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.
keiths,
The formula signals that trade deficits are generally a problem. Your strategy does not. Since tariffs are only part of the problem/solution I don’t think you have offered much help with your suggestion.
I wasn’t presenting that as something you’d say. Hence “over to the White House”. I would prefer if you read my words rather than what you imagine me saying.
petrushka,
No, I am referring to your belief that all (my) predictions are wrong. If it is not possible to rationalise a course of action in advance, then even Trump cannot be said to have a plan or purpose (which is kind of obvious to some of us anyway, but flows especially from that logical dead-end).
Allan:
petrushka:
Allan was responding to this statement of yours:
Really? So the prediction that tariffs would cause prices to rise was wrong? What about the prediction that businesses, given a choice between bankrupting themselves or passing tariff costs on to their customers, would choose the latter? Was that just a coin toss? Did the critics just get lucky when they predicted the latter? It is possible to make predictions about Trump’s policy, obviously. And as Allan points out, if it weren’t possible to make predictions, then Trump would have no basis for any of the predictions he has made, and no basis for picking one policy over another.
If I proposed that we privatize all US parking meters as a way of eliminating our bilateral trade deficits, would you refrain from making predictions about the likelihood of success under that policy? Would we just have to wait and see?
Of course predictions are possible. It’s just that the president’s predictions are mostly wrong while the critics are getting it right. Trump predicted that the tariffs would “have no effect on our country.” They have had an effect, obviously, and even he now admits it, hamfistedly and callously:
Then there is Trump’s prediction that billions of dollars will pour into the Treasury from foreign countries. He still believes that tariffs can accomplish that. At the recent NRCC event, he said:
China hasn’t paid one cent under Trump’s tariffs, and they never will. The tariffs are a tax on Americans and American companies, not on foreign countries. The critics got that prediction right, and Trump got it wrong.
So yes, some people are really, really bad at predictions, but that doesn’t mean that all of us are.
This is worth emphasizing: the president of the United States, who has been obsessed with tariffs for 40 years and is now upending the world economy with a draconian tariff regime, still does not know what a tariff is.
Apparently the Republican DEI policy is to bring Dishonest, Extremist, and Incompetent people into the presidency and the Cabinet. Those people have long been discriminated against, and it’s outrageous. It has to stop.
keiths,
The last us Jobs report was pretty solid as of this AM and the markets are up 12% over one year ago today. Not a biggie one short term statistics but also not sure what you are basing your assertions on.
colewd,
I know. You have not seen data that supports what we have been telling you because you haven’t even looked. It’s sad, really.
Like I told you already
You just happen to be a particularly egregious example.
Now our Noveau Right party, Reform, has done well in local elections, and taken a safe Parliamentary seat from Labour by 6 votes (or 3 Labour turncoats.
Immediately Farage has threatened council workers with the sack, especially if involved in ‘woke’ projects or climate change mitigation. Has a familiar ring.
DNA_Jock,
Instead of pontificating why don’t you support you’re assertions with some data?
keiths:
colewd:
It’s heading in the wrong direction.177,000 jobs added in April, down from 185,000 in March. I guess that’s good news if you think jobs are bad. From Fox Business:
colewd:
Did you see Trump’s Truth Social post two days ago, where he said
Nice to see you giving credit to Biden for the stock market’s performance, Bill. Lol.
As for the 12% gain over the last year, let’s get real. April 30th 2024 to January 17th 2025 (the last day of trading before the inauguration), Biden was in office. From then to April 30th 2025, Trump was in charge. I crunched the numbers for the S&P 500:
Under Biden: +19%
Under Trump: -7.1%
Yay, Trump!
I’m basing my assertion on Trump’s own words, which show that he doesn’t understand what a tariff is. Do you?
I explained this earlier:
The tariff costs you $725,000. The tariff costs the Chinese company $0. Who pays the tariff, you or the Chinese company?
In other words, is the tariff paid by the country that pays the tariff, or by the country that doesn’t pay the tariff? Take your time.
colewd:
No, it doesn’t. The formula is based on the assumption that all bilateral trade deficits are bad. Again, here’s the first sentence of the US Trade Representative’s explanation of the formula:
The assumption is that bilateral trade deficits are bad, and the formula merely attempts to suggest tariff rates that will eliminate them. (And it fails at that, as explained elsewhere in the thread. A stupid policy, incompetently executed.)
