E.g. one explanation given for these trade policies is that trump sees a war with china down the line and is worried that china has tons of factories that could be converted to make ammunition while usa does not.
If so, there is at least some logic to the base idea, but the implementation is crazy, probably not going to work that effectively, and going to piss off all amrrica's allies which would be bad if WW3 is really on the horizon.
So is destroying diplomatic relations with all their allies and trying to force ceding of power in central Europe to a former enemy who is allied to China?
Go on with ya.
He's a prick saving himself from prison whilst being willingly used to establish an oligarchic fascist state from the former USA.
The second order effects of what he's doing are pretty obviously terrible for usa, but quite frankly i dont think trump is smart enough to see that.
[To be clear i think trump is stupid, but i don't think his actions are entirely random. There is a chain of reasoning here, it just misses the forest for the trees]
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is more immediate concern there. Even if Europe still could count on the USA's NATO commitments 100% the war was a big wake-up call in terms of readiness.
E.g. one explanation given for these trade policies is that trump sees a war with china down the line and is worried that china has tons of factories that could be converted to make ammunition while usa does not.
2. Alienating allies won't help the US produce ammunition
It's almost like something has changed the past few decades that is far from inevitable.
Anyways, I hope you're looking foward to prices for everything going up.
No politician in Europe, NZ, AUD or Canada would risk massive hate from their own population to even suggest anything like that. Right leaning were pushed to align with russia so thats a double no-go.
Now again it’s not a defense of the administration or to flex some sort of agenda but it’s hard to argue, the EU has underinvested in its military for decades.
The proximate cause for these tariffs is not some future event. This is post fact rationalization.
The proximate cause is still the ongoing “information” war which determines the perceived reality that is litigated in elections.
Earlier politicians played theater, acting as if the red meat being fed to voters was real on TV, but dealing with reality as need be when it came to decision making.
This was a betrayal of voters, who saw their election efforts result in legislators who didnt do what they said.
Trump does what he says. He believes WWE is real, and acts as if it is. His base believes it is real, and now reality is crashing with the fiction.
The fiction will prevail, because his party has also been working to build the power to enact their will.
Everyone sees logic here, the same way that everyone saw the emperors clothes. The alternative is illogical.
This is the reason potential reasons “we dont know” have to be postulated (war / China can make more ammunition)
Trump has always liked tariffs [alas, I can't find the source for this pre-presidency, its been blown out by current events]. He thinks trade is a zero sum game, and thinks that someone else set up the petro-dollar system.
Trump has consistently and reiliably always cowered away from war. Using other means to stop it (see russia, NK, China, Iran). Yes I hear the "we're going to invade x, y and z" but they never acutally came to anything (is that because of his advisors?)
Trump doesn't think about future capacity, only future pride. Does this change "make american stronger, and other weaker" is pretty much the only calculus that he's doing.
Trump's thinking is roughly as following:
"Why do we have taxes when we can use tariffs to raise cash and bring power back?"
"Why don't they buy from us?"(china/rest of asia)
"why are we spending money on them, when we don't get any money back? They are weak."(NATO)
"Why are we punishing russia, they are offering deals" (Putin offering cash deals)
There is no 4d chess. Its just a man who's pretty far gone, shitting out edicts to idiots willing to implement them.
Here you go, Feb 2011: https://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/news/economy/donald_trump_c...
"The comment repeated past statements from "The Apprentice" star, who has said he wants to put a 25% tariff on all Chinese imports, to level trade imbalances in the global economy."
Doesn't help that Google's custom time range search is complete garbage. Searched for "trump tariffs" from 1/1/1980 to 1/1/2010 and almost every link is about the current tariffs but with timestamps between 1980 and 2010.
e.g. "20 Nov 1987 — President Donald Trump issued a slew of tariffs on Chinese goods", "30 Jun 1981 — Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced Monday a 25% increase on electricity exports to some American states as a result of President Donald Trump's tariffs", "31 Dec 1999 — IMF says too early for precise analysis on Trump tariff impact", "1 Feb 2001 — Trump's Global Tariff War Begins"
Did find a couple of links that were chronologically correct - a 1999 Guardian story about Trump wanting to tax the rich(!) and a 1987 NYT story about Reagan putting tariffs on Japan.
(duckduckgo was even worse)
https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/why-trump-tar...
