>How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?

They're not supposed to. The only people who are planning anything in this scenario are Whitehouse insiders coordinating stock frontrunning from Signal group chats.

https://bsky.app/profile/unusualwhales.bsky.social/post/3lmf...

It'll be "fun" to see all the "negotiations" that happen with other countries, where they offer a crazy array of bribes / emoluments to WH insiders.

Which is perfectly fine, now that we have Executive Order 63, Pausing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Enforcement to Further American Economic and National Security. This is no longer something the DOJ looks for or tracks, with AG Pam Bondi having to sign off on any potential investigations after a 180-day pause.

Trump also all but disbanded the DOJ Public Integrity Section, that watches for public corruption. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-...

Trump tweeted "it's a good time to buy" right before the tariff drop announcement.

I guess truth social is now a critical investment tool as well?

Guess so, for serious speculators.

> How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?

Who cares? Business leaders & the politicians they helped elect are stripping the copper from the country. Whatever's left when they're done is someone else's problem.

I care?? Much of my family works in trades, have their own small businesses with employees and are very much subject to tariffs for their supplies. They did not vote for any of this.

If they voted for Republicans, they did in fact vote for this. It doesn’t need to be like this, congress and specifically the Republican majority which controls it can act to reclaim the power of tariffs from the president _at any time_.

All of this chaos is specifically because they have chosen to be complicit instead of opposing the president. If you want the madness to stop, call your representatives. Speak to your family and ask them to do the same.

> congress and specifically the Republican majority which controls it can act to reclaim the power of tariffs from the president _at any time_.

After overriding a veto, which Trump has already stated he'll use, to block Congress taking back the power of tariffs:

https://bsky.app/profile/sahilkapur.bsky.social/post/3lmak2w...

If it passes under a Republican Congress and it's a simple bill (primarily revoking presidential emergency tariff authority), then it'll probably have enough bipartisan support in the Senate, but maybe not House, to be veto proof.

Democrats need about 4 GOP senators to get the bill passed.

Theyll need 19 or 20 to get the inevitable veto override. I guess we'll see how these events have shaken congress and if thars enough to take trumps toys away.

Also note that they could also impeach Trump at any time. The sort of crimes that justify impeachment are pretty easily demonstrable at this point so all they need are the votes. They'll have just under half in the House and Senate from the Democrats, so they only need a handful of Rs in the House and (the hard part) a bit over 1/3rd of the Rs in the Senate.

So if they can find like 20 R senators who realize that they no longer support a Mad King, they're all set.

> They did not vote for any of this.

Me either. I'm afraid you'll have to ask the people who did elect the copper thieves for an explanation.

Maybe not all of them as individuals, but them as a public. It's not just a fluke of the last election, over the past two decades the u.s. has given control of all branches of government to Trump.

Beyond that, IMO, the public doesn't really care about tariffs. Right now there is a lot of noise because this kind of capricious threat/application of tariffs is something new, but the tariff chaos will become boring background noise in a few months and people will move on to the next thing.

I think the "who cares?" was rhetorical. I suspect the commenter you're responding to is in the same place that am - politically exhausted and, for the time being, apathetic.

We didn't vote for any of this to happen. We voted for the adult. But the reality is that this country held fair elections and the population democratically elected someone that is a somewhat ambiguous melange of amoral, stupid, craven, venal, and selfish.

Many of us knew shit like this was going to happen and that it's going to be a very long 4 years. We are getting exactly what we collectively asked for.

I'll poke my head out for the 2026 elections and see if there's anything worth saving...

I also presumed the elections were fair, but there is evidence that they weren't (beyond the usual tactics of disinformation and voter disenfranchisement). Analysis of voting patterns in swing states looks pretty suspicious, to the extent that a pretty simplistic algorithm could even be deduced[0].

[0] https://electiontruthalliance.org/clark-county%2C-nv

Sounds like the same cope with MAGA claiming 2020 election was stolen

That's thought-terminating. Remember that basically every MAGA accusation has been a confession.

That's funny, MAGA says the same about the "democracts"/"left"

I haven't heard that actually.

The US did vote for this.

Well, they voted for Trump but I'm not sure the random tariff generator was mentioned as part of the platform.

He definitely yelled the word tariff a lot and has a reputation for being an rng.

I don't think Trump was known for being an exceptionally stable candidate.

Trump has been spewing financially illiterate nonsense about tariffs for literally 40 years, and was very explicit that he wanted to do this in the election campaign.

I think GP meant, "Who in power cares"

It might be time for you and your family to consider moving to a more stable country.

