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.
Trump got played very materially. Putin reaffirmed to Trump that this war would not have started had Trump been the president in 2022. Trump swallowed it eagerly and got a boost to his ego and to his already catastrophically flawed perception of the world.
Edit: And there’s another even more material element that Trump got played with https://www.worldenergynews.com/news/exxon-return-sakhalin-after-russia-decree-764483
This conflict has a history. The West – USA first of all – has been appeasing Russia at the expense of Ukraine ever since the Budapest Memorandums. The result of this appeasement is the current war.
What is Trump’s tactics? More appeasement to Putin while bashing Zelensky for starting the war and for failing to reach an agreement, when actually it was Putin’s decision alone to start the war and it is Putin’s decision alone not to stop the onslaught. Zelensky did not start the war, but why does Trump keep saying that he did? Because Putin says to Trump that there are “root causes”, Zelensky “has no cards” and therefore is doomed to yield. It is the same tactics since the Budapest Memorandums: Ukraine must give up to Russia, so Russia hopefully is satisfied, nevermind that the actual effect of it every time is Russia grabbing more and more.
Balanced view of what’s going on in the world? Trump does not have it and neither do you. You worship the idiot Mango King who in turn worships the world’s most notable dictators.
colewd,
Only a slavish cultist would speak thus… only TDS sufferers fail to see the Master’s greatness. I’m amazed and amused in equal measure at your lack of self-awareness.
Let the cry “TDS” be both my sword and my shield.
If the war would not have started had Trump been President in 2022, why did it not stop now he is? I can get little sense out of this notion.
From where I sit, this summit was a shambles from start to finish. Two nations discussing how a not-present third will be carved up. Putin left without tasting the filet mignon (he has a fear of poisoning), Trump not doing his usual impression of being doorstepped by Jehovah’s Witnesses at the doorway to his cabin on Air Force One… not like him to shut his yap.
What was agreed? What can we present to the Nobel Committee in support of the Peace Prize lobbying?
Trump knows that the best lobbyist for Trump is Trump himself, “Give me the Peace Prize, or else you’ll get tariffs” because this is what tariffs are really for https://people.com/donald-trump-called-norway-minister-about-nobel-peace-prize-tariffs-11791803
Edit: In the alternate reality of supposed non-TDS universe, appeasement of Hitler saved the world from WWII and every appeaser got the Nobel Peace Prize, so Trump has definitely earned it too.
Allan Miller,
Yep, it’s a lazy label. How would you describe a total loss of the ability to objectively reason?
The hope is if less than the majority of the voters are this vulnerable to propaganda the nation has a chance to operate rationally.
colewd:
I’d call it MAGA.
Says the guy who is so vulnerable to propaganda that he regards the fact that Trump “showed optimism” and “diminished his own authority” as reasons to consider the summit fiasco a success.
Dude, even Fox News couldn’t whitewash it. Their reporter said:
keiths,
I negotiated complex deals for many years of my career. Trump is good or probably better than any politician in history due to many factors including his energy, understanding what motivates the others side, his understanding of how to generate leverage and his creativity.
You remind me of a friend who first watched Lebron James play basketball in highschool. He ignored his great assist and scoring ability but remembered he had duck feet.
Which is why he was able to correctly assess that he’d conclude a deal ending Ukraine war in 24 hours or less. Right?
Wait, no, this is not quite how it’s been going. Do you have an explanation?
(I do. Namely, you are a wilfully blind brainwashed idiot worshipping your incompetent lying criminal idol. This explains why everything you say has nothing to do with observable reality.)
I’d call it MAGA cultism. People are attempting to reason with you. But any and all criticism is met with this ridiculous, ready-made ‘TDS’ nonsense. As an outsider, it looks like cultism. I don’t know who you hope to persuade of anything by its use, but it’s water off a duck’s back to those you so label. No criticism of Trump can stand without you reaching for that card.
If you wish to be seen as a rational operator, you could maybe stop saying ‘TDS’ and address the substance of the criticisms.
colewd:
That is delusional. You just proved my point:
Trump, in a 2023 interview with the execrable Nigel Farage:
Farage:
Trump:
There was also this variation:
Together, he made those claims at least 53 times. He’s seven months overdue, and that’s if you don’t count the time between the election and Inauguration Day.
He knows he failed, and he tried to cover up his failure in his Time magazine interview:
Interviewer:
Trump:
It wasn’t said in jest. Read the quotes, watch the videos, observe his body language and tone of voice. He was dead serious.
