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Comment on The Trump Tariffs Just Got Even Worse

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Trump is no economic genius --- and "Liberation Day" is the proof.

How long did our "liberation" from sanity last? About a week. This is how long it took our former friends and trading partners to school Trump in the fact that trade isn't always "bad".

So why exactly did "Tariff Man's" big day turn into a big fail? Two reasons:

1) The real world is a complicated and interconnected place.

Simple minded solutions may sell to simple minded folk watching Fox Noise but this doesn't mean these simple ideas are credible and will actually work in the real world.

2) The USA's biggest export is debt. We sell a lot of debt to our former friends and trading partners. And if they suddenly stop buying, we are sunk.

In other words, isolation is a prescription for economic disaster. The next simple but equally bad idea --- a debt default.

This is all Economics 101 stuff --- and Trump is failing the test.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/why-the-bond-market-is-a...

It was never about that.

It was about asserting he could ruin everyone’s day if people didn’t suck up to him/pay him off.

And it worked.

If you realize he’s a terrorist pretending to be a reasonable person, rather than a reasonable person pretending to be a terrorist - things will make a lot more sense.

And it worked.

And all it cost him was whatever small credibility he had to prosecute a world wide trade war. As if someone who bankrupted multiple casinos has any economic cred.

Our former friends and trading partners just asserted how they can ruin Trump's day if he acts unreasonably. And confronted with the obvious, Trump folded like his former casino in Atlantic City.

https://6abc.com/trump-plaza-implosion-video-watch-live-stre...

Bottom Line: The largest bidders in auctions of US Treasury bonds are the same countries targeted with tariffs on "Liberation Day". And this "economic genius" totally failed to grasp the significance of this until after the fact. Duhhh!

All the things you mentioned are what it cost us. He doesn’t care about us.

Who is the stupid one in this situation?

All the things you mentioned are what it cost us. He doesn’t care about us.

Yeah, Mussolini thought this way too. He hung corrected.

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-corpses-of...

What hurts us also affects "Tariff Man". If it were otherwise, he would not have folded so quickly.

https://reason.com/2024/12/11/trump-the-self-described-tarif...

And for now, he sits with our balls squeezed in his fist.

He’s well aware of the potential future problem of course (IMO) which is why he has been purging the FBI/DOJ/Military of anyone who is going to refuse to suck up to him too.

Elections do have consequences.

Indeed they do. And now we’ll feel what it’s like sticking that butter knife in the wall socket.

This is how long it took our former friends and trading partners to school Trump in the fact that trade isn't always "bad".

That's an optimistic view; there's really very little reason to think that he's learned that lesson.

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