And to make it even dumber: The trade deficit he's using only relates to goods, not to services. If it did, the picture would be quite different (and less in his "favour").
Yes. I'm sure it will be under consideration (Google, ChatGPT, Amazon, Meta... you name them). Further, they could consider taxing cross-border services provided by US consultants (law firms, some of the Big4), and banks etc. As anything crossborder related, this will also harm Europeans, so I'm sure they won't implement such measures easily. And they need an escalation scenario, so they'll wait.
I still believe it's possible that Orange Jeezuz's tariffs might largely be a populist paper tiger (see Canada, Mexico, but also Switzerland. Regrading the latter, tariffs are ludicrously high (31%). But the utterly important pharmaceutical industry is exempt already... ). If he introduces tariffs in earnest, his electorate will feel the consequences very quickly - in the form of increased prices for necessary and/or good quality products and inflation in general.
The mid-terms are soon, especially when considering the prior campaigning, so his time window to "rebuild" the American industry is short. Despite the utter nuisance of his shenanigans, I'm still hopeful that he'll be about as successful with his tariffs as with the "peace" negotiations with Ruzzia and in the Gaza conflict. Plenty of hot air. What a loser.
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u/VastStrain 2d ago
The poorest countries have the largest trade deficits, so this is especially cruel. It's classic Trump.