He boasted about his abilities as a negotiator, made a promise that any intelligent person could see was ridiculous, failed to deliver on it, and then lied to the American people about his failure.
He also failed to impose any tariffs on Russia on “Liberation Day”, while slapping 10% on Ukraine.
Then he set a 50-day deadline for a deal, which he later reduced to 12. That deadline passed with no deal, so Trump rewarded Putin with the offer of a summit on American soil.
Reporter:
Trump:
Friday came and went. No deal. Trump failed again. Oh, and those “severe consequences”?
Trump:
Before the summit, in a call with Zelenskyy and European leaders, Trump said his goal was to secure a ceasefire and agreed that a ceasefire would have to be implemented before peace negotiations could begin. He also told reporters that he thought there was only a 25% chance of failure.
Not only didn’t he get a ceasefire, but Russia was firing missiles into Ukrainian cities before, during, and after the summit. While Russia was killing civilians, Trump was gushing about the “fantastic relationship” he has with “Vladimir”.
Having failed to secure a ceasefire, Trump tried to save face by moving the goalposts:
He moved the goalposts and also shifted the responsibility to Zelenskyy and the Europeans, which you weirdly tried to spin as “the sign of a seasoned negotiator.” A “seasoned negotiator” who boasted about ending the war in 24 hours, insisted on inserting himself into the process, failed for months, lied about his promise, failed to secure a ceasefire despite rolling out the red carpet for a war criminal, and then passed the buck.
Trump’s own team knows how bad Trump is. The original plan was for Trump and Putin to meet each other alone, with no one other than translators in the room with them. The Trump people were so anxious about Trump being eaten alive by Putin that the plan was changed and Witkoff and Rubio accompanied him as babysitters.
You describe that guy as “good or probably better than any politician in history” at negotiating? There is such a thing as reality, Bill. The sun rises in the east, and Trump has been getting pwned by Putin for years (remember Helsinki?). The summit was no different. It was a disaster.
But if Zelensky doesn’t wear a suit, talks are off…
Allan:
I’m so glad that a gaggle of European leaders are accompanying Zelensky to Washington on Monday so that Trump can’t repeat his bullying bullshit.
Russian attacks on Ukraine double since Trump inauguration
Allan Miller,
MAGA cult good TDS bad. :-).
What do you think are the substantive criticisms? Who on the anti Trump side has shown any balance of analysis? Who other than current President of the United States has settled more global conflicts? Who other. than the current President of the United States has gotten Putin to the table and has initiated a meeting between Russia, Europe and Ukraine. Certainly not the current English, French or German prime ministers.
Thousands if not millions of people have been killed in this conflict. I have no idea what goes on in heads of people who continue to insult the guy who is trying to save lives.
colewd, to Allan:
The dozens raised in this thread, from which you’ve been fleeing for months. Today you ran away from this one which I posted yesterday:
Every time you run away from a challenge like that, you confirm to me and everyone reading this that you know it’s true. You’ve been shown the evidence, it’s incontrovertible, you know those are lies, but you can’t bring yourself to acknowledge it.
You’re unable to admit the obvious, because Trump is your Dear Leader and you are hopelessly mired in the cult.
colewd:
Read this again.
You think getting Putin to the table was an achievement, and that he had to be coaxed? When a big, dumb, orange target like Trump was waiting to be exploited? Putin seized the opportunity, and he won big. He would have been stupid not to come to the table. The summit was a fabulous success for him and a disaster for Trump.
If Putin could have played the European leaders the way he played Trump, he would have jumped at the chance. Unfortunately for him, they’re smarter and less insecure than Trump. (Also, FYI, Macron is president and Merz is chancellor. Neither of them is a prime minister.)
If I thought Trump truly cared about the lives being lost, I would give him credit for at least that sliver of human decency. It’s a pretty low bar, and it’s the minimum I would expect of any president. But I see no evidence that Trump actually has any empathy for suffering people. It’s all about ego for him.
Did you follow Erik’s link about Trump calling cold-calling the Norwegian finance minister and talking about the Nobel Peace Prize?
Here’s another article:
People inside the administration say the reason he’s obsessed with winning the Nobel is because Obama got one. It makes perfect sense. This is the guy who is so jealous of Obama that he did this:
Why else don’t I think Trump actually cares about the innocent people suffering and dying in Ukraine? Here are three more reasons:
1) No one who actually cared about those people would pal around with Putin, giving him the red carpet treatment and calling him “Vladimir”. Imagine what a slap in the face that is to people who have lost loved ones in missile attacks, or to anyone whose family member was tortured to death in Bucha.
