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.
Stock prices and bond prices are usually negatively correlated.
Yes, usually. Trump tanked them both at the same time. US bond market is still down, and down enough to offset the apparent recovery of stock market.
By the way, elsewhere on the internet I learned today that (some) Americans think that Social Security and Medicare are not welfare. So, Americans struggle mightily with such basic socioeconomic concepts that let’s not be surprised when they struggle with each and every concept.
Allan Miller,
Hi Allan
The extra tax is not what we are seeing. We are seeing foreign companies paying for access to the lucrative US market. The result will balance trade and reduce debt. The inflation rate which is pretty much under control so far is not spiking due to tariffs. If it was then it would be a tax on the American consumer.
The bigger benefit is it has created leverage to stop two wars so far in Asia. The media is manipulating us for their own benefit. This is why we are so divided. Hating a political candidate is not rational but it gets people addicted to attacking type news whether it is true or not. This is true of the media both on the left and right as they both relentlessly attack the candidate.
What is happening is the left is starting to capitulate that tariffs are not the problem they originally thought they were.
Here is a twitter post on the effectiveness of Trump preventing wars. Two countries have nominated him for the Nobel peace prize. Tariffs are big leverage with this. https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1953912915930616131
petrushka:
Yes, because when stocks are doing well, they outperform bonds, so investors sell bonds and put the money into stocks, causing bond prices to drop. When stocks drop, investors feel unsafe, and they pull their money out of stocks and invest in US Treasury bonds, which are (normally) considered to be a safe haven. That drives bond prices up.
Trump’s “achievement” was to make both stocks and Treasury bonds feel unsafe, driving down the prices of both, and motivating investors to put their money elsewhere.
Trump has acknowledged that it was the bond market’s plunge that spooked him into delaying the tariffs after they were announced. The first TACO event.
Let’s try a baby step, colewd, even though you are clearly not worth it.
When Trump sets a tariff of, say, 50% on Brazilian goods, it means literally import tax on imports from Brazil.
Who pays import taxes? Importers do. From the perspective of Brazil, Brazilian companies export the goods out of Brazil. Brazilian companies are the exporters. The importers are American companies that import Brazilian goods from Brazil. The payers of the tariffs are the American companies when the goods arrive at the customs.
This is definitional, not up to debate. You can be stupid and attempt to debate it, but the attempt means you lost by definition and you insist on being lost. Well, you already tried, so there – you lost it.
Since tariffs are taxes, there is also the logic of legitimacy: Your country/govt can only legitimately tax their own people, not the people of another country who are not residing in yours.
Reality is of course more complicated. While in Trump’s rhetoric the 50% tariff on Brazil sounds like a straightforward blanket tariff on everything imported from Brazil, then in reality there are hundreds of exemptions, meaning that eventually the 50% tariff applies on just a few things – and, again, on those few things American importers are paying it.
So, whenever you, colewd, in your Q/MAGAdonian brainwash bubble hear claims of, say, USD 50 billion, monthly or even daily, raked in through tariffs, then know that, if true, it means USD 50 billion raked in from Americans. This is what those claims are saying, USD 50 billion taken from American companies that import foreign goods, so there is nothing for you to cheer about. But, lucky for you and for other Americans, those claims are absolutely false. Your entire life is a lie, at least as big a lie as your post.
Erik,
When do you think this tax will be realised by the American consumer? How exactly does this get passed on? If the foreign supplier simply allows the American consumer to see higher prices for his product he will lose business unless in the rare case they enjoy a monopoly with their product.
This will be realised when tariffs take actual effect, i.e. as soon as Trump stops chickening out. Not even Trump knows if or when this will happen.
Do you know which goods exactly are subject to those exorbitant tariffs? No, you don’t. The effects of tariffs will be felt only on tariffed goods, not on untariffed ones. You did not know that most goods are exempt even from countries where Trump claims the harshest tariffs. You only go unthinkingly, tariffs very good almighty MAGA MAGA, without knowing what tariffs are and without knowing that thus far Trump has only been threatening and postponing tariffs.
Erik,
How then is tariff revenue up in 2025? Yes around half goods by dollar value are exempt but this leaves a 1.5 trillion dollar opportunity.
Do you now see tariffs are not necessarily a tax carried only by Americans? Do you see that tariffs have become leverage to help prevent and end wars?
