I’m going to be scathing in my critique because these people are both dishonest and incompetent and deserve to be called out on it.
Here’s their formula:
It’s a ridiculously simplistic formula.
First, a stylistic quibble. What is up with those asterisks in the denominator? I’ll give the authors the benefit of the doubt and assume that they wanted the formula to be understandable by people who aren’t familiar with standard math notation, in which the juxtaposition of variables indicates multiplication. But to see it written that way in an official document is just… weird.
The i subscripts in the formula just indicate that the formula is to be applied to one country at a time — country i. I’ll therefore omit the ‘i’s from the rest of the discussion.
∆𝜏 is the amount by which the tariff currently being placed on that particular country should change (according to the Trump administration bozos) in order to drive the bilateral trade deficit to zero. In other words, 𝜏 (the existing rate) + ∆𝜏 (the change in rate) would be the correct final rate (according to the formula) to achieve the dubious goal of a trade balance.
The inanity of insisting on bilateral trade balances
We’re off to a bad start already, because the notion that every bilateral trade deficit should be zero is ridiculous on its face. Let’s look at a simplified example. Suppose Malawi sells us only mangoes, and the US (henceforth ‘we’, since I’m American) sells them only air conditioners. In order for the trade deficit to be zero, we need to buy the same dollar amount in mangoes that they buy in air conditioners, and we should adjust the tariffs we impose on Malawi until that happens. Why is this desirable? Why should the amount of mangoes be linked to the amount of air conditioners? Who the hell knows? It’s just Trump’s idiotic obsession, and it makes no sense.
To make the stupidity even more obvious, think of an analogous situation. Ernesto sells tacos from a taco truck, and George runs a landscaping business. George occasionally buys tacos from Ernesto, and Ernesto hires George to mow his lawn. Suppose Ernesto pays more to George each month than George spends buying tacos from Ernesto. Is Ernesto being cheated? Is he subsidizing George? No and no. George gets every taco he pays for, and Ernesto gets his lawn mown on schedule. It would be ridiculous to say that either of them is being cheated, and ridiculous to say that the goal should be to make the amounts even.
Why is Trump obsessed with trade deficits? It’s because he is confused enough to believe that the existence of a bilateral trade deficit — a trading deficit with a particular country, Malawi in my example — means that they are cheating us and that we’re subsidizing them. He actually believes that we are just handing over the money, getting nothing in return. In reality, we get every frikkin’ mango we pay for, and they get every air conditioner they pay for. No one is being cheated, and to demand that the dollar amounts should match is idiotic and pointless.
Trump actually declares in his executive order that trade deficits are a “national emergency”. He does this because he doesn’t have the authority to impose tariffs unless it’s a national emergency. Otherwise, the job falls to Congress, where it belongs. Trump is lying about the supposed national emergency.
The formula
According to the USTR statement, the x in the formula is the dollar value of what we export to a particular country, while m is the dollar value of what we import from them. The numerator, x – m, is therefore equal to the trade imbalance. If x is bigger than m, then the difference is positive, and we are running a trade surplus. If x is less than m, then x – m is negative, and we have a trade deficit. But note that they have it backwards in the formula: it should be m – x, not x – m. Why? Because the denominator is positive. If both the numerator and denominator are positive, as they would be in the case of a trade surplus, the formula would deliver a ∆𝜏 that is positive. In other words, the formula as written would actually increase the tariffs for the countries with whom we have a trade surplus, and it would decrease the tariffs for countries with whom we have a trade deficit. The formula therefore punishes the (supposedly) good guys and rewards the (supposedly) bad ones, which is opposite to the administration’s intentions. One more indication of their clown car incompetence.
They could easily have corrected the formula if they were aware of the error. Just put a negative sign in front of the formula, or swap x and m, or redefine x and m as the amounts exported and imported by the other country, instead of the amounts exported and imported by the US. Any one of those three would fix the problem, but no.
Let’s assume that we have corrected that mistake for them and that the numerator now equals the amount of the trade deficit, not the surplus. What about the denominator? Well, it just so happens that the values they chose for 𝜀 and 𝜓 are 4 and 0.25, respectively. Those multiply to 1, thus canceling each other. How convenient. These charlatans actually and blatantly chose the values so that they would cancel out, instead of using the most accurate numbers they could find in the literature. They cheated.
