Not yet, with people like yourself and @Tomstro Who love anything Trump does, we'll get there. What do you think about Elon Musk having access to the Treasury, you think that's right?
Trump is a mafia boss himself so....... The problem with Trumpers/MAGAts is most of them are sad sacks, they are not accomplished people, and they want the world to feel as bad as they do, so they troll. DD
The best, most cogent and elegantly simple explanation into the inexplicably destructive negotiating processes of the president,by Prof. David Honig of Indiana University. “I’m going to get a little wonky and write about Donald Trump and negotiations. For those who don't know, I'm an adjunct professor at Indiana University - Robert H. McKinney School of Law and I teach negotiations. Okay, here goes. Trump, as most of us know, is the credited author of "The Art of the Deal," a book that was actually ghost written by a man named Tony Schwartz, who was given access to Trump and wrote based upon his observations. If you've read The Art of the Deal, or if you've followed Trump lately, you'll know, even if you didn't know the label, that he sees all dealmaking as what we call "distributive bargaining." Distributive bargaining always has a winner and a loser. It happens when there is a fixed quantity of something and two sides are fighting over how it gets distributed. Think of it as a pie and you're fighting over who gets how many pieces. In Trump's world, the bargaining was for a building, or for construction work, or subcontractors. He perceives a successful bargain as one in which there is a winner and a loser, so if he pays less than the seller wants, he wins. The more he saves the more he wins. The other type of bargaining is called integrative bargaining. In integrative bargaining the two sides don't have a complete conflict of interest, and it is possible to reach mutually beneficial agreements. Think of it, not a single pie to be divided by two hungry people, but as a baker and a caterer negotiating over how many pies will be baked at what prices, and the nature of their ongoing relationship after this one gig is over. The problem with Trump is that he sees only distributive bargaining in an international world that requires integrative bargaining. He can raise tariffs, but so can other countries. He can't demand they not respond. There is no defined end to the negotiation and there is no simple winner and loser. There are always more pies to be baked. Further, negotiations aren't binary. China's choices aren't (a) buy soybeans from US farmers, or (b) don't buy soybeans. They can also (c) buy soybeans from Russia, or Argentina, or Brazil, or Canada, etc. That completely strips the distributive bargainer of his power to win or lose, to control the negotiation. One of the risks of distributive bargaining is bad will. In a one-time distributive bargain, e.g. negotiating with the cabinet maker in your casino about whether you're going to pay his whole bill or demand a discount, you don't have to worry about your ongoing credibility or the next deal. If you do that to the cabinet maker, you can bet he won't agree to do the cabinets in your next casino, and you're going to have to find another cabinet maker. There isn't another Canada. So when you approach international negotiation, in a world as complex as ours, with integrated economies and multiple buyers and sellers, you simply must approach them through integrative bargaining. If you attempt distributive bargaining, success is impossible. And we see that already. Trump has raised tariffs on China. China responded, in addition to raising tariffs on US goods, by dropping all its soybean orders from the US and buying them from Russia. The effect is not only to cause tremendous harm to US farmers, but also to increase Russian revenue, making Russia less susceptible to sanctions and boycotts, increasing its economic and political power in the world, and reducing ours. Trump saw steel and aluminum and thought it would be an easy win, BECAUSE HE SAW ONLY STEEL AND ALUMINUM - HE SEES EVERY NEGOTIATION AS DISTRIBUTIVE. China saw it as integrative, and integrated Russia and its soybean purchase orders into a far more complex negotiation ecosystem. Trump has the same weakness politically. For every winner there must be a loser. And that's just not how politics works, not over the long run. For people who study negotiations, this is incredibly basic stuff, negotiations 101, definitions you learn before you even start talking about styles and tactics. And here's another huge problem for us. Trump is utterly convinced that his experience in a closely held real estate company has prepared him to run a nation, and therefore he rejects the advice of people who spent entire careers studying the nuances of international negotiations and diplomacy. But the leaders on the other side of the table have not eschewed expertise, they have embraced it. And that means they look at Trump and, given his very limited tool chest and his blindly distributive understanding of negotiation, they know exactly what he is going to do and exactly how to respond to it. From a professional negotiation point of view, Trump isn't even bringing checkers to a chess match. He's bringing a quarter that he insists of flipping for heads or tails, while everybody else is studying the chess board to decide whether its better to open with Najdorf or Grünfeld.” — David Honig THIS COMPLETELY nails exactly what is wrong with Trump's tactics. DD
https://www.ft.com/content/07eac548-6607-4c88-bfe3-4f1d6e3b8cf2 The world is moving on to trade without the US other nations are increasing trades while the US is decreasing trade, we can all guess where this is going.