You take your numbers from where? Trump? From the guy who said *in April* that he already made 200 tariff deals? Or from Bessent who projects USD 300-600 billion gains from tariffs? You are not that insane, are you?
As you yourself noted a post ago, foreign exporters (in reality both importers and exporters) stand to lose from tariffs when they slow down their trading. And this is the usual effect of high tariffs – there will be no trading anymore. The traders lose in their business, but also the govt who imposed tariffs. And, historically, the main idea of tariffs is exactly to block trade, not to collect revenue. Trump’s claims that USA will be (or already is) raking in billions is a lie. You are living in a lie.
I see very well, thanks. You don’t. At all. You are totally blind to reality.
Historically, trade wars (which is what sudden brazen toying with tariffs is) tend to become real war. Currently the universally most recognised warmonger in the world is Russia. What tariffs has Trump proposed against Russia? 0%. Let me spell it out to you so you can see – zero. Trump also said a little while ago that something very bad, maybe tariffs or sanctions, would happen in ten or twelve days, if Putin did not end the war. Those days ran out yesterday. Trump chickened out and did nothing. Next he will meet with Putin in Alaska and we can be absolutely sure that Trump will do nothing in between. But what was his campaign promise? He would end the Ukraine war on day one. I will not ask you what you think how this campaign promise of his is doing. You are incapable of assessing it honestly. Like with Trump, honesty has no place in your system, much less competence.
Erik,
Hi Eric
Your opinions are very strong and I commend your conviction however I think you’re going to be wrong on this political round as I see you not looking seriously at both sides of the argument. For now I think you are too dug to your position to have any possibility of reaching any common ground. Part of the disconnect maybe that you are not a US citizen and naturally see the US in a different light than some Americans do.
Trump is levying 50% tariff on India until they stop buying Russian oil.
Do you understand how badly you and Keiths are over playing your position?
There are no both sides here. In particular, there is no left versus right that you keep bringing up. There is no liberal versus conservative here. There is no Democrat versus Republican. This is not an American domestic partisan matter.
Instead, there is expert versus layman. There is knowledgeable versus illiterate. There is competent versus brainwashed. There can be no common ground between those. You have picked your side and I am not going there, ever.
Trump is a moron. More damningly, he is a criminal treasonous pedo. However, you see those characteristics as virtues and you think he knows what he is doing and that it is good for the world. Well, you do you.
colewd,
Do you think the reverse is untrue? Do you see yourself as flexible, objective, non-entrenched? I don’t see any evidence.
Allan:
That’s putting it mildly. He can’t bring himself to acknowledge even the most obvious of Trump’s lies, despite being shown incontrovertible evidence.
He’s a cultist, pure and simple.
Erik:
US trade with Russia in 2024: $3.5 billion
US trade deficit with Russia: $2.5 billion
Trump tariff on Russia: 0%
US trade with Ukraine in 2024: $2.9 billion
US trade surplus with Ukraine: $450 million
Trump tariff on Ukraine: 10%, plus 50% on steel and aluminum
Makes perfect sense. Punish Ukraine for being invaded, and let the invader off the hook. Punish the country we’re running a trade surplus with, and let the country we’re running a deficit with off the hook.
colewd:
Yeah, why punish Russia directly when you can alienate India, thus strengthening BRICS and weakening the US?
Puppet Regime has a great take on that:
Trump comes out swinging
I highly recommend their channel. Other samples of their videos:
Trump renames EVERYTHING
Trump and Zelensky (Cold)play Putin
I am amused by how quintessentially Trumpian this is. Offhand I can’t think of a single accusation Trump has levied against anyone, which doesn’t match exactly what he is doing or saying. If Trump says you are [anything insulting], it’s easy to find plenty of examples of how Trump is that very thing. He accuses everyone of lying (or faking) because that’s all he does. He accuses all other Presidents of weaponizing the DoJ, because he has created a DoJ exclusively as a weapon. Pundits of both parties understand that when he says the BLS is fabricating numbers, that his intent is to do exactly that.
And of course, when he says his political enemies are dug into a position, he means that HE is dug into a position. The difference between you and Trump is, he projects deliberately, as a rhetorical technique (and as a way to redirect his base away from what he’s doing). You seem to actually believe what you write – that those able to see are actually the blind!