(2^ that was sarcasm)

I'm gonna say 'yes, but' instead of 'yes, and'.

Yes, but the big problem is that these same business leaders and politicians are going to be the ones who get first bite at the apple. And so how they plan is going to impact what's left for everyone else.

I don't care because they burned the system to the ground, I care because they're gonna salvage what they need and nothing else.

I guarantee lots of people in The Swamp are getting word on planned announcements so they can make their stock market bets before the news is announced.

I think this makes my comment more relevant. I have no doubt this administration is telling the people it likes, ahead of time, what they're doing.

Sadly, trickle down economics does work for headwinds. Us private citizens feel the full windfall when the stocks and businesses are down.

We don't necessarily feel it when it's up though. As seen from 2024.

You should care because uncertainty leads to cancelled & deferred projects, which leads to reduced demand, which leads to reduced jobs.

If I don't know if Trump is literal or serious about re-shoring to normalize trade deficits, or its just a revenue gimmick, or if its all going to be delayed, or negotiated away ... am I moving any production back to the US? No.

Plants are cancelling orders as they are uncertain what the tariff might be by the time goods ship.

Etc.

Burn it all down is not a governing philosophy.

I'm not a billionaire. What I care about doesn't matter.

It's a democracy still and we do get to vote, so hopefully we can remain engaged

Woo, I get to vote for yet another slate of billionaire-picked, barely functional, walking corpses repeating the same bland pro-corporate slogans and accomplishing nothing of value for four years before we hand the country back over to the nutjobs for another round. So engaging.

If everyone who stayed home had voted for a third party that party would have won. Even if they split between two third parties, they would have sent a powerful message. Instead they made it clear they don't care. Now add in those who thought the major party was the only way to make a difference. BTW, if you votes for Harris you wouldn't have lost anything by voting third party and it would have sent a message to the Democrats.

Oh, I looked. To my knowledge, Harris was the best choice even including third parties. Stein and West are both whackos and no one else even made it on enough ballots to win.

If everyone who stayed home had voted for the same third party, it would have won. That's unlikely.

It's also unlikely that it would have been split between only two additional parties. In my state we had 5 parties on the ballot. Colorado (to pick one at random) had 12.

If there was any real movement to get non-voters to vote for a third party, there would likely be even more of them. As it is, each of those parties took a fair bit of effort to get on the ballot, knowing that at best they would "send a message".

If the message is "we don't like you", then the message has been received, for many years. But the reply is "OK, go get people to agree on somebody else", and that's the sticking point.

Is it? I feel like that depends on whether you take a prescriptive or descriptive point of view.

individually, sure, but maybe you have some friends and family that feel the same way?

>I'm more focused on upping my cash reserves and bracing myself for a recession.

I'm doing the same because I'm legitimately in fear of both economic troubles and/or losing my job as a result of all this uncertainty.

I have cut my personal spending to nearly zero aside from essentials and have been hoarding my money. It's the only sensible option when planning for one's future becomes impossible.

We have nine months of expenses in cash outside of retirement accounts and working up to 12 by the end of next year. But besides that, I’m not changing anything about our investment plans or our travel plans.

I have been in the job market since 1996 and had to find a job both last year and the year before. I’m on my 10th job. None of the fundamentals ever change:

Live below your means so you can take a job that pays less than you are making, keep an emergency fund, keep an updated resume and career document. Also keep an active network and always be interview ready.

Also play the political game at your job and be sure to be in profit centers not cost centers. Market yourself both internally and externally.

I'd say you should brace yourself for rides like this for the next 45 months.

What makes you think OP will die in 45 months?

Rides like this have happened regularly for longer than I can remember. The details always change, but there is nothing new.

Aren't you optimistic!

It seems unlikely that the next 90 days will remain calm and stable.

The 125% on Chinese imports effective immediately in itself doesn't seem that calm or stable.

Ya, I don't know what Trump is going to do in the next 90 days, but it will probably not just be working on his golf game (although we can hope).

He needed to take some time to work on his other passion project, kidnapping US citizens and disappearing them permamently into third world gulags[1].

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/07/trum...

That's a Stephen Miller passion project, Trump only cares about it in so much as it get's him votes for his real passion project: the money grift with a side of staying front & center in the news.

I used to criticize trump for playing so much golf while in office. Now I wish he'd spend a lot more time playing golf.

As someone semi-retired, I was already reasonably conservatively invested. When all this kicked off dumped some more equities. Maybe I could have done a bit better waiting. Who knows? I know I’m happy being that much more liquid.