2) Trump whined about the US aid that is helping people who are starving in Gaza:
It’s all about Donald. What a pathetic person.
3) Trump dismantled USAID and cancelled 83% of its spending (the rest was taken over by the State Department). Those cuts have already caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, and they’re projected to cause millions:
Millions of deaths? That’s fine with Donald. He wasn’t getting credit for saving those lives, anyway, because he didn’t create the aid programs. What’s the point of saving lives if people aren’t praising and thanking you?
All of the above, plus the other disgusting things we’ve shown you about your Dear Leader, are why we despise him rather than praising him. He’s a creep.
You are not able to even observe basic facts, much less what is substantive and what is not. The British, French and German leaders at the start of the war had plenty of talks with Putin, and meetings in Turkey were arranged. Support to Ukraine was very hesitant in the beginning. The West did not want this war. But slowly they learned that Putin wants this war so badly that a better response is support for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and charging Putin and his closest collaborators with war crimes.
Trump is right now repeating the same mistakes that other Western leaders already went through and learned from. Trump is repeating the mistakes, tries to spin them as successes, and refuses to learn. And you trust Trump over facts. You have forgotten how things were a few years ago.
I personally know the entire history between Ukraine and Russia, and I condemn the Western complicity that has led to this war. Any time the West has appeased Russia with concessions – absolutely unjust concessions at the expense of smaller countries, in Ukraine’s case relevant for the current situation starting with the Budapest Memorandums in 1994 – Russia has always taken the concessions AND pushed the limits further. Nobody has won anything by sucking up to Russia. Now in the hot war situation the West is slowly (and poorly) learning that no more concessions should be given, but unfortunately Trump comes along, fully switches sides in favour of Putin and ruins everything. You, colewd, are a cultist sucker and blind anti-factual loser, but isn’t it amazing how Trump still manages to be a worse moron than you?
MAGA cult good at missing point
That Trump’s tariff policy is bizarre, it’s rationale changes by the day, it is based on a false premise (that a country *must* buy an equivalent dollar value from you as you buy from it, ot it is “ripping you off”.), which premise is itself sidelined by the 10% floor, even for those you operate a surplus with.
That he is an adjudicated rapist (“it wasn’t a criminal case! Doesn’t count!”).
That he is s convicted felon (“you can’t get a fair trial in New York! Doesn’t count!”).
That he rambles incoherently and has the speech patterns of a child (bit of an opinion, that one, but there you go. You presumably think him a magnificent orator).
That he lies routinely.
That he stiffs contractors.
That he suppresses press freedoms and First Amendment rights.
That he deports without due process in a worryingly fascistic manner.
Defies court orders.
Pardons cop beaters.
I could go on… but, as I have remarked before, the charge sheet is really too big for any to land with a cultist. You probably glazed over many points ago. “Oh, it’s just someone with TDS. Nothing to see here. Go to sleeeeep…”.
There is an enormous wealth of valid criticism. But anyone criticises your hero, they have “TDS”. You won’t hear any criticism; it all comes from people with TDS and hence can be dismissed on that basis alone.
Which has he settled, again? He gives succour to Russia and Israel, the aggressors in the most newsworthy conflicts. But Somalia and Sudan could use some of that diplomacy too. Too black to care about, perhaps.
He handed Putin a propaganda coup. Putin told him what he wanted, and made no concessions, nor agreed a ceasefire. And that business about Zelensky’s suit is just moronic.
I sispect lives mean less to him than his ego. If he succeeds here, I will credit him. But you act as if he already has.
Allan Miller,
Is this really news to you? 7 conflicts in 6 months. I question if over there you are getting only biased news. This discussion is difficult when you guys are basing your opinions on propaganda.
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk%3D_642a3950-2764-4168-ad5b-c5e762b24267
Watch the politicians actions and not the media spin.
Allan:
colewd:
Did you even bother to read that Grok response? It doesn’t confirm Trump’s claim, it refutes it. Dude, you are so deep in the cult that you can’t even see what your own source is plainly telling you. Here’s the status of each conflict, according to Grok:
So even according to your own source, Armenia/Azerbaijan is the only conflict that might have been settled.