Trump will speak to Trudeau on Monday morning lets not forget the PM was a highschool Teacher so there's a good chance he will manage your President wild behavior appropriately
Trump wont back down cuz he wants to rob the treasury of the income that comes from the tariffs. Musk is hooked up to the payment portal of the Treasury. They'll bleed everyone dry in the name of "tariffs"
A lot of people are discussing the effects, and then lots of tribalism in between, but this the one thing I’m trying to find a discussion or good point on What are the demands? How can this be resolved? What fault does this fix, and in what manor? Os, Invisi, gabs, valdez, anybody not coming with an overtly partisan regurgitation of tweets, does anybody have a coherent or mildly detailed take on the potential or theoretical sense behind these two actions?
Grok: The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, with the main demands and rationale as follows: Main Demands: Control of Fentanyl and Drug Trafficking: The administration cites the need for Canada and Mexico to curb the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the United States. This demand is framed under national security concerns, particularly addressing the opioid crisis. Border Security and Illegal Immigration: There's a push for both nations to enhance border security measures to reduce illegal immigration into the U.S. This is part of a broader initiative to manage the border situation, which includes preventing the entry of undocumented migrants. Rationale Behind Tariffs: Trade Deficits and Economic Leverage: The tariffs are intended to address trade imbalances and perceived economic dependencies. The administration aims to use these tariffs as leverage to negotiate better trade terms or compliance with U.S. demands on security issues. National Security Justification: By declaring an economic emergency, the tariffs are legally framed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, focusing on national security threats posed by drug trafficking and immigration. Geopolitical Strategy: There's an underlying concern about China potentially using Mexico and Canada as backdoors for goods, including fentanyl, into the U.S. market, which the tariffs aim to counteract. Conditions for Lifting Tariffs: Unclear Benchmarks: While the administration has linked tariffs to the control of fentanyl and illegal immigration, there's ambiguity regarding specific benchmarks or conditions that, if met, would lead to the tariffs being lifted. Statements from Trump suggest that the tariffs might remain in place unless there's significant progress on these issues, but no clear, actionable demands have been publicly specified that would guarantee their removal. Political Signaling: Some sources indicate that the tariffs might also serve as a political tool, with Trump stating there are "no concessions" that Canada and Mexico can make at this point to have the tariffs lifted, suggesting the move could be part of a broader negotiation or pressure tactic. In summary, while the demands center around drug trafficking and immigration control, the exact conditions for lifting the tariffs remain unclear, suggesting that the tariffs might be more about exerting political and economic pressure than achieving immediate, well-defined outcomes.
Not personally a big fan of asking the magic conch for answers. This does seem like an okay recap of the situation as currently known, but at the end it leaves me with the same exact questions, which I guess naturally might be unattainable given they simply haven't been laid out anywhere, I've looked and all I see are the general lose connections of fentanyl, immigration, and of course, 51st state. If there's no bench marks or direct actionable demands being made clear here by this admin, this is seemingly a purposeful mystery for the general public. How can these actions be reasoned, defended, fought over, or scarified for, if it's something that won't even show it's face? This feels genuinely unsettling.
