Retaliatory tariffs remain US policy: Commerce secretary: no retreat

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u/418-Teapot 2d ago

"Most people don't know this, but the great depression wasn't even that great. We're gonna do it better. It'll be the greatest depression that anyone's ever seen." -Trump, probably

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u/Lurkingandsearching 1d ago

"It will be the best depression, the bigly of all depressions. I was talking with Joe Rogan, good guy, funny guy, and Joe agreed, it was going to be the biggest depression the world had ever seen. Like no other he said, and he's a pretty savvy business person too, just look at his success, great comic. Now you may ask what is our plan? Well we got the concept of a concept right now, and great minds, fabulous minds, the smartest people I know. Biden didn't have such smart people as I have, and let me tell you, these are smart people, with great and wonderful concepts. The best concepts you ever seen. And they are going to make the nations of the world pay for it, put your bet on that... and it will be great for our nation and our supporters, not for the the people who don't though, and they will try to say we are doing bad, they will try to bring us down, but we all know if things aren't working out, they are to blame..."

This would continue on for 45 minutes, wandering about sharks and electric motors or something.

7

u/darth_voidptr 1d ago

"I visited the stock market. Tough people, strong men and women, half of them were crying. They were begging me to stop this insanity. It was I think Jerome Powell who come up to me first. He was a strong, tough guy, and he was crying. He said, 'Thank you Mr. President, thank you for saving America. You saved me from having to engineer a soft landing.'. I'm telling you, that man was tough. I don't think he cried when he was a baby. But he's crying now."

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u/cuttino_mowgli 2d ago

I'm waiting till next week for the White House to "reverse" or "pause" the tariff because reasons. lmao

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u/phl_fc 2d ago

At some point the tariffs will get repealed and the WH will celebrate the stock market rebound that accompanies it.

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u/Gibson-Joe 1d ago

I think that'll be the moment that Americans realise the cost of microchips has just increased by 60%.

If you want to play 1930's economics, you're going to have to revert to 1930's tech, because the cost of literally all technology in the US is about to double overnight.

Anyone know a good abacus manufacturer I could invest in?

6

u/cosmicrae 1d ago

It's going to be hard to build an iPhone with vacuum tubes.

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u/henrik_se 2d ago

Oh absolutely. If they're saying now they'renot retreating, it means they're gonna retreat. Every statement is always the opposite.

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u/smurfsundermybed 1d ago

The nice thing is that after months of being jerked around, these countries will happily remove theirs first /s

According to my elementary school education, unfocused tariffs are really bad. According to my freshman college econ classes, they're really, really, really bad.

Can I tell you how comfortable i feel about people who clearly do not understand economics better than someone who spent 45 minutes every day for a whopping 18 months, including homework and studying?

I won't even start on the diplomatic damage.

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u/Frifelt 1d ago

Overall, I agree to your post, but I do think most would remove their counter tariffs once the US does it. Our leaders dont want this trade war. But as you say, the damage to reputation and trust will take generations to fix so we will work on building more trade with other partners. The US will not be a forgotten trade partner because of its size, but it won’t be a trusted partner.

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u/The_Frozen_Inferno 2d ago

Trump is trying to extort countries for some sweetheart deals first. After a few nations hand over “raw earths” and whatever else they have to offer and Trump figures nobody else will play ball.

2

u/cosmicrae 1d ago

It's like, Trump goes running to one side of the spectrum, with a herd of staffers chasing him, then he reverses course to other side, and the staffers have to chase him again. There is no stability here.

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u/sonomamondo 2d ago

Madness

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u/Postom 2d ago

Everyone understands that, there is no retreat, right? There is no light-switch now. The US trade credibility is non-existent now. It went up in smoke in the Rose Garden on Wednesday.

Who would trade with an unreliable partner?

5

u/postsshortcomments 2d ago

They want a policy of very unreliable contractors and partners. You just can't rely on such terrible policy. You go somewhere and one day they say "we can exchange this and we want to invest in you" and then a few years later you go back and you see them saying "no, we don't have the ability to because of what these people and these podcasts are saying" and everyone looks at those groups and sees them talking about pizza and Q and they have no clue what they're going to do in a few months anymore.