By your Dear Leader’s own standards, his claim is false. After the Anchorage summit, as an excuse for not securing a ceasefire, he wrote:
Since you like AI, I asked ChatGPT about Trump’s claim:
Can you acknowledge reality, or are you going to keep repeating Trump’s lie?
colewd:
Says the guy who bases his opinion on Trump’s propaganda and didn’t even bother to read and understand the very source he cited.
Do better, Bill.
Allan:
colewd:
We have watched Trump’s actions and listened to what he’s said, and that’s why we’ve concluded that Trump is driven by ego, not compassion. I laid it out for you in this comment, which you are avoiding.
Let’s hear your take on it. If Trump is all about saving lives, then why did he obliterate USAID? That move has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and is projected to cost 14 million more over the next five years. You know what USAID’s budget was? 0.6% of the total federal budget. It would only cost 0.6% of the US budget to save 14 million lives (including 4.5 million kids under the age of 5), but Trump won’t do it. Saving millions of lives isn’t worth the money, but adding $4.1 trillion to the national debt via the “Big Beautiful Bill”, giving billionaires a huge tax break? That’s worth it to Trump. It tells you all you need to know about his priorities.
Here’s my explanation: USAID wasn’t earning Trump any praise, and it wasn’t going to win him the Nobel Prize. He doesn’t give a shit about those lives, because he doesn’t gain anything from saving them. It’s all about Donald and what’s in it for him.
What’s your explanation?
I just started watching clips from today’s press conference, and in the very first clip, Trump told this whopper:
“I don’t think you need a ceasefire”? That’s not what he told us before the summit. So he’s OK with civilians and soldiers dying while negotiations are underway? Yes, he is:
“They have to fight?” WTF?
Before the summit, he and European leaders agreed that a ceasefire was necessary before peace negotiations could begin. The Great Negotiator failed to get a ceasefire, so now it’s “I don’t think you need a ceasefire”.
And those “very severe consequences” for Russia if they didn’t agree to a ceasefire deal? Nothing. After the summit, Trump said:
We don’t need the ceasefire that I promised to get before peace negotiations can begin, and I don’t need to impose “the very severe consequences” that I threatened if Putin didn’t agree to one. Better to telegraph my weakness to Putin, strengthening his position, and assuring him that he can continue to kill innocent civilians while negotiations are underway.
Yet this is how colewd describes his Dear Leader:
Lol.
The six conflicts he supposedly settled? Already refuted.
“I didn’t do any ceasefires”? Already refuted in the same comment.
OK, time to watch some more clips.
7 conflicts resolved in 6 months is propaganda. It only happened in Trump’s head. It is indeed difficult to talk about anything when you do not care about reality and only spew propaganda lies.
At least we know what news are. You only consult Grok, do not verify what it says, and you even misread what it says.
I see him using actual words. I can access the ludicrous logic of his tariff policy, the court cases. There is no ‘media spin’ there. Honestly, the intellectual barriers you put up in his slavish defence are quite ludicrous at this point. “It’s TDS. It’s biased activist media. It’s… “. Give it a rest and address substance.
I note you scooted past every other point I made. You don’t care about any of it. He’s your idol and can do no wrong.
colewd,
Again, something about motes and beams comes to mind. What ‘independent’ media have you consulted to be sure you are not consuming WH propaganda? AI seems unimpressed by the claim.
Allan Miller,
AI listed the facts you were unaware of.
Trump is not my idol as he like other politicians have human faults. I do believe he is the right tool for the job now to restore American competitiveness and bring the world toward global peace.
Allan I do appreciate your concession that he should get credit for Ukraine if it ends. What you were missing is this adds to the 7 other conflicts he has settled using the leverage of tariffs.
As far as media bias it is not easy to get the truth until certain events become facts.
Trump won the election. This is a fact.
Most of the polls were wrong on the election. This is a fact.
Trumps approval rating just hit 54% by one on the most accurate polls in the last election. This is a fact.
The Russian collusion narrative was fake. This is a fact.
Our last President was suffering from severe cognitive decline that was covered up. This is a fact.
Trump has settled 7 global disputes some using tariffs as leverage. This is a fact.
Ukraine and Russia are going to meet to discuss the end of the war and this is due to extraordinary effort by President Trump. This is not yet a fact but may soon be.
colewd,
You pointed us to Grok’s response, which shows that you’re wrong and that Trump is lying. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in your head. There are three possibilities:
1) you read Grok’s response but misunderstood it, so that you actually thought it confirmed Trump’s claim rather than undermining it;
2) you didn’t bother to read it, because you’ve fallen for Trump’s propaganda and just assumed that Grok would back you up; or
3) you understood Grok’s response and you knew that it disproved Trump’s claim, but you were hoping that no one would actually follow your link and discover your deception.
