US lowers tariffs on major tech exporting nations - but buyers will still pay more US President Donald Trump on Thursday announced new tariff rates that reduce the import duties on goods from several major tech-producing nations. The US announced its new trade policy on April 2nd, which Trump named “Liberation Day” because it introduced “reciprocal tariffs” that reflected the duties other nations charge on …
We were stuffed the moment they voted this guy back into office despite having committed the worst possible crime against the US Constitution.
Here's a simple, basic question: what value does any agreement have in a country where law and law enforcement has been replaced by the whims of a petulant child? Even if you negotiate some sort of agreement or contract, it's neither robust nor enforceable from you side because the courts are in his pockets. If you have any competition they can simply sponsor the guy via the many ways he set up to enrich him and your agreement is void. Or if the weather changes. Or if his wife slaps his hand again in public. Or if you ask too many questions about Epstein.
The good that is coming from this is that finally nations have realised they need to cut their dependency and, for instance, start reducing the blackmail exercised via the US Dollar. Wow, it only took, what? Six decades or so?
Trust is the one asset you cannot buy or replace quickly when you have damaged it, and the wannabe king is burning it faster than their remaining fossil fuel. You can see that in the declining obligation market which tends to be a good indicator.
Go live among people who are poorer.
Want to feel poor? Go live among the richer.
Want to feel smart? Mingle with the stupid.
Here we meet the snag. What if you are so stupid, you cannot find enough more stupid people to fill a white house? Then your only tactic is to divert the attention.
"The US can't do without the rest of the world, but the rest of the world will be fine without the US"
The US exports $2trn of stuff, and imports $3trn of stuff. I think the rest of the world would find itself not-fine-at-all without the US as a market. To put $3trn in context, that's greater than the GDP of Italy.
The rest of the world will cultivate other trade relationships, without the U.S. dictating who you can trade with.
Fuck America, I refuse to buy anything that comes out of its anus. My next car is going to be Japanese too, because the domestic auto companies like Ford and GM all kick up to American head offices anyway.
Worse than tariffs will be reduced demand for American products. Bully all the governments you want, we'll let products rot on shelves until distributors are forced to stop carrying them.
>My next car is going to be Japanese too
You seriously want a car built by those diligent Asian workers? In a factory designed around Toyota Production System?
Not a Patriotic American factory, relocated to a southern state with no unions and lax safety enforcement, by a couple of guys who didn't finish high school but somehow have double barreled-first names?
Remember how the map of Europe was redrawn, with only the unusual shape of the ferry route from Dublin to Dunkerque giving any clue that there might be a land mass between the Republic of Ireland and the Continent?
Expect the same to happen to the map of North America, with some sort of apparently impenetrable-to-shipping void between Canada and Mexico. The Euro will end up displacing the dollar as the de facto global reserve currency. The rest of the world will find alternative suppliers of most of what they used to get from the USA, and learn to cope without the rest.
We are not talking here solely about manufacturing save possibly in its broadest possible sense. There are countless importers relying on overseas product who are up the creek without a paddle because - take a simple example such as a contract publisher or any publisher - he has to find a printer; who has to find a paper supplier; and machines; and machine operators; and ink suppliers; and sources for all sorts of other fancy gizmos stuck on books and magazines. Even if such an ecosystem existed, every single such local business would be selling their mothers into slavery to be first in the queue with local suppliers and sod the rest. The same applies across the board. Where are the guys sewing denim jeans together? And the dyeing and weaving factories to supply them? And the cotton pickers (many of whom are being kicked out)?
The fact also is in the meantime US importers are putting unbearable pressure on overseas suppliers (and hence indirectly their suppliers and hence etc) to eat part of the tariff cost. Once those suppliers reach the limit of their goodwill or their diminished cashflow they are just going to reject new US business. So - start again at the top ^
It depends on where the new markets are.
To digress, the UK North Sea oil industry is possibly the most highly regulated in the world, and production costs amongst the highest. However, it was also one of the most stable economies and tax regimes: whilst the profit margin was lower, it was a safe investment. That stable situation has now changed and investment there looks nowhere as good, so the industry is running down. Sure, oil and gas reserves are diminishing, and the extraction is getting harder and more expensive, but that situation was known a long time ago and operators were planning for it. But the new tax regime pulled the rug.
The US has been a good market as it was relatively stable and, whilst that's no longer the case at the moment, it will still look a better long-term bet for many. Of course, those businesses needing a short-term solution will look elsewhere. It might be a temporary blip, but it could also be the start of a major shift in the global economy. The USA empire is no more likely to survive a global shift than the British one did, nor others before (Spanish, Roman, Greek, Persian, etc).
It's sort of the worst of all worlds: the number of tariff policy change this year alone is already well over 100 and this means that companies are simply not investing in new plant and equipment. Many importers have tried to dodge and then swallow the import tax by bringing forward imports and then stopping orders. But they're going to have pass on what is essentially a sales tax to customers soon and we'll see it inflation, which could quickly become sticky, and rising bond yields, which will make the kind of capital invesment that Donny Dumb loves to boast about impossible.
Most countries have decided (almost certainly in concert) not to be drawn into a trade war to accept the demands in the hope that the problems this will cause in America will lead to climb downs and they won't be drawn. We've yet to learn whether any of Donny Dumb's many tariffs actually have legal force. It's almost certain that legislation will be required for some.
The most annoying thing, well until I started seeing tariffs added on bills, was Moronodon I using that phrase. Bringing in implies that the money is coming "in" to the US from abroad which of course utter Bovine Secretion. I'd like to say I don't know if this is on purpose to sway the MAGA masses or just stupidity at it's finest. I lean heavily toward the latter with just a touch of the former mainly due to his grifter IQ above room temperature (in degrees C of course) . I recently heard that a $600 tariff "sharing" check was in consideration by the republican court jesters (AKA congress) which is a great idea since the estimated amount of tariff money a typical US consumer will fork over to the government is $2,300. I can hear the MAGAs now exclaiming what a great benefit from all that tariff money coming "in" this is.
Maga keeps sanewashing him as one article I read put it. Stop acting like he's doing a good job, making reasonable decisions, realize that his whole aim is to get back at whoever slighted him that he's not scared of and to make what he things are good deals. You can't talk to GOP people, Give them a fact, they'll call it fake news. Take a look at the Daily Show's Jordan Klepper interviewing MAGA people--these people are beyond reason. They'll praise Trump while he buries them.
"Take a look at the Daily Show's Jordan Klepper interviewing MAGA people--these people are beyond reason."
I love watching those interviews although they do give me headaches from shaking my head in disbelief so much. The MAGAs are beyond hope, beyond reason, and mostly beyond redemption. I just can't see how they even survive in the real world but they clearly survive and even thrive. As I've said before, we are living through the classic example of how the nazis took control of Germany. Yea I know that is a loaded statement but in this case the shoe clearly fits. And not only in the US, there are ominous actions going on in several European countries as well. There is more opposition now to this takeover and it seems to be growing more vocal each day. I just hope that more people listen and learn, something that MAGAs never have and never will do.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