After that suspiciously convenient choice of parameters, the formula is now just ∆𝜏 = trade deficit divided by total imports:
Do they actually apply this formula? No. They massage its output even more. They divide ∆𝜏 by two, for no good reason. That means that for the formula to match the actual tariffs, they should multiply the denominator by 2. They fail to do that, as you’d expect. Why 2? My hypothesis is that even those dunces realized that the numbers they were getting from the formula were ridiculously large, and dividing by 2 was a way to get them down to a range that they considered reasonable. More number fudging with no theoretical justification.
Next problem: according to the corrected formula, ∆𝜏 should be negative in the case of trade surpluses. That is, we should decrease the tariffs on imports from those countries. If the existing tariff rate is small enough, it should even go negative, according to the formula, in order to balance our trade with that country. Trump doesn’t like that, so he has arbitrarily declared that everyone will pay a minimum of 10%, whether there’s a trade deficit or a trade surplus. In other words, the policy, which is already misguided, is also unfair — it says that it’s OK for the US to screw other countries by imposing high tariffs, even if they’re doing the “right” thing and allowing us to run a trade surplus with them.
The actual rates
Here are the charts spelling out the actual tariff rates.
The chart labels them “Reciprocal Tariffs”, but that is a lie, since the formula doesn’t take into account the tariff rate charged by the other countries on our exports to them. It’s completely missing from the formula. They aren’t reciprocal tariffs, they’re misguided tariffs in response to trade deficits, and they punish US importers instead of the countries selling us those goods and services.
The label on the middle column is wrong for the same reason, and it’s even further wrong because it depicts a bilateral trade deficit as a quantifier of “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, which it isn’t. We can run a bilateral trade deficit for no other reason than that Americans want more of what the other country is selling us than they want from us. That’s not “currency manipulation and trade barriers”, and the Trump administration is dishonest for trying to sell it that way.
The numbers in the middle column are apparently those that come straight out of the formula. You can tell, because the tariffs that are actually being imposed by the US are just the middle column divided by 2. That’s the arbitrary factor of 2 I mentioned above. The only exceptions are in those cases where dividing by 2 would leave a less than 10% tariff, in which case the tariff is set to 10%. Gotta make sure that everyone gets screwed at least that much.
The US Trade Representative’s explanation
Now some excerpts from the USTR statement. The very first paragraph:
Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the U.S. and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports.
Well, duh. The phrase “tariff and non-tariff factors” covers literally every possible factor in the entire world. Yes, there are actual reasons that we buy more in mangoes from Malawi than they buy from us in air conditioners. Therefore we should conclude that we’re getting ripped off?
While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.
Not by any reasonable person. You need to do the homework before making policy decisions that will affect the entire world economy. If they want less of what we’re selling than we want of what they’re selling, that can lead to a trade deficit, independent of all the factors they list above.
This doesn’t mean that trade practices can’t be unfair, but it does mean that to assume something nefarious is going on merely because we’re running a bilateral trade deficit is stupid.
If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair.
No. If we like Malawian mangoes more than the Malawians like our air conditioners, nothing is broken. Nothing is unfair. No reason to blindly punish the Malawians. It just means that American demand for Malawian mangoes is greater than Malawian demand for American air conditioners. No big deal.
A case could be made for nudging the US’s global trade deficit — which is the aggregate trade deficit we’re running with all of our trading partners put together — toward zero, but trying to eliminate every bilateral trade deficit is bonkers. These people are clueless.
Consider an environment in which the U.S. levies a tariff of rate τ_i on country i and ∆τ_i reflects the change in the tariff rate. Let ε<0 represent the elasticity of imports with respect to import prices…
Right there they say that ε < 0, but a few sentences later they assign it a value of 4. The last time I checked, 4 was greater than 0, not less. Their sloppiness is consistent, at least. What is wrong with these folks?
let φ>0 represent the passthrough from tariffs to import prices, let m_i>0 represent total imports from country i, and let x_i>0 represent total exports. Then the decrease in imports due to a change in tariffs equals ∆τ_i*ε*φ*m_i<0. Assuming that offsetting exchange rate and general equilibrium effects are small enough to be ignored, the reciprocal tariff that results in a bilateral trade balance of zero satisfies:
As noted earlier, they have the numerator backwards. It should be positive for a trade deficit, not negative, in order for ∆𝜏 to be positive, which represents an increase in tariff rates.