Um, I haven’t suggested a strategy. Why would I, when I think Trump’s goal of eliminating bilateral trade deficits is itself harmful? My OP and comments have been a critique of Trump’s policy, not a suggestion for how to achieve Trump’s misguided goal.
My “suggestion” is that we not implement an obviously flawed tariff policy put forward by a guy who doesn’t even understand what tariffs are.
To be truthful, I don’t pay much attention to who posts what. I have no idea what your predictions are, specifically. I do not intend to argue. I’d do not write to change anyone else’s mind. My goal is to clarify my own thoughts. Writing them down forces me to clarify them, as does reading responses. It is disappointing when the response is invective rather than discussion.
I see a great deal of animosity toward Trump, and some of it is confusing.
I understand why some policies are opposed, but the ones that generate the most heat are also the ones that are most popular. And 45 percent approval is twenty percent higher than the approval of Democrats.
There are two policies that I find important, and which lend themselves to objective predictions. Ending the war, and dealing with foreign trade.
I have no emotional attachments to trade issues. Merely curiosity. Since tariffs are generating so much opposition, I’m curious how people think things will work out, say in a year, or in five years. My experience has been that major upheavals look different in 20 years.
I have some feelings about the war. But I can separate my feelings from my expectations. At the time of the invasion, I ran into people who asserted Russia would be ruined by sanctions. I predicted the sanctions would have no impact. I was severely downvoted for saying that.
As the war progressed I encountered people who asserted Biden would support Ukraine unconditionally, and give them the means to bleed Russia to death.
I said my experience is that the US typically loses interest in foreign wars and eventually betrays those it promises to support.
This is not approval of our behavior. Just an observation. Rationally, if you observe something happening over and over, you plan for it.
This is how you are approaching tariffs, and I tend to agree that tariffs are not a rational approach to trade. Which is why I think balance of trade, per se, is not the goal. I do not predict an end to trade imbalance, but I predict a lessening of China’s monopoly on manufacturing. How this will look in twenty years, I do not know.
US administrations have also made bad choices on who to support and who not to support.
Frinstance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende
I could go on.
petrushka:
It’s simple: “popular” ≠ “sound”
In any case, Trump’s tariffs are not popular. A random sample of recent poll results on the Trump tariff policy:
WaPo-ABC-Ipsos: 64% disapprove
Marist: 58% disapprove
CBS-YouGov: 59% disapprove
Marquette: 58% disapprove
Those are landslide-level disapproval numbers.
petrushka:
The bipartisan CHIPS Act, signed into law by Biden in 2022, is aimed at that exact problem. (Trump called it “a horrible, horrible thing.”) Why bludgeon the world economy with indiscriminate and harmful tariffs when a targeted approach is available?
Also, the word you’re looking for is “annex”, not “merge”.
I may have fallen for fake news on the last paragraph…
Of course, while it’s possible to predict the results of most of Trump’s policies in some detail, it’s not possible to predict what those policies will be tomorrow or next week, and I don’t think it’s possible to determine whether Trump himself has any results-oriented basis for most of his policy decisions – otherwise, he might be more consistent. If there is any consistent through-line to the Trump administration, it’s the application of fear to amass power. So we can fairly confidently predict that he will attempt to destroy anything he perceives as a constraint – things like the rule of law, and education, and regulation, and tradition, and even truth itself.
When you are not doing discussion, then why be disappointed that you are not getting it in return? Well, here’s a take: Your business is to post total nonsense, and it is perfectly in line with your business to be nonsensically upset when it is pointed out to you that it is total nonsense.
Here’s a basic communication guideline for you: Post *after* you have clarified your thoughts, not before. Stop posting nonsense. Moreover, your particular nonsense is so outrageous that it comes across as factless thoughtless hyperpartisan ultra-Trumpite MAGA bubble invective.
See? You are spewing factless thoughtless hyperpartisan ultra-Trumpite MAGA bubble invective. If you don’t see, then this all the more seals the case of you being bubbled up beyond any remedy.
In addition to the polls I cited above, I should mention that even the latest Fox News poll has Trump at a 58% disapproval rating on tariffs.
Trump is incensed, of course:
Trump supporters, don’t you see how pitiful that is? Fox gets the same result as every other reputable poll, yet Trump says it’s “fake”. How does that work? Are they all fake, then? Fake polls that just so happen to converge on the same answer? It’s ludicrous.