Which of those is the case? And why are you doubling down on a claim that your own source disproves? (That’s a rhetorical question. We all know why.)
keiths,
This is the response I expected from you. Did you check the sources of Groks skepticism. They were the liberal media (newsweek) which you are addicted to. Allan’s response was much smarter and that is why I choose to discuss with him as he has at least an ounce of objectivity.
1. I am not happy with the proposed end of the Ukraine war, but I cannot think of a war, except possibly the American Civil War, that ended the way I would like.
The WWI armistice sowed the seeds of WWII.
WWII gave us the iron curtain and the Cold War. Korea is still technically at war, and North Korea is one of the worst places in the world.
Vietnam and Iraq had more post war deaths than war deaths.
So I am willing to consider the possibility that Ukraine losing territory that already had a majority of Russian speakers is not one of the great tragedies of our lifetime. It’s just a fact that some borders are set by war and conquest.
I own a piece of property whose title was originally granted by a French king. As far as I know, the French king was not indigenous. If I lived in Canada, I’d be worried.
colewd:
Lol.
colewd, then:
“See? Grok backs me up, and here’s the link.”
colewd, now:
“Don’t pay attention to Grok! It’s just echoing the liberal media!”
Why did you link to that Grok response if you think it’s wrong? Did you even read it before linking to it, or did you just assume that it would back up Trump’s claim? Did you read it but misunderstand it? Is it that you understood it but linked to it anyway because you thought nobody would actually follow the link?
Also, Newsweek is not a liberal outlet. You need to get out of the habit of reflexively labeling outlets as liberal merely because they contradict your Dear Leader or report something negative about him. You also need to stop assuming that something is false merely because it comes from a liberal source. Whether something is true or false is independent of the source. “Lead is heavier than aluminum” is true even when it’s said by the Radical Left Lunatics at the failing MSDNC network.
Lastly, here’s another Trump lie for you to run away from. Yesterday, Trump said “I didn’t do any ceasefires.” That’s false, and Trump is contradicting himself. He has repeatedly talked about ceasefires in the past. Only when he failed to secure one with Putin did he start lying about it, saying
The reason is obvious: he’s trying to downplay his failure by pretending that ceasefires aren’t important and that he didn’t do any in the past. Instead of acknowledging his failure like a grownup, he is trying to cover it up.
He could have said something like: “I’m disappointed. I thought we could get a ceasefire, but that didn’t happen. Since it failed, I am now following through and imposing severe consequences on Russia, like I promised. They were warned.”
Instead, he lied, and he also chickened out of imposing the “very severe consequences” he had threatened.
More dismal numbers from the latest Pew Research poll, August 4-10. Highlights:
It must be a fake poll. Who’s ever heard of Pew Research, anyway? Or Gallup? Trump says he’s doing better than ever in the polls, and there’s no way he would lie to us about that, so Pew (and Gallup, and Quinnipiac, and Reuters/Ipsos, and…) must be fake. It’s so obvious.
Let’s literally quote your AI.
The AI is correctly saying, as fact, that Trump claims involvement, but whether he actually settled anything is less so.
Show one media outlet that disputes that Trump won the elections of 2024 or of 2016. There is zero. No media bias on this point exists.
The bias that exists is:
– You think there is a media bias even though there is not. Very telling to *your* bias is that when you say “Trump won the election” you do not say which election. Because, you know, there are elections that Trump lost – this is a fact!
– Trump is disputing all elections, he says that the elections that he lost he really won, and those he won he won bigger than he really did, despite all his lawyers who attempted to litigate his election claims lost all their cases and many also lost their licenses. Trump is the source of the bias. Trump is the one who picked up the phone and said, “I need 11000 votes, give me a break” like he now is saying to states, “Give me more congressmen.”
Any disputing of the Russia collusion is especially ironic in the light of how Trump treats Putin right now. Russia collusion was always a fact. There is no media bias on this point. The media merely relayed the results of the Mueller report – as well as the Bill Barr spin of it.
Again, not a media bias. The media always accurately showed Biden as he is, all of his slips and stumbles. It’s Biden’s entourage who did not arrive at appropriate conclusions soon enough.