To calculate reciprocal tariffs, import and export data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2024. Parameter values for ε and φ were selected. The price elasticity of import demand, ε, was set at 4.
Which inside the Trump administration is less than 0, lol. And how convenient that εφ multiplies to 1, as noted above.
Recent evidence suggests the elasticity is near 2 in the long run (Boehm et al., 2023), but estimates of the elasticity vary. To be conservative, studies that find higher elasticities near 3-4 (e.g., Broda and Weinstein 2006; Simonovska and Waugh 2014; Soderbery 2018) were drawn on. The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ, is 0.25.
It wasn’t to be conservative. It was to fudge the numbers so that the product εφ came out to be 1. And picking a value of 4 for elasticity isn’t “being conservative” in the sense of “this value is more likely to be correct”. It’s conservative in the sense of “we’d better make this number big because otherwise the tariffs will be so outrageously huge that everyone will see that we’re idiots.”
Think about it. They want φ to be small (whether or not the evidence supports it), because they want to maintain the fiction that other countries will mostly absorb the tariffs and that importers and retail customers will shoulder less of the burden and therefore experience less inflation. On the other hand, a small φ balloons the value of ∆𝜏 to ridiculous levels. So they set 𝜀 to 4 to bring ∆𝜏 down, even while acknowledging that the true value of 𝜀 is closer to 2.
The recent experience with U.S. tariffs on China has demonstrated that tariff passthrough to retail prices was low (Cavallo et al, 2021).
I haven’t verified that, but either way I would sure like to see the actual number. Why didn’t they include it? Is it really 0.25? In any case, the question of pass-through to retail prices is irrelevant when you’re trying to determine which country is absorbing the cost of the tariffs. It’s the pass-through factor to importers that is relevant, and that is close to 1, even if the pass-though to retail customers is less. That means that US importers are bearing the cost of the tariffs and passing some of that cost on to consumers. It’s inflationary, and it’s a tax by the US government on US importers, not a tax on foreign countries. Which contradicts Trump’s whole rationale.
The reciprocal tariffs were left-censored at zero.
No, they were “left-censored” at 10, as you can see by looking at the charts. 10 is the minimum tariff you’ll see in the third column of the charts.
Higher minimum rates might be necessary to limit heterogeneity in rates and reduce transshipment.</p
No explanation of why “heterogeneity in rates” is to be avoided, and no comment on the fact that it isn’t avoided, given the large range of new tariff rates in the third column of the charts. That means there’s still plenty of incentive for transshipment. Take Vietnam, for instance, with a new rate of 46%. There’s a *lot* of incentive for them to transship through one of the countries with a 10% rate.
Tariff rates range from 0 to 99 percent.
There is no inherent limit. Tariffs could be 100%, 180%, or 2100%. 99% is an arbitrary limit. Tariffs could even be negative in a perverse world, in which case the government would be giving importers a bonus for importing more and nudging us toward a trade deficit. Obviously that wouldn’t happen in practice, but my point is that the 99% is arbitrary, and anyone who thinks tariffs are limited to being less than 100% doesn’t understand tariffs.
The unweighted average across deficit countries is 50 percent, and the unweighted average across the entire globe is 20 percent.
It’s pointless to state the unweighted average. An unweighted average is really just a weighted average with all of the weights set to 1. That gives Liechtenstein equal weight with China, which is stupid. Our trade volume with China is some 1,770 times as great as our trade volume with Liechtenstein, but these geniuses are weighting them evenly and presenting the average as if it had some kind of significance. Morons.
Weighted by imports, the average across deficit countries is 45 percent, and the average across the entire globe is 41 percent. Standard deviations range from 20.5 to 31.8 percentage points.
Here, they tell us that the import-weighted average of tariffs is 41 percent. Combine that with their assumed pass-through rate of 0.25. meaning that exporters in other countries will shoulder 75% of the tariff burden. That’s unrealistic and it clashes with the actual data, but even if you take the Trumpers at their word and assume that only 25% of the additional cost due to tariffs is passed to importers, that’s still over 10%, because 0.25 * 41% is greater than 10%. 10% import inflation! So much for Trump’s campaign promise: “I’ll reduce prices on day one.” Idiot.