not seeing a whole lot of defenses of Trump's tariffs, but I did run across this piece yesterday that discusses in prudential terms how such tariffs might actually play out Why Trump would win a tariff war Europe is still in denial https://unherd.com/2025/02/why-trump-would-win-a-tariff-war/ Why Trump would win a tariff war by Wolfgang Munchau February 3, 2025 If you want to know how to respond to Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, just think back to what happened between the EU and the UK after the Brexit referendum. The EU thought it could pressurise the UK either into reversing Brexit or accepting a bad deal. The EU, as the larger power, believed it had a stronger position — and the media concurred. But the EU had a big trade surplus against the UK, and so had more to lose from a trade war. And this is how it played out. The single biggest victim of Brexit was not the UK economy, but German industry. Germany’s spectacular decline started in 2018, kicked off by Brexit and followed by a string of supply shocks including the pandemic and then Russia’s war in Ukraine. Trump’s tariffs will be next. The overarching lesson here is that if you are the surplus country, no matter how large you are, you should not engage in trade warfare. But that’s exactly what’s happening. After Trump imposed a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, and a 10% tariff on China over the weekend, all three countries threatened retaliation. Justin Trudeau, the outgoing Canadian prime minister, has already announced a 25% counter tariff on $155 billion worth of US imports; Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, ordered her trade ministry to implement sanctions on US goods; China wants to bring a lawsuit in front of the World Trade Organisation. They are all outraged by Trump’s assault on the multilateral trading system and are ready to come out all guns blazing. Europe, meanwhile, stands ready. Trump has not yet imposed any tariffs here. Not yet. But he has already said, ominously, “The European Union has treated us so terribly”, and described America’s deficit with the bloc yesterday as “an atrocity”. There are bound to be repercussions. Given the temperament of the President, there is no point in trying to predict what he will do. But the tariffs will surely come. In the coming weeks, if not days. Economically, his tariff war will act like a tax on US consumers. The increased costs are inevitably borne by the consumers. But, as a form of rebalancing, it will raise a lot of revenue for the US treasury and together with the shrinking of the federal government, may well end up lowering the budget deficit and strengthening the US current account balance. Of course, there will be repercussions that could push in the other direction: the dollar might rise; the world might plunge into recession. But the truth is we have no experience of what happens when the largest economy on earth, with the dominating global reserve currency, imposes massive tariffs on its trading partners. Many economists reckon the tariffs will increase inflation and slow growth. “They will almost surely be inflationary,” said Joseph Stiglitz, the renowned economics professor. But I would be cautious about such predictions. Macroeconomists lost their credibility as forecasters over Brexit and the first Trump presidency with their wild predictions. They are now simply expressing political views dressed up as empirical science. In my eyes, Trump is too much focused on bilateral trade balances, rather than on the underlying dynamics of what causes them. And the underlying global economic imbalances are massive. In 2023, the EU ran a surplus against the US in the trade of merchandise goods of $209 billion. For 2024, the total will be the in the order of £230 billion. China’s trade surplus with the US was $279bn and will probably have surpassed $300bn for the year as a whole. Canada’s surplus with the US was $64.3 billion {note: the data are from census.gov. there are lots of different statistics out there, measuring different things}. The world has been fretting about these imbalances for more than two decades now and yet nothing much has changed. Germany and China, the world’s biggest export surplus countries, will never voluntarily cut down on their surpluses unless threatened at gunpoint. “The worst response would be to stick with the same old model, and the same dependencies, and to embark on a trade war it cannot win.” This is partly because they frame their surpluses as a sign of economic success. The Germans like to believe that this has something to do with the quality of their goods, lauding themselves as “Export Weltmeister” — a meaningless category that comes without prizes. This is merely a celebration of dependency. Having relied on Russia for gas, and China for its exports, Germany has now also become dependent on the US. But, then, running trade surpluses against other countries is the only economic strategy the current generation of Germans has ever known. The problem here, then, is that a country’s current account, which consists mostly of trade, has an exact mirror image in the financial account, which measures the difference between savings and investment. And it is better to think about the strength of German and Chinese economies in these terms, not trade. This tells what is going on underneath the hood, which is that they don’t know how to spend their savings. This is where their imbalance lies. The better response to Trump’s trade tariffs, then, would not be to fight back, but to fix that underlying problem — the lack of domestic investment and consumption. Why not make it more attractive for companies to invest their surpluses at home? Why not deregulate the economy, especially the tech sector, support new businesses, reduce corporate taxes; attract the best talent from abroad; and get people off the welfare and sickness payrolls? The powerful response to Trump would be to focus on solving these twin problems — the imbalance and the dependency. The worst response would be to stick with the same old model, and the same dependencies, and to embark on a trade war it cannot win. Canada, more dependent on the US than anyone else, will be crushed if it follows through with Trudeau’s policies. His response plays well with fellow liberals, but it achieves nothing economically — and Trump will no doubt double down if Canada retaliates. The fear here is that the obtuse EU does the same. In anticipation of a Trump presidency, the European Commission has already prepared a sanctions hit list. During Trump’s first term, it put a tariff on Harley Davidson motorbikes. The EU already imposes a 10% protectionist tariff on all car imports. The irony here is that in this trans-Atlantic relationship, we Europeans are fuming at Trump for doing what we have been doing all along. Europe is still in massive denial at what is about to hit. It likes to think it can change Trump’s mind. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s opposition leader, and the man predicted to be the next chancellor, thinks he can negotiate a trade deal with Trump. The Irish hope that they can stay below Trump’s radar since he could destroy the Irish economic model at the flick of a switch by removing a simple tax loophole on intellectual property rights for US companies that manufacture in Ireland. Meanwhile, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission president, hopes to appease the President with a promise to buy more gas from the US. This is not how it will work. Trump will impose the tariffs. And that will be that. Trump has learned from his past mistakes when dealing with the Europeans. They lied to him during his first term, and made promises they did not honour, including assurances that they would meet the Nato defence spending target of 2% of economic output. Back then, the Europeans had convinced themselves that Trump was just a phase, a fluke caused by a lopsided electoral system. Emboldened by their successful defiance of Trump back then, the Europeans concluded they could do it again. I think they are wrong. Once they realise this, they will move to the second stage of grief — anger — where they will be stuck for a long time. They will try to retaliate, lose, and get even angrier. There are parallels with the European approach to the war in Ukraine. Even as they support Ukraine, they don’t have an agreed war goal, let alone a strategy. They treat the conflict as a morality play. Underestimating Vladimir Putin and the resilience of the Russian economy, they overestimated the power of sanctions. This complacency has, over the past years, become the defining character trait of the centrist European liberal, matched only by an unshakeable belief in their own virtue. And today, they are similarly underestimating Trump. They remind me of the Bourbons, they have learned nothing and forget nothing. Wolfgang Münchau is the Director of Eurointelligence and UnHerd columnist.
