infrastructure also requires a massive workforce....which is about to become a serious problem.

 

Thanks to artificially suppressing their population growth with a "one child per family" policy over multiple decades,  China now has extremely unnatural and unsustainable population demographics:  half of the country's  population is age 50 or older....which means roughly half of China's workforce will be reaching retirement age in the next 5-15 years.     And thanks to the "one child per family" policy,  China literally doesn't have enough young people entering the workforce to replace all the people who are leaving.   

 

China literally doesn't have enough bodies to support the manufacturing infrastructure and keep it running as it has in the past.  And because China  deliberately suppressed their national birthrate for decades,  their workforce situation will only continue to get worse for the next 3-4 decades before it gets better.

 

Zeihan also digs deep into a lot of China's questionable infrastructure investments, highly dubious banking and financial practices, and the Chinese government's penchant for lying and deliberately inflating numbers and statistics....or simply choosing not to report or even collect statistics the government might find unflattering or unfavorable.   

 

I don't know that I fully buy into Zeihan's conclusions....because they're so extreme.   Ziehan is firmly convinced that not only will the Chinese economy completely collapse in the next 5-10 years, he  predicts that China will actually collapse as a society and sovereign nation.    He makes no predictions as to how it will turn out or what a world without China might look like....but he's firmly convinced that within a few years, the nation of China as the world has known it will no longer exist.     And he has a whoooole lot of information to back it up.

The demographic advantages that the US has over China are a direct result of immigration, and the large internal markets of the US are based on federal regulation.

 

A nativist US still has large internal markets, but without a federal government setting standards and growing the workforce, I'm not sure Zeihan's optimism will continue.

[chef]

18 minutes ago, nine said:

 

I won't pretend to know anything about China.....but geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan is a very sharp, highly-informed guy who knows a LOT about China....and has a lot of very interesting views on China's status as a nation and economic prospects in the not-so-distant future.

 

As Zeihan explains it.... China has had a massive explosion of industrialization over the past 50+ years.    They're the world's largest producer of goods and have an absolutely massive manufacturing infrastructure.

 

But that massive infrastructure also requires a massive workforce....which is about to become a serious problem.

 

Thanks to artificially suppressing their population growth with a "one child per family" policy over multiple decades,  China now has extremely unnatural and unsustainable population demographics:  half of the country's  population is age 50 or older....which means roughly half of China's workforce will be reaching retirement age in the next 5-15 years.     And thanks to the "one child per family" policy,  China literally doesn't have enough young people entering the workforce to replace all the people who are leaving.   

 

China literally doesn't have enough bodies to support the manufacturing infrastructure and keep it running as it has in the past.  And because China  deliberately suppressed their national birthrate for decades,  their workforce situation will only continue to get worse for the next 3-4 decades before it gets better.

 

Zeihan also digs deep into a lot of China's questionable infrastructure investments, highly dubious banking and financial practices, and the Chinese government's penchant for lying and deliberately inflating numbers and statistics....or simply choosing not to report or even collect statistics the government might find unflattering or unfavorable.   

 

I don't know that I fully buy into Zeihan's conclusions....because they're so extreme.   Ziehan is firmly convinced that not only will the Chinese economy completely collapse in the next 5-10 years, he  predicts that China will actually collapse as a society and sovereign nation.    He makes no predictions as to how it will turn out or what a world without China might look like....but he's firmly convinced that within a few years, the nation of China as the world has known it will no longer exist.     And he has a whoooole lot of information to back it up.

 

3 minutes ago, pat said:

The demographic advantages that the US has over China are a direct result of immigration, and the large internal markets of the US are based on federal regulation.

 

A nativist US still has large internal markets, but without a federal government setting standards and growing the workforce, I'm not sure Zeihan's optimism will continue.