Good job, Trump supporters. By voting for him, you put power in the hands of these dishonest and incompetent economic doofuses.
colewd,
I asked you this before, but you never answered. Do you think the Dear Leader is a genuine Christian? Do you think the Bible is his favorite book, as he claims?
Correct.
The word I had missing in my contradictory sentences is “morally” or “ethically”. Trump is morally unable to distinguish between lie and truth. He knows what actually happened, but when talking about past events he simply says stuff without placing any value in whether his statements are truthful or not. He values what he says based on how self-serving it is, or by the “cool” factor, or by the reactions he gets from interlocutors. He does not evaluate anything by conscience – he has no conscience.
True again, but notice also that he doubles down when caught. E.g. “they are eating cats and dogs in Springfield” may have been an unintentional lapse at first under the duress of the debate, but the second and third time there is no such excuse.
And for the stolen election claims there was never such an excuse. Elections are an abstract thing to him. In his mind, nobody knows the real outcome, so it is a matter of opinion, a matter of “free speech”, so he can say anything about elections with a straight face.
I’m thinking about congressional democrats. Current polls.
Erik:
The philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote a famous essay called On Bullshit in which he distinguishes lying from bullshitting, the distinction being something like what you just pointed out. The liar cares about the truth and is actively trying to combat or hide some aspect of it, while the bullshitter doesn’t particularly care whether what they’re saying is true or false as long as it benefits them.
ETA:
On Bullshit (the essay)
ETA2:
Bullshit! (the movie)
Thanks. That’s interesting.
Perhaps also interesting is that from the viewpoint of law (e.g. the crimes of defamation or libel or fraud) this distinction does not matter. Defamation needs to be an intentional lie and Trump’s behaviour would qualify, as it has in E.Jean Carroll case.
It can be argued that someone like Trump does not intend to lie, but for legal purposes it suffices that he does not intend to tell the truth, i.e. he intends to withhold the truth. The oath in the courtroom is “tell the truth and nothing but the truth”, but Trump is not in the business of telling the truth, and this fulfills the legal requirement of intentionality.
Some astonishing statistics on how much Americans hate the “Big Beautiful Bill” that Trump is trying to ram down our throats. CNN’s Harry Enten summarized the net favorability numbers from five polls:
Washington Post -19
Pew -20
Fox News -21
Quinnipiac -26
KFF -29
Americans hate, hate, hate this bill.
As if those numbers weren’t atrocious enough, a Yale study investigated what happened when voters were informed of the effects the bill would have on taxes and spending. The control group received no new information, and the numbers were in line with the polls mentioned above. Another group was informed of the tax effects, and a third group was informed of both the tax and spending effects. Here are the numbers:
No additonal information -19
Informed of tax effects -41
Informed of tax and spending effects -67
Note that those are net approval numbers. That last number doesn’t mean that 67% of people oppose the bill (which would be already be astounding) — it means that the difference between the approve and disapprove numbers is 67%.
Those numbers? 11% approve, 78% disapprove. This must be one of the most unpopular bills in history, yet the Dear Leader wants it and his minions in Congress are trying to push it through.
Bill, do you think the president and the Congress should work for the people, or against them?
Erik:
My favorite moment from that case occurred during his deposition. He had claimed that he didn’t know Carroll and that she wasn’t his “type”. He was shown a photo in which he and Ivana are chatting with Carroll and her husband John Johnson. Asked about the woman in the photo (Carroll), he identified her as Marla Maples, his second wife. So I guess Trump is in the habit of marrying people who aren’t his type.
After being told that the woman was Carroll, he tried to excuse his mistake by saying that the photo was “very blurry”. It’s not. It’s perfectly clear, as you can see in the video.
You can watch that moment here: Link
That clip showcases both his dishonesty and his stupidity. The stupidity is breathtaking:
They had just been discussing the photo of him with Carroll.
He confirmed that he knew about the photo.
He was shown the photo and confirmed that it was the photo in question.
Asked about the woman in the photo, he identified her as Marla Maples (his second wife): “That’s Marla, yeah, that’s my wife.”
Ivana, his first wife, is right next to him in the photo.
WTF? He can’t carry the thought “this is a photo of me with E. Jean Carroll” sixty seconds into the future? And then, when he realizes how badly he has fucked up, lies about the photo being blurry?