At most we might see a proxy war over Taiwan (i.e. the US supporting and arming Taiwan, with sanctions against the PRC). The risk would then be a widespread disruption of global trade, at which point the US would not want to be dependent on the Chinese economy or factories in any way.
I do think a lot of the details are bad. But Trump is not exactly a details guy. And while I think they could have been better (by a lot, fairly easily), I do think they are an accurate, if crude, representation of the policy vision Trump has been consistently articulating for decades (he's been talking about tariffs and trade deficits like this since the 90s).
I think it is true that most people don't understand the economic principles of tariffs, including most economists. But I do think the plan he's implemented largely comports with what he's consistently said he would do.
THIS is sanewashing.
People dont have to be insane to do this, they just have to listen to their trusted news sources.
How someone would vote for someone they know is lying is beyond my comprehension, but here we are.
Trump is neither stupid nor insane and he will have access to many very smart people, too. Based on that the reasonable assumption is that they are trying to achieve a well-defined objective and have set a plan in motion to do so.
The "game" is thus to figure it out. @ggm's comment above is one possibility.
1. It is authoritarian. Democratically elected leader's duty is to present the policies he plans to implement so that voters can decide if they want them implemented.
2. It is based on the "4D chess" myth - that the leader is way smarter than the rest and is capable of outsmarting other countries. The history shows that it is never true. The leaders are normal people. And the institutions are as good as the founding principles that are honored by them.
(2) You just claimed trump has access to smart advisors and some hidden masterplan but you ignore all counter indication. He ousts critical journalists, nominates incompetent staff, invasion-mongers, tweets and plays golf alot.
If i can see any common factor in his insanity, its the need to have an enemy to pose as the strong man against, which indicates that trump does not have a constructive vision for the US.
That's 100% not true. A candidate leader might tell you what they're going to do, and then you elect the leader, and then they do them, but they don't propose plans once in power to see if the electorate like them.
As much as I'm not a Trump fan, I really don't like that people use a separate yardstick to measure him vs people they like.
Public consultations and transparency are two crucial and lately very under appreciated parts of democracy.
If a leader cheats the voters it is no longer democracy.
Maybe there's a website that keeps track somewhere.
The simplest solution is the right one. You are projecting intelligence, because you are used to.
This is AFTER the US government has roundly fired thousands of their experts and workforce, AND has just told everyone of its intelligence and army rank and file that there are no repercussions for a massive dereliction of duty.
AND IT IS ONLY APRIL.
It does not imply that what they are doing is a good idea or will work (whatever the objective is), just that there is more rational thought in what they are doing than what people might assume because the public does not have the information and seeing through what is going on requires insights that most people don't have, either.
Again, check @ggm comment above. I am not saying that this is what is going on but it is a possibility, and an average member of the public would never think of that scenario and thus wouldn't see the order in the apparent chaos.
Not insane, incompetent.
The problem with primarily hiring sycophants from his favorite cable news channel is that he's not getting the best, even from the GOP. This also makes him even more susceptible to people with their own agendas like Musk since no one is willing to pushback.
The UK for a good few years had a government which had both these attributes. They were only interested in policies which would appeal to their base, but eventually even those soured on them because the policies were implemented so badly.
but for some reason a whole heap of people decided to stay home this time and this is the result, hope they still feel happy with their decision
It don't want to sound too persnickety, but there is always at least one losing side in an election. It doesn't have to mean they dropped the ball, it could just mean people preferred the other option. Hindsight bias is wonderful, but you have no idea what would have happened if they'd run with a different agenda, they may have had a worse result.
The 2024 election had historically-low support from normally stalwart Democrat demographics such as Latinos, the youth vote, and black males. That, IMO, supports the conclusion that the Democrats did something wrong this time. Also, not only did those groups abstain but Trump also picked up quite a few votes from them (especially working-age black males), suggesting that they are swing voters who probably could have been swayed to stay on the Dem plantation if exposed to more convincing messaging, or a more compelling Democrat candidate.
https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/hudsonbay/rese...
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/markets-wrestle-with-trum...
>In a November paper, economist Stephen Miran, whom Trump has picked to chair his Council of Economic Advisors, raised the possibility that Trump could use the threat of tariffs and the lure of U.S. security support to persuade foreign governments to swap their Treasury holdings for lower-cost century bonds.
Via
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43350553 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43561808
Just so pple get the credit (even if they appear to be not so sane)