Surprisingly, a trade agreement that would usually take years to negotiate cannot be struck within the self-inflicted 90 days - much less for 150 countries in parallel. No problem, surely that’s all part of the masterplan, and TPTB have it covered:
Speaking at a meeting with business leaders in the United Arab Emirates on the US president’s tour of the Gulf, he said: “We have, at the same time, 150 countries that want to make a deal, but you’re not able to see that many countries.”
The president said that his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, would be “sending letters out essentially telling” some of Washington’s trading partners what tariff rates would be imposed on their goods exports to the US market.
How? They paused the Tariffs for 90 days because he freaked everyone out. Supposedly we were going to get deals. We got a deal with the UK that when signed the papers that were signed said it wasn’t a binding agreement. We got a deal with China that said " Let’s talk again". But this time they are going to send a letter that says “We mean it now”?
Maybe it’s the imperial “we”, as in TIG gets things, like a garish 74? His golf club cronies won’t be “burdened” by a 25% tariff on their Range Rovers. What sort of “sales commission” is TIG getting for that Boeing order?
I am not sure if any of the deals actually were done. He does tend to exaggerate a lot. He is saying since he got into office he has done 16 trillion in deals. Half of our GDP. Does anyone actually believe that? Then He said he got a 1.2 trillion dollar deal from Qatar and their annual GDP is 250 million. So how can that be even remotely true?
“Trump has claimed a $1.2 trillion investment deal from Qatar. Qatar’s annual GDP is a bit less than $250 billion per year. So he’s claiming an investment that would require every dollar every Qatari earned over the next five years,” Wolfers said.
I think that is why sentiment is so bad. Nobody knows what to believe. It would be great if he just told the truth and we could actually count on the numbers. It’s like their 2 trillion savings from Doge and they only got 2.7 billion. Crazy.
Now Walmart it saying what everyone always knew: prices will go up, consumers will pay the tariff. Trump is throwing a temper tantrum because they are not echoing his lie that China will pay the tariff.
Buckle up. Empty shelves and high prices are coming because our leader is a moron.
It doesn’t matter what happens in the short-term. The chaos unleashed by Trump is a serious long term damage to US reputation, and US economy. US economy benefited from cheap products, in exchange for an entry in Federal reserve. Countries are waking up to the fact it is not US that is being robbed, rather US is robbing their labor for nothing. Every four years US foreign policy changes, now US trade policy also changes. So no one will be interested in entering any long term deals with US, because next administration may not honor the deal, so why waste time and efforts.
Took delivery of my new fridge today. A Whirlpool, but “hecho en Mexico”. Bet we won’t see a 20cuft fridge for $650 again, for a while. Yes, Whirlpool has several factories in the US, building the more expensive models. Bet if my old fridge had not started acting up now, and I headed into the store a couple years from now, the only things available would be at twice the price, because the low end Mexican models will not be offered.
Recall, only a week or two ago, the CEO of Whirlpool was saying, publicly, that the tariffs will be very good for the company.
I am not so sure about that because if it was the market would have picked up on it. Looking at Bitcoin it is hardly down right now. I would think it would be cratering because of the credit rating call by Moody’s. Maybe we get another leg down after all but for right now it has been all clear.
You guys are desperate for trade deals. There is no need for deals. US will unilaterally impose import tariffs on imports and is raking in the $Billions.
$1 Trillion trade deficits are not sustainable. Economists saying this is a good thing are idiots.
Also, who in the beginning pays tariffs? It ain’t the exporter, it is the importer.
TIG’s meltdown on Truthsocial about Wal-Mart shows he is aware of this–he demanded they eat the costs instead of passing them along. If the exporter was paying the tarrifs Wal-Mart wouldn’t have to pass them along.
The reason why TIG went bankrupt six times is because he couldn’t pass his costs along. I guess technically he made his creditors eat his costs. But imagine if he were able to run sustainable businesses instead of sticking his creditors. He’d probably be a billionaire by now.
