I’ll admit, I’m seriously afraid that Trump is doing this on purpose so he has an excuse to declare martial law towards the end of his term to stay in office.
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Only on auto imports. All other tariffs still stand.
In at least three provinces - mine (Ontario), Manitoba, and (surprisingly) Alberta, all American liquor has been pulled off the shelves and online portals. A Jack Daniels exec is already whining about it, saying the decision is “worse than tariffs”.
While Trudeau will no longer be PM after this weekend, his likely successor has also promised a hard line in response to Trump’s tariffs, as has Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford. Having said that, I don’t think Ford will actually cut off the electricity we sell to the US. He can be as bad as Trump with the rhetoric sometimes.
He has said that he will put a surcharge on the electricity, he has cancelled the contract with Starlink, and he has banned US companies from procurement contracts with the province. While I have never been a fan of Ford’s, and would never vote for him, I’m totally onside with his stance.
And, I think, that’s the biggest thing that Trump’s tariffs have done - united most Canadians regardless of where they stand on the political spectrum in a way not seen since the War of 1812, which is widely regarded as where Canada’s identity emerged. “Elbows up!”, a hockey-related phrase coined by the late great Gordie Howe to signal getting ready for a fight, is spreading across Canada and has been trending on Twitter for days.
Interprovincial barriers are coming down, and will keep coming down, and there’s a big push to form new trade relations with countries other than the U.S. and to start building infrastructure - refineries, pipelines, factories, etc. - to reduce our dependence on the U.S. for raw production. I hope, if and when this is all settled, we don’t forget about this and backslide to where we were before.
On the individual level, my Facebook feed is full of posts about buying Canadian (or a least buy non-American) with lists of companies and products that are Canadian/made in Canada, and with alternatives to US-produced products. For example, once our current supply of cat food is gone, we will be switching from Hill’s Science Diet (American) to Performatrin (Canadian).
There’s a stereotypical view of Canadians as being “kind”, “polite”, and “unassuming”. Too often, people equate that with “weak”. What these people forget is that even the kindest, politest people have limits, and when they’re reached, they will fight back.
Trump has been busy alienating all of our allies. I don’t know why he’s so determined to start trade wars, but he did it in his last term too. War is not good for business, even if it is “just” a trade war.
As for our allies, there are a lot of people who think that just because we’re big, we don’t need allies. We do need allies. We are NOT equipped to do everything by ourselves and we rely on trade and support of other countries. At this rate, we’re heading into another great depression.
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47 and his cronies are deliberately trying to crash the economy so there can be a massive upward transfer of wealth when the billionaire class swoops in to buy distressed assets for pennies on the dollar. It’s 2008 on steroids. And somehow it will be Biden’s fault. 77 million voters fucked around and now all 340 million of us get to find out.
2008 was directly caused by the feds forcing mortgage companies to give loans to people who shouldnt have qualified for them.
Maybe if the Democrats wkuod stop fixong their own primaries theyd be able to run someone wbo could beat the moat annoying president ever. If Obama and Clinton hadn’t torpedoed the careers of anyone that could run against them we night be looking at a normal presidency here, you know, one where we silently fall deeper into debt and regulatory capture continues to strangle innovation and crony capitalism picks winners and losers based on political posturing and hitting the right checkboxes.
Also, holy repositioning there Gavin Gruesome. Hus appearance on Kirk’s show was an interesting attempt at rebranding.
There’s another theory that Trump is deliberately crashing the economy so that he can swoop in and save the day, upholding his boast that only he can save us. It has been the SOP for Republicans to manufacture crises so they can campaign on solving that problem.
Regarding the pause on auto import tariffs, Farron Cousins pointed out this morning that it’s proof that Trump has known all long who really pays tariffs but kept lying about it, or he’s momentarily realized the US will pay them. Smart money is on the former.
Let’s go step by step through how this pause is proof it’s the US that pays it. Keep this in mind for anyone that still believes otherwise.
We’ll start with the two things Trump kept saying and we’ll treat them as true facts:
- It’s the other country that pays the tariff.
- It won’t cost Americans anything.
We’ll keep this simple and say there’s a company in Tilbury, Ontario called Tilbury Auto Parts (TAP). They make an engine that’s used in the Dodge Hornet and they sell it to Dodge for $4000. They’re just across the border from Detroit so shipping isn’t anything special. Just put it on a truck and drive it a few miles.
Trump puts a 25% tariff on everything from Canada coming into the US. Because TAP pays the tariff, they now have to be ready to hand $1000 to the US Government for every engine Dodge buys from them.
They can’t raise the price of the engine to $5000 to cover the tariff because Trump says the tariff won’t cost Dodge anything. TAP just has to make due with only getting $3000 from the sale.
Because tariffs won’t cost Dodge anything, Dodge doesn’t have to care about them. They could be 900% and it wouldn’t matter to them. It could be 2000% and it still wouldn’t matter. TAP’s stuck with the tariff, not Dodge.