The only real criticism of Trump is itself cult-informed: that he somehow ‘rushed the vaccines’ and failed to push ivermectin. Antivax is rife among MAGAs (I mean, look at his fucking HHS). Yet, to the extent he expedited anything that wouldn’t have been expedited anyway, it’s one of the few things I’d give him credit for.
The whole world was moving that way, of course, and with far more vaccine candidates than the American ones. And ivermectin, despite fervent belief among cultists, still has little good evidence to justify that fervour.
colewd:
It is what we’re seeing, as I’ve already pointed out:
Also, the full effects of the tariffs haven’t been felt yet, particularly in cases where companies had built up large inventories in anticipation of the tariffs. The prognosis is poor. Companies across the board are predicting losses due to the tariffs and warning of coming retail price increases.
Foreign companies aren’t paying a dime for access to the US market. The tariffs are paid by US importers. This is at least the third time I’m explaining this to you.
The only effect on foreign companies is that they sometimes reduce prices in response to tariffs, but normally they don’t, or at least not by very much. I saw a study showing that Americans and American companies bore 92-100% of the burden of Trump’s 2018 tariffs. They were a tax on us, not on the foreign exporters.
No, it won’t. The tariffs would have to be vastly higher in order to balance trade. And as I’ve already explained to you in detail, Trump’s notion that bilateral trade deficits are inherently a Bad Thing is stupid and self-defeating.
Here’s me, channeling Trump: My grocery store sells more to me than I sell to them. I’m running a trade deficit with them. That means they’re cheating me, laughing at me behind my back, and it has to stop. I’m gonna tax myself so I can afford fewer groceries. That’ll show ’em! Ideally, I’ll get to the point where I stop buying groceries altogether so that I can achieve trade balance with them.
Does that make sense to you? Should I really punish my grocery store for doing exactly what I want them to do, which is selling me things I want at prices I’m willing to pay, so that I don’t have to grow my own food? Does it make the slightest difference that they don’t buy anything from me?
It’s rising, while Trump runs around saying “prices are down and inflation is dead, it’s dead.” Do you approve of the lie?
Something that isn’t talked about enough is that in order for Trump to keep his promise of bringing prices down, it wouldn’t be enough to hold inflation steady. It wouldn’t be enough to reduce inflation. It wouldn’t even be enough to eliminate inflation. To bring prices down, he would actually have to create deflation.* Not gonna happen unless he plunges us into a recession or a depression. And of course Trump never had an actual plan to bring prices down. He was just mouthing the words so that rubes like you would vote for him.
* ETA: It’s unlikely that Trump understands any of that. Puppet Regime likened him to Confused Math Lady.
Justin Wolfers (U of Michigan economist) noted the other day that when Trump imposed tariffs on washing machines in 2018, 100% of the burden fell on American consumers and American importers. 0% on the foreign exporters.
I found a graph showing how major appliance prices responded to those tariffs. The red line shows when the washing machine tariffs went into effect:
colewd,
If you have to substantially reduce prices to access that market, it’s not that lucrative
It can’t do both. If imports reduce, there’s no money to be collected against the debt. You need to maintain the flow but tax the American side – the importer or the consumer. Thank you for your contribution to debt reduction, citizen! Now, I need some more tacky gold detailing in my ballroom.
Two countries are suck-ups who recognise that the way to Trump’s heart is through his ego. If he stops Russia beating the shit out of Ukraine, or Israelis starving and obliterating Gazans, he can have the Nobel with my full blessing.
Allan Miller,
We agree here that if his policies stops the world from being on fire he should get credit for helpful policy. Your point is well taken with regard to tariff revenue yet with balance of trade we get more US tax revenue from goods made in the US.
Erik,
So you think independent voters who look at both sides and weigh in are brainwashed.
I have not picked a side as I will change my opinion depending of the best information I can get. I believe a minimum of two strong parties is required for strong debate shaking out policy.
Right now in the US the Democratic Party is on life support. The last two politicians I financially supported are democrats in local elections who are practically minded guys.
Our major cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York have not been well managed and are being run by radical democrats. I supported the latest Mayor Candidate in San Francisco and he appears to be making progress so far cleaning up the city.
colewd,
If you have balance of trade then the Trump Formula gives the 10% tariff floor, which may not be much of an incentive – especially if the exporting country ‘eats the tariff’ to stay competitive, and/or domestic costs are too high. And if Trump picks a policy he actually sticks to for more than a week. Too much is being asked of tariffs – to balance trade, reduce debt and a negotiating tactic create complex trade-offs which it is doubtful Trump has thought though.