And what about Trump’s cognitive and visible physical decline? No media bias there either. If you have eyes, you can see it. If you don’t see it, you are not using your eyes.
You are functionally dyslexic. This is a fact. And you are definitely media illiterate beyond any dispute.
Trump achieved nothing in two recent high-profile meetings, but he went to Fox News to say how awesome he is and Putin wants to meet and a peace deal is just around the corner. He is wrong on everything here, including his impact in the negotiations, about the history of the war (e.g. “Crimea was given by Obama”), about what Putin wants or agrees to, and so on and so forth.
How wrong, you may ask? As wrong as when he mixed up his mineral deal with a peace deal during and around the disastrous meeting with Zelensky in February, accusing Zelensky of playing with World War III if he did not sign the *mineral* deal. Well, it (or a version of it) was signed, but it did not reduce the war one bit.
In the Ukraine matter Trump is on Putin’s side. And all “fake news” and “media bias” is Trump himself and his own ignorance of everything.
keiths,
Now I understand why you think how you do. You have no ability to separate your emotional attachments to an ideology from reality.
If you had a clue you would be able to see a consistent pattern in Groks response.
Newsweek: Indian Pakistan :The ceasefire is described as fragile, with India refuting Trump’s claims of mediation.
Newsweek: Israel Iran: The ceasefire is described as fragile, with limited evidence of a permanent resolution.
colewd,
It is not a liberal versus conservative thing. It is a fact-based versus Trump-cult thing. It is uncontroversial and indisputable that Trump lies so much that everything he says MUST be verified against facts. For example, Trump said in April that he had made 200 tariff deals. The actual count was zero.
Unfortunately, you are in the cult. Not only do you believe without verification whatever Trump claims, you actively reject anyone who dares to fact-check Trump. For you, every fact means liberal media bias. Basically, you have given up facts the way facts are. For you, facts are whatever Trump says, babbles, rambles, “weaves”.
Edit: Trump did not resolve 7 conflicts in 6 months. Instead, he has started at least one new war – with Iran. Its hot phase was short, but it did not bring any sort of peace closer compared to before the bombings. Trump scrapped in 2015 the nuclear control deal that was in place with Iran, and the result is the current inflamed situation. That he now solved anything is a delusion, but if we (without basis) assume that some good progress has been made by Trump, it is solving a self-caused problem.
The best you got on this front is Armenia-Azerbaijan deal. And it is just this one. All others are quite transparent lies.
Or perhaps you are saying that India is biased because they deny that Trump did anything to help, and that Pakistan is liberal because they took back the Nobel Peace Prize endorsement?
colewd:
The pot called the snow black, to the amusement of onlookers.
Other than the above, I have no idea what you are trying to say. You quoted me:
And you responded:
Are you trying to show that Newsweek is liberal? If so, could you explain your reasoning? I’m not seeing anything in your response that supports that.
And if it were actually true that Newsweek is liberal, how would that be relevant to Trump’s claim? As I keep reminding you, truth is truth, no matter who states it:
If Rachel Maddow says the sky is blue, does that suddenly become false?
Even if Newsweek were liberal, and even if that somehow meant we could dismiss everything they say, how would that vindicate Trump’s claim? He’s still lying, and you don’t need to rely on Newsweek to confirm that. PolitiFact, for instance, rates Trump’s claim as Mostly False, and they are nonpartisan.
Look, I know how badly you’d like to believe Trump. This thread has been a disaster for you, and with his peacemaking claim, you thought you had finally found something positive and significant about him that you could latch on to. Unfortunately, he was lying, and you fell for it.
The cognitive dissonance must be killing you. You
wantneed to believe that he’s a great man and a good president — he’s your Dear Leader, after all — but the evidence points in the other direction, and you can’t refute it.Just to put this Newsweek business to rest, I asked Grok and ChatGPT about its position on the political spectrum.
Grok:
ChatGPT:
colewd,
I asked what verification you could provide to make sure this isn’t White House propaganda you’re spouting, and you just declare it a fact. Grok says this claim is dubious. The Indians, for example, say he had nothing to do with it. And the idea this is tariff driven is nonsense on its face. This cuts to the heart of the tariff stupidity. How can it be about rebalancing trade and discouraging war and repatriating manufacturing? Why is Russia immune to tariffs? Pick a defensive strategy and stick to it…
colewd,
How dare you! 😉
Here’s how one of Trump’s alleged peace deals is going – without any need for ceasefire, as he says.