The truth is that Trump and his tariffs are extremely unpopular. That’s the reality, but instead of simply accepting it and vowing to do better, Trump tries to shift the blame to the messenger — someone who doesn’t deserve it. He’s not fooling most Americans. Is he fooling you?
Jamelle Bouie in the NYT:
I wouldn’t go quite as far as Bouie. Trump does enter into mutually beneficial relationships, albeit in a purely transactional way. The moment you are no longer useful to him or dare to criticize or disagree with him, he’ll discard you. Loyalty is what he expects from other people, not something he himself offers to others.
Bouie:
“To me a deficit is a loss.” That is mind-bogglingly stupid. Trump claims to have graduated first in his class at Wharton, but there is no way that the top student at Wharton could be that clueless about tariffs and trade deficits. Sure enough, Trump’s claim about Wharton is a lie. Not only didn’t he graduate first in his class, he wasn’t even on the 56-person dean’s list. Also:
Pathetic.
He also says it’s “Trump-hating”, which is more telling. Polls must love Trump, otherwise they are fake, and according to another recent twaddle by Trump, such polls are also election interference and are soon to be banned.
Actually, no I haven’t…
Allan Miller,
Is there a “democratic” political system that actually works?
Swiss direct democracy, perhaps?
ETA ah, only fourth, I see. Denmark, eh!
Depends on the definition of “works”. For some, it means as big a number of centuries of continuation as possible with as minor changes to the constitution as possible. There is a specific country that Americans refuse to recognise that beats USA in this regard. But Switzerland fell to Napoleon and had to reconstitute after that.
Another definition of “works” is “truly representative” and Switzerland is not really that either. Despite a bigger-than-average role of referendums in its governance, it is quite conservative and despite its diversity and significant portion of immigrants, it does not hand out citizenship lightly.
Still, where I stand, Switzerland works. As do Scandinavian countries, but somehow only Finland and Iceland are nominally republics there instead of kingdoms.
I am sorry to hear that. But, as has been said previously, it would help if you actually stated your position and your supporting arguments.
And here is your chance: Perhaps you can tell us why you do not consider him a total turn-off? My impression, admittedly completely based on gut feeling and guesswork, is that you approve of his nationalist sympathies. Do correct me if I am wrong.
Well, my guess is that in a year time Trump will have completely ruined the reputation of the USA as a reliable partner. People abroad will be looking for alternatives to US products and services. This will isolate the US and negatively impact their economy.
Coming sunday and monday we have memorial day and liberation day, respectively. On sunday, we commemorate the victims and fallen soldiers of WW2. My country was the stage for operation Market Garden. I believe a fair share of the fallen soldiers here were, in fact, US Americans who fought and gave their lives for our freedom. Perhaps they were mistaken to do so? At least they should have gotten some deal in return, right?
Talking of deals, how are those peace negatiotions coming along?
And some more news for you European sports fans: The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which was considered “Germany’s best hope” by Trump’s bestie Elon Musk, has been officially declared a far-right party by the German national security service.
Make of that what you will
The word is extremist.
AfD nach Einstufung als »gesichert rechtsextremistisch«: Partei will sich juristisch gegen Verfassungsschutz wehren https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/afd-nach-einstufung-als-gesichert-rechtsextremistisch-partei-will-sich-juristisch-gegen-verfassungsschutz-wehren-a-9660e502-cc87-44fa-b493-6f022a6182ab
Ah yes, I see that is how it is translated in the anglophone media: “right-wing extremists”. Thanks
Last I read, there is no solid evidence Trump graduated at all. I know he has always refused to release his transcripts, and he’d be more than eager to boast about them if they had anything good about them at all.
Flint:
He did graduate, actually. He didn’t receive any awards or make the dean’s list, but he is listed on the commencement program among the rank and file. Wharton has also confirmed that he graduated, though they aren’t proud of it and don’t like to advertise it, unlike other presidential alma maters.
For sure. Trump never misses an opportunity to boast, and we’d never hear the end of it if his academic record were actually good. Ditto for his tax returns. He really, really doesn’t want us to see those, and he’s been making excuses for over a decade.
In 2011 he promised to release his returns if Obama released his birth certificate. Obama did, Trump didn’t.