This goes for every auto maker here in the US. All companies they buy parts from in other countries pay the tariff and the US auto makers pay the exact same amount for a part as they did before the tariff. Their costs stay the same, their profit stays the same. They don’t have to care one whit about whatever tariffs have been imposed because it’s the other guy’s problem, not theirs.
So why did the US auto makers call Donald Trump and tell him that their industry is about to implode because of these tariffs? And why did Donald Trump create an exemption just for their portion of the blanket tariff he put on all Canadian goods?
According to the two true facts of it’s the other country that pays and it won’t cost Americans anything, why are the US auto makers panicked about something that doesn’t affect them and won’t cost them a single penny? After all, it’s the other guy that pays, not us in the US.
According to Trump’s US Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, the US is not seeing inflation right now, it’s just a period of rising prices.
Umm…
What is he smoking?
Isn’t that the very definition of inflation?
Actually, no. According to Lutnick it’s only inflation if it’s caused by them printing more money (the US dollar devaluing), not if it’s external factors like bird flu & stuff like that.
Again, what is he smoking?
People don’t give a flying F whether it’s caused by devaluing the dollar or bird flu. Rising prices are rising prices and it’s all inflation 
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Christians are being rounded up and killed in Syria, Nigeria, Rwanda, and several other countries. Just like they were in Egypt before, and Iran, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East before that.
Everyone shrugs.
It’s amazing that one of the largest charity organizations in the world hasn’t just straight up hired mercenaries to go get people. I mean, it’s not actually, but shit man. No one seems to care. You look at the religious diversity in these countries 50 years ago compared to today and you have to question where all the Christians and Jews went. Sure, some left, but so many more have been outright murdered.
We’re more concerned about colonialism and it’s affects 100 years later than we are about what’s happening right now. And the crap I’m seeing in South Africa is every bit as bad.
Hate Christianity as much as you want, but in the modern world it’s more of a sign of stability than not. Athiests had their chance in the mid 20th century and killed tens of millions, Muslims are giving it a shot now and while the scoreboard isn’t as high the methods are much more direct and brutal.
It’s not Kirk’s show. It’s Newsom’s. He has Steve Bannon on today. I’m done with him.
My question is will birth rates continue to decline or will they rise in reaction? I’m thinking they will continue to decline, which makes even fewer people supporting even more. And could potentially be how North Korea ends up beating South Korea.
We are nowhere near to overpopulated, and with the “1st World” depopulating while the developing countries continue to grow I’m concerned about the end game there. Small wealthy elite countries surrounded by underdeveloped overpopulated, by the resources available at least, is not a sustainable result.
I can see how that will lead into the enforcement of a Sunday Law…
Yep, that’s getting closer. He’s just invoked an 18th century law to declare that the US is being invaded. By Venezuelan gangs (apparently at the behest of the Venezuelan government 
). This gives him broad leeway to do whatever the f#$% he wants
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Things may actually be even worse now.
Trump’s use of that law was challenged in court and (like almost every other egregious act so far) was struck down. A court order was put in place to halt all deportations under this act.
That court order was ignored.
I can’t stress enough how bad that is.
Trump’s administration is just ignoring court orders and doing whatever the hell they want.
Legal Eagle just covered this too
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He’s doing a lot of illegal stuff, the courts are fighting, and he’s ignoring the courts. He’s really going for the dictatorship.
Wednesday was “Liberation Day”, where Trump liberated us from all those countries that dared to buy less from us than we do from them and had unfairly put unfair tariffs on us. We’ll just conveniently ignore that a non-zero amount of those tariffs were due to the tariffs Trump put on them during his first term.
So which locations did Trump tariff this time around? Over 180 countries and territories, nearly every location in the world. These include the Heard and McDonald Islands in Antarctica whose only living inhabitants are penguins and an island whose only living inhabitants are people on the U.S. military base on the island.
I am not making this up. There is now a 10% tariff on islands of penguins that have no imports, no exports, no money and no idea what capitalism is. I will refer you to Dork Tower’s take on this brilliant tactical move.
Obviously, this was carefully thought out, doing a deep dive into exactly how much each country and territory and penguins and U.S. soldiers exported to the U.S. This sort of thing would take many, many months of number crunching, but Trump’s team got it done in the 2.5 months since he took office. The tariffs went into effect the moment they were made public. You can see the charts on the CNBC site, but you’ll have to manually scan through them to find what you’re looking for because listing them alphabetically was apparently too hard.
He’s trying to say it’s a “reciprocal” tariff and he’s giving some of them a break by only putting the minimum of 10% on them. Some still got the 10% tariff if they had a trade deficit with us. The highest hit was Lesotho with 50%, Cambodia at 49% and it goes down from there.
For the countries that already had tariffs on them, these new ones were tacked onto the existing tariffs. That means that the new 34% tariff on China becomes a total of 54%. Canada and Mexico aren’t on the new list, but since they’ve already been hit with higher tariffs on things like auto parts and completed autos, maybe they’re at a level of punishment that Trump is happy with (for today).
So what was the formula that was used to calculate out the incredibly complex environment that is importing and exporting and figuring out what would be a fair tariff to counteract their unfair tariffs?
