Ugh. Bad policy and bad politics.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday laid out the U.S. “reciprocal tariff” rates that more than 180 countries and territories, including European Union members, will face under his sweeping new trade policy.
Trump and the White House shared a series of charts on social media detailing the tariff rates they say other countries impose on the U.S. Those purported rates include the countries’ “Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers.”
An adjacent column shows the new U.S. tariff rates on each country, as well as the European Union.
Those rates are, in most cases, roughly half of what the Trump administration claims each country has “charged” the U.S.
No, I don’t like tariffs. They are stupid policy. An argument can be made for reciprocal tariffs to create a fair playing field (with the hope that both countries back down), but even then it’s a risky policy playing with consumers’ money.
But even if the reciprocal tariffs were a good idea as a policy or a tactic, Trump’s timing is terrible. He is on a very short clock to get some big things done in terms of cutting government, cutting taxes, cutting regulations, etc. He needs Congress’ support for that and the Republican margins in Congress are razor thin. When Trump’s approval rating starts sagging because everyone’s 401(k) is crashing, those marginal Republicans will stray. Trump will not be able to help encourage party discipline if he’s a lame duck president with a weak approval rating.
Get the big stuff done in Congress FIRST. The play with international trade with tariffs if you want. As he’s doing it, even if some other countries do lower their tariffs and open up markets for American goods, it will take capital to invest in building the capacity to serve those markets. It’s much harder to get capital when we suck trillions of dollars out of the equity markets.
Yes, my 401k will tank because we buy so much stuff from the Falkland Islands, Angola, and Mauritius (where ever the hell that is).
Here’s the list:
https://www.scribd.com/document/845659781/Tariff-Breakdown#from_embed
And I have no problemo with charging the Chicomms 34% when they are charging us 67%. .
If tariffs are so terrible, why do all these other countries stick to theirs like fattened leeches? Why are their economies booming even while they wall off American goods from their markets?
Surely there is an answer to that question………
(First asked by Coffee & Covid/Jeff Childers.
When Trump’s approval rating starts sagging because everyone’s 401(k) is crashing,….
Oops! Trump’s approval rating has gone up 4 points since his tariff announcement.
BTW, where was the DJI at on Jan 20, 2017, Trump’s first day ever as a president?
19,700. Today it stands at 38,300
NASDAQ? 5,614. Today: 15,587
S&P? 2297 vs. 5074
And it’s interesting that all these yammers didn’t yam about Biden’s 22% market drop in 2022.
When one realizes that the USA, 4% of the worldwide population, provides 26% of global GDP, 37% of global military expenditures, and 40% of global foreign aid, while being dragged with 35% of global debt, you understand.
It’s long past time for the rest of the world to start paying their own way.
>And it’s interesting that all these yammers didn’t yam about Biden’s 22% market drop in 2022
We all remember when Biden and team had to redefine was a recession was, right? Pepperidge Farms remembers.