Wow. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, is stunned into silence as she tries to process what she has just heard. She offers him an out: “That’s Marla in this photo?” But the doofus confirms it: “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife.” Kaplan offers him another out: “Which woman are you pointing to?” Trump says “Here.” and points to Carroll.
It was basically “Here’s a photo of you with E. Jean Carroll. Who’s the woman in the photo?” “That’s Marla”. Unbelievably stupid.
One of Trump’s most troubling picks (among stiff competition) is RFK for Health. This was obviously a political choice – RFK brought his votes with him when he stood aside, and an opportunity to further his anti-science agenda the sweetener. He’s going to have an ‘answer on autism’ by September. September!
One fallout from Covid is the sharp rise in antivax sentiment, disproportionately on the Right than the Left. Now it has infected the highest reaches of US health. “I just want better studies”, the weasliest of weasel words. For who could oppose this sentiment, and implicitly want worse ones?
keiths,
Hi Kieths
I am not sure what a “genuine Christian” is?
keiths,
. Being referee of the game your playing must be fun 🙂
My son’s father in law was (retired) a principal in a pharmaceutical company, and I’ve heard him say things about the industry that echo RFK’s claims.
This is not a black and white issue. Medicines can have value and simultaneously be overused and overpromoted. The incentives provided to doctors can be corrupt. TV advertising is probably a bad thing. Do other countries allow it? Do other countries have mandatory vaccinations?
I’ve read it takes a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market. Most of this cost is testing (and in products that fail testing). Serious question: do vaccines undergo the same level of double blind testing as other medicines?
Semi disclaimer: I’ve had most of the generally recommended vaccines. I was born before most of the childhood vaccines existed, so I got measles, rubella, mumps, and pertussis. My father was in public health. He taught me from an early age that vaccines had risks, and the issue was relative risk. Kids sometimes get sick from vaccines, but not as sick as getting the disease.
Are these serious questions or are you that dumb?
Okay. You are that dumb.
It has already been established that no answer on this forum can satisfy you, Mr Just-Asking-Questions. If you are seriously asking, go look for answers in a serious place. Yet you are here, so clearly you are not looking for answers. Will you ever sort yourself out or will you only sink deeper?
.keiths:
colewd:
Tell me you know Trump is a fake Christian without telling me you know Trump is a fake Christian.
keiths:
colewd:
Tell me you know the Bible isn’t Trump’s favorite book without telling me you know the Bible isn’t Trump’s favorite book.
keiths:
colewd:
OK, let’s just say that you’ve been spectacularly successful at not defending your Dear Leader.
keiths,
So far there is nothing to defend against.
colewd:
Fixed that for you. And it’s true — among all the things I’ve listed in this thread, you haven’t refuted a single one.
Here’s the original list again, which was written in response to your bogus “Trump Derangement Syndrome” accusation:
Plus lots more that I and others have raised in this thread.
There’s plenty for you to defend against, but evidently nothing you actually can defend against, judging by your .000 batting average.
petrushka,
That there are issues with Pharma in no way excuses RFK’s multi-decade anti-science stance. People buy into those weasel words I mentioned. “Oh, he just wants better studies”. Sure he does. It is well-poisoning. He, and the audience he appeals to, being completely unversed in study conduct. It is a specialism, not something you can become a 5-minute expert on. Look at the God-awful Ivermectin furore. Layeople place belief over objectivity. Even scientists can be guilty of that, but at least there are endeavours to counter bias.
Let’s note that the relatively unregulated ‘wellness industry”, from which a lot of this sentiment originates, is 5x the size of Pharma.
petrushka,
Serious answer:yes. What, beyond RFK’s well-poisoning, would lead you to think otherwise?
I would note here that double blind trials typically lack the power to establish safety, a fact the lay public are blissfully unaware of. There is a ‘rule of three’, which I could explain mathematically, but fundamentally you need 3x the numbers to have 95% confidence of observing an adverse event at a given frequency or worse. So 21,000 in the treatment arm means you can only reliably detect adverse events at frequency 1 in 7,000 or worse. That is a huge trial, and quite a common adverse event, in a treatment administered to millions.
Tl;dr: RCTs – of anything – are not great at detecting safety signals; it’s not primarily what they are for.
keiths,
Selecting a President is about choice. Your argument has no comparative element to it so it not relevant to me as an independent voter.
-What do we need from the office of the President
-Who is the best choice to meet those requirements.