The US, Canada and Mexico have a trade agreement, NAFTA which became USMCA. USMCA was agreed upon in 2020, during Trump' first term. If "trade balance" was such a big issue for Trump, he should have fixed it then. Trump could use the 25% tariff ploy to bring Canada and Mexico back to the table to renegotiate USMCA? Or Trump could continue on his way and drive the 24 hour news cycle with this and other "Hey Look at Me, I'm the King of Chaos!!!" issues. The most important thing is if the spotlight is on Trump, doncha know? [The Hill] Trump to speak with Trudeau, Mexico after imposing tariffs President Trump said he would speak Monday morning with the leaders of Canada and Mexico after imposing a fresh round of tariffs on imports from those countries and made clear it would take significant action to lift the tariffs. “They have to balance out their trade, number one. They’ve got to stop people from pouring into our country, and we’ve stopped it. They haven’t stopped it. We’ve stopped it,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews. “They have to stop people pouring in, and we have to stop fentanyl. And that includes China.” The president said he will speak with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as Mexico leadership, not specifying who, on Monday morning. “I don’t expect anything very dramatic. We put tariffs on. They owe us a lot of money, and I’m sure they’re going to pay,” he said. Trump on Saturday signed off on 25 percent tariffs on Canada, 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on China, which appear likely to set off a significant trade war. The move led to swift responses from all three nations, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday night saying that Canada would impose 25 percent tariffs on more than $100 billion in U.S. goods. Asked if he was considering responding to Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, Trump suggested it was possible. “It’s been a one-way street. We subsidize Canada to the tune of about $200 billion a year. And for what? What do we get out of it? We don’t get anything out of it,” Trump said. “Something is going to happen there. If they want to play the game, I don’t mind, we can play the game all they want. Mexico, we’ve had very good talks with them.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a post on X in Spanish that her team was working on a response that included measures to defend her country’s interests, though specific steps were not immediately clear. And, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it would file a legal case against the United States at the World Trade Organization. Trump also suggested he could impose tariffs on the European Union (EU), and potentially the United Kingdom, after he has threatened to do so if they don’t purchase large quantities of American oil and gas to make up for its growing deficit with the U.S. “The UK is way out of line, and we’ll see. The UK, but European Union is really out of line. UK is out of line but I’m sure that one, I think that one can be worked out. But the European Union, it’s an atrocity what they’ve done,” he said on Sunday night. The EU purchases the lion’s share of American oil and gas and no additional volumes are available unless the U.S. increases output or volumes are re-routed through Asia, Reuters reported, citing U.S. data. Experts have repeatedly warned that tariffs could lead to higher costs that companies will pass onto consumers. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated Trump’s tariffs announced Saturday would result in what amounts to an average tax increase of $830 per household in the U.S. “We may have short term a little pain, and people understand that. But long term, the United States has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world,” the president told reporters, echoing comments from earlier in the day. “We have deficits with almost every country, not every country, but almost, and we’re going to change it. It’s been unfair.”
During the original debate on Free trade between the US and Canada in the 80s, the Liberals ran this ad in opposition to (along with a pretty memorable moment in the debate). Until the other day, this all seemed like nonsense and somehow here we are. I just can't believe all the anti-free traders here in Canada somehow proved correct.