Allan Miller,
Where tariffs appear to have real leverage is in helping prevent and potentially end wars. While I agree he appears to be doing some hip shooting around the amounts I think his strategy to use tariffs as a peace enforcing mechanism is quite well thought out. Since we don’t trade much with Russia the tariffs allowed Trump to threaten Russia’s oil market by using tariffs against countries dependent on the US market like India and China who are large customers for Russian oil. Now Putin and Trump are meeting next week.
colewd,
This is a massive, muscle-pulling reach.
Erik:
colewd:
He didn’t say that, and I don’t either. You can tell that there are plenty of non-brainwashed independents who voted for Trump because they are now ditching him in droves. They see what Trump is doing and they don’t like it. They’ve changed their opinions of him.
You aren’t an independent, you’re an IINO – an Independent In Name Only. A Trump cultist who in this entire thread still hasn’t managed to acknowledge even a single one of the many Trump lies that have been pointed out to you.
Can you bring yourself to do it? Here’s a test: tell us what you think Trump has lied about. Pick the worst five or so lies you think he’s told and list them here.
🤣🤣🤣
I’ve given you incontrovertible evidence of Trump’s lies. Have you changed your opinion? One of the lies he’s told recently is that his approval numbers are as high as they’ve ever been. Do you believe him, or do you acknowledge reality?
colewd:
He targeted India alone, not China. Didn’t you watch this video? They got it right.
And despite Trump establishing a Friday deadline for a ceasefire and threatening to impose 100% tariffs on all countries buying Russian oil if the ceasefire didn’t take place, Russia continued fighting and Trump chickened out. (The 50% tariffs on India were imposed earlier in the week and weren’t contingent on Russia’s ceasefire decision.) Of course Trump chickened out. Did anyone think he would be brave enough to jack the China tariffs back up to 100%?
Puppet Regime nailed it again in a video that came out today. Those folks are terrific:
Deadline for Putin
colewd:
Yes, and not only did the Orange Weakling chicken out of his deadline threats, he also handed Putin a diplomatic victory by agreeing to meet him in Alaska, on American soil. John Bolton commented that the only thing better for Putin would have been if the meeting were held in Moscow.
Worse still, Zelenskyy was supposed to participate, but that would have taken the shine off Putin’s diplomatic victory, so he insisted that Zelensky be excluded, and Trump caved. Peace talks without including Ukraine? It’s as stupid as it sounds, and Trump is getting strong pushback from Ukraine and Europe. Last I checked, he may back down and invite Zelenskyy for a separate meeting, which if it happens is still a weak move. He should have insisted on Zelenskyy’s presence in trilateral talks.
It’s amazing to me that Trump voters actually thought he was a strong leader. His weakness has long been apparent, and this only reinforces it. He seems afraid to stand up to Putin and Netanyahu both.
Allan Miller,
Maybe it is but we will see.
Trump on Truth Social Friday, complaining about the court case that may invalidate the tariffs:
Let’s examine that bit by bit. “The largest amount of money, wealth creation and influence the USA has ever seen”? No, on all three counts.
“Impossible to ever recover”? What does that even mean? Recover tariff revenue that we weren’t supposed to have in the first place? Why would we want to recover illegal tariff revenue?
Impossible to pay back the tariffs? The Treasury has only collected about $150 billion in tariff revenue so far. The Social Security Administration alone pays out $1.5 trillion in benefits annually, the government will pay $1 trillion to service the debt this year, and you’re saying that the government can’t fork over $150 billion that it just collected? It’s ridiculous, and if it were actually true, then why did you push a bill through Congress that will add $4.1 trillion to the national debt? How are we going to pay that back if we can’t pay a measly $150 billion back to the companies we just collected it from?
“Massive sums of money and honor” that we can’t pay back? Whose honor did we steal, so that we have to pay it back? How do we go about paying it back? What do the tariffs have to do with any of this? What are you even talking about?
“It would be 1929 all over again, a GREAT DEPRESSION!”? You mean, like it was before you imposed your stupid tariffs, when the American economy was “the envy of the world”, according to The Economist? That Great Depression? How awful.
The reason the case is dragging on is because you appealed the ruling, dipshit.