At least 140 killed by Rwanda-backed rebels in eastern DR Congo
Trump lied. Should not be a surprise from a guy who said he signed 200 tariff deals. Also, one has to be pretty drastically off one’s rocker to think that the annexer of Greenland and Canada is a man of peace. Moreover, it is worth repeating that trade war is a war too, and historically often a precursor to real war.
Trump is no man of peace. He is the opposite.
Allan:
Trump describes “tariff” as “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”, and tariffs appear to be the hammer he uses to strike anything he can remotely construe as a nail. Never mind the many cases where tariffs are the wrong tool for the job or where hammering some nails inevitably dislodges others.
His rationales change all the time. Tariffs on Canada were originally about the “national emergency” of fentanyl traffic and illegal immigration from Canada.* Then they were retaliation for the supposedly exorbitant tariffs** that Canada was imposing on imports of US agricultural products. Then they were a way to pressure Canada into becoming the 51st state.*** Then they were a way to punish Canada for supporting Palestinian statehood.
Trump has also used tariffs for purposes of:
– disrupting BRICS
– pressuring Colombia to accept US deportees
– interfering with the Brazilian justice system
– coercing European countries into increasing their defense spending
It’s comical. Never mind that in all cases, it’s Americans and American companies who are actually paying the tariffs. Setting aside the dubious nature of some of the things he’s trying to accomplish, couldn’t he come up with ways of applying pressure without screwing Americans by making them pay more for stuff?
Also, at best, Trump is only legally allowed to impose tariffs in response to national emergencies.**** Where are the national emergencies? Tariffs are just a blatant power grab by Trump.
* The facts: Fentanyl seizures at the Canadian border were only 0.2% of the total, and migrant apprehensions only 1.5%, making Trump’s “national emergency” justification laughable.
** Those tariffs have never kicked in, because they only apply when certain quotas are exceeded, and those quotas never even been close to being exceeded. On dairy, for example, US exports to Canada would have to be 4x the current level in order for tariffs to kick in. Unclear whether Trump is deliberately lying about that or just unable to grasp how the quota system works.
*** Example: Trump on Truth Social:
(And of course he even managed to get that wrong. Canada would be the most populous state if it joined the US. California would be second and Texas would be third.)
**** Even in the case of an actual emergency, it isn’t clear that Trump could legally impose tariffs. Tariffs aren’t mentioned in the IEEPA, and the IEEPA has never been used to justify them.
From the Pew Research poll that I referred to above:
Those are Trump voters. Look at the plunge in support among the 18-34 age group! 100% on election day (by definition), 94% at the beginning of his term, and only 69% now. In that age group, Trump has lost 31% of his voters.
I’m in Canada at the moment. My Canadian brother-in-law has some trenchant things to say about Trump and his faithful. Apart from the 51st State and tariff nonsense, his big issue is with Trump’s climate change skepticism. An engineer by training, he’s looking to sustainable solutions, not just fossil-fuelling our way to the inevitable brick wall.
Presumably swayed by Radical Left Canadian Media.
keiths,
And I showed you direct evidence of left wing or more specifically anti Trump spin you did not recognise. As far as grok and Chat gpt it depends how you frame the question.
Grok: Is there evidence of anti Trump bias at Newsweek.
Anti-Trump does not mean left wing. Trump is a liar, and to call him a liar on specific facts is just a sign of being factual.
Here’s the “evidence” that you provided:
It is India that refutes Trump’s claims of mediation, not Newsweek. This is reported globally, not just in Newsweek. Basically you are saying that the whole globe, by virtue of being anti-Trump, is leftist.
No, the correct conclusion here is that you are a propaganda brainwashed cultist wacko, severely hampered by media illiteracy. You’re not right, rightist, or conservative. You’re catastrophically wrong on every point you have brought up in this thread.
Edit: As a sidenote, I was afraid that colewd would manage to make this into a battle of Grok quotes, i.e. facts and reality are out of the picture. He is succeeding.
colewd:
No, you didn’t. There’s nothing left-wing or anti-Trump in those quotes. They’re just reports on the status of two ceasefires. And remember, that Grok response was one that you generated, not me. Why did you link to it if it’s left-wing anti-Trump spin? (You dodged my questions about that earlier.)