 

Re:US - he turned on our rosy prospects rather rapidly after Trump actually went full Trump in office - highlighting the damage of the anti-immigration policies which undermine one of our demographic strengths; the shift in capital investment which is reversing our past few years of growth in manufactuing; and then the tariff issues - most specifically the animosity created within our own North American trading network with Canada and Mexico that has been of far more benefit to the US than most understand.

 

Re:China - I think he is speaking within a historical context of China, meaning despite the CCP's own official line* that China has been a continuous single country for 1,000s of years, he is referencing the many collapses of their gov't/kingdoms over that time period.  In the end still Chinese, still pretty much Han.  Just many periods of chaos and turmoil when gov'ts fall.  The #1-through-infinity priority of the CCP is to stay in control through any means necessary. Which could look like handing everyone a million dollar check or run people over with tanks - doesn't matter.  They not against prosperity for their people - would prefer it overall - just not at the expense of loss of control.

 

 

(* Official CCP history now showing the Mongols never conquered China for example)

[9 Nines]

5 hours ago, OILERMAN said:

China is strategically putting in a plan to make themselves economically superior and the world super power while the US elected a buffoon surrounded by morons

Soon, Trump is claiming he is 25%  Chinese. 

Edited April 6 by 9 Nines

[pat]

It’s absolutely idiotic.  At the same time that Trump is increasing tariffs, he’s also killing the chips act.  There’s no additional manufacturing that’s gonna get built in the US with this clown.

[rns90]

Has it been mentioned that Bassett realizes what a stupid and awful idea these tarries are and wants to resign?

[chef]

2 hours ago, chef said:

 

(* Official CCP history now showing the Mongols never conquered China for example)

 

 

Quoting myself here, but after wrote this about Chinese school education programs revising Mongol history among tons and tons of everything else, started thinking about Texas proposal to rename slavery "involuntary relocation" or Florida's approval to teach that black people benefited from the skills they learned during slavery.  

 

Just extra troublesome when we start walking the same paths as the CCP with regards to revisionist history. (not that it's really all that new for the US - just that we're regressing)

 

 

[OILERMAN]

48 minutes ago, rns90 said:

Has it been mentioned that Bassett realizes what a stupid and awful idea these tarries are and wants to resign?

 

Top Trump Official So Freaked Out by Tariffs, He Wants to Quit

 

https://newrepublic.com/post/193634/donald-trump-treasury-scott-bessent-tariffs-quit

[OilerTitanHybrid]

Short on Chinese workers?  Build dem bots!  Can't build enough by 2035 or so?  Musk will build them for you!

 

Hell, maybe China will even start bringing in immigrants to help out.  Offer them free rice to live and work there.  They'll never go hungry. 

 

Future Chinese slogan to all immigrants... "China is nice!  We have free rice!"

[ChesterCopperpot1]

22 hours ago, 9 Nines said:

Possibly good news, if nothing else it would give him cover to reverse some tariffs, although how much trade does that equate is the question. If it is only a little and makes him dig-in for the larger trading blocks, it will spoke our equity markets more as per surveys the market might still be pricing in a situation of him reversing all tariffs quickly as he has done previously and when that does happen, more downside will happen. 

It's going to equate to next to nothing in trade. We have trade deficits with other countries because we buy more shit than any other country in the world. We will always have a trade deficit with countries like Madagascar. 

[chef]

37 minutes ago, OILERMAN said:

 

Top Trump Official So Freaked Out by Tariffs, He Wants to Quit

 

https://newrepublic.com/post/193634/donald-trump-treasury-scott-bessent-tariffs-quit

 

 

Next Treasury Secretary.... Robert Kiyosaki!

 

Would be funny if not already completely in line with other cabinet members.  He does have 3+ bankruptcies in his back pocket and by many accounts runs a scam in seminars and MLM, so big pluses there.  On Fox Biz a lot. Praises BitCoin.  Sucks off at the Altar of the Orange God.  (The more I type the less funny/more likely this becomes)

 

You heard it here first folks!

 

 

(Dave Ramsey 2nd choice.)