How Long Until Trump "Pauses" his Idiotic Retaliatory Tariffs?

[Joe Ferguson forever]

1 hour ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

It doesn't matter what I want and frankly I don't see how you're response has anything to do with my comments about China and the Fed. Are you confused or something? You go off on some MAGA rant that is unrelated to, well anything. Exactly what economic "theory" are you proposing we follow?

 

After some inspection of the situation, my conclusion is these tariffs are misplaced anger. China and other developing countries that ship "cheap" goods into the US are not the villain. Its the doings of American and multi-national corporations that moved their operations out of the US in pursuit of cheap labor, lax environmental standard, and favorable business rules and regulations.

 

Trump should be targeted CEO's of those corporations, not leaders of our trading partners. And instead of looking to extend his corporate tax breaks they should be threatening them with windfall profits taxes if they don't get on board with moving some operations back to the US. Using Apple as an example, they sell an iPhone that costs about $25 to manufacture and charge customers $1,000. Tax their profits at 90%, let their stock crash, and investors revolt, and see the CEO's big pay package crash in flames. That will produce the desired actions and decisions in a couple minutes.

 

 

Quantitative easing will cause inflation.  Which is exactly what trump ran on and was supposed to stop day 1.  You know, help the working class.  So that result is a loss for them in a big way.  Do you believe that  was the planned ending for the tariffs?  I don't.

 

Neither did Bill Ackman:

The whipsaw-like nature of Wednesday could be seen in the social media posts of Bill Ackman, a hedge fund billionaire and Trump supporter.

“Our stock market is down,” Ackman posted on X. “Bond yields are up and the dollar is declining. These are not the markers of successful policy.”

Ackman repeated his call for a 90-day pause in the post.

 

So trump finally blinked and pretended he had played the markets and won.  maybe he did thru insider trading but he sure didn't help the working class.

 

You seemed to have done a 180 on tariffs, now targeting US companies.  Better late than never.  But what stops those companies from leaving the US all together.  In retrospect, things relatively wonderful before the tariffs.  So do you believe the 90 day "pause" should be permanent?  Should we continue the trade war with China?  My answers are yes and no.  But at least we seem to agree that this whole thing was/is a massive SNAFU...

[SectionC3]

4 hours ago, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

The man raging about oligarchs and authoritarianism appears on behalf of…..China.  Of course he does. 
 

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/09/politics/cnn-bernie-sanders-town-hall-takeaways/index.html

 

“We don’t have to hate China. We don’t have to hate other people. Let’s figure out a way to work together,” the Vermont independent said in a CNN town hall, hours after Trump raised his tariffs on Beijing to 125% amid a trade battle ignited by the president.

“The goal has got to be to break down these barriers that separate us as human beings — come together as Americans and come together globally as human beings,” Sanders said.

What’s his stance on North Korea? 

[Doc Brown]

2 hours ago, Joe Ferguson forever said:

You seemed to have done a 180 on tariffs, now targeting US companies.  Better late than never.  But what stops those companies from leaving the US all together.  In retrospect, things relatively wonderful before the tariffs.  So do you believe the 90 day "pause" should be permanent?  Should we continue the trade war with China?  My answers are yes and no.  But at least we seem to agree that this whole thing was/is a massive SNAFU...

Yeah.  If the Trump administration's scorched earth tariff policy was all some ruse to take on the Chinese then the pause in tariffs along with keeping the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico don't make sense.  The latter seems contradictory to the former if we really want to squeeze China.

[daz28]

4 hours ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

It doesn't matter what I want and frankly I don't see how you're response has anything to do with my comments about China and the Fed. Are you confused or something? You go off on some MAGA rant that is unrelated to, well anything. Exactly what economic "theory" are you proposing we follow?

 

After some inspection of the situation, my conclusion is these tariffs are misplaced anger. China and other developing countries that ship "cheap" goods into the US are not the villain. Its the doings of American and multi-national corporations that moved their operations out of the US in pursuit of cheap labor, lax environmental standard, and favorable business rules and regulations.

 

Trump should be targeted CEO's of those corporations, not leaders of our trading partners. And instead of looking to extend his corporate tax breaks they should be threatening them with windfall profits taxes if they don't get on board with moving some operations back to the US. Using Apple as an example, they sell an iPhone that costs about $25 to manufacture and charge customers $1,000. Tax their profits at 90%, let their stock crash, and investors revolt, and see the CEO's big pay package crash in flames. That will produce the desired actions and decisions in a couple minutes.

 

 

It seems trump is insistent that iphones be made here.  The problem is that they will NEVER take that kind of financial beating.  Instead, every single cent of the production costs would go to the consumer(and many parts would still need to come from abroad).  I've seen ridiculous estimates, but it would easily double the price tag.  The consumers reaction would be to find a cheaper product.  Who wins then?  Samsung.  As for manufacturing, lots of these "cheap goods" are actually not bad for us at all, at least not personally.  Our economy transitioned pretty well to a service economy, and we benefit from the cheap labor of other countries.  trump has maggat nation believing they all took our jobs with good health care and pensions.  What really happened was all the money funneled to the 1%, and the middle class around the globe suffered.  