Please explain how lifting the tariffs, which are a drag on the economy, will plunge us into another Great Depression. Actually, have Scott Bessent explain it, because it would be amusing to see him squirm and try to justify the latest idiotic thing his boss has said.
colewd:
Allan:
Tim Cook, in an Oval Office ceremony last week, presented a glass plaque to Trump with Trump’s name engraved prominently on it along with the Apple logo. The plaque sits in a 24K gold base. Cook knows exactly how to play Trump, and so do other business leaders and world leaders.
But no one will ever, ever, match Howard Lutnick’s skill at kissing the Dear Leader’s ass.
Your only appeal seems to be to an unknown future, rather than the facts on the ground. Implicit in this is that Daddy knows exactly what he is doing, all will play their part exactly as He anticipates, and we will rue the day we ever doubted.
I can see no sense in his tariff policy. He jacked China’s tariffs to punish them for ‘ripping us off’. Then backed down. Now, supposedly, jacked them again to force a third country to the negotiating table. Putin is coming to tell Trump which bits of a country Trump has no jurisdiction over he wants. All Trump can do is wave the “I-mean-it-this-time” tariff hammer – over a different country.. Which would be perfectly within its rights to retaliate.
Martial law, or something like it, in Washington. What a time to be alive!
Allan:
Based on yet another Trump lie. He says crime is out of control in Washington, so he’s declaring a “Crime Emergency”. Here are the actual numbers from the US Attorney’s Office:
Trump, in his press conference with Tim Cook last week:
Costs are up, and the rate of inflation spiked from 2.4% in May to 2.7% in June. For costs to actually go down, the rate of inflation would have to be negative. 2.7% isn’t negative. Costs are going up, and companies are predicting more price hikes due to the tariffs. Trump is lying.
Gasoline is up, not down. It isn’t around $2.40, and it won’t be less than $2 soon. The average price of gas on Inauguration Day was $3.11, and now it’s $3.14. Trump is lying.
No, they aren’t. Trump is lying.
He apparently thinks that repeating “costs are down, costs are down” will actually convince people that costs are down. That “repeat the lie” strategy has worked for him in the past, at least with his supporters, because they are so gullible. But does he really think that people won’t notice when their grocery bills are higher? When they’re running out of money earlier in the month?
Well, he’s right. Crime is out of control — especially at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
I wonder if this is the plan they came up with at the White House strategy meeting to deflect attention from the Epstein files. Take over the city. Send in the National Guard to antagonize residents, hoping they’ll riot. Get people to focus on the riots instead of on Epstein. Quell the unrest that you incited, and take credit for keeping Washington from “burning”.
From the CNBC interview in which Trump lies about his approval ratings (and much more). Becky Quick asked if he was going to run in 2028. He said “probably not” (and any president who would say “probably not” instead of “of course not” is unfit for office), and said:
He doesn’t. They’re far below where they were at the beginning of his term. And the only president who had worse poll numbers at this point in his term was Trump himself, in 2017.
They hate the tariffs. Over 60% disapprove of Trump’s tariff policy.
Bilateral trade deficits don’t mean that we’re getting ripped off.
Kernen (amidst crosstalk):
Trump:
Kernen:
Trump:
Kernen:
Trump:
Trump is nowhere close to 71%. The polls have him in the high 30s and low 40s.
Trump’s poll numbers suck. Harry Enten has reported on this, marveling at how bad the numbers are. He didn’t say that Trump’s numbers are good.
Kernen:
Trump:
No one has Trump in the 70s.
Kernen:
They’re far worse. As with prices, he seems to be repeating the lie in hopes that it will stick.
colewd:
The extra tax is exactly what we’re seeing. Below is a chart from the Yale Budget Lab showing how much the tariffs have cost people across the income spectrum. Everyone got hit, but the poorest got hit the hardest and the richest got hit the least. It’s not only a tax, it’s a regressive tax. Which fits perfectly with the Republican ethos.
Note that the chart isn’t a projection. It represents the effects that tariffs have already had on people’s disposable income as of July 31. Future numbers are expected to be worse because a) new tariffs have just been imposed, and b) the earlier tariffs have not yet had their full effect on the economy.
Imagine being one of the people in the first decile. You’re already the poorest of the poor, barely scraping by. Instead of making your life easier, Trump screws you by chopping almost 3.5% from your disposable income. It’s appalling and unconscionable.
keiths,
Graph’s upside down. Easy mistake to make.
