Tariffs Catch-All

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So have they settled on the goal being removal of other countries trade barriers, rather than bringing manufacturing back to the US or having tariff proceeds make us rich and remove the need for taxes?
 
Here's how I see this going down:

Trump maintains tariffs
Recession plus stagflation
Republicans in Congress realize they could lose 80 seats unless they stand up to the president.
Sometimes in the fall or winter, Congress gets a 2/3 majority in both houses to rein in Trump's tariff power.
 
The market has done a midday return to about even for the day after wild swings. We'll see if there is another last 30- minute sell-off or if everyone holds pat for today and waits to see what other news emerges overnight ...
 
Here's how I see this going down:

Trump maintains tariffs
Recession plus stagflation
Republicans in Congress realize they could lose 80 seats unless they stand up to the president.
Sometimes in the fall or winter, Congress gets a 2/3 majority in both houses to rein in Trump's tariff power.

I would add that we will see the emergence of trading blocs in Europe and Asia that include Canada and Mexico and largely exclude the US.
 
Mike Johnson: We owe Trump the chance to run the economy into a ditch to see if it works


Mike Johnson: "But I think you gotta give the president the latitude ... the runway to do what it is he was elected to do, and that is get this economy going. Get our trade properly balanced with other countries."

US Constitution, Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To ... regulate Commerce with foreign Nations"
 
I would add that we will see the emergence of trading blocs in Europe and Asia that include Canada and Mexico and largely exclude the US.
Maybe. That won't happen any time soon, though. There's a lot more complexity to a trading bloc than meets the eye, and I'm not aware of any free trade alliances that span an ocean. CAFTA and the US-Africa trade agreements are sort of different -- they were more a matter of development policy/foreign aid than inspired by trade per se.

But in terms of informal trade arrangements? Absolutely.
 


Stock Market No GIF by GIPHY Studios 2022



Trump says EU was “formed to really do damage to the United States in trade. … they formed together to create a little bit of a monopoly situation to create a unified force against the United States for trade …”
 

Here Are the Places Where the Recession Has Already Begun​

Towns near the Canadian border are suffering.



Last month, Nicholas Gilbert received a delivery of grain for the 1,400 cows he tends at his dairy farm in Potsdam, New York, 20 miles from the Ontario border. The feed came with a surprise tariff of $2,200 tacked on. “We have small margins,” he told me. “I had a contracted price on that grain delivered to my barn. It was supposed to be so much per ton. And they added that tariff right on top because it comes from a Canadian feed mill.”

Gilbert cannot increase the price of the milk he sells, which is set by the local co-op. He cannot feed his cows less food. He cannot buy feed from another supplier; there aren’t any nearby, and getting it from farther away would be more expensive. When he got the delivery, he stared at the tariff for a while. Shouldn’t his Canadian supplier have been responsible for paying it? “I’m not even sure it’s legal! We contracted for the price on delivery! If your price of fuel goes up or your truck breaks down, that’s not my problem! That’s what the contract’s for.”


But the tariff was legal, and it was Gilbert’s responsibility. The dairy farmer is one of tens of thousands of American business owners caught in a spiraling trade war, and lives in one area of the United States that might already be tipping into a recession because of it. Businesses near the Canadian border are particularly vulnerable to the rising costs and falling revenue caused by tariffs, and are delaying projects, holding off on hiring, raising prices, letting workers go, or wondering how they are going to keep feeding their cows as a result.
 
Responding to atTech above. Another post beat mine.

Very true. And they will blame Dems and the Deep State for their plight. They will say Trump is doing what is necessary to SAVE them all and our country.

Ridiculous I know, but that is what Fox and talk radio will continue to peddle and they will eat it up like starving sheep.
Just walked past two co workers talking. One was trying to convince the other that the tariffs are justified because these countries are taking advantage of us.

I stopped and asked where he get that information and told him that basically every economist I've read disagrees.

Also told them that Navarro is a fraud.

These are the Trump voters that don't really pay attention until they start losing money and then they go to fox news for their information.

I told another guy this morning how disappointed I'm an that out country voted for someone serial liar and failed business man, knowing that he voted Trump.

I'm sick of these people acting like it's perfectly OK.
 
Not to mention that those folks are not going to be very good at manufacturing jobs. People who are good at shop (to use a term meant generally to refer to making things in the physical world) can work in those fields. People who aren't good at shop go into office work. Or health care work. Or park ranger work. Or any types of careers that do not require shop facility.

You can't take a VA nurse and make him/her into an auto worker. Especially if that person has been a nurse for 20 years. There are skills, habits of mind, physical factors that person won't have, and will instead have different ones.

This is a perfect example, though, of the mindset of financiers like Bessent -- who, we have to remember, are the real out-of-touch elites. Having known people in that world, and judging from Bessent's comments, I'm confident he views the labor market as a tiered ladder. Everyone at a high rung can do the jobs of the people in the lower rung. People like him, of course, can do any job -- not that he ever would, you know, but it's possible.

For instance, there is a zero percent chance that I could be successful on a meat processing line. I simply cannot maintain my concentration on that task for so long. My mind will wander onto something unrelated, and then I fuck up four of my cuts and maybe I get a finger cut off or something. My guess is that many government employees would have a very hard time maintaining that consistent focus. To work in an office is to be in a place where that type of consistent focus is not valued; rather, the coin of office work tends to be context switching. It's probably not a bad assumption that my mind is naturally and perhaps genetically peripatetic, but other people learn that type of mental processing. After 15-20 years of it, I find it very hard to believe that a person can just switch modes.
Manufacturing just isn't the answer they think it is.
 
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