The President can only legally set tarrifs in an "emergency". Planning tarrifs 90 days out is really stretching the definition--I'm not holding my breath, but maybe the courts will uphold the constitution on this one?

Normally there are rules regarding how long an emergency can last. This is why, I kid you not, the Republican controlled Congress declared there are no more calendar days in this session of Congress. Every day is March 11. So they'll let him do it as long as he likes.

Notably, not the first time this legal fiction has been used, but I don’t really get what the previous uses were for (holidays?). E.g., for the 2021–2022 Congress, section 7 of the War Powers Resolution[1], as well as House rules[2] XIII clause 7, XXII clause 7(c)(1), and XV clause 7 (all of which require something to be done within a prespecified number of either calendar or legislative days) were all suspended

  from 2021-01-03 to 2021-01-28 by HR 8[3],
  from 2021-03-13 to 2021-04-22 by HR 118,
  from 2022-08-01 to 2022-09-30 by HR 1289,
  from 2022-10-03 to 2022-11-11 by HR 1396,
  from 2022-11-21 to 2022-11-28 by HR 1464,
  from 2022-12-22 until the end by HR 1529,

which looks like vacations, campaigning and such? I’m not really sure, but it’s evident the formula was already out there and is not a momentary fit of insanity and/or legislative genius (the Congress before that one used it too, for example), I’m just not sure what it was used for before.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1546

[2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CLERK-RULE-PAMPHLET-...

[3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolutio... (mutatis mutandis for the others)

As a European I have no idea what that means. How and why that kind of decision can be taken?

House Resolution 211 of the current Congress[1]:

> Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622) with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on February 1, 2025.

Referring to 50 U.S.C. 1622(c) [2]:

> (1) A joint resolution to terminate a national emergency declared by the President shall be referred to the appropriate committee of the House of Representatives or the Senate, as the case may be. One such joint resolution shall be reported out by such committee together with its recommendations within fifteen calendar days after the day on which such resolution is referred to such committee, unless such House shall otherwise determine by the yeas and nays.

> [and so on and so forth with fairly stringent time limits all the way through the legislature]

(As somebody who’s never been to the US—come on, am I the only one who finds legal questions like this to be basically irresistible RTFM bait?)

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolutio...

[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1622#c or https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:50%20section:...

I've seen my share of "well ackshually, this cool technical hack will circumvent the law and outsmart the judges", but thought judges wouldn't fall for such bullshit. Now, I'm not so sure. This is the stupidest thing I've seen in a long time.

This is not quite like the stereotypical case of that, as the legislature first said it wants something to happen one way, and then—later and with a different set of lawmakers, but still—the same institution effectively said that, on second thought, no, just in this case it wants it to work another way. Which seems like a simple case of the legislature changing its mind, something it should definitely be able to do as a matter of course?..

And I mean, both of the houses participated in the first part but only the lower house in the second (AFAICT), so maybe there’s something iffy about that for example. Then of course there are all the suggestions about how the statute these tariffs were ostensibly instituted under (the IEEPA) may not actually authorize tariffs; or that if it does authorize that, then it effectively amounts to the legislature delegating all of its power over tariffs to the executive, which does not entirely sound in tune with the Constitution.

But you see how this starts to look like something you’d want to consult an actual expert on constitutional law about, not dismiss out of hand or listen to random opinions on the Internet on. It’s not immediately clear what even a perfect court would decide here.

For the extended RTFM: IT's another country's laws and politics. Why am I expected to read their laws and logs of their whatever houses they have to understand something that would not even improve my life? Let alone when their own citizens would have trouble finding these an understanding the meaning down below?

Ah. So that's why it looks like the Groundhog day with the tariffs.

/s

This is also how this shambling ghoul gets what any actual citizen of earth would consider a third term. It's already done! This is why he said "you'll won't have to vote again."

The president is only 50 days into his term forever; time is stopped. Hell upon us eternal.

> Planning tarrifs 90 days out is really stretching the definition

Anything that distracts the president from playing golf is an "emergency".

We are in for this ride, at indefinite intervals, for the next 3.75 years. Well, unless congress grows a collective sack (unlikely) or President Trump comes to his senses on macro economics (past experience suggests this is impossible).

> How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?

They cannot. This is how you can tell Trump was never a real businessman, but rather a TV host and a celebutante. I'd venture nearly all major American business, public and private, depend on stability in the American government. Trump's actions make it painfully clear he is not, and never was, really part of the "business" or "deal making" world.