% of the trade surplus ÷ 2
I’m not making this up, either.
Predictably, stock markets are falling here in the U.S. and across the world. The tariffs were announced after 4pm on Wednesday, after the stock markets closed.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 3906.88 points in the 48 hours after the announcement through end of trading for the week, which is 9.07% of its value. The S&P 500 dropped 596.14 (11.75%), Nasdaq Composite 1846.71 (12.86%), NYSE Composite 1908.47 (10.83%), and the Russell 2000 Index 217.79 (11.92%)
Canada already has their tariffs ready to go, but they also have done something that further disproves tariffs are paid by the other country. Donald Trump may have said that tariffs he wanted to place on other countries “won’t cost Americans anything”, but Canada is making sure that will be true for Canadians. The Canadian government set up a fund to pay back its citizens what they will have to pay in the tariffs Canada set against the U.S. The cost to Canadians for the tariffs will actually and literally be zero.
Meanwhile, China’s not going to take this lying down, either. The additional 34% tariff against them by Trump became actually and literally reciprocal because China put a 34% tariff on U.S. goods across the board. They’re going further and put about 30 U.S. companies on a “no supply” list. They need rare earths and other items only available from China to make their products? Well, they don’t have to worry about paying a high tariff on the imported goods because they ain’t getting any.
Before April 2nd, J.P.Morgan had estimated the chance of a global recession at 40%. After Liberation Day, they increased it to 60%. S&P Global changed theirs from 25% in March to 30-35% now. Goldman Sachs had it at 20% for just a U.S. recession but now it’s 35%.
Donald Trump said he didn’t want to be remembered like Herbert Hoover, the President at the time the Great Depression occurred. As I said before, the way he’s going, he will be remembered as way worse than Hoover because Hoover made the Depression worse but didn’t cause it. Trump is on track to cause a Second Great Depression and he may set another record with how fast it changes from a Recession to a Depression.
He wanted everyone to remember Liberation Day. If a Second Great Depression comes to pass and hits worldwide like it is likely to, then we definitely will. I had also said something at the beginning of November and modified it a little later. It bears repeating again with the modification in place.
To everyone that voted for Donald Trump […], remember November 4, 2024. Not as the day he won, not as the day you got what you wanted, but as the day you thought you got what you wanted. Over the weeks, months and years to come, you, I and everyone else will learn what we all really got.
I’ve been seeing inflation coming from the day he took office and starting talking about tariffs. I’m quite upset with what he’s done since he’s doing things to actively kill social security and the stock market crash is going to seriously affect my 401K, which I planned on starting to withdraw from at the end of August. Looks like I have to continue to scramble for money for I’m not sure how much longer.
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That sucks, my Nana was in a similar situation in 2008. Ready to be done, but not able to be. Now, honestly at her stage of her career she was on half a dozen advisory boards and committees and I’m sure that felt like such a burden to her to go to those meetings, and lunches, and dinners, and shows at the Kennedy Center… But I guess pain is relative.
Looks like buyin the dip was the move Friday, so hopefully it’s a road bump. Considering over 50 countries have already entered some sort of negotiation, I’m sure the penguins will drive a hard bargain, I’m hoping that this will be a temporary issue. What’s always been funny for me in US politics is how our “allies” are always the hardest to deal with on things like this. We’re still dealing with the stupid chicken vs pickups issue for instance. So I’m guessing the EU will be a real holdout. China may or may not play ball but the quote from Hasset is an interesting take and I hadn’t thought of it totally this way before.
HASSETT: Well, there might be some increase in prices. But the fact is that if we’re going to be a heavy burden on the U.S. consumer, then this trade deficit that for 30 years we’ve seen really since China entered the WTO would be something that would have gone down. It would have gone down over time. It would have responded to the prices.
The bottom line is that China entered the WTO in 2000. In the 15 years that followed, real incomes declined about $1,200 cumulatively over that time.
And so, if cheap goods were the answer — if cheap goods were going to make Americans real wages, real welfare better off, then real incomes would have gone up over that time. Instead, they went down because wages went down more than prices went down.
So, we got the cheap goods at the grocery store, but then we had fewer jobs. And that’s why President Obama and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and President Trump have come out saying, we’ve got to come up with a better policy, a policy that treats our workers fairly compared to everybody else.
A lot of economics appears to be a black box to a lot of people, including the people who’s livelihoods rely on predicting it. They are the only people allowed to be more wrong than the weatherman. So who knows. I’m putting 80k into house renovations, so I’m not selling anything anytime soon anyway.
To be honest, I’m actually a bit less concerned about the economy since it will recover eventually, but I am seriously concerned that the current administration is going to defy a direct court order. This man is innocent and they are dragging their feet and trying to avoid bringing him back to the US. If the court order is ignored, rump will have proved that he has no respect for our legal system and that he fully believes that he is above the law.
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You’d think in a process so full of mistakes, it happens more than the press announces it, that there would be a procedure for “Oh shit, not him, and not there!”. I approve of swift justice, holding cells are miserable places where nothing good happens, but it should still be justice.
We’ll find out by 11:59 PM tonight.