Allan:
And missing some Sharpie adjustments.
The July inflation figures are out. Core inflation (the more important number, the one the Fed watches) was up from 2.9% in June to 3.1% in July. Overall inflation, which shot up from 2.4% in May to 2.7% in June, was still at that level in July. But you can ignore all that, because Trump assures us:
You may think that prices are up, but they’re actually down, because the Dear Leader says so, and he would never lie to us. You may think that you’re paying more for your groceries, since the number on the receipt is higher than it was last month, but that’s a Democrat hoax. They’ve hacked all the cash registers. And don’t tell me you’ve fallen for Critical Math Theory, in which bigger numbers are greater than smaller ones. That’s woke.
Listen to the wise Howard Lutnick, who told us in April:
Xi wins prizes
Wow. Check out Scott Bessent in this video. He looks and sounds like he would rather be anywhere else. Anywhere.
Scott, blink three times if they are holding you hostage.
I just watched Trump’s post-summit interview with Sean Hannity and wow, was it delusional.
Link
Here’s Trump on the economy:
Every clause in that sentence is false.
Also, he unwittingly reveals how badly he got played by Putin. He said he “was so happy” when Putin told him the war wouldn’t have happened if he had been president in 2022. He said that Putin told him the 2020 election was rigged because of mail-in voting, and that he “won that election by so much”. He said:
Trump is about as gullible with respect to Putin as colewd is with respect to Trump. Putin played him like a fiddle.
Bonus quote from the interview:
WTF?
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that Trump rated the summit a 10 out of 10, “in the sense that we got along great.”
I think if the war is ended, Ukraine will get a better deal than Vietnam got.
But in 50 years, most people will not remember the war or the resolution.
How many times a day do you obsess about Nanjing?
keiths,
Trump showed optimism about the meeting. Did he get played? Not in any material way. He diminished his own authority to resolve a deal and instead put it on Ukraine and Europe. This is the sign of a seasoned negotiator and something a TDS sufferer would not recognise.
What other world leader has showed Trump’s tenacity in trying to end several years of blood shed?
At any point are you going to show a balanced view of what’s going on in the world?
CNBC summarising the current economy, Iran and the boarder.
https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1956859024659427406
The negative TDS type selling by the dems is going to be very costly resulting in credibility loss.
colewd:
We’ve had this conversation already:
keiths:
You keep mentioning balance as if it were desirable, but it isn’t, especially not when it comes at the expense of truth. (See false balance, aka ‘bothsidesism’.) The things I’m saying about Trump are true. You say you disagree, but when I ask you to refute them, you run away. You’ve been doing that literally for months now.
Here’s another opportunity. Trump is a shameless and ceaseless liar, and I could spend days giving you example after example of his lies. You say I’m wrong about that. I quoted him above, from his Hannity interview:
Every one of those claims is a lie. If you think I’m wrong, prove it. If you know I’m right, admit it, and then tell us why it’s acceptable for a president to lie to the American people about the issue that is most important to them.
petrushka:
Are you actually suggesting that unless most people remember something 50 years hence, it doesn’t matter?
None, usually. Does that make it any less horrific? There have been atrocities throughout all of history, and I don’t “obsess” about them on a daily basis. Does that make them unimportant? Atrocities are atrocities, and they’re sure as hell important to the people who suffer through them.
The atrocities in Ukraine are getting attention because they are happening right now, carried out at the orders of a war criminal who just yesterday got the red carpet treatment from his good friend Donald. A war criminal who invaded a sovereign country, is killing its citizens, and wants to annex it. A dictator with imperial ambitions. (The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was actually wearing a “USSR” shirt when the Putin delegation arrived in Anchorage.)
All of that matters, and it matters a lot.
colewd:
Did you watch the so-called “news conference” after the meeting, which wasn’t a news conference? Trump looked and sounded utterly deflated, and he didn’t take any questions from reporters, either there or on the flight back. If the summit had been a success, he would have been crowing about it. It would have been hard to shut him up. He knew it was a failure.
He totally got played. More on that later.
False. It will not be North Ukraine and South Ukraine like it was North Vietnam and South Vietnam. It will be more Russian oblasts and a Russian satellite Kiev, if the war is ended now.
A very clear invitation to moronicity. I can see that you already follow your own advice.