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

2 hours ago, SectionC3 said:

What’s his stance on North Korea? 

I think he knows it’s a different country than China.  

 

[Pokebball]

13 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Why the 25% tariffs then on Canada?

Your question suggests that you think Trump wants to take Canada down. Do you really think that's his goal? That's fine, I guess. We'll disagree

7 hours ago, Roundybout said:

Okay, but you realize that China is less isolated than ever now?

 

All we’ve done is harm our OWN trade with China. China will seek trade elsewhere with countries willing to do business. 
 

Additionally, we’ve greatly harmed our relationships with our allies abroad, so they are much less likely to do business with us. Why would they? 

First of all, I'm not defending what Trump is doing, but rather opining on what I believe his end game is.

 

Why hasn't China already seeked trade with other countries?

[daz28]

3 minutes ago, Pokebball said:

Your question suggests that you think Trump wants to take Canada down. 

He literally wants to take Canada.  

[4th&long]

3 minutes ago, daz28 said:

He literally wants to take Canada.  

I guess he doesn't pay attention the news? Or fox news didn't show his lemmings that clip. 

[Homelander]

 

[Doc Brown]

49 minutes ago, Pokebball said:

Your question suggests that you think Trump wants to take Canada down. Do you really think that's his goal? That's fine, I guess. We'll disagree

I questioned the reason for it as I don't see how it helps him squeeze China but it is kind of humorous that he wants to make Canada the 51st state.  A lot of 19 and 20 year old Canadians would be pissed if that happened though.  LOL.

[daz28]

5 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

I questioned the reason for it as I don't see how it helps him squeeze China but it is kind of humorous that he wants to make Canada the 51st state.  A lot of 19 and 20 year old Canadians would be pissed if that happened though.  LOL.

I wonder if military options are "still on the table" for Canada, like they are Greenland?  

[Doc Brown]

3 hours ago, daz28 said:

I wonder if military options are "still on the table" for Canada, like they are Greenland?  

He's not boring.  I'll give him that.

[IrishLass]

4 hours ago, daz28 said:

He literally wants to take Canada.  

 

I don't see why, half the liberals fled there after the 2016 election, and the rest followed after 2024.

 

[Joe Ferguson forever]

On 4/10/2025 at 6:43 AM, All_Pro_Bills said:

Ask your banker buddy if he expects the Fed to step into the market and initiate QE operations if they believe the Treasury market, and more importantly the consortium of Treasury dealer banks, are put at genuine risk. Of course they will which is why I don't worry to much about this other than the potential for dollar devaluation and possible inflation as a consequence of creating all that liquidity. But outright default or market failure? Not likely. 

 

looks like my banker friend has company in his thinking.  from Yahoo Finance this am

 

Investors are suddenly wondering whether China or a group of US trade adversaries could cause a US financial crisis by deliberately selling Treasuries to drive US interest rates up, which could freeze credit markets. A credit crisis is generally worse than a stock sell-off because if can affect the liquidity companies need to pay their bills, especially if it happens fast. A credit crunch and frozen liquidity helped turn the 2008 housing bust into a financial crash that nearly became a depression.

China owns about $760 billion of US Treasury securities, which is 2.6% of total US debt traded in public markets. The share has declined in recent years, and it’s probably not enough for China to weaponize on its own as leverage against Trump in a trade war. China would suffer harm from any credit crisis that hit the United States, which could hinder the ability of many nations to buy Chinese exports at current levels.

But the mere size of the US debt load—which will only get larger as Trump pushes for deficit-financed tax cuts—is a vulnerability Trump may not have counted on when he launched his trade war. The higher his tariffs, the more damage they will cause the US economy and the more likely foreign investors are to pull out, putting upward pressure on rates. China sees that and Trump has now shown his sensitivity to the possibility of a credit crisis.

 

[IrishLass]

4 hours ago, Joe Ferguson forever said:

looks like my banker friend has company in his thinking.  from Yahoo Finance this am

 

Investors are suddenly wondering whether China or a group of US trade adversaries could cause a US financial crisis by deliberately selling Treasuries to drive US interest rates up, which could freeze credit markets. A credit crisis is generally worse than a stock sell-off because if can affect the liquidity companies need to pay their bills, especially if it happens fast. A credit crunch and frozen liquidity helped turn the 2008 housing bust into a financial crash that nearly became a depression.

China owns about $760 billion of US Treasury securities, which is 2.6% of total US debt traded in public markets. The share has declined in recent years, and it’s probably not enough for China to weaponize on its own as leverage against Trump in a trade war. China would suffer harm from any credit crisis that hit the United States, which could hinder the ability of many nations to buy Chinese exports at current levels.

But the mere size of the US debt load—which will only get larger as Trump pushes for deficit-financed tax cuts—is a vulnerability Trump may not have counted on when he launched his trade war. The higher his tariffs, the more damage they will cause the US economy and the more likely foreign investors are to pull out, putting upward pressure on rates. China sees that and Trump has now shown his sensitivity to the possibility of a credit crisis.

 

 

I agree that what the credit markets are doing is a lot more important than what the stock market is doing currently.