> Well, unless congress grows a collective sack (unlikely) or President Trump comes to his senses on macro economics

We in Argentina feel for you: it's exactly the same for us, replacing Trump with Milei. And with the added humiliation of Milei being a lapdog to Trump.

This phrase of yours "unless congress grows a sack" is exactly how we feel about our own congress in Argentina.

Wait, so all those stories about Argentina doing better under Milei aren't true ? What's going on over there ?

I joked to a friend that Trump is going to cause a new religion to start. One that makes people pray that today he does what they want (e.g. just shut up and not yell "China, 500% tariffs!")

Or one that makes people pray that one of those cheeseburgers he's been eating finally does something...

The administration has signaled that they expect to negotiate acceptable balance-of-trade deals with the US's Asian allies over the next few weeks. If that happens, I can see businesses being certain enough to make investments. Until then I'm bracing for a recession too.

Like wanting EU to drop VAT for US import sales or forcing EU to buy oil/gas/coal. None of that is happening.

The EU is very slooow to act. It might happen during the next administration but only if thry're convinced it's a good idea. Like the 2% fot NATO which now is insufficient, how about 5%, sonce you have Russia prepared for war and we ain't gonna move a finger.

None of what I said is happening. It's more likely that we spend a trillion on clean energy, in part on china.

Sure. Thr only thing certain with a character like him at the helm is interesting times, so brace yourself.

You mean like he railed against the Canada/Mexico trade deal that he negotiated during his first term?

I feel like you're arguing against something I didn't say. I agree there's a good chance the president will make up new tariffs or fail to negotiate some of the current ones. If that happens then trade deals with Asian allies won't reassure anyone. That's why I'm still preparing for a recession.

> If that happens

How does that help? The steel and auto tariffs are still in place. There are plans on tariffs for other industries. You'll be hit 1 way or another.

You'll definitely be hit one way or another. The question is whether businesses can predict what their tariff hit will look like next year and plan around it, or can't and need to hold onto their cash until they know which investments are or aren't worth it.

The idea would be that different parts of the supply chain would build factories in the US to avoid tariffs. Money collected on tariffs would be redistributed in the form of tax cuts.

The end goal would be 0% corporate and income taxes, funded with high tariffs. Over time the US re-industrializes.

> The idea would be that different parts of the supply chain would build factories in the US to avoid tariffs.

Building a factory is a 3-5 year task, with a decade-long payback time. And at any point, tariffs can be removed, making all that investment futile.

And even then, there's no guarantee that the factory is going to help people. If it's a lights-out facility staffed with robots, then it'll just be producing more expensive goods, with all the profits staying in its owners' pockets.

> Over time the US re-industrializes.

Or just becomes another Argentina.

No such plan has been documented. This is just wishful thinking.

I am giving the steel man of why this may work. Whether it does or not, well, you can play the stock market as well as anyone

You are constructing a fantasy.

> The idea would be that different parts of the supply chain would build factories in the US to avoid tariffs.

Right, because the US doesn't have diamonds, vanilla, coffee beans or the many other things it needs? How do you avoid tariffs like this?

The US still needs fish from the penguins. What's the plan? To tell penguins to stop fishing and come to the US and work in factories?

> The end goal would be 0% corporate and income taxes, funded with high tariffs.

Well you have that right. When there's 0% of the people working no 1 will be paying corporate and income tax. It'll just crash.

> Over time the US re-industrializes.

Like it's gone? You do know the US is the 2nd largest global manufacturer right? That is even today. So do we need to blow that up 1st in order to re-industrialize?

Who would trust the US after this? Why would a company build a factory in a lawless state run by a moron like this who thinks blanket tariffs work and could replace taxes?

No part of your plan will happen.

I don’t get this take. We already negotiated trade agreements. That’s what got ripped up with all this tariff nonsense. Why would anyone expect the US to respect the next negotiation? The damage here was reputational. That can only be repaired with time. It can’t be negotiated.

It's easy for us on the Internet to talk about how untrustworthy the US is and how little a negotiation means. It's a lot harder for trade authorities in a country to tell all their US exporters "hey, the Americans are being obnoxious, so your business is probably going to fail and we're not gonna do much about it". If you asked me to negotiate with the US in this situation, I absolutely would refuse, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening in practice.

Why cash when inflation is coming?

You need liquidity when recessions come. Less liquid assets go for lower than usual since cash is king during those times.

But nobody can predict recessions.

Cash can bleed slower than the others, especially if there's stagflation. Liquidity is nice too during uncertain times.

Also nearly 100% tariffs on one of the biggest trading partners is unlikely to hold for very long. There's probably a lot of options because of that.

