The markets have been roiling for weeks and folks on this board have been scheming about how to profit from the Brave New Tariff World about to come.
Still early, but it appears to me that this is all just one big, badly played bluff by an administration that is just kind of winging it.
25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada that supposedly were going to right the trade imbalances and send jobs to America. Instead the tariffs have gone away because Canada has pledged to reduce the imaginary fentanyl and illegal immigrants coming across the northern border and Mexico is sending 10,000 troops from a military incapable of safeguarding local elections to the southern border. So this tariff thing was about fentanyl and immigrants?
Meanwhile a 10% tariff is imposed on China, which is likely to increase prices a bit but have no real significant impact on the economy. Certainly not enough to send manufacturing jobs to America.
I’m guessing that despite all the sound and fury, no tariffs will be actually imposed that will cause pain to Americans. The midterm elections are coming. This means no tariffs of consequence that would generate anything of economic significance.
I think a global economic downturn is coming. Economic growth in China, South Korea, the EU, and Japan are slowing or flat due to the inexorable impact of aging demographics. The US is facing the same aging issues and is also beginning to pay the cost of adapting to climate change far earlier than anyone expected. We chose to adapt to rather than mitigate global warming and now those adaptation costs are on the rise with exploding insurance rates.
I don’t believe the growing economies of India and Africa (or even getting the Panama Canal) back will be enough to offset these negative factors. In short, I think the macroeconomics is saying be conservative with your retirement portfolio.
At least we now have the Gulf of America. I know that has significantly improved my standard of living.
It has always been about promising “good paying jobs” for his poorly educated, white, base. The scheme had two vectors: running the brown people out of the country, and violating every trade agreement the US is party to, to tax imports, sold with the laffable claim that the other countries would pay the tax.
Outside of the show of brown people being herded onto military aircraft, nothing has been accomplished.
Now what? Back to the usual program of enriching the rich, while robbing the Proles?
It is also always about being the lead story. trump is always going to throw out nonsense just to dominate the news cycle. “Buy Greenland”. “Canada the 51st state.” “Occupy Gaza”. It is all part of the show.
The bottomline though is that very little of significance gets done.
I used to think he was just really dumb and clueless, but I think it is part of his strategy. Get everyone (media, dems, etc.) outraged over something that isn’t likely to happen while he gets the real threat, unqualified candidates, through their nomination process. There is only some much bandwidth for outrage each day and the more it is spent on Nancy Mace screaming a transgender slur [insert word TMF won’t let me type] during a session of Congress (really happened), then less we spend on high school graduates with no security clearance gaining access to the Treasury payment system.
The Gaza thing is probably different, because of the opportunity for personal profit. After the US spends Billions on the ethnic cleansing and cleanup, someone is going to build those resorts and hotels, probably with lots more government subsidies. Would not be surprised if the developers were Kushner Co (as a front) and BibiCo.
I watched Trump being interviewed about Canada. He said that some very bad trade deals have been made with Canada, and that was the reasoning behind tariffs. And not 1 “journalist” challenged Trump about the deal he made with Canada, USMCA, all the way back in 2020. How does TI* get away with denigrating trade deals with Canada, when he was the one who made the trade deal with Canada ?? Truly sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. If The Market hates uncertainty, The Market is going to HATE the next 4 years.
The journos know that, if they step out of line, they will lose access.
Meanwhile, the metro Detroit media is reporting the blowback from across the river. For years, the city of Windsor has subsidized a shuttle bus, which, primarily brings people from Windsor to Detroit, because there is more going on in Detroit, than there is in Windsor. A week or so back, the Windsor city council approved the bus subsidy for another year. The mayor of Windsor vetoed the subsidy. The city of Windsor is also considering not paying for a sponsorship of this year’s Indy car race in Detroit, for the first time in years.
Something of great significance is getting done with these hysterics…we are showing ourselves to be incompetent to safeguard our democracy, and losing respect and faith in our ability to support our allies if there is a need. This in turn means we are losing what allies we still had after Trumps first term, with his re-election permanently damaging our reputation as a nation. No country will partner with us again and will always have their guard up against us. Nothing could eliminate our status as a world leader faster than this approach. Going forward we will have no positive influence on shaping world decisions. The fall of the empire has begun, and worst yet we as a nation invited that fall. The economic fallout of this decision and the global lack of trust it generated will be consequential as other sovereign nations develop plans to avoid us. We barely escaped permanent scarring from the first term. Voting him back in showed the world that the US populace is the problem and not to be trusted. Huge economic impact to come.
“Windsor city council approved the bus subsidy for another year.”
Didn’t Canada pay for the new bridge connecting Windsor and Detroit ?
( visited Windsor a time or 2 as a young Man, had
a lot of fun over there. Always liked Canadians )
I should have said nothing of intended significance is getting done. No argument that America is being damaged. Deservedly so if Americans vote in TV personalities to run the country.
But is any of this surprising? We currently have a citizenry that lacks the discipline to not be obese and not be overly dependent on drugs. We currently have a citizenry that gets most of its news from social media and who actually believe that because they can do Google they are experts in all fields.
Expecting fat, drug-addicted, intellectually lazy people to vote rationally is a bit optimistic. The fact that we got Obama twice and Biden once is itself a bit of a miracle.
America now has a government that reflects the majority of its voters: self-indulgent, narcissistic, who define “significance” by the number of “likes” and followers, and whose primary goal is to retire early with money rather than accomplish something of value.
This administration is not trying to accomplish stuff. It just wants to make a splash. It just wants ratings. And it wants to make a buck. If we look at what’s been happening from that perspective, it all makes sense and becomes predictable.
For example, I would be very surprised if DOGE is allowed to look at Defense, Medicare, and Social Security. It’ll spend a year cutting things like arts and public television funding, reorganizing stuff like Education and USAID so it looks like they got cut but were simply rebranded, and then disappear as these ADHD guys get bored and political realities sink in.
The only way to significantly control spending on Defense, Medicare, and Social Security is through bipartisan compromise. Anything else is political suicide.
Destruction of our national security and the world order is something Russia has long aspired to but is done more effectively by our own greedy libertarians. Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, shows how it’s been done. They create and take advantage of chaos, and while everyone is up in arms they carve up the spoils for their power and profit. So, when they rail against someone or something, always ask who profits. Cui bono. And you’ll have a clear understanding of what’s going on.
What do we do? We stand up against it, on all fronts, to preserve justice and democracy, our institutions of civilization, and the rule of law, for the sake of all.
While that can be dangerous at times, we now have the ability to seek news and information from disparate sources; from our own or other countries news networks to social media. Some of the best news can be found on discussion boards such as this one. We just have to filter our sources some. Mainstream media is insufficient by itself.
This is important. More is better. People can become more aware now and many more people are becoming aware. In balance people are getting it. TI is CN.
Yes, iirc, Canada ended up paying for everything. The “JC” that owns the old bridge kept obstructing US participation in the new bridge, to protect his profits.
We were friends with a Venezuelan family who had that same mentality. We promised to keep in touch when he got called back to Venezuela, and even with significant effort on our part, never heard from them again. Another family from Venezuela had Italian passports and dual citizenship. They refused to go back. We asked if they had heard from our joint friends and they told us info about what was going on, that they were worried for their safety, and had tried to talk them into not going home.
Not burning bridges in hopes that 2026 brings a miracle, but not waiting until it’s too late to do reconnaissance.