Try to get out of the habit of automatically labeling things that you don’t like or don’t want to hear as “left-wing” or “spin”. It’s a cop-out — an excuse for not dealing with the substance of our claims. I get why you’re doing it. You can’t defend Trump against our charges. When you try, you fail, as this thread has vividly demonstrated. So you look for a way to dismiss the charges without actually addressing them, and the labels you toss around are your attempt at doing that. You aren’t fooling anyone.
And for the umpteenth time: Even if you were right that Newsweek is left-wing — and you aren’t — that wouldn’t mean that what they’re saying is false. Left-wing outlets can say things that are true, you know. So can right-wing and broken-wing* outlets. Whether a claim is true is independent of who’s making it.
Also, I repeat:
If you think Trump is right, then show that he’s right. Address the substance rather than running around crying “spin!”, “propaganda!”, “liberal!”, “biased!”. It’s idiotic. Engage our arguments rather than making excuses not to.
Yes, and your framing was poor, as I’ll explain tomorrow. In the meantime, try running that exact prompt again. I did, and the very first sentence of Grok’s response was:
You can’t just blindly accept whatever an AI tells you. Critical thinking is just as important when using AI as it is when using other sources.
* Nirvana reference: Milk It
keiths,
You are denying this because your attempts to indoctrinate use the same strategy as Newsweek did. Your posts are copies of liberal media assertions with almost no original thought. You continually repeat yourself with assertions devoid of facts.
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5LWNvcHk%3D_e6c76255-0b34-4c00-9a83-97c10ecdb623
Additionally from Grok:
This is how desperate Bill is getting: if you follow his latest Grok link, you’ll find that he used this prompt:
Lol.
Here’s the “same mantra word for word” that he’s referring to:
In Bill’s mind, “the ceasefire is described as fragile”, repeated once, is a “mantra” intended to indoctrinate. That’s funny enough, but here’s the best part: that wording is Grok’s, not Newsweek’s. Bill is accusing a chatbot of trying to indoctrinate him.
Relax, Bill. Grok is not out to get you, Newsweek isn’t “left-wing”, and the facts stand for themselves, regardless of who reports them.
colewd,
When you write prompts, at least put a question mark at the end, you incompetent illiterate dyslexic brainwashed doofus.
colewd,
A statement is true if it corresponds to reality, and false if it doesn’t. The question we’re asking here is whether Trump was lying when he said
He’s repeated that claim multiple times (and on at least one occasion, he’s claimed that the number is seven, not six). His claim is false. It doesn’t correspond to reality. If you look at the facts, you’ll see that Trump didn’t end six wars. He’s lying.
You don’t want to look at the facts. Why? Because they frighten you. The facts show that your Dear Leader is lying (again), and as a loyal cult member, you are distressed by that. It’s uncomfortable. You want to believe that your cult leader is honest, but the facts puncture that illusion. You want to alter reality, but you can’t. He’s a liar in reality, and that remains true even though it distresses you.
It also remains true regardless of who says it, so give the well poisoning a rest. It’s true because it corresponds to reality, period. Nothing you say about the source can turn a true statement into a false one. I realize that well poisoning is all you’ve got, and that it’s been your go-to strategy for the entire thread, but it doesn’t work. Let go of it, take a deep breath, and confront the actual facts.
To show that Trump is telling the truth, you would need to show that he has, in fact, ended six (or seven) wars. You won’t be able to.
Let’s look at some of the wars that Trump claims to have ended:
Rwanda/DRC:
Trump said
That’s false. The war hasn’t ended. Did you follow Erik’s link yesterday?
At least 140 killed by Rwanda-backed rebels in eastern DR Congo
People are still getting killed, and the 140 killings above were from July alone. The DRC is complaining of “almost daily attacks”. The war is not over. Trump is lying when he says he ended it.
Egypt/Ethiopia:
There is no war. There is no military action of any kind. You can’t end a war that doesn’t exist. Trump is lying.
There is a conflict over the giant dam that Ethiopia has built on the Nile, but that conflict isn’t a war, and it hasn’t been resolved. No agreement has been signed, and the dispute continues. So not only didn’t Trump end the (nonexistent) war, he also didn’t resolve the conflict. He is lying.
Serbia/Kosovo:
As with Egypt/Ethiopia, there is no war. You can’t end a war that doesn’t exist. Trump is lying.
Also, while the Trump administration brokered some economic deals between Serbia and Kosovo, the political disagreements remain unresolved. Trump is lying.
I could go on, but those three prove my point: Trump is lying when he says that he ended six wars.
It sucks to be a cult member, doesn’t it?