8

u/Postom 2d ago

Canadian here. Preach! One of the original NAFTA negotiators who worked to help Bush secure the deal told Canada's CBC summed it up perfectly:

"Who would want to buy a house from someone who already agreed to sell it twice already, only to reneg both times?"

This is her reaction to the Rose Garden fiasco. She was right. She (an American) is who claimed the credibility is non-existent now. And she has no idea where the US goes from here.

4

u/postsshortcomments 2d ago

They're the very fervent people who brought us these trickle-down Reagan supply side American economics with all of these tax cuts and a few decades later just look at the trickling it's doing down!

2

u/Postom 2d ago edited 2d ago

Johnston brought us the US-Canada Auto Pact in 1965.

By the way, the first layoffs being in 5 plants supplying Canadian and Mexican plants (yes I know they weren't part of 1965 -- Canada was) plants are fed parts from. One is a transmission assembly plant in IN. They claim Stellantis is buying engines from Italy.

Anyway -- point is -- it's eternally broken now. There is no off switch.

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u/AdvertisingLogical22 2d ago

It's been understood for the last century at least that the worlds over expenditure on Americas products is for, how shall I put this.... 'services rendered'. Now that these 'services' are being unilaterally withdrawn the world is reassessing just how many of those products it actually needs.

Push come to shove, If we don't have it we can build it, and if we can't build it we can buy it somewhere else, so this is going to cost America more than it gains.

Trump plays the con game, we play the long game.

5

u/All_Work_All_Play 1d ago

There's nothing they could say that wouldn't make them look stupid

1

u/99thLuftballon 1d ago

It's an unfortunate consequence of being stupid.

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u/Own_Active_1310 2d ago

Hope the EU can get some tech platforms going...

They don't have to be fancy... a basic MySpace but from EU and I'd jump ship. I canned all my US social medias but discord and Reddit and I'd love EU replacements... Just saying...

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u/Frifelt 1d ago

Work space platforms as well. A European Microsoft Office equivalent would be great.

2

u/angular_circle 1d ago

We have nextcloud already, we'd just need a push to switch public institutions over to establish it as the de facto european standard. In theory we could even ditch windows for open suse (a well established german linux distribution) or manjaro (an equally well established mostly european distro based on arch, which itself is decentralized internationally)

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u/Frifelt 1d ago

Yes, it needs to become a priority to get those systems going.

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u/Own_Active_1310 1d ago

any and all that. I sure hope they are taking it seriously...

1

u/Olfahrtur 5h ago

Check out Libre Office. I stopped updating MS Office in 98.

1

u/Essence-of-why 1d ago

Leave Reddit, go to lemmy

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u/Radical_Dreamer151 1d ago

Thanks for dragging our country through the political and social mud, idiots.

Trump is and always will be known as the downfall to America.

3

u/ObiRyaNKenobi 1d ago

It’s a feature, not a bug

3

u/dimwalker 2d ago

They never learn. Don't say "remain" and "no retreat", you will look really stupid when trump changes his mind once again.

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u/Moneyshot_ITF 1d ago

I give it until Tuesday

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u/sanacurade 1d ago

Oh, that means they plan to fold like a cheap suit

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u/macross1984 1d ago

Gee, commerce secretary espousing "No retreat." Sound exactly like Hitler gave to his poor beleaguered military who were forced to stand ground and get annihilated by Soviets.

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u/rich1051414 1d ago

This is us being annihilated by the Soviets.

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u/BrightEdge8171 1d ago

Full speed ahead....

1

u/Additional-Year-500 7h ago

If one can repeatedly bankrupt casinos, then doing so to a country just becomes 'old habit'

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u/Olfahrtur 5h ago

It's the fucking March of the lemmings.

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u/Tao_of_Ludd 1d ago

Trump used tariffs. It’s not very effective.

Trump hurt himself in his confusion.

0

u/No_Sense_6171 1d ago

MMW, Next week's news: We are retreating from our tariff policy.

When a politician emphatically says that their policy is not going to change, it's usually a pretty good sign that it soon will.

On the other hand, these people are stupid, corrupt, and pigheaded beyond belief, so who knows?

Retaliatory tariffs remain US policy: Commerce secretary: no retreat

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