Cash often refers to Money Market funds and the interest they pay tends to track inflation. There are also ibonds but you can invest a fairly limited amount in them.

Money market funds haven’t tracked inflation for people living in higher prices areas for a long time.

Maybe if you already owned your final house and didn’t need healthcare or education.

I was getting 5% until recently which isn’t that far off of where inflation hit. Of course, as you say, some things are higher although a normal age retired person isn’t that exposed to them.

> How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?

Plan on relying less on the US market. Grow customers elsewhere.

There's definitely going to be another change before 3 months are up.

Yep. He flip flops like a dying fish. There is no way to predict what idea he's going to have 90 days from now.

Responding in good faith to other countries’ willingness to negotiate fair trade terms isn’t exactly flip flopping. In fact he did the same thing with Mexico. If the market was paying attention it would have accounted for this…

It's interesting how person's nakedly obvious dump and pump corrupt opportunism is another's "responding in good faith."

The problem remains. Anyone who imports from China - which covers a lot of the economy - is screwed.

And Rest of World no longer trusts anything he says.

He is pathologically incapable of operating in good faith.

Good faith would have included

- not lying about tariffs being taxes on other countries that would replace us paying taxes

- not calling trade deficits tariffs and pretending to impose reciprocal tariffs

- negotiating ahead of time like normal people and clearly communicating the path forward

> other countries’ willingness to negotiate fair trade terms

This is a fabricated justification. There has been literally zero public reporting of any trade negotiations post-tarifpocalypse. The only people saying there are deals being made are the White House, who have produce zero evidence of deals.

No, Trump was responding[1] to the movement of the market and in particular to the sudden spike in federal bond rates. This was absolutely not a win for Art of the Deal. There was no Deal.

[1] In "good faith", to be sure.

Bessent said this was the strategy from the beginning.

Think the hope and idea is there’s concrete agreements established before the 90 days are up

Even if that was the idea, the agreements are worth less than the paper they are written on. He is boo-ing and shredding trade agreements that he made himself during his first term. He says one thing one day and the complete opposite the next day.

The USMCA agreement wasn't worth the paper HE SIGNED on when he decided he wanted to change the terms of that concrete agreement.

And if he has one of his McDiarrhea's, what's going to stop him from using that newest agreement as toilet paper?

Oh, like CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC/NAFTA2? Canada and Mexico say hi.

What makes you think this?

Separate, possibly unrelated question: what was trump’s goal when he created and rug pulled the Trump coin?

The fact that what they’ve been saying all along is that the goal of the reciprocal tariffs is to renegotiate with all countries for a more fair economic playing field. Many people aren’t so fickle as to just assume everything the party they don’t like is doing is insane and a big conspiracy to insider trade and ruin the world.

> The fact that what they’ve been saying all along

They weren't saying that all along. They were saying that tariffs are a tool that will be used to reindustrialize the USA.

While also saying they were going to be a replacement for the IRS and to stop illegal immigrantion and drugs and force Canada to become the 51st state.

Full on grandmas off her meds level nonsense.

The President's advisors are saying multiple contradictory things. You're right that they're saying that the reciprocal tariffs are a negotiating ploy, which implies that they'll negotiate a much lower rate. But at the same time they're also saying that they're going to use the tariffs to raise enough revenue to replace income taxes as the main way of funding the government, which implies that the tariffs will stay high. Then they're also saying that the tariffs will be used to support domestic manufacturing, which implies that the tariffs will stay high and predictable.

It doesn't make sense that the tariff policy can be both leverage in a negotiation with the ultimate goal eliminating trade barriers and also so high and predictable that they can raise something the 10-20% of GDP.

The logical conclusion is that there is no plan here - we're living in a world like England under Henry VIII, where everything is done based on the whim of the king, and the advisors try to justify it ex post facto.

That's what they say but we literally went through this whole mess not even two months ago with Canada and Mexico. He's already showed he's insane and cannot be negotiated with.

> How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?

How did they do it in the past?

Do you believe that, if the environment stays this way, businesses will just cease to exist as a phenomenon?

> focused on upping my cash reserves and bracing myself for a recession.

And exactly there is a recipe for recession. A self fulfilling prophecy.

Not that you are to blame but the reason why politicians usually avoid projecting uncertainty.

> How are businesses supposed to plan anything in this environment?

Honestly, that's one thing that makes me happy about these tariffs: big business is used to getting its way, and tariffs are very much not what they wanted. I've enjoyed the articles about Wall Street Billionaires getting mad and feeling helpless.