Politicians are just pretending to be dumb? Why?

>There is no way these people don't understand the difference between expressing a trade deficit as a ratio and actual tariffs laid by other countries.

I don't think most people deny that these are capable individuals. The problem is - I think the people in Trump's inner circle now are sycophants first. They know what Trump is doing is destructive, but they are just choose to be yes men. Remember, this isn't Trump's first go-around, and the majority of people who stood up to Trump the first time (Pence, Barr, Perry, Price, Rex Tillerson) are gone.

Funny enough wikipedia has an article[1] about this that is so large that it has many sub articles. Ultimately, I can't trust that his appointments are exercising any sort of discernment because a large number of his 2016 appointees were fired for doing so.

In short, Fitzgerald could be a genius, but all signs point to him being a yes-man that would rather sink the ship than stand up to Trump.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dismissals_and_resigna...

To hide their motives, if you think they are just dumb then you will not look for the real reason they do it.

Not sure that is what happens here, but that is a very common reason to play dumb.

I told you: because it creates a strategic dilemma that paralyzes the opposition. The same reason a hustler pretends to be dumb to lure the mark, the same reason trolls use shitposting to bait people.

His name is Howard Lutnick. He was CEO of a financial firm called Cantor Fitzgerald. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Lutnick

It is not as if he is going to die of starvation because of tariffs. He has no skin in the game.

If this is the case, we could at least likely put to rest most concerns that Trump will be implementing much of Project 2025.

I'd be very surprised if he had too much to do with that plan directly. Assuming that's true, and if he's only surrounded by yes men, no one is there to convince him to do anything other than exactly what he himself wants to do.

But in this case: what is the game plan? What are they trying to achieve? Is it simply chaos, so that they can rule in perpetuity?

You probably want to be more careful with how you phrase that. The Republican party passed the Civil Rights Act and ended slavery, among other things.

Those may not be the type of Republicans you are thinking of today, but they still had that little (R) next to their names.

Way more Democrats in both houses of Congress voted for it than Republicans (to be fair the Democrats held the Senate 67-33). A Democratic president signed it. His Democratic predecessor asked for it. How do you figure "the Republicans did it"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#By_pa...

Lutnick clearly has zero actual influence in this administration. He's a barking dog sent to do TV soundbites, and his explanations are often full-bore nonsensical or completely contradictory to his prior explanations. Foreign officials (such as Canada) have repeatedly come out of meetings with Lutnick almost...assuaged....as if Lutnick is saying "he isn't really going to do this...there's no way", because even Lutnick doesn't realize just how stubborn Trump is about his outrageously stupid ways. These guys keep trying to pretend this is all some masterful negotiating strategy by the Art of the Deal master.

And based upon 100% of Trump's history in government, it won't be long before Lutnick and Bessent are out of this admin, both will be "RINOs" attacked by the MAGA cult, and they'll both be telling the tale of how outrageously stupid Donald Trump is. Like closing on 100% of Trump's administration in the first term.

Just look at the lead up to these tariffs. The day before Trump was still "deciding". This is something that a team of expert economists should have worked on for months, probably to conclude that free and liberal trade is what made the US the richest large country on Earth, but instead it was something that everyone had to sit around and wait for Trump to pull something out of his ass.

Trump has openly and widely talked about tariffs replacing income tax for years. This administration is clearly one where no one ever can counter any harebrained idea from Trump -- and they're all incredibly stupid ideas from that incredibly stupid man -- so whatever nonsensical takes he has they have to all try to make talking points around and create some post facto rationalizations. It is the most dangerous administration in human history, and the American voter looked at this traitorous, constitution-shredding, law-breaking imbecile and said "more please!"

There is no 4D chess happening here[1]. There isn't even checkers happening. No masterful long term negotiating strategy. It's just a fumbling moron (rapist, charity-stealing imbecile) that is doing the most nonsensical way to deal with a deficit rather than, you know, raising taxes. And to be clear the US deficit is untenable and needs to be dealt with, and the head in the sand approach by successive governments is not reasonable, but combining DOGE's ham-fisted stupidity with Trump's economic destruction and the deficit is likely going to be much, much worse. The US is on the fast track to insolvency.

"But China....next war....China!"

Trump started this whole thing by attacking allies. By dissolving alliances and trying to economically harm its closest friends. Precisely the opposite of expectations if the US were seriously trying to counter China.

[1] Aside from corruption. Tariffs are the foundation of corruption because everyone has to come, hat in hand, begging for exemptions. There is going to be a line to the White House of manufacturers and importers, from Apple to military contractors, begging for special waivers. Which they'll get if they grease the right palms, as this is the most blatantly corrupt administration in US history.

If one does want to impose a large block of tariffs, it does seem reasonable that you would want to keep details quiet until the entire package is announced. You wouldn't want other countries responding early

And these apply immediately. This is an administrative impossibility. CBP is going to have a disastrous couple of weeks about this rag tag collection of barely defined nonsense.

This is 100% disaster, top to bottom.

The comment I replied to was claiming that Trump himself was still deciding what the tariffs would be until this week. My question was how we could be so certain of that.

As far as reciprocity goes, how is this plan not based at least in part on reciprocity? They claim other countries have taken advantage of the US and we're on the losing end of trade deficits. The tariffs they announced seem to be based entirely on trade deficits/surpluses with each country.

I have no idea if this would work or what the administration's real motives are, but the on the surface it sure seems like they proposed tariffs that target the problem they claim - trade imbalances.

And really that is a silly theory regardless. The US would achieve maximum effectiveness by doing a normal tariff legislative process and then soberly discussing with all parties. Instead it's constant on/off brinksmanship. Because Donald Trump is a profoundly stupid imbecile with a simpleton, child-like understanding of the world. There is going to be customs and business chaos as this is factored in.

>As far as reciprocity goes, how is this plan not based at least in part on reciprocity?

It has zero bearing on reciprocity. Reciprocity is matching the other party's tariffs.

If you're richer than the other party, or if they sell things that you want but you don't sell things that they want, that isn't reciprocity. It's like if I tariff my children when they buy from McDonalds -- I mean, McDonalds doesn't buy from me! - and claim it's reciprocity. That would be insanely stupid, right?

It's a massive tax hike on Americans -- a regressive tax that will hit the working and middle classes the hardest -- shrouded under some patriotic America thing. No way anyone falls for this...right?