In 2014 he said “If I decide to run for office, I’ll produce my tax returns, absolutely. And I would love to do that.” That didn’t happen.
In 2015 he said he would release them when we found out the “true story” on Hillary Clinton’s emails. We did, he didn’t.
In early 2016 he told Chuck Todd: “I have very big returns, as you know, and I have everything all approved and very beautiful and we’ll be working that over in the next period of time, Chuck. Absolutely.” Didn’t happen.
Later in 2016, during the campaign, he claimed that he couldn’t release them because he was under audit. Nothing prevents anyone from releasing their returns while under audit. It was a bogus excuse.
Nine years later, he still hasn’t released them. Starting with Nixon, every presidential nominee has released theirs. A question for Trump supporters: what do you think he’s hiding?
From an article in Philadelphia magazine:
It fits with the Trump we all know, who thinks that magnets don’t work underwater, than a dementia test measures IQ, that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs, that the concept of a phone app is known only to a select few, and that no one uses the word ‘groceries’. Who can’t pronounce “Yosemite”, thinks that windmill noise causes cancer, and suggested the idea of injecting disinfectants to treat Covid. Who is fooled by an obviously photoshopped image and has no idea how tariffs work.
If Trump had truly been first in his class at Wharton, then nothing but a brain tumor, a traumatic brain injury, or chronic drug abuse could explain how his intelligence declined to the point it’s at today.
Trump assesses his intelligence:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And of course, he famously called himself a “very stable genius”, thus proving that he is neither stable nor a genius.
Took me a while to get over the shock that Yosemite is not pronounced as “Yohz-might”.
Alan:
You’re British, so you get a pass. Trump, who as president is in charge of the National Park Service (and is currently gutting it), has no excuse.
Ah, the nuance of nationhood. I’m English, when asked.
It is a mystery to me that the US is represented by someone so ignorant and yet so incurious, utterly self-centred. It must be embarassing.
Trumpism taints everything:
From this Guardian opinion piece
I made exactly this mistake at university while chatting to an American girl. She thought it hilarious.
But they can’t say “Worcestershire” or “Birmingham”.
Alan:
Brummie, English, British — all of those qualify you for the Yosemite exemption.
It is. My feelings about my fellow Americans have changed significantly, knowing that almost half of the voters supported the guy. I grew up in a red state (Indiana), and it’s disconcerting that so many of my relatives and old friends there — good people — support Trump. It feels to me like they’ve betrayed their values and abandoned their common sense.
Yes, causing major concerns in my circles. I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2023, John Muir Trail in ’24. Trail maintenance was already a big issue: winter blowdowns and vegetation overgrowth and of course the fires. There are volunteers, it’s not all in Park lands, but the Park Service plays a large part. Sacking the people who collect the fees is a net loss. Roosevelt would be turning in his grave. Buy my bitcoin.
Allan:
I distinctly remember learning how Worcestershire is pronounced. My neighbor was adding Worcestershire sauce to her hamburgers, and I refused to believe she was pronouncing it correctly until we looked it up in the dictionary.
That was as a kid. As an adult, I was similarly nonplussed by “Cholmondeley”.
keiths,
Not Brummie. That was a whole other territory. I lived there as a student but, as with kittens and kipper boxes, I’m not a Brummie.
My local favourite was Coughton (of Gunpowder plot fame). We lived on the A435, Ryknield Street, and I would regularly be asked for directions (by Brummies, in their Austins). Ccoffton, Cowton, etc. It’s Coh’ton. Or maybe that’s changed now.
ETA: Not to be confused with Coughton Hackett, where they do cough.
I’m talking of my childhood, the Fifties, BTW.
keiths,
I’m off to Holker Hall later for the Garden Festival. Pronounce “Hooker” by the family that owns it. But when I say it correctly, people try and correct me…
Warwickshire took a lot of stick from Dionne Warwick. Or was it the other way round!
Allan Miller,
It’s a class thing. Keep it up, the “wrong” pronunciation of Coughton is taking hold
Alan Fox,
I was at university in Wales. It was hilarious. Overheard on a bus: “Ammlewich please”. It’s Amlwch. And hearing people on the train try to get their chops round Llanfairfechan and Penmaenmawr…
Allan Miller,
Irish Gaelic… No, that way lies madness!
OK Saoirse. Any clues?