Allan Miller,
Hi Allan
I do not know who is right here.
As a voter I assume some corruption exists which makes me suspicious of big Pharma and government. Do you assume no corruption based on trust?
According to your choice, the office of the President needs a serial adulterer multi-bankrupt convicted felon business fraudster racist pussy-grabber who knows nothing about economy and cares nothing about the constitution.
You are so much into voting that you ignore that voting has no connection to how pharmaceutical industry operates nor should it have any connection.
Expertise matters and you have none of it.
colewd:
I’m not asking who you would vote for in a hypothetical matchup — we already know the answer. You wish I were, because then you could deflect attention away from the Dear Orange Leader and onto someone else. You would rather attack someone else than defend him, because you know the DOL is indefensible.
Do you really need a “comparative element” to judge that sexual assault is bad? Would you say that it’s sometimes good, sometimes bad depending on who the assailant is being compared to? You can’t bring yourself to say “sexual assault is wrong, no matter who commits it”? What about pathological lying? Deliberately breaking the law and violating the Constitution? Sometimes good, sometimes bad?
I don’t need to compare Trump to anyone in order to conclude that the items on my list are disqualifying. You know they’re bad, which is why you tried to defend him against a few: the pardoning of police assailants, sexual assault, pathological lying. You failed and were afraid to address the others.
And if you insist on a “comparative element”, you already have it. Earlier in the thread, I noted that historians and other political scholars (including Republicans) have ranked Trump among the five worst presidents of all time. In five separate surveys.
I suppose they’re all suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, including the Republicans among them, who are RINOs. Right?
Prove us all wrong. Go through my list, item by item, explaining how each one is “propaganda” or “spin”, or based on “suspect sources”.
Start here. When we left off, you were trying to defend Trump against the pathological lying charge:
keiths:
colewd:
keiths:
Your response?
keiths,
Trump has done what he has promised. This makes him attractive compared to other politicians. As a result we know what we voted for will get done. The Pinocchio system is suspect at best. How do you verify what you read is a fact?
Erik,
Do you understand the FDA approval cycle and how it affects big Pharma? The FDA is part of the government we vote for.
The FDA is the part of the government that you do *not* vote for. There is not a single little thing about FDA, its approval cycle or otherwise, that voters vote for.
In this thread you have not gotten anything right. As a voter, you are a reality-denying dangerously self-harming absolute know-nothing.
colewd:
Spoken like a true cult member. Let’s take a look at the reality:
Trump promised at least 53 times that he would end the war in Ukraine either as president-elect or within 24 hours of taking office, including:
“You watch”, lol. The blowhard completely failed. That war is still raging six months after inauguration.
Trump:
Completely wrong, and even the liar-in-chief now admits that tariffs do affect us. For example, Q1 GDP was down 0.5%. Just today, the ADP jobs report came out:
Trump:
Six months in, and prices are up, not down.
From the same campaign rally:
Gas prices are up since Trump took office. $3.22 on January 20th, $3.29 at the end of June.
Trump promised no Medicaid cuts. The reality: over 11 million people will lose their Medicaid benefits under his “big beautiful bill”.
Trump promised to target “vicious and bloodthirsty criminals” for deportation. The reality: Less than 10% of the people arrested have been convicted of violent crimes. 75% have no criminal record at all beyond traffic and immigration offenses. ICE agents are raiding Home Depots and farm fields, fercrissakes.
See above.
Also, Americans already overhelmingly oppose the “big beautiful bill”, and when they are informed of the tax and spending effects, only 11% support it. People did not vote for this.
What’s suspect about it? And if you think the WaPo database is inaccurate, what do you base that on? I asked:
If the WaPo were making this stuff up, other reporters would be all over it, exposing their dishonesty. It would be a huge story. It isn’t, because the Post isn’t doing the lying. Trump is.
colewd,
Suppose we were to ignore all that and pretend that Trump is delivering on everything he promised. What would that have to do with whether sexual assault, pathological lying and all the other things I mentioned are wrong? Would you really argue “sexual assault is OK when the Dear Leader does it, because he’s delivering on his campaign promises”? Would you really argue that it doesn’t matter when the president of the US lies to the American people, over and over? That it doesn’t matter when he ignores court orders and violates the Constitution?
Earlier in the thread, I asked:
Would it be OK as long as he kept his campaign promises? Would you actually say that to your sister or daughter?
I don’t make predictions, but I am interested in other people’s predictions.
Anyone care to take a shot at how things will look in six months or a year?
1. Ukraine
2. Congo
3. India/Pakistan
4. Israel/Hamas
5. Israel/Iran
6. American stock market/inflation/jobs
You may want to start by getting interested in the accurate description of the current reality. When you are not interested in facts of the moment, then your interest in predictions is an open admission of passion for conspiratorialising.
Edit: Here’s a test fact (just to confirm that you consistently fail on all facts) – Trump is losing jobs https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2025-07-02/adp-unexpected-33k-drop-in-jobs-in-june
I explicitly said there were problems with Pharma. Ben Goldacre’s Bad Pharma is a good exposé, though from a UK perspective. No, I absolutely do not trust Pharma, nor do I assume no corruption.
RFK is still an absolutely awful pick for HHS.
Did you vote for this?. Using AI to speed and shortcut the approvals process is one of the dumbest ideas I have heard. And completely at odds with the “we need more RCTs” mantra. It’s driven by the DOGE-inspired reduction in staff, savings completely negated by the debt increase in the decaying whale of a bill lumbering its way through the process (which Musk hates, serve the damn fool right- it’s what he voted for, right?).
Actually, keiths, that is one of Trump’s campaign promises: He “likes” women on the younger side. And it includes his own daughter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0_axTST2aY
And colewd has already replied to your question:
Trump fulfils his promises and this makes him attractive to colewd. The fact that the content of Trump’s promises and policies is things like open corruption, pardons to criminals, anti-constitutional deportations, dismantling of government institutions, shrinking economy, “you won’t have to vote anymore” etc. very likely adds to the attraction – colewd looooves it!
Erik,
It’s ironic that this is the mirror of ‘TDS’ – slavish cultism; the man is infallible, flawless. Everything he does, no matter what. “I voted for this”.
No-one was ever persuaded they were in a cult by being told they’re in a cult, any more than ‘TDS’ really hits its target. Nonetheless, that’s how it looks from over here.
My question was about what you think is going to happen.
I know that your question is about what is going to happen. I also know that you do not know what is happening right now. Even more, I know *why* you do not know what is happening right now. Namely, you are wilfully blind to reality. Start by fixing your first problems first.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLlPd_XBnaE/
Actual jobs added: 147,000. Unemployment, 4.1 percent.
“Actual” according to Trump’s labour department. You trust the government over independent payroll research data, because….?
By the way, can you tell how much waste and fraud has DOGE saved?
Erik,
We vote for an administration that oversees the FDA. The standards for approvals is being worked on as we speak given the November change. I think you should understand the US government better before you pontificate.
keiths,
Given your sources all your facts are suspect. You accuse others of being a cult member despite being independent.
Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine as he is clearly working on it. Not showing a balanced view on this shows you have no ability to be objective as I would suspect from an extreme liberal.
Allan Miller,
There are people like this but the election is won by independents who chose Trump over very weak alternatives.
Says the guy who is always wrong.
You do not vote for FDA. Never did, never will. Case closed.
petrushka,
I think you will see improvements in most all of these Issues/situations as our poor leadership over the last 4 years created most of these problems.
Getting back to the original theme of the thread, I noticed this egregious Trump lie a few days ago in his interview with Maria Bartiromo:
It’s a three-way lie.
First, the high tariffs on dairy don’t kick in until certain quotas are reached, and the quotas are so high that they have never been reached. Not even close. Last year, dairy exports to Canada only hit 27% of the quota. No tariffs were charged on dairy products.
Second, Trump is overstating the rates. No surprise there.
Third, tariffs are charged to the importers, not the exporters. Our dairy farmers wouldn’t pay a dime even if the tariffs did kick in. The effect on exporters is indirect, via decreased demand for their products. And since no tariffs are being charged, there is no effect on demand.
Bonus lie:
Trump also claims that the tariffs increased under Biden, which is a lie. Throughout the Biden adminstration, they remained the same as they were when Trump left office.
And here’s the best part: the tariffs were set as part of the USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada) trade agreement, which the Trump administration negotiated. So if anyone got suckered by Canada, it was Trump.
Lie after lie after lie. That’s Trump.
colewd:
Bill, this is pathetic (and boring). My claims are correct. You haven’t refuted a single one. You’re a failure at defending the Dear Leader.
Labeling yourself ‘independent’ doesn’t make you independent. Trump is a sexual predator, and you still support him. That’s cult behavior. Trump is a pathological liar, and you still support him. That’s cult behavior. Trump breaks the law, violates the Constitution and disobeys court orders, and you still support him. That’s cult behavior. You can’t refute a single item on my list, yet you still support him. You’re a cult member, and slapping the label ‘independent’ on yourself doesn’t change that.
Trump promised 53 times to end the war in Ukraine as president-elect or within 24 hours of taking office.
Trump failed to to end the war in Ukraine as president-elect or within 24 hours of taking office.
Your Dear Leader failed to deliver on his promise.
Those are facts. Nothing unbalanced about it.
ETA: I would be remiss not to mention that Trump repeatedly lies about having made this promise, claiming that it was sarcasm. It clearly wasn’t. The guy can’t bear to take the blame for his failure, so he lies about it.
Allan:
colewd:
Yes there are, and if you want to see what one looks like, locate the nearest mirror.
Trump and Putin had another phone call.
We can look forward to increased cultural exchange between USA and Russia.
Heartwarming.
I found that a few pages ago colewd listed why Trump is superior. In his opinion of course, because opinion trumps facts. Let’s see.
Lack of merits and qualifications is not a style.
On the rich who already paid no taxes anyway.
There was neither strength or peace in his latest call with Putin. In fact none in any of his talks with Putin.
More handouts and loopholes to billionaire businesses.
Strictly statistically there was no change at the border from Trump’s first term to Biden’s term. In his current term, Trump managed to destroy the optics (and legality) of migration management, while still falling behind Biden’s deportation statistics.
The latest job growth reports are interesting. ADP reported a reduction of jobs especially in the private sector, against expectations of growth. On the other hand, Labor Department declared job growth above expectations. With DOGE’d goverment agencies, jobs should be down especially in the government sector, but Labor Department is declaring a strong spike. My conclusion: Instead of reducing government overhead, the calculations of what counts as overhead (probably along with how to calculate jobs overall) have gone haywire.
By switching sides from supporting Ukraine to supporting Putin and achieving nothing with this move.
In his first term, Trump took Iran off the nuclear deal that prevented Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It was a deal that Iran followed, according to IAEA. Now Iran has no obligations to refrain from obtaining nuclear weapons.
keiths,
The cult behaviour is attacking someone in ways that have little to do with accomplishing the job he was elected to do. All the information and accusations either true or not were available to the voters.
He was considered the superior choice by independent voters. This is a fact. What you call facts are often not facts.
Erik,
I have no idea how you get information that is this wrong. For instance the budget bill as it stands now reduces taxes on lower income social security, workers that put in overtime and people who earn tips. I am in the top 2% of income earners from investments and my federal taxes increased under Trumps last plan will continue to be higher with this bill unless Salt deductions are increased by congress.
All Presidents make some good decisions. Your characterisation is nothing more than radical liberal propaganda.
Stop projecting, will you? Everything *you* say is lies and propaganda. Probably the only fact you have mustered in this entire thread is that Trump is president. Yes, he is. My condolences.
Even the fact that I do not live in your brainwashed dictatorship dump of a country is not reaching you. I do not live in USA, so I have no partisan bone to pick, no reason for any bias, liberal or otherwise. I follow actual news sources, not propaganda. I know Trump’s real life story, not the silly hagiography that you have swallowed.
Regarding his budget bill, you obviously do not know what you are talking about. You are incapable of acknowledging the plainest facts such as that Trump is a rapist, tax evader, and multi-bankrupt, so matters of law and macroeconomy are far over your head.
colewd:
Haha. Let’s take a look at my list, broken down by item:
Go through that list and explain why each item “has little to do” with the Dear Leader’s fitness as president. Or run away, as you’ve been doing for weeks. No one will be surprised.
He was elected, therefore he isn’t a sexual predator, or a pathological liar? Therefore he didn’t try to steal an election? He was elected, therefore he obeys court orders even when he doesn’t? How does that work?
Every single president was elected, Bill, including those at the very bottom of the rankings, where Trump sits. Being elected does not erase your faults and transform you into a good president.
Then why haven’t you refuted my claims? Prove me wrong. Or run away yet again.